When current Coastsider Christine Pieper Doerr was a teenager, she worked at Cocolat with the acclaimed Alice Medrich. Thus began her love of chocolate and paved the way to her opening up her own company many years later, Neo Cocoa. The Neo Cocoa tag line is “The Heart of the Truffle” because their truffles do not have the hard chocolate coating on the outside, it is simply the ganache center in all it’s glory. And oh, what a glory it is! I first tasted Christine’s truffles a few years ago at the San Francisco Chocolate Salon where I had the pleasure of serving as a judge. (That was the ONE day the rest of my family asked if they could come to work with me!) I was very impressed with her work and voted accordingly. I was not the only one because she won Best Truffle that year, and has won several awards since. Soon after that I brought her on as a vendor at Toque Blanche where her confections were a customer favorite. (The staff as well!)

I recently visited her at her kitchen in Belmont (which she shares with some other small artisans, including another Coastside Company, Slow Brine , which was just nominated for a Good Food Award for their krauts, available at the Coastside Farmers Market .) The space used to be a tech company and what is now the kitchen was originally the “Clean Room” for working with microchips.  As such, it has an eerie look from the outside.

Inside is a bit brighter, and made so not only from the lights, but from the supreme work that Christine and her co-worker Amanda do. The skill that goes into balancing flavors in chocolate is not an easy one, and Neo Cocoa gets it right. They also make some amazing brittles, including the Good Food Award winning Black Sesame Seed Brittle which we had trouble keeping in stock at the store. It’s like peanut brittle and halvah had a baby, and it was delicious.

I was recently invited to test some ice cream flavors that Neo Cocoa is collaborating on with Portland based ice cream maker Salt & Straw. Christine, Amanda and I got into a discussion about flavors, because we all have our personal likes, but sometimes in this type of job one has to taste things on may not like more objectively. For example, I can’t stand licorice or anise flavor and one of the ice creams had it in there. It actually balanced so well with the Sarsaparilla Brittle  that I ate more than one bite. I’m also into whisky, and one flavor had Scotch in it so I was very excited to try that. Turns out the smokey Scotch detracted from the rest of the flavors. (I have made whisky ice cream before and know it can work very well.)

We made some notes and sent them back to Salt & Straw. I’m not sure which ones will be released, but I will try and keep you posted! In the meantime, Neo Cocoa Truffles are now available at New Leaf.

Have Fun Cooking (and Eating)!

Stuart