It’s the holiday season. Time to see family and friends, right? Time to talk about togetherness and love and all the warm fuzzy things that keep the cold and the dark at bay by the windowpane, right? Wrong. It’s time to eat chocolate. Dark chocolate. Milk chocolate. Semisweet and bitter. Candied, crushed, dipped and drizzled, it’s chocolate season and we’re decked out like Elmer Fudge.
PHOTOGRAPHY BY EVAN SIGMUND
Doffing my cap and requisite orange vest, the first stop is The Chocolate Bark Company, where they specialize in, unsurprisingly, chocolate bark – great slabs of hand-mixed, hand-poured chocolate just waiting to be devoured by yuletide predators. Kelli Kamm, chocolatier and owner of The Chocolate Bark Company, has been making and selling chocolate goodness in Sarasota since 1998, and in that time she has honed her craft and narrowed her field, focusing on chocolate bark and forgoing most of the chocolaty odds and ends that dotted her previous stores in favor of finding that one thing and doing it better than anyone else.
“The key to our chocolate and why it’s so good is really not us,” says Kamm. “It’s the chocolate that we use— it’s just so good it keeps our customers coming back.”Sourcing is key for Kamm. She prefers the rich flavor of Belgian Callebaut chocolate, bringing in a range of cacao-concentrations from the semisweet 52 percent to the very dark and bitter-tinged 80 percent, along with the classic milk chocolate and a special mix of dark and milk that she calls deep milk.
This is the first step, says Kamm, to creating a quality chocolate product above the grade typically found in supermarkets and grocery stores and staking one’s claim as a bona fide chocolatier. Benjamin Franklin once said, “There never was a good knife made of bad steel,” and the same sentiment applies to chocolate. The same attention is paid to the sourcing of her non-chocolate accenting ingredients–the nuts, fruits and salts mixed into the chocolate by hand at the store. Though aware that local sourcing is the hip foodie trend of the day, Kamm makes her decisions based on quality, not location. The best almonds come from California in her opinion and cranberries from New England, so that’s where she gets them.
The proof is in the pudding, so they say, but facing a lack of pudding, the walls of chocolate bark will have to suffice. Neatly wrapped, ranging in selection from pure chocolate to the best-selling Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Almond to combinations of fruits, coffees and even graham cracker, The Chocolate Bark Company’s selection has only been bolstered by the holiday season, as they add seasonal favorites like Chocolate Peppermint Bark and Holiday Spice Bark, made with a secret in-house blend.
But specialties aside, Kamm can’t help herself and the shelves at The Chocolate Bark Company have slowly been filling with non-bark goodies. Bags of chocolate-covered popcorn, not just drizzled but smothered in dark or milk chocolate, line the racks alongside boxes of flavored Crazy Good Almonds, hand-crafted and seasoned in-store for a delicate mix of sweet with a dash of fire.
Back on the prowl, my sweet tooth tingles as I pass Palmer Plaza. Nestled within is Sarasota chocolate powerhouse Sirard’s Chocolate, founded and operated by chocolatier Carol Sirard, who has been in the business since she was only 16, wracking up around 30 years at her craft. Sirard’s has expanded by leaps and bounds on the back of its varied and decadent offerings. Founded nine years ago with a 500-square-foot space on Hillview, Sirard’s now commands a 3,000-square-foot café off Clark Road.
Sirard’s claim to fame has been the seemingly flawless execution of its core philosophy: Chocolate is delicious and can go with just about anything. Walking into Sirard’s you’ll see the truffle selection (which is enormous), the Chocolate Double Layer Cake with Buttercream Frosting (a year-wide favorite for parties and events) and familiar delights like chocolate-dipped pretzels. But you’ll also find sweet surprises such as the cocoa-cured bacon BLT, served on house-made focaccia bread with Sirard’s chocolate wasabi mayo and chocolate chili, made with beans and beef and a tomato base infused with pure Dutch cocoa. The chili doesn’t taste like chocolate, but you can feel the addition in the creamy texture. Of particular pride to Sirard is the recent addition of Sarasota Seafoam, a chocolate dipped candy with roughly the same texture and mouth-feel as a malt ball or a Whopper (the candy, not the burger). Typically a New England treat floundering in the Southern climate, Sirard successfully transplanted the confection and it quickly became a hot item.
