Kerstin’s Chocolate Blog

We still have a few spots left at the $5 chocolate tasting (paired with a glass of Riesling) this Wednesday evening, Sept 8th. Reserve your spot by clicking here.

We will be having a special sale for newsletter subscribers on Aug 20th and 21st. If you are not yet a subscriber, please join our mailing list by clicking here.

We will be closing down Kerstin’s Chocolates for a week this month, from August 24th to the 28th. Thanks for understanding!

Big news: We will have a booth at the 104th St. Block party tomorrow. At the booth, we will be testing out our new summer creation: Frozen Dark Drinking chocolate. We will also have truffles and bars! The weather is going to be great, and the movie of the night will be “Chocolat”, so if [...]

Making the Chocolate Covered Bacon

Father’s Day falls on June 20th this year, and to celebrate Dad’s this year we are bringing back our very popular Chocolate Covered Bacon again. Once again we are using locally made Bacon, this year from the Sandy Lane team on the West End. The chocolate we use is the same [...]

Claudio Corallo is a genius, and this video proves it! A British TV crew travel to Sao Tome and document how Claudio and his family grow and process the beans. I found this video fascinating, and I hope you do too.

I’ve been doing some tests with meringues to create an ice cream sandwich for the summer.   I want to make something light and that’s why I chose a meringue based cookie as opposed to a chocolate chip cookie or an oatmeal cookie.  In the first test I used pure melted chocolate which I folded [...]

As many of you know, we have been carrying Madecasse chocolate from Madagascar for a while. It is fantastic in many ways. Watch below to learn about where the chocolate is made, and get a peek inside the factory!

We will have a table at this very cool event called “The Over the Top Fashion Swap” taking place on May 29th at the Winspear. We think the concept is great, and the event will be great too. Tickets are $18. Find out more by clicking above!

Our local Edmonton daily free paper, Metro News, had an article in it today about Kerstin’s Chocolates. Writer Christopher Thrall said some very nice things! To quote: “It is amazing what a difference it makes to buy Kerstin’s over Cadbury.” and “The care and hand-picked ingredients add so much weight and power that gluttony seems [...]

Have you heard of a local project called Eat Local First? It is a very cool idea, and we are supporting it this year by putting some of our products in their distribution center. This means that you can get local chocolate delivered along with local fruits and vegetables! A few of our products now [...]

(For the previous installments about Kerstin’s trip, and lots more photos, please see Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of the series.)
Now that my stash is nearly all gone and I have had time to reflect and compare all the different chocolate from each chocolatier, it’s time to share my overall impressions(since I can’t [...]

Our chocolate making classes were recently covered in the Edmonton Sun. To see what they said, read the article.

And now some heavy hitters:
1.  Maison du Chocolat:    I loved the experience of visiting this shop.   The salesclerk was really sweet and each time we bought a chocolate she gave us the same one to sample on the spot.  For the six we bought, we got four for free.  You could tell that she was [...]

Our adventure in Paris continues! Here were today’s stops:
Angelinas;  On Sunday Angie and I decided to visit Angelina’s on Rue Rivoli.  The guidebooks say they have the best hot chocolate in Paris.  The locals and tourists seemed to agree because we waited 45 min. to get in. Angelinas is located in an incredibly gorgeous buildings [...]

We arrived in Paris, and went to three of top chocolate shop choices right away.
First stop:  Jean Charles Rochoux.   A nice shopkeeper let us sample the Paves, which are cubes of chocolate ganache.  Yummy and soft and they reminded me of chocolate in Japan.  I think that they were meant for Japanese tourists because a [...]

Will leave for Paris on Wednesday.  I’m preparing by watching the Olympics.  I will post again from Paris and our first stop, “La Maison du Chocolat”!

This Saturday, Feb 6th, 2010 will be exactly 2 years from the date of our grand opening in 2008. We have enjoyed meeting many of you and learning about chocolate together. We appreciate all of your support and in your honor we will have a party on the evening of Saturday, Feb 6th from [...]

What should you give the chocolate lover in your life for Valentine’s Day? How about a selection of our sensual line of Valentine’s Chocolates? This beautiful box contains 25 chocolates, 5 each of the following flavors:

Passionate Passionfruit
Sweet Roses
Popping Champagne
Venus de Milo
Sultry Chili Caramel

This box will be available from Feb 4th onwards at Kerstin’s Chocolates and [...]

Our new shop hours are posted here. If you have any thoughts about the hours, please comment below!

Congratulations to Erin D. of Edmonton for winning the 2009 Name That Origin contest. She won the $400 chocolate shopping spree! Thanks to all the competitors and to our two celebrity observers, Jennifer C-K and Scott McKeen.
It was an intense and enjoyable experience for all. A very good report on our event was written by [...]

Kerstin spoke to Isabelle Gallant on CBC’s RadioActive today. Here is the audio from the interview. Kerstin explained how the “Name That Origin” contest is helping people learn about fine chocolate.

Tuesday Dec 22nd will be our annual Christmas Open House at Kerstin’s Chocolates. Come down to the shop between 3pm and 7pm and enjoy a warming cup of hot drinking chocolate with or without extra “cheer”. There might also be some samples of some of our upcoming products to taste. Then at 7pm, stay on [...]

Here are our special hours for the end of 2009:
-Regular hours until Saturday, Dec 19th.
-Monday, Dec 21st: Specially open from 11am to 5pm
-Tues, Dec 22nd: Open 11am to 7pm (plus, Chocolate Tasting Finals at 7pm)
-Wed, Dec 23rd: Regular hours, 11am to 5pm.
-Thurs, Dec 24th: Short hours: 11am to 3pm.
-Friday, Dec 25th: Closed
-Saturday, Dec 26th: Regular [...]

Update (Dec 22nd, 2009): The finals are tonight at 7pm! If you are competing, you will have been notified by e-mail. Everyone is welcome to attend!
Update (Dec 17th, 2009): We have 12 winners of the first round so far, so make sure to enter before the 22nd!
After the big response to our city-wide Easter Egg [...]