The Chocospherian
Incredible Chocolate News	November 25^th, 2022

Written By: Joanne and The Chocosphere Team

Incr‘Edible’ Chocolate Deals…	Making Chocolates
New Products & Holiday Gifts	Honeymoon Chocolates
Customer Service	Newsletter
Topics

Correction to Instructions for the "Thankful" Shipping Promtion

Many thanks to customers who pointed out an error in our instructions for the "Thankful" shipping promotion on the original distribution of this newsletter. Updated instructions are shown below. Our apologies for any inconvenience.

Incr‘Edible’ Chocolate Deals

Discount for the weekend of Thanksgiving & Cyber Monday – November 24^th - November 28^th!

We are giving the gift of free "If it fits, it ships" shipping for your Thanksgiving weekend holiday, for orders over $50.00 that are shipping to a U.S. domestic address (including APO & FPO addresses) following our standard “If it fits, it ships” rules, subject to conditions noted below. Chocosphere gets to pick the shipper, so that means your shipment might take up to a week to arrive as all of the shippers are backed up at this time of year. You can order whatever you need and we will do our best to make it fit! If it doesn’t fit we will call or email you to give you alternative shipping choices.

To take advantage of this promotion, just enter the code "THANKFUL" at checkout in the field shown below. The change to our prior instructions is shown under the graphic below:

Then, when you get to the "Shipping Method" stage of Checkout, please select:

Free Value Shipping

Free / Included N/C

Keep in mind with the selection noted above, we'll ship with the "If It Ships, It Fits" method, according to the "If it Ships, It Fits" terms and conditions during the time of this promotion. To see the "If it Fits, It Ships" terms and condition, which you agree to by using the promotion, please click on this Terms and Conditions link.

We apologize for the confusion caused by our prior error in instructions and will correct this for future promotions like this.

*Important Conditions: This promotion is only active from Thursday, November 24^th, 2022 12:00 AM PST until Monday, November 28^th, 2022 11:59PM PST. This offer will not be honored retroactively and applies only to merchandise in stock at the time the order is placed. All sales are final. Purchases of Gift Certificates and Warm Weather Packaging are excluded. Orders must be placed online using the coupon code noted above. Phone and e-mail orders are not eligible for this promotion.

Making Chocolates

This is such a great topic and if you have ever tried to make something yummy from chocolate you may have figured out that it is as much an art as it is science. Tempering chocolate without a machine is something that I have tried and failed at but for one "magicians trick" that I will cover below. Some of our customers use the marble table process, microwave, melting the chocolate so slowly that it never goes out of temper, and all kinds of other methods that work for them. For me… not so much.

If you just want the fast and easy way to prepare chocolate for dipping which was suggested with the butter or paraffin comment above, I would suggest this high quality alternative: Buy Guittard A'Peels, Dark, Milk and White dipping compound in discs that easily melt at a certain temperature and set up shiny when used properly for dipping and molding. They are good but I have to admit not as good as real cocoa-butter based chocolate. A'Peels discs are not technically chocolate because they are made with a non-hydrogenated oil that allows them to act like tempered chocolate. They are good enough that some don’t notice the difference.

The trick that we can supply to help you accomplish tempering is Mycryo. There is a link on the page to the Cacao Barry instructions for tempering with the product. Mycryo is cocoa butter that is treated in such a way that it becomes a super seed, so that you will get the crystalline structure you need to create beautiful and delicious chocolate coatings and molded products.

If you want to get a bit fancier with a better chocolate you can buy a tempering machine. The Chocovision machine is one possibility and I am sure there are others. But I have this one and it works well for me. I have used it for dipping strawberries, chocolates, cookies, pretzels and lots of other things. It works especially well for party treats or gift giving at the holidays. Chocosphere doesn't sell tempering machines, but they are availble through the Chocovision company directly and many online merchants.

And if you really want to understand the art of chocolate making you can take a class in how to make chocolate: Many of our customers have taken this comprehensive course on-line and we only get rave reviews. The next course is: January 13^th - April 14^th, 2023.

Which chocolate should I use?

That is a very challenging question. Do you have any idea how much chocolate and how may kinds I have at home? Here’s the link for just the discs offered by Chocosphere. You will notice 5 pages of dark, white and milk chocolate discs. This does not include the many blocks we also offer. If I knew nothing about making chocolate I think I would narrow to a less expensive selection. All of these options are $25.00 or less. If you know more, you might want to branch out a bit and use some of the more expensive Valrhona, Domori, Cordillera, Scharffen Berger or Amedei choices.

Honeymoon Chocolates

If you’re looking for chocolate without refined sugar then this might be it. This chocolate is sweetened with honey and not just any honey. The bar on my desk right now is sweetened with raw Missouri wildflower and clover honey. Honeymoon Chocolates officially began in a dorm room kitchen when Co-Founders Cam and Haley first began making bean-to-bar craft chocolate as a hobby. Honeymoon Chocolates was founded in 2016 and specializes in bean-to-bar craft chocolate sweetened solely with raw honey.

A few positives in using honey compared to traditional cane sugar include a roughly 1.5 times multiple in sweetness (which decrease overall caloric content by 20 calories for a 2.5oz. bar), a lower glycemic index, and trace amounts of beneficial enzymes, amino acids, antioxidants, B vitamins, and minerals such as calcium, magnesium and potassium.

A portion of Honeymoon's proceeds goes to support honeybee research; they also purchase directly from beekeepers, which provides support to apiarists. And I love it!

New Products & Holiday Gifts

We've brought in a number of new Michel Cluizel bars, gift boxes, and couvertures. This year we are again carrying the popular Varhona Holiday 25pc Bonbon Gift Box. A number new Venchi tasting squares will tempt your taste buds, as will the new D. Barbero chocolate bars & nougat bars. Belvie has introduced a pair of bars, one of which is flavored with Kumquat! These items and many others await you on our New Products page. Also, you can find some great ideas for holiday gift giving, including some of our new holiday products, on our Winter Holiday Collection page.

Customer Service

Of course we are happy to help over the phone, but we do appreciate it when you place your order on line. It helps us give the most prompt and accurate service. And when you need help, we are here for you. There is generally someone answering the phones between 8:30am and 4:30pm Pacific Time, Monday through Friday, with the exception of commonly observed holidays.

There are five of us answering phones at Chocosphere, where we speak fluent Chocospherian. We try hard to answer all calls personally during normal business hours, but occasionally one slips over to voice mail. If you call and end up in voice mail, please leave a message. We will do our very best to call back promptly. If by chance you don't hear back from us in a reasonable time, please call again during our normal business hours.

We each have varying levels of experience. It is our goal to happily serve you the very best chocolate!!

Finally, and very importantly, our web site lists our service commitments as to when we ship an order based on when the order is placed. However, we certainly understand there are circumstances where you may want us to process an order faster, when you need your chocolate “now”! If you need your order shipped faster than our listed service commitment, please place your order online letting us know of your need in the “Comments” section, and then call us at 503-692-3323 x 0 for Customer Service) to let us know. We can't guarantee early shipping, but we always try hard to provide chocolate happiness to our valued customers.

If you want us to send a copy as an email every time there is a new issue or to tell you about special offers, please create an account at chocosphere.com and check the newsletter box.

Topics:

If you have a topic you would like us to cover in the newsletter, please drop us a line: customer-service@chocosphere.com and we will be happy to include it in a future edition.

Fax 503-692-1494