“There’s nothing like this around,”says Sirard, looking over the establishment she built and the oddball but strangely sensible selection that seems to constantly expand. “We use several different types of chocolate, we’re not just stuck on one. I have a really strong palate; I can’t drink just one espresso shot, I need two. So the bean itself has to have an extremely strong taste.” For the full chocolate experience, it makes sense to spend some time with the truffles. With over 600 molds in the collection, Sirard’s offers a wide variety in not only taste but also appearance, with truffles appearing in all shapes, sizes and colors. Typically made from 60-72 percent cacao chocolate and topped or filled with Sirard’s house-made ganache, flavors run the gamut, including Key Lime, Champagne (best-seller), white raspberry and coconut. Patrons are invited to grab a box of pre-sorted selection or fill one with their favorites.
Ever the festive group (the café brings in two giant Christmas trees and a whole bevy of holiday lights this time of year) Sirard’s has prepared a special seasonal treat–the chocolate mint truffle. Molded into the classic present shape, a square box with a bow on top, it’s almost destined for gifting.
The last stop on the game trail leads us down Pineapple Avenue, where The Short Giraffe staked its claim until only recently. Only three years old, The Short Giraffe has already made a name for itself on the catering scene, purveying high-end desserts for weddings, parties and the like, but has made a splash in the last year and a half at its old location selling truffles and treats directly out of the store.
“I just always stuck with it and it kind of took off,” says owner and chocolatier Leigh Growney, whose pure approach to the business seems to have left her mildly perplexed at her success. “I like the idea of really good and delicious items, not just crazily decorated.”
Growney did not attend culinary school and has no formal training, instead bringing a lifetime of personal experience, leading all the way back to days in the kitchen with her mother and grandmother. Many recipes in use at The Short Giraffe today can be traced to those times. Putting aside for the moment the array of cakes and cookies available, we zero in on the truffles because we’re here for the chocolate. Growney sources her chocolate from a few different places, as different truffles call for different flavors. In the case of The Short Giraffe, Belgian chocolate, dark Ghirardelli and a Swiss blend all come into play. The ganache is all house-made from butter, heavy cream and whichever chocolate mix is called for.
As at prior stops, the selection at The Short Giraffe is dizzying. Move to the best-sellers. Growney points to the Salted Caramel Dark Hearts and the Toasted S’more Truffle.
Made from dark bittersweet chocolate and poured into a heart-shaped mold, the Dark Hearts have been a perennial favorite for the deft mixing of the sweet and the salty. Filled with house-made salted caramel sauce and topped with pink Himalayan sea salt, it’s easy to imagine why. The Toasted S’mores Truffles are a bit more of an operation, as the marshmallows and graham crackers are made in-house. Beginning with a triple chocolate ganache of Growney’s own blend, the truffle is then filled with house-made marshmallow, created by whisking super-heated sugar water as it cools. Growney likes to then give the whole thing a brief introduction to her blowtorch “to give it that campfire taste.” The final step is a quick roll in graham cracker crumbs, to round out the taste trio that is the famous s’more.
For the holiday season, Growney rolls out a few of her winter favorites, all eagerly gobbled by customers hungry for a chocolate fix. The peppermint truffle, made with either dark or white chocolate, is a seasonal best-seller. Grownery adds peppermint oil to the ganache before molding and then coats the resulting truffle in toasted, crushed peppermint. Similarly, the toasted hazelnut truffle, ganache rolled in hazelnut chips, tops Sarasotans’ holiday chocolate wish lists.
So if your holiday cravings this season call for pure chocolate, a dry dark mix or a creamy milk, truffles or barks, Sarasota’s chocolatiers have the spread covered. Sure, they’re open year-round, but when else can you buy heaps of chocolate and expect them to believe it when you say it’s not all for you?
