The Perfect Chocolate Treats for National Chocolate Day

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One of our dreams is entering a chocolate world of pure imagination à la Willy Wonka — nibbling on chocolate while floating down a chocolate lake. While we won’t be touring Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory on National Chocolate Day, we do have the golden ticket to making yours — and our — chocolate dreams come true.

Whether it’s chocolate bars, creamy hot chocolate, or sweet chocolate covered strawberries, we love every kind of chocolate. Here’s everything you need to know to celebrate chocolate.

When is National Chocolate Day?

Mexico might be the birthplace of chocolate, but it was America that created a holiday to celebrate all things related to the roasted cocoa bean. National Chocolate Day is October 28. Trade organization National Confectioners Association created the food holiday to promote the chocolate industry. 

Mark your calendar. Additional chocolate holidays include:

  • January 31: National Hot Chocolate Day
  • June 7: National Chocolate Ice Cream Day
  • July 7: World Chocolate Day
  • September 13: International Chocolate Day
  • December 28: National Chocolate Candy Day

How to Observe National Chocolate Day

There are many ways to celebrate National Chocolate Day. The most obvious way to celebrate is by eating chocolate. Chocolate is used to create many of the world’s most popular food and beverages, such as:

You could also use National Chocolate Day as motivation to visit a local chocolatier, play games like Candy Crush Saga and Candy Land, or try making your own chocolate. 

Use this sweet day as an opportunity to try something new, whether that’s nibbling on a piece of ruby chocolate, incorporating chocolate into savory dish like a rich mole sauce, or trying a new treat with chocolate like Brigadeiros (bri-ga-DAY-ro), Brazilian fudge candy. 

The Chocolate Covered Co.

Steve Asbaty started The Chocolate Covered Co. in 2009 in Totowa, New Jersey. Soon, he was covering pretty much everything with chocolate. 

Whatever you crave, chances are The Chocolate Covered Co. has it covered, smothered, or drizzled in rich Belgian chocolate. The team dunks everything from fresh fruits like strawberries and bananas to crunchy nuts and pretzels to classic sandwich cookies in milk, dark, and white chocolate.

The Chocolate Covered Co.

Guelaguetza Mole Sauce + Mexican Hot Chocolate Kit

Chocolate isn’t just for dessert or for when sugar cravings strike. Founded by husband and wife Fernando Lopez and Maria Monterrubio in 1994, Oaxacan Mexican restaurant Guelaguetza has all your chocolate needs covered.

Guelaguetza’s Mooe Sauce + Mexican Hot Chocolate Kit includes 1 jar of this award-winning Los Angeles restaurant’s signature mole negro made with Mulato Chile, Mexican Pasilla Chile, Black Chilhuacle Chile, plantains, garlic, onion, spices and seasonings like clove, thyme, cinnamon, cumin, oregano, and black pepper. plus nuts like peanuts, almonds and walnuts. This chocolate kit also includes Oaxacan chocolate and an artisan molinillo (traditional wooden whisk) to make authentic Mexican hot chocolate.

Guelaguetza

Knipschildt Chocolatier The World’s Fanciest Chocolate Truffle: La Madeline au Truffe

If you’re going to indulge for National Chocolate Day, why not go all out with the world’s most expensive chocolate? Denmark-born chocolatier Fritz Knipschildt has been using European craftsmanship to handmade his artisanal chocolate creations in Norwalk, Connecticut, since 1999.

Knipschildt Chocolatier’s La Madeline au Truffe is a rare French Perigord truffle enrobed in ganache and rolled in cocoa powder. The ganache is made of 70% Valrhona dark chocolate, heavy cream, sugar, truffle oil, and vanilla. This special 4-in. chocolate truffle arrives on a bed of sugar pearls in a gold box.

This article originally appeared on Goldbelly.com and was syndicated by MediaFeed.org.

Knipschildt Chocolatier

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10 Coconut Cakes You’ll Go Co Co For

10 Coconut Cakes You’ll Go Co Co For

Whether it’s sipping coconut water after a tough workout, imbibing in a frosty Piña Colada served in a coconut at the beach, or adding flaky coconut to our favorite desserts, we are loco for coconuts! One of our favorite coconut treats is coconut cake, white or yellow cake topped with frosting and heaps of shaved coconut.

Coconut cakes were first made by African slaves in the Southern U.S. In the 19th century, coconuts were expensive, and it was labor intensive to crack open and extract the meat of the coconut to make this delicious Southern cake. Coconut cake continues to be a beloved cake flavor not only in the U.S. but around the world too.

Variations of coconut cake include the Australian Lamington, a square butter or sponge cake coated in chocolate and coconut shavings, Filipino Buko Pandan Cake. a chiffon or sponge cake topped with cream and coconut strips, and German Chocolate Cake, a chocolate layer cake frosted with coconut-pecan frosting.

iuliia_n/Istockphoto

Actor Tom Cruise gets his one-layer coconut cake from Doan’s Bakery in Woodland Hills, California. He famously gifts these white chocolate coconut Bundt cakes to his celebrity friends, who have nicknamed the cake the ‘Tom Cruise Cake.” Soon after Cruise started gifting this cake, it became a trending food and a viral sensation.

