A Chocolate Lover's Dream

By Broadside Managing Editor Sherell Williams.

Hundreds of local area residents, Mason students, chocolate connoisseurs, candy makers, and chocolatiers enjoyed a warm two days at the annual Chocolate Lovers Festival in Fairfax, Va. this past weekend.

On Feb. 7, a pancake breakfast, hosted by the Kiwanis Club of Fairfax was held at Fire Station #3 where festivalgoers gave $6 donations in order to grab a quick breakfast of regular or chocolate pancakes, sausage, and their choice of orange juice or milk.

Aside from the breakfast, vendors at tables surrounding the outer lying areas of the crowded floor sold candles, roses, stuffed animals, jewelry, clothing and other various items for purchase.

Food Network stars Warren Brown, Norman Davis, and Zane Beg participated in a Q&A session Saturday morning at City Hall that attracted over 50 cake enthusiasts and amateur bakers. The three chefs served as judges for this year’s Chocolate Challenge, the annual two-day competition and display of professional and amateur created cakes.

Chocolate Challenge winners included local residents Amy Wheeler, who won Best in Taste in the Amateur Category with her chocolate purse cake and Kimberly Josh for Best in Show in the Amateur Category. Three of the four entries from Design Cuisine in Arlington, Va. beat out the competition in the Professional Category while the Judges Award for Creativity went to third graders of Flint Hill School.
All three approached judging the challenge with their own set of criteria. “You have to look for mistakes [because] you buy with your eyes,” said Davis.

Brown told the audience that he looked for structure, type of cake, moisture of the cake, and filling to determine which cake was the winner.

Unlike Brown and Davis, Beg is a cake artist and does not bake. He judged the challenge cakes on colors and creativity. “Anybody who bakes a cake, they have a vision in their mind. I want to see that,” said Beg.

In addition to spilling Food Network Challenge spoilers for upcoming shows to be broadcast in later months, the trio answered general baking questions, as well as questions about their careers and experiences in the pastry world.
Davis and Beg are most known for their appearances on Food Network challenges such as Spooky Candy Halloween Cake, Disney Princess’ Cakes, Disney Pixar Movies Cakes and Mystery Client Birthday Cake. Brown is the owner of CakeLove and Love Café in Washington.

Before opening CakeLove in 2002, Brown was a Health and Human Services lawyer, practicing law in the downtown Washington area. “I left that because I just wasn’t satisfied, wasn’t really into it,” said Brown. “I love food. I love cooking. I wanted to make something I could share with people. Very slowly, [I] found my way into owning a retail shop.”

Brown was also the host of Food Network’s Sugar Rush, where he traveled around Washington meeting and cooking with other pastry chefs. Davis blamed the high production costs that lead the show to be canceled in 2006. Brown is currently working on a new book titled United Cakes of America: 50 Cakes for 50 States, due out in the fall.

“Don’t think you can cook, but you can’t bake,” Brown told the audience. “If you love baking, you can get to the point where you understand the basic principles of what’s going on. You can freestyle it after that,” said Brown.

Despite being listed as a co-host for the demonstration following the Q&A, Beg, who is also a real-estate agent, left the session early. Before leaving, he stressed the importance of communicating when working with a partner, using his experiences with Davis as an example. Together, Davis and Beg run The Sweet Life in Annandale, Va. in addition to competing in the Food Network Challenges.
Tips from the chefs included using potato starch as an ingredient to add additional sweetness to cakes and waiting a day before eating cakes in order to improve the taste.

“If you bake two cakes and you eat one that day and save one for later, the one you ate won’t be as good as the one you saved,” said Davis.

“It’s like Thanksgiving leftovers. They always taste better the next day,” said Brown.

At the Taste of Chocolate, an average of 100 people crowded into Old Town Hall where vendors sold everything from cakes to scones, sour patches to solid milk and white chocolate lips, along with other cavity-creating sweets. The admission line for entry wrapped around the block to Old Lee Hwy.

“It’s been really good. There’s been a nice steady line outside, nice steady line going upstairs, so I think it’s doing well today,” said Ashley Lederer from the Sweet Life Café in Fairfax, Va. The Café is owned and run by the family of Fairfax Mayor Robert F. Lederer.

“Everything’s good, nothing’s bad here,” said 24-year-old Mason alumnus Ashley Watts who came to the festival with friends specifically for the Taste of Chocolate event.

“Everybody’s real enthusiastic and loving chocolate here,” said Connie Miller of Connie’s Chocolate Confections in Alexandria, Va. Miller sold chocolate dipped strawberries, bananas, and rice krispies treats at her table along with her famous chocolate fudge sauce that she sells at Farmer’s Markets in Alexandria and in four different stores in the Metropolitan Washington, D.C. area. Though her daytime job is being a midwife at Fairfax Hospital, Miller says she’s been making the sauce for over 25 years and follows her grandmother’s recipe.

Sunday’s events featured an educational session with live animals from the Animal Ambassadors and a speech by George Mason University Chief of Staff Tom Hennessey.
For more information about next year’s festival, visit www.chocolatefestival.net.