First-time City Bakery hot chocolate customer captures the moment.

WELCOME TO MARCH

 30 degrees right now. Feels like, March!

TURN OF THE SEASON

              The weather forecast tomorrow calls for temperature above 60. This feels like a no-turning-back moment:
              warm weather is seriously on the way, and the wimpy cold of the last three months will soon be gone.
              We will, of course, still be making hot chocolate, but 60 degrees in early March will be the moment
              when the hot chocolate starts to flow less, much less. Thoughts turn now to the first fruit that will be
              at Greenmarket once the warm weather arrives to stay: blueberries, then strawberries, then the
              parade of stone fruits that follow. It's strange to be in early March, but feel like all of that is just
              around the corner.
             
     

LEAP YEAR HOT CHOCOLATE

And here we are.

Last day of February. 

Last day of the Hot Chocolate Festival [last day of 20 years of the Hot Chocolate Festival!]. 

First day ever for "Leap Year Hot Chocolate."

Exciting.

Yes, it's been a strange month for weather. At least 100 people have asked me: "Isn't it too warm for hot chocolate?" [I've liked best when they lean in and whisper, treating the question with all potential sensitivity it deserves]. Still, we've made great volumes of hot chocolate this month, and we've sold every drop. The numbers aren't final yet, but in spite of warm and warmer temperatures, we will have sold close to 20,000 cups and mugs of hot chocolate these last few weeks, and a little more than half that number of homemade marshmallows.   

There will be two flavors today, at least. We begin with Hot Chocolate on a Peanut Butter Barge with Gold Leaf. 

The Peanut Butter Barge was a first time flavor this year, way back in the second week of the February. It was a hit, more so than expected, so the encore today is for those who were pleased and buzzing about that concoction. The addition of the gold leaf today, to be perfectly honest, is gratuitous and a little gimmicky, but since it's leap year, it feels like the right flourish.    

The second flavor is Black Strap Rum reduced with Cinnamon. This is a first-ever flavor and will not disappoint.We'll begin serving the Black Strap at 2:00pm, and there will be hot chocolate blogging updates all day today. 

GINGER HOT CHOCOLATE

Today is next to last day of the festival. Ginger Hot Chocolate, today's special, already going quickly. 

BEER HOT CHOCOLATE [DUBLIN VERSION]

The pouring has begun! Beer Hot Chocolate [Dublin Version] which means Guinness Stout
blended with dark chocolate. Likely not a drink served in the Dublin above of 1714.
Thanks to Dublin City Public Libraries for this archival beauty of a view.

QUESTION OF THE DAY

Before today performed an incredible imitation of Springtime, the question we were set to ask was:
"What Would Faulkner Drink?" [today's special hot chocolate flavor].

But at midday, with the temperature leaning towards 60, the better question today is:
"Do People Drink Hot Chocolate in Springtime?" [answer: at City Bakery they do].
The sun is pouring into the bakery right now, and it's as nice as it is strange, for deep February.

EARL GREY TEA HOT CHOCOLATE: ACCOMPANIMENT

I've never made a hot chocolate as light as today's Earl Grey Tea Hot Chocolate. It's built on a delicate frame, which wasn't the plan in the morning, but I'm happy with how it turned out. I think of it as melodic, and melodic leads me [somehow] to the harp. This Earl Grey Tea Hot Chocolate is the perfect hot chocolate to drink listening to the harp.   

So here you go. Sip in cadence:   

CHILI PEPPER HOT CHOCOLATE

Making Chili Pepper Hot Chocolate this morning,
 the infusion of chilies put me in the mind of Miro
 [below, "Nocturne" 1940]. 

SUNKEN TREASURE HOT CHOCOLATE

Piracy on the high seas: An international scourge.
City Bakery staffers dressed as pirates to serve Sunken Treasure Hot Chocolate: Priceless. 

THE BARGE IDEA

The thought was, if retired NYC subway cars could be tossed into the Atlantic to be barges,
why not a barge from a peanut butter cookie submerged under City Bakery hot chocolate?  

HOT CHOCOLATE ON A PEANUT BUTTER BARGE

 The peanut butter barge, in cup, awaiting it's hot chocolate fate. 

A BUSY WEEK OF HOT CHOCOLATE

FROM HONDURAS TO BROOKLYN

Yesterday, Honduran Hot Chocolate with single-origin chocolate from Cortes, Honduras.  Today, Beer Hot Chocolate made with Chocolate Stout from Brooklyn Brewery. A little closer to home.

Our Beer Hot Chocolate used to be one of those flavors to raise eyebrows and beget funny faces, but that feels like ages ago now.

Beer and chocolate make perfect partners, and this year, I'm doing the flavor twice: today's Brooklyn version and then a Dublin version on the 24th. This hot chocolate is creamy and rich and not shy. Both the chocolate and beer transform into something other than where they began, which is what I've always liked best about making this flavor.

HONDURAN HOT CHOCOLATE: LATER THE SAME DAY

The store closed about 90 minutes ago. It was a busy Thursday, even with rain and the temperature higher than a hot chocolate maker wants the temperature to be.

Honduran Hot Chocolate went over well. More people told me today how much they liked the Honduran than any other flavor so far this month.

I made three batches, the first at 7:05 am.

Making that first batch, I was struck by a completely unique feeling: it felt like I was responsible for someone else's child.

The 'child' in this case, was Shawn Askinosie's chocolate. I met Shawn only last year, but he's a unique person, and this was the first time I had ever worked with his chocolate. I can't begin to imagine how many tons of chocolate I've chopped and melted and turned into cookies, custards, tarts and hot chocolate through the years, but still.....I don't think I've ever felt the feeling I felt this morning when I took the chocolate out of his package and was getting set to make that first batch.

Since the day City Bakery opened, our menus have revolved around what's available at the Union Square Greenmarket. I'm lucky to have known two generations of farmers fairly well at this point, and I've had the benefit of working with so much incredible produce and fruit they deliver to the city. The experience of knowing who grew the raw materials in our kitchen, two decades after starting the practice, remains a special way to make food and pastry.

Still, this morning was a different feeling. It had a weight about it, and the word responsibility was clear in my mind. Working with this chocolate, created from a wholly unique path, was like working with no other chocolate. It was a privilege, and special pleasure.

HONDURAN HOT CHOCOLATE: PART I

A special case for the special flavor hot chocolate today. To begin with, this is the first time in 20 years of the Hot Chocolate Festival I've used single-origin chocolate. This means the cocoa beans came from a single farm and farmer, which in the big, bad global chocolate world, is extremely rare.

We know the backstory of the chocolate, because of the special person who procured the beans in the first place, brought them stateside and created the finished chocolate. That person is Shawn Askinosie, and his company, Askinosie Chocolate is one of the more remarkable companies in the food industry and fair to say, any industry. The Askinosie story is worth reading about in Shawn's own words.

We're serving the Honduran Hot Chocolate right now, and I'm comfortable to say it's quietly spectacular. The flavor - sweet and rich and a little brutish - is one thing, but the color is extra treat - a gorgeous deep/chocolate/red-umber. I've never had a hot chocolate that tastes like this, and never one to look like this.

I'll write later this afternoon about working with Shawn's chocolate for the first time ever to make this drink, but in the meantime, if you're reading this right now in New York City and have a chance to divert to City Bakery today, you should. This Honduran Hot Chocolate is worth a special trip.

MOULIN ROUGE HOT CHOCOLATE