We have recently added a couple new ingredients for our adventurous customers. For those people who want to try something new for their personalized chocolate bars, they should check out our tasty beef jerky. Our bacon was so popular that we decided to branch out to another type of meat, and so far it’s been a big hit! We actually just removed bacon from the list of ingredients because we want to work on figuring out the perfect way to combine bacon to our custom candy bars. We know we have a lot of adventurous customers who are also vegetarians, and so we decided to add a new ingredient: vegetarian bacon.
I know that ‘vegetarian bacon’ sounds like an oxymoron, but ‘vegetarian bacon’ isn’t made from bacon at all. Made from soy, it tastes just like real bacon but doesn’t contain the fat, cholesterol, or nitrates of real bacon. So if you like having the bitter sweet taste for your custom chocolate bar, give our vegetarian bacon a try!
The name is actually deceiving; although it is called ‘English’ lavender, it is actually cultivated in France. Lavender is used for many things other than eating. Its scent makes it extremely popular for potpourri, and is also used in many bath soaps and shampoos. It was traditionally though to help cure depression and assist in falling asleep. We aren’t doctors at Chocomize, but just the smell of lavender being mixed with chocolate is enough to put me in a good mood!
Lavender is probably one of the most unique ingredients we’ve ever added at Chocomize. We think that all our ingredients taste great in chocolate, but lavender is the first ingredient that I can think of that actually has a distinctive and pleasant smell to it. And although it might be a somewhat strange claim to make, I think we can say that not only do we have the best tasting and best looking chocolate bars, we now have the best smelling ones!
Keep giving us suggestions! The only way we can improve our list of ingredients is with your help. Have an idea for an improvement? Write a comment on our blog or send us an e-mail to info@chocomize.com.
Nick
We had over forty people vote for their favorite ingredients. The top three were raspberries, lavender, and chocolate nibs. We didn’t add these ingredients right away because we needed time to find the highest quality ingredients possible. We put only premium ingredients on our website and wanted to make sure that we had found the best of the best.
As far as the raspberries are concerned, I would say: mission accomplished. They don’t just taste great, they are healthy as well! Raspberries are known to have some of the highest levels of antioxidants of any fruit. As we always say, we aren’t doctors here at Chocomize, but we can say for sure that you’re going to love the taste of these raspberries in your custom chocolate bar.
Stay tuned for when we add lavender and chocolate nibs to our website! As always, give us more suggestions for ingredients. We will be starting another contest soon with ten of the best ingredients that have been recommended to us recently.
Nick
These days’ people are looking for something a little more exotic in their chocolate. Chocomize has seen this first hand with the wild popularity of bacon, cayenne pepper and other ingredients you don’t traditionally associate with chocolate. The brilliant minds of the Chocomize research team have spent countless man-hours thinking ahead of the curve to find the next big thing in chocolate, and we think we have done it! Chocomize has recently teamed up with another young, innovative mass customization company that has revolutionized the market for our new ingredient. As the first mass customization chocolate company, Chocomize continues to lead the way with our new collaboration. Obviously we are very excited about this new ingredient and though for now it is top secret we want the faithful Chocomize fans to take a stab at what this mysterious new ingredient may be. If you get it right we will send you one of the first bars with this new ingredient! Guess away.
Eric
-They were first invented and patented in 1956 but weren’t actually sold to the public until 1975.
-There is a popular urban myth that if you eat pop rocks with carbonated soda, your stomach would explode. This is of course not true (I actually tried this on a bet from Fabian and Eric and remained unharmed enough to write this blog post.)
-The ‘pop’ sensation that you get when you eat them is created from pressurized carbon dioxide gas (same thing that is in soda.) When making the candy, they pressurize the rocks to 600 pounds per square inch to make sure that they explode in your mouth.
Let us know if you have any more additions for our list of ingredients. And as always, let us know what ingredient you think we should feature for the ‘ingredient of the week.’
