Biagio Sample Day: Finding New Chocolates to Enjoy

Before yesterday, I’d never managed to wander past Biagio Fine Chocolates, which is just south of Adams Morgan, during business hours. A true tragedy, given my love of fine chocolate. But after I became aware of their sample day scheduled for yesterday afternoon, I was sure to make room in my calendar to check out the sample day and the shop itself.

When you go visit Biagio, it is important to have their address, because it’s a basement-level shop that you could easily walk right past. And that would be sad. So the address: 1904 18^th St. NW. Commit it to memory. And look for this sign.

Once you make it in there, you’ll find walls filled with displays filled with the best chocolates from around the country and the world.

They carry a lot of the big name chocolatiers, like Valrhona and E. Guittard, truffles from local shops like Artisan Confections, and quickly emerging chocolatiers like Taza and Rogue. Their sample day featured a mixture of milk and dark bars from several chocolatiers, as well as a photography exhibit with a chocolate theme.

There were about 15 different chocolates available for sampling; fortunately, the sample bits were small, allowing my friend and I to sample each. Here are a few of our takes on the chocolate samples:

• Valrhona Tanavrina, a milk chocolate with 33% cocoa solids, featured a strong caramel flavor and was my friend’s favorite.
• Divine Chocolate Spiced Cookie, another milk chocolate with 33% cocoa solids, had crispy bits of spice cookies mixed in. The spice cookie bits contrasted the sweet, creamy chocolate nicely, and this was by far my favorite milk chocolate from the sample day.
• Rogue Chocolate Sambirano, a 70% cocoa bittersweet chocolate from a chocolatier in Minneapolis, features single-origin chocolate from Madagascar that is derived from Venezuelan stock. This chocolate was very smooth, and had a lingering flavor and only a tiny bit of added sweetness.
• Askinosie Teneende Tanzania, another single-origin bittersweet bar, had 72% cocoa solids and a very smooth melt with a complex flavor.
• Potomac Chocolate Upala, which is not only made entirely from Costa Rican beans, but is made nearby in Woodbridge, VA. The chocolatiers, Justin and Ben, were there to talk about their 70% cocoa chocolate, which offered an earthy flavor with a coffee undertone that lingered.

Justin and Ben are quite enthusiastic, and I’m hoping that they are soon able to offer baking chocolate, as I would love to make creations centered around locally-made chocolate. Though the chocolate was just a tad dry and may not work well as couverture for truffles, but I believe it could make a good ganache and might work well in some scone or shortbread recipes.

To investigate, I picked up three of their bars.

I also picked up a bar of the Divine Chocolate Spiced Cookie, and two of the Vosges holiday edition bars that I’d been salivating over via the internet for well over a month. Biagio, of course, carried many more chocolates that I wanted to purchase immediately, but I’ll have to save that for my next trip there.

Nick Malgieri Demo: Chocolate and Coffee Walnut Cake

Having looked over my copy of Nick Malgieri’s Chocolate several times since receiving it as a gift eight years ago, I knew that he has several recipes for seriously impressive desserts in his arsenal. He made one of these, a chocolate and coffee walnut cake, during the demonstration I went to.

Let’s be serious: That picture is of him pouring ganache on top of a cake that is already covered and filled with coffee buttercream. This is a cake that means business, and Nick gave us a few tips to help us along should we dare to attempt it ourselves.

For the cake layers:

-When whipping egg whites for a meringue base, get the eggs foamy before starting to add the sugor, or else the sugar melts and the mixture gets sticky.

-If using a stand mixer to make a meringue base for cake batter, medium speed is best.

-Avoid mixing the flour and nuts before folding into the meringue mixture. Doing so will cause the flour to cling to the nuts and prevent the cake from rising properly

-To prevent doming of the cake, bake in a pan taller than needed so that the cake rises along the edges during the entire baking process.

For the meringue buttercream.

-Use the whisk attachment to make the meringue, but switch to the paddle attachment when incorporating the butter

-Separation is normal when adding the butter. Don’t panic, just keep mixing. And mixing.

-Be careful when adding any liquid, such as extracts. Go very slowly, or the buttercream may permanently separate.

For assembling the cake:

-When cutting the cake layer, cut a ½-1” line around the circumference of the cake, and then slice all the way through.

-Turn the top layer upside-down and use it as the bottom layer. Then do the same with the bottom layer so that you have a nice, flat top for spreading the buttercream.

