It seems ironic that the day I finally sit down to post my chocolate ice cream recipe is the first rainy day in a couple of weeks. Especially since I created it in Seattle, back in June when I was still on vacation, where we had nothing but beautiful sunny weather.
It was a chocolate-intensive day (and sandwich-intensive, too, I might add) that started with a tour of Theo Chocolate. While I admire their commitment to organic and fair trade production, I though the presentation got a little preachy on those topics, to the detriment of explaining, say, how ganache is made. Not for my benefit, mind you, I make the stuff for a living, but I doubt anyone on the tour with me that day left with any real understanding of the difference between the production of a bar of chocolate and the production of a chocolate confection. Still, it wasn’t a total wash. We got to taste several different chocolates, from single origin bars to novelty bars to the aforementioned ganaches. I couldn’t leave without picking up some of the Ghost chile chocolate and a box of single-malt scotch ganaches.
One of my missions while in the USA was to gather up some American artisan chocolate bars. I was looking in particular for Patric, which my former boss can’t praise highly enough, and Askinosie, which I was turned on to by David Lebovitz. Upon hitting the ground in San Francisco, I was on the lookout for chocolate shops. I found Bittersweet without much trouble, and they did carry a handful of chocolate bars. I walked out of there about $35 poorer and four chocolate bars richer, but I was a little disappointed that it was more of a café/coffeeshop than a true chocolate shop.
Fortunately, Pete, our host in Seattle, is a chocolate enthusiast. He had spotted Chocolopolis and wanted to check it out. Having a couple of chocolate-loving houseguests was the perfect excuse. So following the Theo tour (with a little lunch break) we headed to Chocolopolis.
And it was there that I found what I was looking for:
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Croque-Camille 