Making Winter Chocolates

Making peanut praliné today. All organic. Made with organic peanuts and organic dark chocolate.



Chili chocolates on the left and cinnamon mocha on the right. Yummer.

I am making a new truffle, Cinnamon Mocha! Yummer

It isn't yet on the website, I'm making them today. This will be fantastic. People have been buying our Tea Truffles and I thought, time to make a coffee truffle. This will have some Maracaibo coco nibs. These are vegan truffles, the only kind of truffle we make.

They are made with 72% Organic Dark Vegan Chocolate coverture, the highest quality chocolate and you'll say it is the best you've ever had. It contains wonderful natural coffee and is covered with a blend of organic Sucanat ("Sucre de canne naturel") sugar, Maracaibo cocoa nibs, and organic cinnamon. This big and beautiful handmade vegan truffle is made without animal products or by-products. Very rich and very intense.

Sucanat sugar has a rich molasses taste. This truffle is sweet without being overly sweet and has a strong mocha flavor. Kim calls it the Caffeine Punch! Enjoy the flavors and live a little.

Welcome Healthy Home Market

Healthy Home Market in North Carolina now carries the number one premium vegan chocolate, as well as our other wonderful confections. Go and get your Easter chocolate there. If you live in North Carolina, this must be your stop for Easter Chocolates.

Healthy Home Market
221 1st Ave NW
Hickory, NC 28601
Phone 828-322-2148

So, if you life in North Carolina and are a vegan, go to this store right now and celebrate Life, Life By Chocolate that is. Enjoy your Life at this wonderful store. You can also get Life By Chocolate Milk and Dark Easter Bunnies there.

Help us welcome Harvest Health to Life By Chocolate

Another great store, Harvest Health, in the great state of Michigan is now carrying our vegan Easter chocolates. What does Michigan know that no one else knows? That vegans love chocolate. So, go to Harvest Health and get your chocolates, Life By Chocolate that is.

Harvest Health
1944 Eastern Ave SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49507
Phone 616-245-6268

So, please go and get a life, Life By Chocolate, that is and have a Harvest of Health at Harvest Health.

Still time to order your Valentine's Chocolate

If you order right now, you can still get your Valentine's chocolate by Monday in most eastern states. But it has to be in soon. Thank you.

Order here.

More Fine Michigan Stores for Life By Chocolate

I am proud to announce more MIchigan Stores for Life By Chocolate. Please go and get your Valentine Chocolate there.

The Evergreen Natural Food Market
106 West Ludington Ave.
Ludington, MI 49431
Phone 231-843-1000

They all have a lot of Valentine boxes and other great chocolates.

Manna Foods
6538 N. Lumberjack Rd.
Riverdale, MI 48877
Phone 989-833-777

As well as wonderful organic chocolate bars

Grain Train Natural Food Co-op
220 E. Mitchell St.
Petoskey, MI 49770
Phone 231-347-2381

So, if you life in Michigan, you now have multiple stores to choose from. Go get your Life By Chocolate there. Come on in and live a little.

Welcome Kate's Natural Products in Virginia

I'd like to welcome Kate's Natural Products in Harrisonburg VA.

Kate's Natural Products
451 University Blvd.
Harrisonburg, VA 22801
Phone 540-433-2359

Please go to Kate's and get your chocolate. Enjoy life. Get Life By Chocolate

The Farm Sanctuary in Waktins Glen

Those of you who follow Life By Chocolate or Kim on twitter or on Facebook have seen many of these pictures, and some that are only on my Droid. We delivered our chocolate donation in the form of Vegan Tea and Fruit Truffles, Vegan Fruit and Nut Truffles, and some Vegan Mixed Chocolates to help the Farm Sanctuary in their mission.

Their mission to help out the neglected and abused farm animals. A good mission and, unfortunately, a necessary one.



We were given the grand tour and these pictures are the result. And yes, we all were freezing. I was wearing a winter shirt and thin vest. Even the goats and sheep were wearing coats. %-)




Amongst the Sheep and Goats. They were gentle and fun, especially the goats. Why do the goats always get a bad rap? It was fun and reminded me of my days in Bogotá, where the herders would often bring their goats out of the mountains and onto the University property. La Universidad de Los Andes was as the name suggests pretty high in the Andes. Actually, Bogotá is in the Andes but the university is a climb from there.

