In memory of Daisy

For those of you who don't know who Daisy is or have seen this frame of old pics and wondered what is it let me explain...




...Daisy is my (Anne's) Grandmother and she lent Kate and I the money for us to be able to buy Cocoa 5 years ago. She was born in 1920 and spent her entire life in Sheffield. I came to university in Sheffield in 2003 and spent a lot of time with her and got really close. In 2006 she was kind enough to lend us the money to fulfil our dream of owning Cocoa, as we had both fallen in love with the idea but had nothing to back us up finacially we would not have been able to do it otherwise.



Daisy unfortunately got very ill and past away 3 years this week. Kate and I were lucky enough to see her the day before she died and had the chance to say goodbye. We are both incredibly grateful for her help and miss her very much.





I made this collection of photos for her as she struggled to remember very much and she seemed better at remembering the past. I took this frame to her when I came to visit, in the last years of her life and it helped her memory to talk about the pictures. I wanted to keep this in Cocoa for people to see how important she is to us.

Daddy Daddy Cool!

Whatever sort of chap your dad is we can sort you out for a top notch gift for him this Father's Day...

ACTION DAD

HANDY DAD
(tasty alternative to DIY)

SMOKER DAD
(we don't encourage smoking just chocolate cigar eating)

COOL DAD
(minty fresh)

WELL-GROOMED DAD
(Perfect partner to the chocolate tash!)

Barclay's One Small Step Competition

https://www.takeonesmallstep.co.uk/Entry/Detail/401
Click and 'Like' us pleeease!

We entered a competition to win £50,000! This is our entry video above.

Please click on the link https://www.takeonesmallstep.co.uk/Entry/Detail/401 and 'LIKE' our entry and write a comment if you have something sweet to say! The more the merrier and it looks good for the judges!

The competition is regional so there are 9 lots of £50,000 to win! Our region is the North East and we are up against many brilliant applications (including Sheffield's very own Tea Box, we love their film you should watch it!) so it's going to be a tough competition!
The judges select 3 entries to go through to the next round (announced 11th May) then they're put to the public vote!

Good luck everyone!

One of Last Year's winners: The Papered Parlour


Our favourite regional winner from last year was the Papered Parlour, based in Clapham. Owned by two lovely ladies! They are definitely Cocoa's cup of tea have a look at their beautiful website! They run workshops such as dressmaking and silversmithing, as well as hosting hen parties and even serve tea-based cocktails! I love the sound of one of their dress making classes "Make me a domestic sewing goddess"! We'd love to go and visit them one day for a cuppa, their cafe looks beautiful!



Perhaps we could have Anne's hen do there next year...?!


The North East Region winner: Fidgets
Last year's North Eastern (Sheffield's region) winner, was Fidgets, a hair salon for kids. What a good idea! Think I'd like to go visit myself, looks like jolly good fun!



Cocoa and the Chocolate Factory....................


So if we won the money...Our dream is to make Cocoa's own range of chocolate concoctions, we have been plotting this for some time now and have many crazy ideas! Somebody once said in the Cocoa comments book that Anne and I are Willy Wonka's daughters, that's how we feel hehehe!

We saved our pennies from Easter and went on a chocolate course at the Chocolate Academy last year, since then we have been conjuring up some tasty treats in our own kitchens. We just need some ££s to get us started.

We'll keep you posted!

Meet our Easter Farmyard!

We love Easter, it's always so colourful and bright! We have some lovely cardboard eggs in that you can fill up yourself with lots of mini eggs and bunnies. Can you see the cheeky Charlie Chicks peeping out from under the eggs?

Happy hens sitting on top of some real hand painted egg shells filled with praline! They are YUM! I wonder what they do with the left over egg, hope they make a giant omelette or pancakes or something!

Doris and Daisy Duck having a little cuddle and a well earned rest on Cocoa's pretty eggs!

Louie Lamb officially the cutest of Cocoa's Easter residents!

A beautiful basket of joyous chocolate eggs!

You can eat Derek the Duck and his freinds! They are actually chocolate ducks they do look very convincing!

The day our Chocolate Hero came to Cocoa

A week or so ago our ultimate chocolate hero paid us a visit. Mott Green (a real life Willy Wonka!!), and the founder of the Grenada Chocolate Co. came all the way from the Caribbean to see Cocoa (and some other places in the UK)!

You may have heard of the chocolate making co-operative, it was on Trevor McDonald's 'Secret Caribbean' show on ITV a while ago.

http://www.itv.com/lifestyle/thesecr...e/default.html

Mott brought with him piles of his delicious chocolate and gave it away to our customers all day long! (trying to tempt those naughty people who have given up chocolate for lent!).

