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

The Cocoa Museum

So in Cocoa we have an eclectic collection of chocolate & confectionery related memorabilia. This was started by Rachell (the previous owner) & we have added our own trinkets along the way. In the Lounge there is a mini museum for all to see, here are a few of my favourites.

When my Gran was moved into a home, Kate and I started to clear her house not realising what treasures we would find that were perfect for Cocoa. I like to think it was all meant to be and she kept them for us not knowing.




This one makes me laugh as she has written 'BANDAGES' on the side then scribbled it out, ruining this old box of Nestle's chocolates. Nevermind. Then 'First Aid' on the back, very practical.




This one is a beautiful illustration of Ducks on a small tin of cough pastilles.





Another tin from my Gran's house, she must have really had some cough problems!



And again a practical storage tin for your keys and buttons, we still don't know till this day where these keys lead to?





This one Kate and I found in an antique shop in Bristol, we were getting ideas for the cafe at the time. I put the box in the window of the shop so unfortunately I've damaged it with too much sunlight and water, the back is a deep shade of purple.


We also got this really old tin of Bournville Cocoa, it's really rusty but I love it.




This old tin of Quality street was found at The Front Parlour on Sharrow Vale, which is the perfect place to find these kind of connections to the past.




Finally some gems Rachell found, at a guess from e-bay. This jar is what sweet shops are all about.



This battered old tin of biscuits must have made a lovely present many years ago.

New cakes in Cocoa

We've started selling homemade cakes in Cocoa land, here are a few pics to show you what's been on offer so far. There will be a different selection of cakes each day with much of the focus on what's in season (and chocolate of course!)

Rhubarb loves Custard, Romance Cake
-I believe rhubarb is custard's soul mate!

This tasty number was crafted using forced rhubarb which is grown by candlelight! Who'd have thought it!! I thought that sounded quite romantic, quite apt as it's nearly Valentines Day!

The fruit (and veg) used to concoct these delights comes from Sharrow Marrow on Sharrowvale Road, our most favourite fruit & veg shop round the corner from us, Nikki has a wonderful range of locally sourced produce. Her shop is a feast for your eyes! Go in if you haven't already!

Scrumdiddlyumptious Double Chocolate Muffins!

The chocolate used is Cocoa's own and of course the very best! We try to match the chocolate to the recipe, so if it is a fruity concoction then a fruity chocolate like Valrhona's Madagascan Manjari couveture will be used or if it is a nutty recipe a more mellow Venezuelan chocolate will be used.

Good old Carrot Cake !

Will you be Cocoa's Valentine?

As a token of Cocoa's endless love for her dear cherished customers, we have sneaked five Golden Tickets inside some of our Valentine treats! They entitle you to lots of freebies including free chocolate tastings, hot choccie & the main prize, a luxury Love Hamper!

Exciting stuff!

If you find one of this tiny borrower-sized envelopes hidden in your chocolates jolly well open it and whatever you do don't eat it, it won't taste nice and we won't be able to give you your treat! Make sure you bring it in and claim you prize so we can get all giddy with excitment with you!

Here's a clue to where those glimmering sheets of gold might be...

Yummy Ed Monkton Neapolitans to make you smile and feel all lovely and fuzzy inside!

Cute Handmade lovli-pop

Beautiful handmade extra-special chocolates made using Valrhona choc, they taste even better than they look and look even better in real-life (this picture doesn't do them justice hehehe!)

There's waaay more to choose from in the shop so hurry before we sell out!!

So.. will you be Cocoa's Valentine? Buy something from our love range to find out!!

A Chocolate Trip to Grenada

It was this time last year that Kate and I embarked on a very special Chocolate adventure and I think it’s high time I told you about it! So Cocoa has been selling a unique chocolate bar made by The Grenada Chocolate Company for about 6 years now. What makes this bar unique is the fact the chocolate it is made from the Cocoa tree to the bar all in one country, (which is rare for chocolate as most Cocoa beans get shipped off to be made into chocolate in Europe.) As chocolate is worth more then Cocoa beans, this gives poorer Cocoa growing countries like Grenada a chance to make their own profits. It is also the smallest chocolate factory in the world proudly owned as a cooperative and the factory is even Solar powered. You can’t get more ethical then this!

The chocolate also tastes amazing; it’s got a deliciously dark flavour and fruity notes unlike any other. You really have to try it to believe it. Kate and I had been dying to visit this wonderful place and see for ourselves, just how these unique bars are made. After years of saving & dreaming we finally flew over and stayed in a wooden house situated in one of the Cocoa plantations that produce the beans for the bar. This was perfect as we were surrounded by these colourful pods hanging in the rainforest like a rainbow of lanterns in the trees. We had a chance to work with the farmers collecting the pods together, using a machete!

