First of all, I wanted to say sorry for the lack of posting this last week.  I went on a trip to Chicago to attend a class with Bronwen Weber, who many of you have probably seen multiple times on the Food Network’s Challenges where she frequently carves, decorates, and designs cakes that are breath-taking.  The class was held at the French Pastry School and the class was on Specialty Sculpted Cakes.  The class was absolutely amazing and I will be posting up many photos of the class during the next couple days.  Right now though, I wanted to tell you about all the fantastic places I got eat at while I was in Chicago.  The first place that my husband and I spotted was Coco Rouge.  Coco Rouge is owned by a husband and wife team who are pastry chefs with a passion for chocolate.  Their uber-hot chocolate lounge is amazing both in its look and taste.  We tried two chocolates there…the first was a Coco-Epice truffle which had roasted pecans, bittersweet ganache, Jamaican allspice, and cardamon.  (This one was my favorite!)  The second truffle was called Leatherwood and it was filled with leatherwood honey, caramelized bittersweet ganache, sea salt, and bee pollen.  Delicious also!  Their truffles are so complex and have multiple flavors throughout them…each second produces a new flavor for your taste buds, how fun is that!  On our way out I couldn’t pass up buying a bag of their truffles that were made with rare bittersweet chocolate and passionfruit ganache (one of the true wonders of the world) which was then rolled in mexican chile powder.  This truffle had a taste that was out of this world too!  Well, here are some of the pictures from the shop and if you are in Chicago I would definitely spot by!

Tags: Chicago, Coco Rouge, French Pastry School, truffles