The Grenada Chocolate bar is sold internationally and is available here in the UK, as well as many Caribbean countries and the USA. Due to British support and love of good chocolate, the bar has proved most popular in the UK. Our constant enthusiasm for this special bar has certainly helped selling over 1000 bars a year!



Mott's Grenadian chocolate is meant to be the most politically correct in existence. It is made in the smallest chocolate factory in the world, which is solar powered and a co-operative, using antique and homemade machinery to process the cocoa. Most of the world's cocoa beans are shipped off to Europe where they are processed and made into chocolate. Usually mixed up with Cocoa & cocoa butter from other parts of the world. This makes Grenada and the Grenada Chocolate Co. very unique in the Chocolate world.



We at Cocoa have been supporting the Grenada Chocolate Co. for nearly 7 years now and it is by far our best seller! There is a truly unique richness to its flavour, this is due to how the chocolate is made and the superior quality of the organic beans grown in Grenada. We went over to see Mott and his factory in Grenada last January and stayed on a cocoa plantation where we lived and breathed cocoa for three weeks. We learned how the cocoa was farmed and processed into chocolate.

New Cocoa Menu!

We have a new menu to show you! Just so you know Cocoa serves drinks until 5pm every weekday and Saturdays, Sundays last orders are 4pm.




New additions to the menu include Cocoa Nib 'coffee', not actually coffee but delightful drunk in the same way. This a delicious drink made by grinding cocoa beans and mixing with hot water,served in a cafetiere. Pleasant with or without milk. This drink is a healthy alternative to coffee and has similar (probably better) effects, it is meant to improve focus, alertness & contains nutrients to make you happy!! You could add a pinch of chilli then it wouldn't be far of the original Aztec drink!



Rose Lemonade is another new drink. The delicate rose flavour is a wonderful contrast to the tartness of the lemons.

The Black Forest Gateau Hot Chocolate was a special concoction of ours, it was so popular it has made it onto our main menu! There will be a new flavoured Hot Chocolate every week, this week it's a White Chocolate Hot chocolate, very sweet & creamy.

A varied selection of homemade cakes, Macaroons & Belgian Waffles will also be on offer....

Chocolate is not a sin so please don't give it up for lent!

Every year we get upset as Lent approaches and Chocolate is banished; treated as a sinful food when actually it really isn't!

What really gets our goat at Cocoa is the bad name chocolate has been given when it's always the cheap mass produced confectionery that is bad, not good chocolate! Next time you pick up a Dairy Milk bar check out the ingredients you will be shocked by how little of them are even chocolate-related . The worst part is the use of palm oil which is labeled 'Vegetable Fat' this is higher in saturated fat & the Palm oil industry is one of the leading causes of deforestation in Indonesia which means taking homes from the Orangutans! Good quality chocolate may be more expensive but it will contain chocolate rather then these cheap substitutes that are not only bad for us but also for the environment.








There is good news ...good quality chocolate (mainly dark) has many amazing health benefits for you! The best chocolate you can eat is dark chocolate that has really simple ingredients for example.... chocolate and not vegetable fat! So the higher the cocoa percentage the less sugar, in theory dark chocolate bars with really high cocoa contents are the best for health benefits.

Dark chocolate is good for your heart. A small bar of it everyday can help keep your heart and cardiovascular system running well. Two heart health benefits of dark chocolate are:

• Lower Blood Pressure: Studies have shown that consuming a small bar of dark chocolate everyday can reduce blood pressure in individuals with high blood pressure.
• Lower Cholesterol: Dark chocolate has also been shown to reduce LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol) by up to 10 percent.

Although there is fat in Cocoa (the cocoa butter) it is a good fat! It contains Oleic acid which is a healthy monounsaturated fat, also found in Olive oil and Stearic acid which has a neutral effect on cholesterol.

Dark chocolate has far more antioxidants then Milk or White chocolate. These antioxidants are great for diffusing the free radicals that cause premature aging and destruction in the body's cells. Chocolate also contains flavonoids which can reduce heart attack risk and cancer as well as minerals including; Iron, Magnesium, Potassium, Phosphorous, Copper & Calcium.

Chocolate can make you happy! Chocolate contains Phenylethylamine (PEA), this increases attention & activity, it as also been shown to relieve depression. We get a surge of PEA when we fall in love & it floods to your brain during an orgasm! - Well they do say it's better then sex.

So if something is this good for you Why give it up? Please give chocolate a chance this year and try giving up something else.


For loads of dark chocolate have a look at our selection at:

www.cocoawonderland.co.uk/shop/6-chocolate-bars