I am so excited to tell you about these new Non-Dairy Chocolate Truffles called Dear Coco. Our friend and frequent guest blogger, Rachelle Ferneau, recently debuted a line of gourmet and flavorful chocolates that can be shipped all across the country. She started with the Signature Around the World Collection of 12 truffles with global flavors including Tahiti Lime and Kyoto Green Pearl. I had the pleasure of tasting all 12 and was pleasantly surprised at the amazing flavor and obvious high quality. Then every month she introduces two new seasonal truffles to keep us all on our toes. This Month in honor of the High Holidays she will be offering the Jewish New Year collection with Mediterranean Pomegranate and Argentine Honey. We talked with Rachelle to find out more.
When did you decide that you wanted to be in the chocolate business?
I created Dear Coco Chocolate as a natural extension of Eden Cake, the boutique pareve bakery I founded in 2007. Through Eden Cake, I gained valuable experience running a kosher business under hashgacha (kosher certification) and provided pastry full-time to a restaurant, caterers, embassies and other political agencies, as well as a multitude of individual private clients. Working intensively with chocolate was a logical next step for me.
How do you get so much flavor into one tiny chocolate?
At Dear Coco Chocolate, all of our truffles are made fresh with the finest premium ingredients, the most important being premium Belgian dark chocolate. We use in-season fruits and herbs, fine teas and coffee, dried flowers, freshly roasted nuts and spices from around the world to impart the global flavors in our truffles. In addition, the quality of our chocolates is also evidenced by what they do not contain: no white flour, no white sugar, no trans fats, no corn syrup, no preservatives.
As far as the actual flavors, we offer twelve signature flavors in our Around the World Collection, or you can choose a whole box of your favorite of these flavors. In addition, we offer a pair of monthly specialty truffle flavors so there is always something different and new to look forward to.
How do you decide on the flavors of the season?
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Many seasons naturally defined for me what their truffle flavors should be, such as July’s Summer Collection featuring Maine Wild Blueberry and Washington Red Raspberry truffles. Berries are in prime season in July, and these flavors reflect the best of the summer bounty as well as showing off the patriotic colors of the American flag in July — perfect. For other months that didn’t have a defined holiday or season to draw from, I exercised my creative license to showcase the flavors of a particular country of interest. One example of this is March’s Moroccan Collection which features Marrakesh Apricot Anise and Tafraout Almond truffles: Moroccan cuisine is a multi-cultural mélange incorporating a variety of spices, fresh herbs and citrus, dried fruits and almond paste, and these are the flavors I drew from when creating these truffle flavors.
How long does it take to create and test a new flavor?
All of our truffles are inspired by and named for locales around the world, hence the name Dear Coco – reminiscent of a letter written from abroad. When contemplating different combinations of the country’s flavors with chocolate, I am able to taste them in my mind first – I know instinctively what and how pairings will work. Then, after the flavor idea is approved by a select “committee” of grounded individuals who tell me honestly if it sounds good to them or is too unapproachable, I get to work on sourcing the right ingredients and recipe development/refinement in which I physically produce the flavors I had already created in my mind. Depending on the complexity of the flavor, sometimes I am able to get it spot on the first time, and sometimes it takes several revisions and tastings to get just right.
What other flavors can we expect you to come up with?
I have a notebook I use exclusively to jot down new truffle flavor ideas and in time I hope to create new collections. At some point I would even love to recruit new ideas submitted by Dear Coco fans – there’s a lot of creativity out there! In the meantime, as we only began our Truffles of the Month this past July, we are proud to continue introducing two new truffles each month as time progresses, so there are plenty of new flavors still to come.
The truffles look and sound delish! I would go for anything peanut butter, caramel, or almond, yum !
Thank you to everyone who entered to win the Dear Coco Jewish New Year Collection, and especially to those who left comments with your favorite truffle flavors! We love hearing your feedback and creative ideas, and hope that you will enjoy our truffles soon. http://www.DearCoco.com
Mediterranean pomegranate sounds great!!
I would love to try the Maine Wild Blueberry!
Lisa Garner
argentine honey sounds yummy!
dark chocolate with coconut
jagar0047 at yahoo dot com
I’d love the truffles with hazelnut.
Dark Chocolate Mango!
Terri P
pr4gatheringroses AT gmail DOT com
The Tahiti Lime sound wonderful.
Thanks
dark chocolate with hazelnut and orange essence, yum!
Sounds divine. Anything with peanut butter and chocolate has my stomach doing flips!
I would like Argentine Honey the best
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B”H Dark Chocolate, and white chocolate, peppermint bark…or anything, and everything chocolate.
Almond, dark chocolate, mocha, or coconut (the Pomegranate sounds delicious!)
Mediteranean Pomegranate
dark chocolate and coffe, or dark chocolate and raspberry.
I love pomegranate but the Tahiti Lime sounds intriguing!
I would love the ginger or raspberry would be divine covered in yummy dark chocolate!
Almost impossible to pick a favorite–will go for Red Raspberry right now.
The Argentine Honey sounds good to me!
sounds delicious
wow! chocolate, great fillings and kosher. dark chocolate for “health”. what can be better. do something with a coffee filling for us tired and “need a pickup” ladies out there.
I would love a dark chocolate truffle with a cheesecake filling.
hmm… do you do chocolate strawberry or mixes of different chocolates?
mmm that chocolate pomegranate looks so tempting! =-)
The pictures of the chocolates alone look tantalizing!!
Washington Red Raspberry truffles, Maine Wild Blueberry
Ginger chocolate would be nirvana!
Everything sounds great. Chocolate raspberry and chocolate ginger would be wonderful.
Tafraout Almond truffles
Washington Red Raspberry truffles
I would like red raspberry truffles
abfantom at yahoo dot com
Theres just too many that I would love but i would choose Argentine honey .
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Anything with caramel would be awesome!
argentine honey sounds amazing!
Choosing a favorite chocolate would be like choosing a favorite child! But I would love a chocolate ginger flavor.
I think I would like Argentine Honey the best!
I would love to win those chocolates!!They look and sound extra delicious.
Wow! I would love to get one of those boxes. Heck, I wouldn’t object to two or more, either! 😉
Coffee, Hazelnut
My favorite would be anything with caramel or peanut butter!
red velvet
gkuroda(at)gmail(dot)com