Nick
You don’t need a special holiday like Valentine’s Day to order the perfect custom chocolate bar. Our chocolate bars are good for any occasion or no occasion at all! If you’ve been surfing around our website lately you’ll have noticed that we have removed the Valentine’s Day ingredients bar. We’ll post special tabs throughout the year when certain holidays arise (I think the next one will be Easter, just to give you an early warning.)
For now, however, if you want to get a great recommendations on what ingredients will make your custom chocolate bar perfect, keep reading our ‘ingredient of the week’ postings. This week’s winner is our strawberry gushers.
Most of the ingredients that we feature in this weekly post are recommendations from customer requests. Although we have recently added a bunch of new ingredients thanks to some great ideas from our fans, (check out the potato chips, they are a surprisingly great addition to chocolate) the idea for strawberry gushers was all Nick’s. Fabian and Nick were shopping for groceries in the local supermarket when Nick came across a box of gushers. He immediately grabbed them from the shelves and told Fabian that we needed to add this to our list. Fabian had never even heard of gushers (those Germans are so funny sometimes) but after one try he needed no more convincing from Nick.
Gushers actually have some nutritional benefit to them. They are high in vitamin C and very low in fat. It is worth noting that they do contain a high amount of sugar, so the health effects aren’t all positive. We recommend gushers to those chocoholics with a sweet tooth. They go great with milk chocolate and have a soft chewy texture that makes it very easy to bite into. Personally, I would go with milk chocolate, chocolate candy pieces, and gushers. Simple, yet extremely tasty.
Thanks again to everyone who wrote in with suggestions for ingredients this week. We apologize for Nick being so greedy and posting his addition as the ingredient of week, but he is seriously obsessed with gushers. Contact us with questions and ideas at info@chocomize.com.
For today, we will rename the ‘ingredient of the week’ blog title to ‘really awesome and special VALENTINE’S DAY TOPPINGS FROM SWITZERLAND!!!!!’. It’s pretty long so we probably won’t mention it again. But in case you couldn’t figure it out, we are pretty excited about the new items we have recently gotten (did we mention they are from Switzerland?) We have a whole tab exclusively for ingredients we think would go great on your Valentine’s Day custom chocolate bar, and this post is going to talk about the four most recent ones we’ve added.
The first, and probably our favorite, topping we’ve added is the plaque that says ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’. This plaque is made out of dark chocolate and is completely edible (and very tasty.) Specially designed just for Valentine’s Day, thi
s addition really sets your custom chocolate bar apart from all others (and really gets the message across.)
The second ingredient we added is a heart (a little over the size of an inch) that has ‘thank you’ written on it. We added this to the Valentine’s Day tab because we feel that ‘thank you’ is a good message for Valentine’s Day. Whether it is a friend, family member, or special someone, saying thank you is always appreciated (especially when it is accompanied by a delicious chocolate bar.) A lot of people deliver the message of love on Valentine’s Day, but sometimes a simple Thank You can go a long way. We really recommend this ingredient to separate your Valentine’s Day gift from others.
The third ingredient we are featuring is a large heart (again a little bigger than an inch) that has ‘I love you’ written on it. This heart is great not only because of what it says, but also the detail that it has. Whether it’s the smaller hearts in the left hand corner, the border framing the heart, or the beautiful script of the message, this topping looks very classy. It also tastes delicious!
The fourth and final ingredient we added is a large chocolate heart with smaller pink hearts on
top of it. Whereas the other two hearts we have featured on this blog create a really classy look to your custom chocolate bar, this large heart definitely adds a lighter and more fun feel to your chocolate bar. If you’re looking for some other toppings to combine it with, we recommend you try the Sweetheart message hearts which we think also have a lighter feel to them.
Chocolate has always been given as a gift on Valentine’s Day. When you combine the high quality chocolate we import from Belgium with the premium ingredients we’ve imported from Switzerland, you get a chocolate bar that goes above and beyond anything you’ve had in the past. And that is what we are about at Chocomize. Giving you the opportunity to create something you can’t get anywhere else. We’re really excited about these new additions, and we hope you’ll give them a try!