The birds.

The pigs.

More goats. Kim would love to create her own farm sanctuary here at the Greenville Arms. One day.

And finally some pictures of our erstwhile guide.

These kids come from all over the world to work at the Farm Sanctuary. Perhaps she'll be our guide again if we ever get a chance to get out there. So many cool places to go and so little time. Well, that makes life interesting.

Ten Thousand Villages Houston, deep in the heart of Texas

Welcome Ten Thousand Villages to the Life By Chocolate family. They are a great bunch of people at Ten Thousand Villages. Ten Thousand Villages is an oasis of artisan-made gifts, decor, jewelry and accessories to explore and enjoy.

And now, this fantastic outpost of fair trade goods has the ultimate in fair trade chocolate, Life By Chocolate. Remember, all of our dark chocolate is fair trade and organic. Ten Thousand Villages has done quite a bit to help out Vegan World Radio and has supported Life by furthering the vegan cause. They have gotten some of our great Vegan Valentine chocolates. Remember, our Vegan Chocolate that we use is certified fair trade, certified organic, delish, as Bob Linden says, and good for you. We use only organic ingredients in this fantastic vegan confections.

Ten Thousand Villages
2424A Rice Blvd
Houston, Tx 77005
Phone: (713) 533-1000

You know how much I love Texas. I went to graduate school at UT. Hook 'em horns! Go Bevo. Remember, cheer Bevo, don't eat him. Now I want you to go to Ten Thousand Villages in Houston Texas and buy your Vegan Chocolates there. Celebrate the sights and sounds and heartfelt giving that can only be found at Ten Thousand Villages! Celebrate Life.

Vegan World Radio: update

This just in from Jerrilyn:

"A few spots from it, especially describing the chocolates will air on Jan 19 and Jan 26 on the pledge shows, then the longer interview will be on the Valentine's show Feb 9.

Listen if you can, to the beginning of the live show in the morning 10 CST, online www.kpft.org as we will all have tasted your chocolates and hopefully can speak about them.

Thanks,
Jerrilyn"

You can listen to this weeks cast. They mention us and they try our chocolates. Click here to listen to the pod cast. I had some problems with the download but it eventually straightened out.

Vegan World Radio

Please donate to Vegan World Radio and help them with their projects. They interviewed me and will be airing that interview on January 19th, 2009. Check back here for updates. In the meantime, I donated some chocolates to them, along with candles and other vegan products. Please pledge. Thanks.

Sugar: Some Education, installment 2

The great bone char controversy. For those vegans who are interested, and if you are vegan and if you eat any food in the USA, you are interested, I found an interesting website that goes into more detail about bone char.

Live long and prosper but above all, be kind. The sugar we use is organic turbinado or Sucanat. The confectioners sugar we use is kosher and certified organic and certified vegan. The same goes for our organic Sucanat.

Christmas Sale Starts Today

Merry Christmas and go to Life by Chocolate for some great specials. Don't forget the vegan chocolate and confections. Not to mention vegan truffles. This sales ends in about 2 weeks. Enjoy it while it lasts.

The Vegan Tea and Fruit Set is HERE

Isn't that a grand set of truffles? All vegan. Finally, the vegans can have their own tea set. This tea set is composed of 9 vegan tea truffles. We have three (3) black, three (3) oolong and three (3) green tea tuffles, handmade, hand decorated and delicious. Just go to Life by Chocolate and enjoy.

Vegan Tea Truffles

The lovely people at Vegan World Radio suggested that we make some great Vegan Tea Truffles. They were drooling over the Tea Set Truffles and wanted one for themselves. So, on their suggestion, I decided to make a combination of Tea and Fruit.

Q: What's better than Tea and Fruit?
A: Tea and Fruit wrapped in chocolate!

It's a great time to be vegan. Now, we have Vegan Tea and Fruit Truffles. What are the combinations?

