As a longtime working pastry chef, I’m no stranger to thinking at the leading edge of fads and trends emerging both within the industry, and among guests and customers as well. Now that my headspace...
The Chocolate Lab’s origin story dates back nearly nine years when ICE began to outgrow its New York campus on West 23rd Street. The initial seed of an idea — perhaps carving out a small corner of a...
Long before I developed a passion for working with chocolate, I began fostering a love for coffee. I don’t exactly recall the occasion of my first pre-teen taste of coffee, but it subconsciously...
Every once in a while, a technique or a preparation will inspire me to reflect on some of the philosophical aspects of cooking. If I were to reduce the act of cooking down to the simplest of concepts...
In its earliest modern form, in the days of the 19th-century Industrial Revolution, chocolate would have been sold unsweetened in rough blocks and cakes, to be ground or broken up by the end-user for...
I have been tracking some of these developments and the varied responses since the outset of the pandemic, and this week I reached out to several colleagues to assess their individual perspectives on...
I certainly sought out quality, flavor and functionality in the chocolate I chose to work with, but beyond that, I would have to admit I gave little further thought to where it came from, how it was...
Kate McAleer (Pastry/Management, '11) is the founder of Bixby & Co., a craft confectionery in Rockland, Maine. Her company produces organic chocolates, single-origin bean-to-bar chocolates, drinking...
The use of cacao at the time was still limited to drinks, but within one hundred years it would evolve into the sweet confection we know today. The ICE Chocolate Lab strives to explore not just the...
I love the way in which the depth of balsamic vinegar marries with the bitter complexity of caramel and dark chocolate. The tartness of balsamic combined with the raisin-y sweetness of the aged...
These observations may be old hat to professional chocolate makers, but they are rarely — if ever — considered by chefs and consumers. Raw Beans Straight out of the bag, fermented and dried beans...
