While Halloween chocolate is creeping into stores—chocolate ghosts, pumpkins, candy corn and other holiday specialties—you have a few weeks to enjoy some “autumn chocolate” until Halloween week.

Until then, how about some “autumn chocolates” that are in chocolate shops until the Christmas flavors come in? Today, we feature two of our favorite chocolatiers, with very different products.

RECCHIUTI CONFECTIONS: AUTUMN DRAGÉE SAMPLER

San Francisco-based chocolatier Michael Recchiuti is known for his fine chocolates, made with a custom blend of Valrhona chocolate. His popular Dragée Sampler, available year-round, includes Burnt Caramel Almonds, Burnt Caramel Hazelnuts, Peanut Butter Pearls and Cherries Two Ways.

From now through the end of November you can enjoy the flavors of the limited-edition Autumn Dragée Sampler: Burnt Caramel Almonds, Candied Ginger enrobed in 64% cacao dark chocolate and Tart Cranberries enrobed in 70% cacao chocolate.

A lovely treat or gift: a 12-ounce black gift box (sturdy and reusable) tied with an orange satin ribbon is $29.00. Get yours at Recchiuti.com.

WHAT ARE DRAGÉES?

Dragées (drah-ZHAY) are a French word for almonds encased in a hard-shell coating. The almonds can also have a chocolate coating underneath the sugar. They are a popular wedding favor, representing good luck. Hazelnuts, which can be made in the same manner, are a more modern variation.

“Dragée” is also used to describe tiny, round balls of sugar, often coated with edible silver or gold, and used to decorate baked goods; and to refer to sweet, medicated lozenges. The commonality is the sugar coating. In French, dragée also refers to nonpareils; dragée à la gelée de sucre is a jelly bean. And finally, dragée is French slang for bullets (small shot).
 
Panned Products

Dragées are part of a confection category known as panned products. Panning is one of the basic methods of coating chocolate onto a center (mostly hard centers such as nuts and crystallized ginger; the other methods are enrobing and molding or shell molding).

In panning, chocolate is sprayed onto the centers as they rotate in revolving pans; cool air is then blown into the pan to harden the chocolates. On a small scale (and before the industrial revolution), nuts are coated on a pan on the stove top; they can be rolled in cocoa powder or other coating before they harden.

Discover more about chocolate in our Chocolate Glossary.

On the other side of the country in Vermont, Lake Champlain Chocolates is our go-to source for delicious American-style chocolates. We love thechocolate-dipped dried apricots and orange peel, buttercrunch, nut clusters and many other treats. The couverture chocolate is Callebaut from Belgium, and line is certified kosher by Star-K.

For fall, there are:

Find them at LakeChamplainChocolates.com.
  

How hot do you like it?

Chile heads—people who can’t get enough heat in their foods—are always looking for hotter and hotter varieties, so breeders keep creating hotter breeds.

What’s the world’s hottest chile? Whatever it is today, it can change tomorrow.

In 2007, the Bhut Jolokia also known as the ghost pepper, was rated the hottest. In 2013, the Guinness Book Of World Records rated the Carolina Reaper the world’s hottest pepper, moving the Bhut Jolokia to third place.

The Carolina Reaper scored 1,569,300 on the Scoville Scale, which measures the heat level. A habanero, by contrast, measures up to 350,000 Scoville units.

Buy them for yourself or as a gift for your favorite chile head at Melissas.com.

They’ll stay fresh in the vegetable crisper for about 2 weeks.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: Handle all hot chiles with gloved hands and discard the gloves without getting any capsaicin on your hands. Because accidentally touching your eyes with the minutest amount of capsaicin will be an experience you’ll never forget.

CHECK OUT THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF CHILES.

  

We love apple chips, a better-for-you sweet snack. We’re big fans of the Bare Fruit brand, which we buy online in both single serve and family size bags. The apples they use are so sweet that there’s no added sugar.

When we’re out of Bare Fruit apple chips, we make our own with this easy recipe from Zulka Morena sugar. If you’re cutting back on sugar calories, you can make half with sugar, half without, and combine them; Splenda fans can try the noncaloric sweetener.

RECIPE: CINNAMON APPLE CHIPS

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. PREHEAT oven to 225°F. Line 3 baking sheets with parchment paper. Mix the cinnamon and sugar together in a small bowl and set aside.

2. REMOVE the apple cores with an apple corer. Use a sharp knife or mandolin slicer to thinly slice the apples into rings.

4. PLACE the sheets on the oven racks and bake for one hour. Remove each tray of apple slices, flip the slices and return the tray to a different oven rack than before to ensure even baking.

5. BAKE for one more hour. Turn off the oven, leaving the apple chips inside for another 2-3 hours or until dried out. Store the chips in an airtight container for up to one week.
 
Find more delicious recipes at Zulka.com.
  

Each year, the U.S. Postal Service celebrates “The Best of America” by issuing limited-edition stamps that highlight quintessential American personalities, passions and milestones. The edition we’ve been waiting for debuted on Friday: celebrity chefs who revolutionized the American culinary experience in postwar America and served as early, ardent champions of modern food trends.

The stamps honor five chefs:

Stamped envelopes are available in addition
to sheets of individual stamps. Photo
courtesy USPO.

 
Something we didn’t now: All stamps sold by the Post Office are now Forever stamps. The days of pairing the old postage with 1¢, 2¢ and 3¢ stamps are over!

So, food fans, you can buy a lifetime supply of chef stamps to add personality to your cards, letters and bills.

For more information or to purchase online, visit The Postal Store.

Bon appétit!

Start preheating the oven: October 1st is National Homemade Cookie Day.

Here are some of our favorite cookie recipes.

We could do chocolate chip, America’s favorite cookie; but we’re really in the mood for these Gingerbread Bars With Cream Cheese Icing.

In honor of the month of October—the beginning of “pumpkin season”—we’ll add some pumpkin purée to the icing (a tablespoon or two of canned pumpkin purée).

And, we’ll answer this question:

WHY ARE BROWNIES COOKIES, NOT CAKE?

You may wonder why brownies and other bar cookies are classified as cookies when they have a crumb (the professional word for the texture of baked goods, including bread and muffins) that is similar to cake.

The answer is: Cookies are finger food, cakes are fork food. Brownies, lemon bars and other bars are finger food, not fork food. It’s that simple.

What we’re baking for National Homemade Cookie Day: gingerbread bars with cream cheese frosting. Photo and recipe courtesy McCormick.com.