-Keep one end of the spatula completely in the buttercream only. This prevents crumb tracking.

-To smooth the top, track the spatula in from the outside edges.

Final product: The nuts give the cake a satisfying but not overwhelming crunch that contrasts well with the fluffy buttercream. The coffee flavor is distinct but not overpowering, and the buttercream has a pleasing level of sweetness. There’s just a bit of chocolate here in the ganache, and it really pulls the whole thing together into a wonderful masterpiece.

Nick Malgieri Demo: Chocolate Chunk Pound Cake

One fairly foolproof recipe that Nick Malgieri showed us how to put together at his demonstration was a chocolate chunk pound cake.

Even though pound cakes are usually pretty simple to throw together, Nick had some words of wisdom about the process:

-If a recipe, such as this pound cake recipe, calls for softened butter, you have to have softened butter. Not cold. Not melted. Softened.

-You can cheat by cutting the butter into very small chunks and microwaving for mere seconds at a time, and no longer.

-After chopping up the chocolate chunks, sift to remove the chocolate dust to achieve distinct chocolate chunks in the pound cake.

-Reserve about a tablespoon of flour, and toss it with the chocolate chunks before incorporating them. This will ensure that they are evenly distributed in the final cake and won’t all fall to the bottom during baking.
Final product: A bit spongy, this cake would be great with some (chocolate) gelato or whipped cream. The lemon zest adds a nice punch, but the chocolate chunks were a little sparse for my personal taste.

Nick Malgieri Demo: Truffle Brownies

When I pored over the recipe packet at Nick Malgeri’s demonstration, I spotted one for truffle brownies, which looked awfully similar to the supernatural brownie recipe that I adore so much. Evidently, he has some business venture in the works that will prevent him from using that title anymore, so instead, we now have truffle brownies, which have more brown sugar in them.

The very simple recipe is available in Bake!, which I’ve been enjoying immensely. A few extra tips that Nick passed along while whipping these up:

-The light brown sugar is key for keeping the moisture level right. Don’t replace it with granulated or dark brown sugars.

-The brownies will turn out fudgy. Nick noted that this is how brownies should be, and that anybody who likes cakey brownies, “well, they have my condolences.”

- He now mixes the flour in with the sugar rather than at the end to avoid clumping of flour. As such, it is important to avoid overmixing after adding the eggs.

- An easy way to accurately line a pan with foil is to turn it over, fit the foil to the outside, and then use that as a rough mold for the inside. There will be very small crinkles in the corners because the inside is smaller, but buttering the foil will make that a non-issue.

- These brownies shouldn’t be frosted because “a brownie that needs frosting shouldn’t be eaten.”

- Don't cut these until they are cooled. To facilitate this during our demo, Nick put these in the freezer before cutting them up for us to enjoy.

Final product: The chocolate flavor isn’t that intense, and there is a strong caramel note from all that brown sugar. Texture-wise, it is dense and moist, just like the supernatural brownie. I’ll have to try it at home with my standby chocolate to see if I can coax more chocolate flavor out of this recipe.

Life-Changing Moments: Meeting Nick Malgieri

For some people, life-changing moments involve things like meeting a future spouse or accepting a new job. For a chocolate lover and baking hobbyist, meeting Nick Malgieri in person is one of those moments.

Since he was in DC this weekend, I was fortunate enough to be able to experience such a life changing moment by attending a demonstration at Sur la Table in Arlington last night.

Throughout the extensive demonstration, he gave us helpful tips, many of which are in his new book, Bake!, which I highly recommend.

He also had some humors quips about baking – my favorite was “Putting baking powder in brownies is like putting baking powder in mashed potatoes.” His instruction style was engaging, and he was very approachable and willing to answer questions during the breaks and while right in the middle of cooking. Speaking of cooking, here’s what we all got to sample.

Clockwise from the top: Chocolate and Coffee Walnut Cake, Truffle Brownie, Chocolate Meringue S Cookie, Chocolate Hazelnut Tart, Chocolate Chunk Pound Cake.

After sampling the recipe yields, Nick signed copies of Bake! for us.

He also humored me and signed my copy of Chocolate.

That’s the page with my favorite brownie recipe. Splatters and all.

He had so many useful hints that I’ll have to post them over several days this week, or this post would be far too long. Be on the lookout – some of these tips are simple to implement and apparently make a serious impact on the final product.