So to make the chocolate we have to start from scratch, we cracked the pods open, pulling out the sticky cocoa beans and put them in the fermenting sheds just next to our wooden house. Every day the beans were turned over in the sheds and everyday we could smell a strange chocolate brewery aroma. After a week we took the beans to dry in the sun on the drying trays, watching out for the rain in case we needed to wheel them undercover.

On to the next stage, we then took the beans to the factory ready to be made into chocolate! The factory smells like heaven before we even enter the building, wafts of chocolate circle the air.

We are shown how these almond-like beans are roasted, shelled, crushed, mixed, pressed, conched, tempered, moulded and packed into the chocolate bars we sell in the shop. It’s more complicated then you think but these small machines and hard workers make it look simple.

This was all started by Mott Green an enthusiastic New Yorker who fell in love with the island over 20 years ago. With a background in engineering he has helped create this mad house of whirring machines responsible for all these chocolate bars, he also lives in the factory! Mott is hopefully making a visit to Cocoa in March so watch this space for that.

Check out the Grenada Chocolate Company’s website at.. http://www.grenadachocolate.com/

Check out where we stayed at… http://www.crayfishbay.com/

If you fancy trying these bars yourself check out our shop at ….

http://www.cocoawonderland.co.uk/shop/27-grenada-chocolate-co

Cocoadance

The team: Bridget & Dave

www.cocoadance.com

Handmade chocolates in the Peak District National Park...........

In case you didn't know already, we are proud purveyors of Cocoadance Chocolates! Because we love them sooo much, I thought they deserved a mention on our Blog.

Cocoadance aren't just any old Chocolate company, there are many many reasons why they are so special...

This should set the scene:

'Set on the boundary between the Dark Peak and White Peak areas….located beneath Mam Tor, known locally as the ‘Shivering Mountain’…overlooking the tiny village of Castleton, the romantic setting for Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Peveril of the Peak’…and lying at the end of the derelict A625 just behind the Blue John Cavern, is the best kept secret in the world of chocolate….'

So pretty

I thought I'd drop in.. The name 'Cocoadance' refers to a ritual dance performed by women in some cocoa growing regions where they shuffle through the cocoa beans with their bare feet to continually turn them. This helps clean the beans and allow them to dry evenly. We saw something similar to this when we visited Grenada.

All Dave & Bridget's beautiful chocolates are handmade by them in small batches in their National Trust Barn and Farmhouse. Here is a list of a selection of their marvelous concoctions...My favourite are the sugar plums, yum! Anne and some of our girlie friends enjoyed Dave & Bridget's Sugar Plums whilst watching the Nutcracker for Anne's Birthday, it was a truly enchanted experience!!

Sugar plum fairies

Banoffee Truffles
Salted Caramels
Strawberry Daiquiri Truffles
Chilli & Lime Truffles
Chilli Lips

Embellished with Bridget's fairy dust

Orange & Cointreau
Blueberry & Cassis
Sticky Toffee Lips
They also make limited edition fresh chocolates infused with seasonal flavours which are well worth a try!
& MORE...

Their Toy Box of treats

Every time we're due for a Cocoadance delivery Anne & and I always get excited, even after 6 years of selling their chocolates, it always feels magical unpacking their parcels of special treats! It isn't just the joy of the chocolate we look forward to, Dave always carefully delivers their chocolates and takes the time to stay for a chat and we swap chocolate gosssip! We introduce him to customers as the man that makes their nipples hehehe! (In case you don't know we sell the most decadent of all chocolates, Nipples of Venus. You HAVE to come in and try one if you haven't experienced one already!)

Dave chocolate genius Golubows

Cocoadance
Chocolate Experience Days

Now this is the exciting bit...!!

Dave & Bridget hold Chocolate Experiences in their converted barn. Which means you are invited to have a little taste of their sweet lives, as well as learning about chocolate, tasting chocolate, drinking chocolate AND making chocolate!!

Dave and Bridget kindly invited Anne and I to one of their Experience Days, we had a truly amazing time!! We learnt lots, ate lots and had a giggle at the same time and the setting was spectacular, I couldn't believe my eyes! We would thoroughly recommend it to anyone!

1. They are priced at £29.99 each
2. You may book as a group or an individual
3. Visit www.cocoadance.com for more details on booking