Delicious Saturday

Another gloriously beautiful fall Saturday. Blue skies and sunshine. What a great start to the weekend. Love the feeling of waking up to sunny skies. I makes me eager to get the day started so I can go out and just enjoy that beautiful weather. 

I headed for the city and towards Djurgården to the Nordic museum where the Chocolate festival was taking place this weekend. Even if I was quite early you can still see the loooong line of people waiting to get their tickets. It almost felt wrong to head inside when the day was so beautiful but my love for chocolate convinced me to stay in line and wait patiently. Actually the line moved faster than I thought it would. About 15 minutes later I could step into the dark and sweet world of cocoa.

 I felt as if I had just stepped into Willy Wonkas magic land of dark oozing chocolate. The scent of delicious dark sweetness filled the air. I closed my eyes for just a moment and took a deep breath. This was the tenth anniversary of the Chocolate Festival but this was my first time here. The place was packed with people so it seemed to be very popular.

All kinds of chocolate from all over the world were present here. Milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, pure chocolate, truffles of all kinds of shapes and flavor. It was all here. Actually 15 tons of chocolate had been brought in for the festival. 

 Some pieces so pretty that it almost seemed like a shame to eat them. Many interesting and special flavors of truffles that I had never seen or heard of before. Blueberry, cardamom, basil, saffron, and so on. I can hardly even remember a fraction of all the spices and flavors. Some of the more interesting and odd combinations of added flavor were wine and figs or goat cheese.Anyone of those that you find tempting?

 Chocolate imported from all over the world. The finest brands of high quality on display by the different chocolate houses and importers. You also got the whole range from light to dark. The 100% is nothing you expect to be able to eat and enjoy but I was proven wrong this time. I got to taste the 100% shown here. It was not taste sharp and bitter as I expected but instead had a round and filling flavor that I liked a lot. Never less as small piece is still the key. I also tried a different brand and kind that also was 100% and that one had much more of that raw and sharp cocoa flavor that is not very tasty.
I did buy one of these. Some of best chocolate is considered to come from Madagascar in Africa.

Everywhere you could nibble lite pieces to try the various kinds . Just like fine wines there is fine chocolate and it works the same way as you taste your way through this dark and divine world of sweetness. Chocolate and wine is actually a wonderful combination. I prefer the chocolate and wine combination over chocolate and coffee.

 No chocolate festival would be complete without a chocolate fountain. There was both a dark and a white one. These can be rented in all kinds of sizes for various parties.

Demonstrations and chocolate cakes were baked. Kids aged 10 to 14 were competing in the contest of making the best and yummiest chocolate cake. The one with the gooey half molten center that everyone seems to love. Everyone here seemed to find their own little piece of heaven. There were also  cooking showes on how to make truffles.

 

Dark, rich and delicious that is the way I love my chocolate.

Chocolate in all forms from figures made in chocolate to cocoa beans. Here you could read and learn about the history of chocolate. View the cocoa fruit from which the beans are harvested from and get to learn every step in the process of making chocolate. I remember the cocoa fruits that I saw for the first time when we lived in Nicaragua. They could be find growing in peoples yards. You cocoa plants there just as you have fruit trees here.

 You could marvel at the art that can be created by chocolate such as the cute little mushrooms you see behind the tree trunk made of chocolate.

 Besides tasting and viewing you could of course buy every possible kind of chocolate here. I did buy some of those deliciously beautiful flavored truffles as well as one of these colorful stacks with different kinds of chocolate from Africa to South America. After about two hours I left this little divine slice of dark heaven and headed out into the sunshine again.