And the winners are . . .

Overall Judges Choice awarded to Brian Koster for Apple, Honey and Black Pepper Truffle (CY2)

Overall People's Choice awarded to Faith May for Triple Layer Brownie Cake (CA5)

Candy Category Winners:
Judges Choice: Brian Koster Apple, Honey and Black Pepper Truffle (CY2)
People's Choice: Brian Koster Apple, Honey and Black Pepper Truffle (CY2)

Cake Category Winners:
Judges' Choice: Molly Lawry White Chocolate Bread Pudding (CA4)
People's Choice: Faith May Triple Layer Brownie Cake (CA5)

Cheesecake Category Winners:
Judges' Choice: Joni Greiber Turtle Cheesecake(CH3)
People's Choice: Brian Koster Mulberry Chocolate Cheesecake (CH2)

Cookie Category Winners:
Judges' Choice: Pamela Lunder After Midnight (CK2)
People's Choice: Meli May Chocolate Truffle Cookies (CK4)

Brownie Category Winners:
Judges' Choice: Lori Rogich Beer Brownies (BR3)
People's Choice: Delores Kahl Chocolate Crunch Brownies (BR4)

Meet the Judges: David Bacco

David Bacco will be back again this year to judge the Death by Chocolate Bake Off! David is the owner and mastermind behind David Bacco Chocolats (which just so happens to share an acronym with Death by Chocolate--DBC!)

David began his chocolate career in 1994. He describes himself as self-taught, but he's studied with several world-class chefs in both the French Pastry School in Chicago, and the World Pastry Forum in Las Vegas. David has received received first place awards at the Capitol Confectioners Competition from 2001-2006 in each of the following categories: chocolates, small candies, candies, miniature pastries, fantasy dessert, showpiece and cheesecake. David was head pastry chef at Cocoliquot when they were named Best Restaurant for Dessert by Isthmus Magazine in 2007.

The chocolate creations in David's shop are a feast for the eye as well as the palate. In Business Magazine says, "Dark wooded walls showcase a simple display case along the back, where candies are displayed like jewels in a dizzying array of colors and geometric shapes."

David Bacco Chocolats website showcases the chocolates in a simple and elegant layout, which shines the spotlight on every creation and illuminates the concept behind it, as well as the rare and unusual ingredients used. David's Chakra bars include such exquisite ingredients as roiboos tea, honey powder, Madagascar vanilla beans, and violet petals.

Join us this Saturday night, where you'll have a chance to meet all the judges of Death by Chocolate! And have a peek at David Bacco Chocolats luscious website, where you can scope out which treasures you'd like to plunder from his shop in Hilldale Shopping Center!

Contact info:
David Bacco Chocolats | In the Hilldale Shopping Center | 550 N. Midvale Blvd., Madison, WI 53705 | p. 608.233.1600
Store Hours: Monday thru Thursday 10-9, Friday & Saturday 10-10 and Sunday 11-6

The Fifth Taste

For thousands of years, taste has been classified into four basic categories: sweet, sour, salty and bitter. Greek philosophers said that foods had various microscopic "shapes" (round for sweet, pointed for salty, etc.) that would allow the tastes to click into the properly-shaped receptors on our tongues, sort of like the games toddlers play when they fit variously shaped pegs into holes.

That theory wasn't so far off. Turns out there are various microscopic receptors on the tongue that react to chemical compounds in food, which we then classify as sweet, sour, salty and bitter.

In the late 1800's a chef named Auguste Escoffier in France, and a Chemist named Kikunae Ikeda in Japan, both came to the conclusion that there was another taste that was really, really good--but couldn't be classified as any of the accepted four tastes. Ikeda named it umami, which can be translated as many different things, among them, meaty, savory, brothy...or yummy!

It wasn't until 2002 that scientists verified a receptor from the chemical L-glutimate on the tongue, which conveys the taste of umami to the brain. The current view on tastebuds is that they sense five distinct flavors, rather than four.

I expect the main taste Saturday night to be that of sweetness. But you never know. Last year an intriguing sea-salt crusted cookie was among the offerings. And Mary's Coffee from Mount Horeb will be catering our favorite bitter beverage: coffee!

Source: Sweet, Sour, Salty, Bitter...and Umami from NPR

Are You a Supertaster?

Are you a supertaster -- faster than a speeding cookie, more powerful than peanut butter fudge, able to leap tall confections in a single bound? A friend of mine asserts that some people "taste more," when they eat, and those of us so blessed (or cursed) tend to put on weight because we simply enjoy food more. I've always thought it was wishful thinking on his part, but then I ran across an article on supertasters today, and I have to wonder if maybe he was on to something.

