While customizing your own chocolate is always fun, sometimes you draw a bit of a blank when adding toppings. What goes with pear? Which spice best suits my dark chocolate base? Does strawberry chocolate suit my complexion? It's kind of like going out to dinner with your friends- sometimes you can't figure out what you want until you know what everyone else is getting!

With that in mind, we've launched a recommendation engine to guide you. Of course, we still encourage you to be as creative as you want when creating a chocolate bar that's just for you. But if you need a bit of help with pairing chocolate and the perfect toppings, or have an idea of one or two aspects you'd like but want to complement them with a spice or nut, check out this awesome new feature.

You can start the process in our "Create Your Own Chocolate" tab, and below is a pic of how the feature works. How cool is that?

Last week, we contributed two bars to the back to school shopping lists of chocri fans everywhere. This week we're following on with another new bar, one that's especially well-suited to tuck into the bags of a new or returning college student. New today in our recommended chocolate bars is the Extreme Concentration chocri!

Everyone's familiar with the concept of the college all-nighter. And while coffee is often linked to staying up and staying focused, we've got an alternative for people who prefer their perkiness from creamy, tasty chocolate. The Extreme Concentration chocri has a bold dark chocolate base, in and of itself enough to snap you back to the here and now. We've added ground coffee beans for obvious reasons, black sesame seeds for alertness and focus, organic cane sugar for a blast of energy, and omega-3 rich walnuts for an additional brain boost. Tasty and clever.

Send your favorite college kid five bars, and as always, we include a sixth bar on us. And let us know in the comments- what do you reach for when you need an energy infusion?

It's summer! And with that comes a fruity sensation in chocri land:

Our New Strawberry Base Chocolate!

For a limited time only!

This will send your taste buds into strawberry fields! Make a customized chocolate bar with it now - we'll only have it in the assortment for four weeks!

If you're wondering what it actually is - it's white chocolate with natural strawberry ingredients. Delicious and refreshing. Pair it with banana for a "Strawberry Banana Smoothie" or with some yummy hazelnut brittle and and cookies for a sumptuous treat. Or really - combine it with anything you like, because that's what design your own chocolate is all about!!

Enjoy!

Today, egoo-journal.com launches, the first and only magazine in the US about customized and personalized products. Egoo is an established magazine about the same topic in Germany, since late 2008. That egoo is now coming to the US is exciting, because it marks the rise of mass customization in the US as we only knew it in Germany prior to this. One point of comparison is the egoo journal Shop Directory, listing all the websites that allow you to design your own products. In Germany, that list encompasses 174 selected online shops - in the US we're only at about 60 e-commerce sites that give you a chance to customize and personalize.

60 websites with customization however is still a proud number - especially if we look to other countries which have at most a handful of such websites (like the UK). This fact prompted the founder of egoo.de, the German and first version of the online magazine, to take his magazine to the United States. Starting today, egoo-journal.com will report on what is going on in the world of customization - whether it's new innovation, new websites, or just interesting news about the companies and offerings in the space - you will hear about it there.

Full disclaimer: I will be writing some of the articles for egoo-journal. I consider myself fairly involved in the mass customization world in the US, and am excited about sharing my findings with you in an online magazine format!