The family-run bakery was founded by Karen Doan in 1983. Her famous White Chocolate Coconut Bundt Cake is a coconut cake packed with chunks of white chocolate. The dreamy cake is frosted with white cream cheese frosting and generously showered in toasted coconut flakes.

Doan’s Bakery

Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa Ina’s Coconut Cake

Food Network celeb chef Ina Garten makes one of the most memorable coconut cakes. She bakes her iconic Ina’s Coconut Cake at her East Hampton, New York, specialty shop, Barefoot Contessa.

Whether you order a 6-in. or 8-in cake, each coconut cake is made with almond extract, butter, coconut, eggs, flour, sugar, and vanilla. Each of the 4 layers of coconut cake is layered with cream cheese frosting and shredded coconut.

Ina Garten’s Barefoot Contessa

Hollywood A-listers like Tom Cruise are obsessed with Doan’s Bakery in Woodland Hills, California. Founded in 1984, the family-run bakery makes its famous, moist, and sweet White Chocolate Coconut Bundt Cake

Each 10-in. Bundt cake is handmade with butter, cream cheese, coconut, eggs, flour, sour cream, sugar, vanilla, and white chocolate chunks. Then, it’s generously iced with cream cheese frosting and dusted with toasted coconut flakes.

Doan’s Bakery

Sugaree’s is a superlative taste of the South. The New Albany, Mississippi, bakery has been making its cakes the old-fashioned way since opening in 1997.

Sugaree’s Coconut Cake is 3 layers of buttery cake. The 9-in. cake is topped with melted butter glaze, icing, and coconut.

Sugaree’s Coconut Cake

While this Spartanburg, South Carolina, bakery may be known as the “Home of the World’s Best Caramel Cake,” Caroline’s Cakes also makes a legendary coconut cake. Caroline Cakes’ Gluten-Free Coconut Cloud Cake is a 9 in. cake that is packed with fresh coconut.

This unique coconut cake is 4 layers of gluten-free yellow cake that are generously slathered in coconut icing. One bite of Caroline’s Cakes’ Gluten-Free Coconut Cloud Cake and you’ll be on cloud nine!

Caroline’s Cakes

This coconut cake takes the cake. The cakes from this Fort Lauderdale, Florida, bakery have been named Oprah’s favorites and we readily agree. Each is made from scratch and by hand.

We Take the Cake’s Coconut 4-Layer Cake features layers of coconut cake made with cream cheese and coconut flakes. Each layer is filled with luscious coconut cream. This 6-in. cake is slathered in vanilla cream cheese frosting and plenty of coconut.

We Take the Cake

At first glance, Carousel Cakes’ Coconut Snowball Cake looks like a giant snowball, but this is one epic edible snowball! Founded by Martin Lefkowitz, Carousel Cakes in Nanuet, New York, bakes a kosher-certified coconut cake you won’t want to miss.

Carousel Cakes’ Coconut Snowball Cake is a moist vanilla cake adorned with toasted coconut. Each 7-in. cake has three layers of delicate cake and is an explosion of coconut. 

Carousel Cakes

Not only does Miami’s Misha’s Cupcakes make out-of-this-world cupcakes, founder Misha Kuryla also makes a delicious Toasted Coconut Cake too.  

Each rich and dreamy 6-in. Toasted Coconut Cake is made with coconut extract, organic coconut shavings, eggs, flour, sugar, vanilla, and whipping cream. Both layers of cake are frosted with vanilla buttercream that is stuffed and topped with toasted coconut.

Misha’s Cupcakes

Kim Nelson uses family recipes and farm-fresh ingredients to make her sweet Southern cakes in Pauline, South Carolina. Her tropical-inspired coconut cake is infused with coconut.

Daisy’s Coconut Cake is 4 layers of dense and moist cake frosted in buttercream icing that is made with fresh coconut milk. The 8.5-in. cake is sprinkled with fresh, sweetened coconut flakes and is a true taste of the South.

Daisy Cakes

Founded by award-winning pastry chef Joanne Chang, Boston’s Flour Bakery + Cake makes all sorts of baked goods, from sticky buns to cookies to pies. It’s no surprise that the popular bakery makes an incredible Coconut Cake.

Each quadruple layered 8-in. coconut cake is frosted with coconut buttercream and kissed with mounds of shredded coconut. We bet you can’t eat just one slice.

Flour Bakery

When Peninsula Grill debuted their 12-layer Ultimate Coconut Cake™ in 1997, little did they know it would be an immediate hit. Served at Charleston, South Carolina’s 1844 Planters Inn, the city’s only Relais & Châteaux restaurant, this cake is pure perfection.

Each 12 lb. cake is a towering treasure of 6 layers of coconut cake made with butter, coconut flakes, coconut oil, eggs, flour, sugar, and vanilla extract and 6 layers of buttery frosting. Each cake arrives with a packet of shredded coconut topping to make the most memorable treat ever.

This article originally appeared on Goldbelly.com and was syndicated by MediaFeed.org.

Peninsula Grill

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Featured Image Credit: Whipped Urban Dessert Lab.

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