As Chocomize begins to gear up for Valentine’s Day, we are constantly adding new ingredients that fit with the holiday. Over the next couple of weeks, the ingredient of the week will be something related to Valentine’s Day and will be found in the new Valentine’s Day section (check out our creation station if you aren’t sure what we’re talking about.) This week’s featured ingredient is the always popular sweetheart message hearts!
For those of you who don’t know (which we’re pretty sure is impossible) message hearts are a delicious sugar candy made into the shape of a heart. So what do they say? Well these hearts have a bunch of different short messages, all related to something romantic. Personally, my favorite message is ‘lets kiss’, but Fabian was looking pretty sad this morning so I made him a small chocolate bar and placed a heart that said ‘sun shine’ on it. That cheered him up (although it could have just been the delicious chocolate.) No matter what message you end up getting (we try to get them all on your bar) these message hearts really make that custom chocolate bar a great Valentine’s Day gift. So instead of just giving someone a boring ol’ box of hearts, make sure you give them a Chocomize bar, the perfect custom chocolate bar (hmm maybe we should trademark that?)
It’s that time of the week again. We’ve had a lot of great recommendations recently, but our favorite has been the request for graham crackers. We tried them in our chocolate and we added both regular graham crackers and teddy graham crackers!
We aren’t sure why we didn’t think of this before. It seems so obvious, especially when we’ve been eating snacks like smores all our life.And that brings me to some more additions we’ve made to the website.
We’ve added a smores bar to the favorites section. Milk chocolate, marshmallows, and teddy graham crackers, it might be the best bar we’ve ever made.
Although the chocolate doesn’t come pre-melted (at least we hope it doesn’t) it will definitely remind you of all those times you sat by the campfire melting marshmallows. The good thing about this bar is that it isn’t as messy as eating a real smore (we saw Eric eating a smore once, we’re pretty sure most of it ended up on his face instead of his mouth.)
Thanks for all the weeks suggestions! If you have anymore, don’t hesitate to let us know at info@chocomize.com.
It's time for the ingredient of the week! This blog post has been a little delayed. Things have been pretty busy over in Chocomize land. We've been getting a lot of orders (thanks to all our customers!) and had a lot of great responses to the customer survey we sent out last week. In addition, Chocomize has been getting a ton of press lately both on and off the internet. To find out more about this, check out our past blog posts or check out our press page.
So this week's featured ingredient is actually more of a topping. It is our happy birthday plaques! Our custom chocolate bars are extremely popular for gifts (we definitely have solved your Valentine’s Day problem) especially birthday gifts. We’ve featured other great birthday items in the ingredient of the week, like our candle holder, but we’re proud to say that the happy birthday plaques our definitely our favorite.
As you can see in the picture, our happy birthday plaques are written on a white background. They are completely edible (we don’t put anything on our bars that aren’t) and are made out of an always popular and tasty substance: sugar.
If you’re looking to make and give a custom chocolate bar to someone for their birthday we definitely recommend our happy birthday plaques. We think they go well with our candle holders, but if you’re looking to make a festive bar (a birthday is always a good time to celebrate no matter how old you are turning) we recommend you add sprinkles.
Thanks as always to people who keep sending in suggestions for us to add to our list of ingredients. Coming soon is going to be a Valentine’s Day tab where we feature new and special ingredients great Valentine’s Day bars (think I love you plaques, hearts, Happy Valentine’s Day plaques, etc.) Stay tuned for updates and as always if you have any questions or comments you can reach us at info@chocomize.com.
Our new ingredient of the week is pop rocks. Usually our ingredient of the week is a new ingredient that has been suggested during the week.
The ingredient of the week is a sugar candle holder that comes with the respective candle. If you've read our blog before, you know how great custom chocolate bars are for gifts. We already have a lot of unique ingredients when it comes to birthday gifts. Take our 'happy birthday' plaques for instance. They really help make your custom chocolate bar stand out when you are giving it for someone's birthday gift. Now we have a decoration that’s going to set your custom chocolate bar apart from any chocolate bar you’ve ever tried: sugar candle holders.
