H.S. Chocolates From Hot Bread Kitchen's Incubates | Harlem, New York
H.S. Chocolate Co. takes a no holds barred approach to chocolate
We can declare with impunity that there's at least one tasty thing that's emerged from this troubled economic climate: H.S. Chocolate Co.
Cross an old-fashioned Minnesota childhood spent at Grandma's café with some New York hardscrabble luck and you get a Fluffernutter ($3.50) of epic proportions: a puck of peanut butter, homemade marshmallow cream and roasted peanuts wrapped in milk chocolate.
Based at Hot Bread Kitchen's Incubates program in Harlem, self-taught chocolatier MaryAnne Hoekstra-Shekar (hence the H.S.) is the one-woman show behind these whimsical confections.
A potent memory of raspberry-hazelnut cheesecake kickstarted the development of the Raspberry Ragtime ($6)–a fat dark-chocolate rectangle consisting of stretchy hazelnut nougat and a raspberry ganache.
The Troop 652 bar ($5.50) harks to time spent selling Girl Scout cookies door-to-door in her younger days. With smooth sea-salt-caramel on a toasted-coconut mixture, it's a Samoa cookie reincarnated.
Though Hoekstra-Shekar's nonprofit career path didn't pan out, we'd say she's found her true calling.
Find H.S. Chocolates at Chelsea Market Baskets, Haven's Kitchen, Greene Grape Provisions, Blue Apron Foods and online