For black tea, we have Earl Grey and Seville Oranges. For oolong tea, we have Ti Quan Yin and Lemon. For green tea, we have Genmaicha and Chestnut with Apples. OK. So, it's Tea and Fruit with nuts. ;-) You get the idea. The Chestnut is great. It's nice with apples, and as Nancy, my assistant says, it's even better with chocolate. These are all going to be hand or forked dipped and then decorated.

Pictures coming. It's isn't on the website yet but if you want to order them, please call us. It'll be the same price as the other vegan truffles. And once again, no animal products or by-products, e.g., milk and honey, used in these chocolates. The 72% chocolate is organic and fair trade and is sweetened with evaporated cane juice., all organic. The fruits are organic, too. We also use all natural coconut water and coconut fat. Yum. These taste just fantastic and are good for you, too. And for truffles, they have a long shelf life, about 6 months to a year. Why? No milk or cream or butter. The shelf life of chocolate is about 1 year and the shelf life of coconut oil is 1 1/2 years.

Vegan Truffles have been made

I made 2 truffles and one melt-away, all vegan. I made a peanut butter melt-away with 72% Certified Organic and Certified Fair Trade Vegan Chocolate with Certified Organic Peanut Butter. This is dusted with Certified Organic and Certified Vegan powered organic sugar, naturally milled.

I also made a sunflower butter and apricot reserve truffle made with 72% Certified Organic and Certified Fair Trade Vegan Chocolate with Certified Organic Sunflower Butter and Certified Organic Apricot fruit reserve. This is also dusted with Organic Powdered sugar, again, naturally milled and Certified Vegan.

Finally, I made another truffle, Organic Raspberry Reserve and 72% Certified Organic and Certified Fair Trade Vegan Chocolate dusted with a combination of Natural Cocoa Powder and Organic Powdered Sugar, Certified Vegan.

The melt-aways and the truffles contain all natural coconut fat.

No animal products or by-products in these new vegan delights. It's a good time to be a vegan with Life by Chocolate on your side. They are not yet up on the website but I hope to get them there tomorrow. If you can't wait, give us a call at 518-966-5219. Pictures coming soon. Enjoy.

Vegan Truffles

I'm going to start making vegan truffles. I'm considering using coconut fat or perhaps olive oil and maybe coconut water. Organic coconut water. Since most of the ingredients I use are organic, I figured this would be a great idea. Basically, using coconut fat would make a melt-away, something I have not done in a long time, and this makes a great center for truffles.

I'm going to make them next week. I was thinking organic peanut butter and some other great flavors, mint, for example.

Green Promise has listed us

They loved the website and of course our mission to provide organic, fair trade vegan chocolates and confections to our friends in the wide world. If you add to that our green attitude and commitment, mix in a generous helping of our great, tasty, out of this world chocolates, you have a winning combination. Check out Green Promise.

Sweet Earth Chocolates

Well, I have vegan customers who need certified organic and certified fair trade. As you know, for my bars, I use fair trade and organic chocolate but because I get it from small producers, they are not certified.

So, I had to search for an organic and fair trade certified chocolate. I turned to Dagoba. However, when I got in my chocolate it said that it may contain traces of milk protein. What? How? Huh? I wasted my money.

I called up the people at Hershey/Dagoba megaplex, yes, ouch, they were SOLD to Hershey, but they use their equipment, the same equipment, to process their milk chocolate as well as nuts etc. They told me that they were actually a small company, not very big, and that they didn't have the money to have two separate lines. I mean who are they talking about? The old Dagoba or Hershey? Come on people. Ask you chocolate daddy for another line of equipment. Scharffen Berger down and now Dagoba. Sun of a pod!

Well, I decided to go to Sweet Earth, whose chocolate flavor profile is even stranger than El Rey. Fruity but very good. So, now I have vegan bars. Hurrah.

In the future, I'm blending several of their chocolates to make a new flavor profile. I think I have to do it to get the right flavor for my bars. Shhhh! It's a secret.

I also want to note that all my bar chocolate is organic and fair trade. But only the vegan bars have not a trace of milk or other animal BY products. Obviously, none of the bars has animal product in it.

You can also order the other chocolates as vegan if you wish. We have the chocolate we can make vegan versions of most of the chocolates. Only the caramels are impossible to make vegan. Soy caramels? I wonder... ;-)