In 1931, a chemist at DuPont discovered a compound called PTC that some people found bitter, and others found tasteless. This led to studies that determined that some of us are tasting things that others are not, or perhaps just tasting certain things more intensely. There appears to be a genetic link. Most estimates suggest 25% of the population are nontasters, 50% are medium tasters, and 25% are supertasters. Women, Africans and Asians are more likely to be supertasters than the rest of the population.

There is a hole in my friend's theory. Supertasters tend to be finicky, and would be more likely to be fussy eaters than overeaters.

The BBC has a five-minute quiz that will help you determine if you're a supertaster.

Me? I haven't taken it yet. I may not want to know.

Tasters of every stripe should start gearing up for Saturday night, where deserts aplenty await your tasting. Super or otherwise.

Swiss Miss

The United States produces more chocolate than any other country but the Swiss consume the most, followed closely by the English. The average American eats 10 to 12 pounds of chocolate a year. The average Swiss eats 21 pounds a year. (from "Chocolate facts")

Good news! You can get a jump-start on the Swiss this year just by attending the bake off next Saturday, February 21st at 6:30 p.m!

The Pleasure of Measures

I'm one of those cooks who uses a pinch of this and a dash of that, and I tend to measure by eye. In cooking, that's not a bad thing. But cooking is more forgiving than baking, which depends on a precise combination of elements in a certain proportion to produce a pastry.

Remember those "For Dummies" books? They've got a website!

"Baking is a science, and when you mix together ingredients, you're creating chemistry, albeit edible chemistry, so being precise is important. There is balance between flour, leaveners, fats, and liquids."

Click here for a crash course in measuring various ingredients, from flour to shortening.

At our Chocolate-y Party this week, I helped kids create their own hot cocoa mix from scratch. They each filled out a recipe card, then followed the recipe themselves by measuring ingredients into a heart-shaped bag. Then they took home the bag and the card, so they could enjoy their hot chocolate with their families! This activity was loads of fun, and whether the kids were old hats at cooking or they'd never followed a recipe before, they really got into it!

Kyle, pictured above, is leveling out his tablespoon of cocoa powder by shaking off the excess! These kids were precise!

Chocolate Covered Things

Chocolate adds a new dimension to anything it covers: pretzels, peanut butter, cherries, almonds, marshmallows, caramel, figs, Clementines, orange peels, you name it, and someone has probably figured out the best way to coat it in chocolate, even bacon!

The folks at Vosges (http://www.vosgeschocolate.com/), a Haut-Chocolat confectionary in Chicago, concocted a bacon-chocolate bar, called Mo’s Bacon Bar, which combines applewood smoked bacon, alderwood smoked salt, and deep milk chocolate for a completely amazing sweet and savory chocolate experience. The best news, this culinary delight can be purchased at Sjolinds (219 E. Main, Mount Horeb).

Someday though, I hope a road-trip to Santa Cruz, California will afford me the opportunity to try the ice cream at Marini’s, (http://www.mariniscandies.com/ ) called Vegan’s Nightmare Ice Cream which boasts “delectable chunks of crispy chocolate covered bacon in maple syrup ice cream.” Wow. This sounds like Sunday brunch in a bowl!

Chocolate-covered Clementine slices from Italy sound particularly divine, as described at Zingerman’s web site, “…spectacular Calabrian oranges, soaked in a constantly refreshed bath of simple syrup for three weeks, cut in quarters, smothered in dark chocolate…. If you slide it in your mouth all at once, the luscious orange syrup won’t drip down your chin.” At nearly $2.00 a slice, you won’t want to waste a speck of this delectable treat! Check out http://www.zingermans.com/ for more chocolate covered things.

Best Part of Bridge Mix

Remember bridge mix? My favorite part is the malted milk balls, crunchy and tender and malty. Mmm. Then I like the chocolate-covered raisins. The round things with the jelly inside are good, too. The peanuts? Someone else can eat those.

Malted milk, the powder, was originally invented by Englishman James Horlick after he moved to Racine, Wisconsin! The original name was "Diastoid," but in a flash of marketing foresight, he trademarked the name "Malted Milk" in 1887. The powder was intended to be a non-perishable, high-calorie food supplement for infants and invalids. It gained popularity when arctic explorers began packing it on their trips, and was soon consumed for its taste rather than its nutritional qualities.

If I've rekindled a long lost taste in you for malted milk, maybe you'll want to try your hand at this recipe for Chocolate Malt Cake from thebakingpan.com!

