Pure Heart truffles, from top to bottom: Bittersweet Triple Chocolate, Rose Cardamom (not available currently), & Verve Espresso. Photo credit: Warren Jones
Becky Potter started Pure Heart Chocolate in 2015 in Santa Cruz, and she is the first participant in the Santa Cruz Restaurant Examiner/Santa Cruz Foodie’s “12 Days of Christmas Giveaway.” That’s right: today is Day One of TWELVE DAYS of food-related giveaways! You can win a great prize. Keep reading for how to enter.
Pure Heart is organic, artisan, raw chocolate that is very tasty. It’s dairy, gluten, and preservative free. There are three truffle varieties: Bittersweet Triple Chocolate, Verve Espresso and Lemon Ginger. Any of these would make great holiday gifts.
Potter sources her cacao and other ingredients from farmers who use sustainable methods. “I’ve been making raw vegan chocolate truffles for the past 5 or so years, perfecting my craft over time, using the kitchen as my creative outlet to make chocolate that is not only more delicious than the mega-produced, waxy, cloyingly sweet variety I could find on store shelves, but more sustainable, too,” she says. “By leaving out the dairy, the processed sugars, and the hard-to-pronounce preservatives, I found that what I was left with was cacao in its purest form–raw, unadulterated, and incredibly delicious.” Pure Heart doesn’t have its own brick and mortar retail location where they sell chocolates, but you can find them at New Leaf Markets in Santa Cruz—in the bakery cases—and you can buy them online. At New Leaf truffles are sold individually for $3.25. They are at the westside, downtown, and Capitola stores.
Potter says that one convenient way people can get holiday pre-orders in before the (fast approaching) Dec 19th deadline is to print the holiday order form off her website, fill it out in its entirety, then take a picture with their iphone and text it to her at 530-400-3811. She can confirm with customers that she received the text, and have orders ready for pick up on Dec. 21 in the evening or Dec. 22 in the morning at Extra Kitchen (commercial kitchen at 254 Potrero St. across from the Sash Mill).
She also wants to remind potential customers not to put a truffle in a stocking like a typical “stuffer.” Because the truffles are raw and need to stay refrigerated, a good alternative is to put a note in the stocking to check the refrigerator for truffles (and perhaps even champagne…). That should make the gift recipient quite happy!
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NOW FOR THE CONTEST:
One lucky reader will win a box of Pure Heart truffles worth $18. The winner needs to be able to pick up the chocolates from the aforementioned Extra Kitchen at a time to be arranged with Becky Potter.
To enter, email your name to tfatemi@gmail.com by Mon. Dec. 14 at 10 p.m. and include the words “pure heart.” The drawing will take place the next morning and the winner will be notified via email. Employees of Examiner.com are not eligible for the promotion.
Good luck and happy holidays!
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