Dr. Sue’s Chocolate Has Bark and Bite

Sue Williams is our local practicing physician turned chocolatier, who for years now has wielded dark chocolate and organic ingredients for good, helping us coax virtue from a vice. She's interested in the values of dark chocolate, the antioxidant properties we all love to tout, and at her Dr. Sue's Chocolate in Grapevine, she makes small-batch, artisanal indulgences with natural, fresh ingredients, no refined sugar, and an emphasis on health benefits.

They include candied orange peel coated in dark chocolate (the adorable "orangettes") and antioxidant-powered blueberry and ancho chile bark. Her original bark pairs dried cherries with native Texas pecans spiced with ancho chile powder, for a profile that's sweet and spicy. There's warmth in her bark with ginger and dried fig.

For the holidays, Williams dreamed up a s'mores-inspired bark that piles Belgian dark chocolate, organic graham crackers, and toasted house-made marshmallows into a rough, rustic tectonic plate, topped with applewood-smoked sea salt.

Reminds her of her years riding horses in East Texas and building campfires along dry creek beds with friends. I have no such memories. But I don't need them to find her s'mores bark a little naughty and rather nice.

(Dr. Sue's Chocolate is available at the shop in Grapevine, at Eatzi's, or at Local Yocal in McKinney.)

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