Candle’s on someone’s birthday is a time honored tradition. Customarily the candles appear in some sort of cake, whether they are birthday cakes or mini cupcakes. Now, however, you can give someone a birthday cake in their own custom designed chocolate bar! The sugar candle holders are firmly placed in your chocolate bar so all you need to do is place the candle (which we give you) in the holder and light them! We guarantee you will surprise and delight whoever is lucky enough to get this awesome gift. The candle holders are made from sugar and completely edible (not to mention absolutely delicious.) So if you’re giving someone a custom chocolate bar for their birthday, remember that no birthday gift is complete without any sugar candle holders!
Thanks for everyone who sent in suggestions for ingredients this week. As always we love to hear what ingredients you’d like to have on our website. If you have any ideas be sure to shoot us an e-mail at info@chocomize.com.
The new ingredient of the week is hard peppermint candy! We use crushed candy canes and hard peppermints to give you that delicious and popular mint taste in your custom chocolate bar. This ingredient seems to be especially popular during the holiday season as we’ve been recently flooded with requests by people who were dying to have it in their Chocomize bar.
Ever wondered why restaurants always have mints for people to eat after a meal? Studies have shown that mints help with digesting large meals. A German study recently showed that mints can help alleviate cramps resulting from digestion problems. Studies have also shown that mint helps with memory and context related learning. Restaurants are hoping that the next time you chew a stick of mint gum, or suck on a piece of mint candy, you’ll remember the great (cramp free) meal you had. We were shocked to learn that so much thought went into those little mints we always grabbed when leaving a restaurant, we were always hoping that they would make our breath smell a little better.
We aren’t offering mint for your custom chocolate bar out of some crazy diabolical scheme to get you hooked on our chocolate bars (although that wouldn’t be a bad side effect) we just think it’s a great tasting ingredient. Our hard mint candy is not the first mint ingredient we’ve added to our website. We also have candied mint leaves which have been very popular. Personally, we recommend that you try dark chocolate with mint, blueberries, almonds, and marshmallows. Mint also goes extremely well with white chocolate and oreos.
So if you’re looking for a great tasting ingredient that may or may not (the only thing we guarantee at Chocomize is that it will taste great) help with digestion and cure your bad breath, try the hard mint candy in your next custom chocolate bar.
As always, thanks to everyone who sent in suggestions for ingredients this past week. If you think you know of a great tasting ingredient that you don’t see listed on our website, send us an e-mail at info@chocomize.com. We’ll be sure to add it to our list, and if you’re lucky it might just be the next ingredient of the week!
This week’s ingredient is dried flower mix! This ingredient is a new addition to the list. We already offer other similar decorative toppings like rose and violet petals as well as candied mint leaves. Dried flower mix, however, is an amalgamation of four different types of flowers: mallow petals, sun flower petals, rose petals, and marigold petals.
So we had over 80 different ingredients to choose from for the I.O.T.W (that’s right we went and made ingredient of the week into an acronym) why did we choose dried flower mix? One of things we love besides the great taste of the dried flower mix is the colorful addition the four different flowers give to your custom chocolate bar. As winter approaches and the days get colder and drearier, it’s nice to have something that reminds you of springtime and warmer weather. So if you’re looking for something to cure those winter blues, be sure to add the flower mix to your next custom chocolate bar.
What exactly are some of those flowers in the mix? Most people are familiar with sun flower and rose petals, marigold and mallow petals might be a little more foreign, however. The marigold flower is popular in its decorative use and is commonly used as a decorative device for weddings, religious events, and other festivals. It not only looks fantastic (one of the reasons we like to add it to our custom chocolate bar) but has a combined flavor of mint and citrus, and trust us, that’s a good thing. You probably know the mallow by another name, the hollyhock. This beautiful flower has been a popular addition to lots of gardens, and was even the symbol of the Shoguns in Japan, which makes it a true badass addition to your Chocomize bar.