More Digital Food

Another great web source for recipes are the websites of grocery markets and specialty stores. The frosted brownies above are Moist and Decadent Dark Chocolate Brownies from a recipe at the Whole Foods website. The ingredients look very simple, but in the comments, people who've made them rave, "They were gone in a day! Had to make a second batch, best brownies I or my husband have ever had."

Here are some more store sites with recipe sections:
Cub Foods

Trader Joe's

Piggly Wiggly

Sentry Foods

Willy Street Co-op

Copps

Brennan's Market (more of a blog than a recipe site)

Know of any others? Post them here in the comment section!

You Sure WE Didn't Invent That?

Chocolate and cheese sounds like a combo that could only have hailed from Wisconsin. Alas, no! This chocolate-flavored process cheese slice was actually developed in New Zealand to break into the lackluster dairy market of Taiwan! The Chesdale chocolate cheese proved so popular, that within months of its release, it cornered 10% of the Taiwanese cheese market.

A company spokesman said the cheese had, "a mild chocolate flavor, matched to a light Cadbury flavor - we backed off a little from Nutella."

Did someone say Nutella? Mmm. They have that over at Miller's, don't they?

Read more in the New Zealand Herald.

Chocolate Therapy

Chocolate is cheaper than therapy and you don't need an appointment.
--Unknown

Feeling blue? Is the weather getting you down? Is the economy worrying you? Is your love life sending you into the doldrums? Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes? Then, may I suggest a hearty dose of chocolate?

As a remedy for the blues, I personally recommend molten chocolate cake. When I am down in the dumps nothing cheers me up like a warm, rich, and sinfully gooey cake (with ice cream). The added beauty of molten chocolate cake is how easy it is to make. Most recipes call for the batter to be placed in small ramekins or muffin tins, which is nice, because then they can be easily shared with friends. Or not. And since the cakes are small, so are the calories.

Here’s a delicious recipe from Epicurious, my favorite online recipe site: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Molten-Chocolate-Cakes-with-Cherries-104736

A Digital Cookbook?

While I don't think that online recipe sites will replace printed, bound cookbooks anytime soon, these Internet jewels are worth looking into if you haven't before. As with anything else online, approach internet recipe sites using discrimination and common-sense. Many recipes are user-submitted, and could possibly flop.

Online Recipe Cons
• Recipe could be untested
• Directions not professionally written; could be missing steps
• Annoying pop-ups
• You have to wade through advertising

Online Recipe Site Pros
• Searchable
• User reviews
• Scaleable
• Interactive

What online recipe sites offer that cookbooks cannot is the interactive quality of being able to submit, rate, search and comment on recipes. On a very active cooking site, members will chime in and talk about how the recipe turned out for them, what they substituted, and what they'd do differently if they made the dish again. It can be fascinating to read the string of comments attached to a particularly popular recipe.

Online recipes are infinitely more searchable than a physical cookbook. Not only can you search for recipes that have specific combinations of ingredients, but you can also specify things like a cooking method (baked, grilled, etc.) or other terms like "easy" or "low-fat." And if you don't have something specific to search, you can browse.

It's also easy to scale the recipe size, for either more or fewer portions, without doing any math! Let's say you have an oddball amount of a certain ingredient you're looking to get rid of. (Not that that's ever happened to me, mind you, because I'm such a precise planner...ha ha!) You can tinker with scaling the recipe up or down until it fits the amount of the ingredient you have on hand.

My personal favorite recipe site is allrecipes.com. They have an active membership who post very useful comments and critiques, and they have an online recipe box where you can sign up for a free membership and store your favorite recipes.

Click here for a fabulous chocolate article at allrecipes.com - 10 Best Chocolate Recipes!

Don't Get Cross!

I've always had a thing for cross-sections. I'm curious by nature, and what better way to learn about the inner workings of something than to crack it open and see it in action?

Several non-fiction series explore cross-sections of various things, from machinery to homes, to historical constructions, to the human body. Here are a few titles and series available at the library that you might enjoy:

• Inside a _____ - various titles in the Intermediate Nonfiction section. The photo above is from Inside a Stove by Claire Seymour.

• Coolest Cross Sections Ever by Stephen Biesty (Intermediate Nonfiction, 608 Bie)

• Star Wars, Revenge of the Sith by Curtis Saxton (Intermediate Nonfiction, 791.43 Sax)

• What's Inside _____? - various titles in the Intermediate Nonfiction section include What's Inside Plants, What's Inside Buildings, and What's Inside Airplanes.

Come ask a reference librarian about exploring something in cross-section today!

And how about cross-sections of candy bars? Here's an easy page. Piece of "cake?" Okay, try the harder page!