Dear Editor,

What cocoa percentage is your baking chocolate? 50%, 60% – do you know?

If you, like most home bakers, buy your baking chocolate in the grocery store, you probably don’t know. Until now.

Ghirardelli Chocolate Company announces new formulations to their award-winning line of premium dark baking chocolate—higher cocoa content with cocoa percentages identified on the label—the first and only national available baking brand to provide bakers with cocoa percentages.

Ghirardelli has added a new Extra Bittersweet Chocolate Baking Bar with 70% cocoa and increased the cocoa percentage in its award-winning Bittersweet Chocolate Baking Bar, and in its popular Bittersweet Chocolate Chips, both now 60% cocoa. The new 70% Cocoa Extra Bittersweet Baking Bar and 60% Cocoa Bittersweet Chips have the highest cocoa content of any nationally available baking brand.

As dark chocolate is one of the hottest culinary trends this season, Ghirardelli has created four simple recipes that are the ultimate showcase for deep dark chocolate.

These decadent, easy-to-prepare, all-time classic recipes each feature a different level of chocolate intensity to satisfy the chocolate lover this holiday baking season and beyond.

1. Ghirardelli Ultimate Fondue (Three types of chocolate make this classic the ultimate chocolate fondue)
2. Chocolate Orange Cheesecake (Cheesecake gets rich makeover with chocolate, orange and a shortbread crust)
3. Mocha Pots De Crème (Classic chilled chocolate dessert gets a burst of coffee flavor)
4. Individual Soft Center Cakes (Intense dark chocolate inside and out makes for unforgettable dessert)

Enclosed you will find information on Ghirardelli’s newest products (available this fall) along with product information, recipes and photography. These products might fit into stories you may be working on such as:

• New baking products, trends toward dark chocolate, what cocoa percentages mean and how they affect recipes, what are the differences between semi-sweet, dark, bitter, extra-bittersweet chocolate, how are chocolate companies responding to consumer’s expanding taste palates?

Please contact me at 415-497-7414 should you wish additional information, electronic images or chocolate to try/test.

Thank you for your consideration!

Lisa Henry for Ghirardelli Chocolate Company
lhenry@baxtergroup.biz