We want to thank everyone who submitted ingredient ideas to us. Some of the ingredients that we are currently working on bringing to you guys are: poppy seeds, mint, rice crispy cereal, and others. If you think you have an ingredient that should be on our list, or you want to see as our IOTW (we love acronym’s) make sure you send us an e-mail at info@chocomize.com.
Our ingredient of the week is coffee! Right now we offer whole Arabica beans by eight o’clock coffee, one of the most popular coffee producers in the world. Like all our other ingredients, we guarantee that our coffee beans are fresh and of the highest quality.
Chocolate covered coffee beans have been a popular snack for a long time. Now, however, you can enjoy them in your custom chocolate bar as well! We’ve been getting a lot of requests to add coffee to our list of ingredients, and we’re proud to be able to add Arabica beans to our list. Thanks for those who’ve written in and requested them.
Not only do chocolate and coffee taste great together, but they make for a great pick-me-up. A lot of the customers who’ve been requesting coffee for their custom chocolate bars are college students looking for a delicious snack to help them stay alert in their studies. As holiday season approaches, however, it’s not just students who might need something to give them a little boost of energy. If you’re looking for a custom chocolate bar that will give you a boost, we recommend you try dark chocolate with coffee and honey roasted soybeans. Take it from us, this delicious custom chocolate bar tastes great (it’s one of our favorites at Chocomize) and packs a helpful punch to get you through the day.
Right now we only offer one type of coffee bean, Arabica. The Arabica bean is indigenous to
We plan on expanding our coffee ingredients to not only different types of coffee beans, but also to ground coffee as well. As always, we are looking for suggestions of the type of coffee bean you want. Everyone has their favorite type of coffee that gets them going in the morning, and if you want to see your beloved coffee bean listed on our website, be sure to send us a message.
Again thanks for everyone who wrote in this week suggesting ingredients for the ingredient of the week. If you have a favorite ingredient that you want in your custom chocolate bar, be sure to write us. We’ll definitely add it to the list of options, and you might be lucky enough to see your ingredient listed on our blog!
Our ingredient of the week is cayenne pepper. We recently added this ingredient when we got an e-mail from a customer who was looking to put something more spicy on her custom chocolate bars. Again, thanks for the suggestion. Although we thought this was a little unusual at first (not as unusual as bacon) once we taste tested it, we were actually really excited about how great it tastes.
For those of you who don't know,
What are Scoville units? The Scoville scale is a way to measure the spiciness of a certain food. It is named after the American chemist Wilbur Scoville who figured out that capsaicin, a chemical compound, stimulates the nerve endings in a certain manner that causes the eater to feel spiciness. Scoville units are a measure of the amount of capsaicin in a certain food and hence its spiciness. To give you an idea of what the units signify, police grade pepper spray ranks around 5 million on the Scoville scale and Jalapeño peppers rank around 2500 Scoville units.
We definitely recommend you try the cayenne pepper in your next Chocomize chocolate bar. If you have any other ingredients you don't see listed on our website, shoot us an e-mail at info@Chocomize.com and we'll be sure to add them to the list. Who knows, maybe if you're lucky your ingredient could be the next ingredient of the week!
Every week at Chocomize we have something called "The Ingredient of the Week". Once a week we either add a new ingredient or write about an existing ingredient we think is really great. This weeks ingredient is bacon!
Most people would agree that bacon is delicious. Theres nothing quite like waking up in the morning and walking into the kitchen and smelling and hearing bacon being fried. Although we here at Chocomize are big fans of bacon, we never thought of actually adding it to our chocolate. Yet over the past few weeks we have got a lot of e-mails and phone calls from customers dying to have bacon put in their bar. Since this company is about what you, the consumer, wants, we decided to go ahead and add bacon to the list (even though some of us were too scared to even give it a try).
Like all the rest of our ingredients, our bacon is the best quality bacon we could find. A lot of other companies say they use bacon but instead use something called replica bacon which is just some other kind of mystery meat made to taste like bacon. Not us at Chocomize. You wanted real bacon, you got it. So if you're feeling adventurous, go ahead and give it a try!
