The Chocolate Brand Julia Child Claims Is the Best in America

Julia Child, a renowned chef and author, was one of the first women to host a television cooking show. She wasn’t afraid to endorse the foods she loved. She had a favorite fast food chain, spoke highly of many other restaurants and bars in the United States, and always had Goldfish crackers as an appetizer at Thanksgiving. Chocolatier Scharffen Berger also claims that the chef called her product “the best American chocolate she had ever tasted.”

Child gave her feedback to founders Dr. Robert Steinberg and John Scharffenberger at an annual Food & Wine Classic event in Aspen, Colorado, in the late 1990s. And she wasn’t the only one who loved Scharffen Berger in those early days. French chef and author Jacques Pépin said he was reminded of his childhood tasting the intensely flavored chocolate bars, which are made from eight varieties of cacao beans and hand-wrapped.

Scharffen Berger is one of many chocolate brands endorsed by chefs for their high-quality ingredients. The company is known for its “farm-to-bar” manufacturing process, which involves traveling the world and tasting more than 150 types of cacao each year to create its signature blend. The beans are chosen for their distinct flavor profiles, which include earthy, fruity, spicy, floral, woody, and, of course, chocolatey notes. Then, all of the chocolate—from bars and cocoa powder to chunks and baking portions—is made in small batches in Ashland, Oregon.

Read more: 11 Discontinued Chocolates We Miss Most

The story of Scharffen Berger

Scharffen Berger Chocolate Bars – David Mcnew/Getty Images

Scharffen Berger, the first American-made artisanal chocolate company, was founded in 1996 in San Francisco, California, with the goal of making the richest, most flavorful chocolate by gently processing the finest cacao in small batches. At the time, Robert Steinberg was a family physician who had been battling lymphoma since 1989. He began following his passion for chocolate making in 1994. John Scharffenberger was an entrepreneurial winemaker with a discerning palate, so the duo’s skills complemented each other perfectly.

In addition to making the first bean-to-bar chocolate in the United States, Scharffen Berger was the first manufacturer to use percentages on its labels, indicating the amount of cocoa contained in each product, which is now the standard for all chocolate bars. The company has been at the forefront of the modern movement in artisanal chocolate production, balancing the complexities of the cocoa bean with natural ingredients rather than masking them with additives, while maintaining consistent quality.

In 2005, Scharffen Berger was acquired by the Hershey Company to expand its line of artisanal chocolate, but the brand was reverted to private ownership in 2020. It is run by skilled experts who know the ins and outs of the business and are committed to making high-quality, delicious chocolate.

Ways to Use Scharffen Berger Chocolate at Home

broken chocolate bars

Broken chocolate bars – Johnathan Ball/Shutterstock

If you want to understand why Julia Child loved Scharffen Berger so much, you’ll be happy to know that the company makes a variety of products to meet the chocolate requirements of any recipe. None of its products are particularly bitter, not even the 100% unsweetened dark chocolate cocoa powder, and Scharffen Berger deliberately makes chocolate chunks for baking because they combine better than chocolate chips in brownies and cookies, so there’s more chocolate in each bite.

You can easily incorporate Scharffen Berger Cocoa Powder into a two-layer chocolate cake recipe or decadent chocolate truffles. You can also use your favorite chocolate chunks, available in 43% to 70% cacao, in your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe or two-ingredient fudge cookies. You can even melt chunks to make a no-bake, two-ingredient chocolate pudding.

Beyond baking, Scharffen Berger chocolate delights the palate on its own, but also when paired with cheese and wine. The company’s Chocolate Provisions, for example, are perfect for enhancing your next cheese charcuterie board, and they’re available in milk chocolate, dark chocolate with sea salt, and extra dark chocolate. As for wine, Julia Child enjoyed both Chalone Vineyard Chardonnay and Scharffen Berger’s 41% Extra Rich Milk Chocolate, perhaps together. Think of all the fun you’ll have discovering how different cocoa levels pair with different cheeses and wines.

Read the original article on The Daily Meal.

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