I love Chococo. They manage to strike the perfect balance between ‘hand made’ and ‘luxury gift’, and this attractive little box is the perfect illustration of that. This is their medium sized ‘Love Box’ (stop giggling at the back!) which contains a total of sixteen chocolates of six different varieties.
We first reviewed a selection of their wonderful chocolates last October, and Claire Burnet was kind enough to send some samples of their Valentines offerings this year.
When you remove the colourful lid from the box, you’re greeted with this…
The six different chocolates in the box are:
Raspberry Riot
Raspberry & framboise liqueur in a dark chocolate ganache, rolled in freeze-dried raspberries.
Wow, there’s a lot of fruit here! The entire outer layer is raspberry and it literally explodes with flavour in your mouth. The ganache is rich and smooth with just a hint of sweetness to counteract the tart fruit flavours. Perfect.
Tate Heart
A hazelnut praline heart decorated with edible silver leaf.
I’ve seen plenty of edible gold on chocolate before, but I think this is the first time I’ve ever eaten silver leaf. A beautifully smooth and soft praline in delicious milk chocolate.
Dotty Apricotty
A dark chocolate heart with sundried apricots marinated in brandy.
Another wonderful combination of flavours. The subtlety sweet apricot goes with the delicious dark chocolate perfectly. I could eat a whole box of these.
Caramel Kiss
A milk chocolate dome with dulce de leche caramel.
The sweetest chocolate of the selection here by far, but another taste combination that works perfectly. The dulce de leche caramel has the flavour of condensed milk, but the lightness of a truffle. To be taken in small doses only!
Fizzy Duck
A dark chocolate marc de champagne truffle dusted with Paraguayan fair trade sugar.
I’m not the biggest fan of marc de champagne, but this is divine. The truffle is soft and light and the shell has a gentle crispiness to it.. yet it melts away to nothing in the mouth.
Perfect Passion
Passion fruit puree in a milk chocolate square with a flower transfer design.
Another wonderfully fruity chocolate. The passion fruit is a set jelly in the centre of this beautifully decorated chocolate. Sweet and tangy in a creamy milk chocolate package. Yum.
I can’t recommend these chocolates highly enough. The flavour combinations work exceptionally well, the presentation is top notch and the ingredients are so fresh that Chococo won’t even send these out until February 10th. So you can be sure your gift will still be in perfect condition for the 14th.
Without doubt, this is my pick of this year’s Valentine’s offerings so far.
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High quality Belgian
chocolate gifts and e-chocolate from Soufflon
Another offering from those people whü like to mis-spell words in order to get more umlauts on their packaging – yes, it’s Gü time again.
This time I bought a box of three versatile little chocolate tortes. ‘Eat hot or cold’ says the box. I was told that chilled they’re smooth, melt-in-the-mouth and deeply satisfying (only with far more e’s than I’m prepared to type). Warm one up and it’s merely mouthwateringly rich and moreish. Naturally, as I had three, I was free to try one each way and have the third in my preferred style. Result!
Slide one out of the box and tyou have a rather unassuming little pud.
My eye was drawn to the dimpled top – ideal for a blob of cream or ice cream, or maybe for filling with your favourite liqueur?
As I said, they’re not the biggest puds in the world – take a look.
But what they are is dense. Very dense. Cutting into one revealed a dark, sticky interior. They’re made with a quarter chocolate, and that chocolate is 53% cocoa, so they’re not slacking on the chocolate content. When I bit into it I immediately thought better of chewing. It’s very rich, very gooey, and very chocolatey, with an underlying sweetness. Bear in mind that half of this little pud is made up of sugar and chocolate.
Heated up as directed and it’s a different story. They’re designed to be microwaved so that the outside keeps its shape while the inside melts, and that’s exactly what happens. Topped with a big blob of vanilla ice cream, they’re a deceptively filling dessert. Heating releases the aroma as well, delivering a much more satisfying experience in sensory terms. A dash of coffee liqueur (I used Patron XO Café, but other coffee drinks are available) and a blob of cream transformed it into a little gourmet treat.
I can imagine a number of variations one could put together using these little chocolate tortes, and they have enough in the way of rich chocolate flavours to accommodate the odd experimental addition. I’m getting to quite like some of Gü’s desserts, and this shows that they can do more than produce a decent chocolate mousse.
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Butlers sent me a veritable shed load of samples following Ashleigh’s review of their 70% Organic Ginger bar the other week. At €2.45 per 100g bar, this range is a little cheaper than the dark organic bar that Ashleigh tried, so I’m guessing it’s part of their more ‘every day’ range of bars.
This is a 32% milk chocolate with small pieces of ‘butterscotch’ embedded throughout the bar. Personally, I wouldn’t call it butterscotch, it’s more of a hard caramel. Like crushed up Werthers Originals.
The bar itself is divided into large flat squares, and as you can see, this particular bar arrived a little the worse for wear. Coincidentally, this is pretty much how it looks in the picture on the wrapper too.
Not the prettiest looking bars perhaps, but as it turns out it’s quite pleasant.
Bite into a square and the first thing you notice is the satisfying crunch from all the little butterscotch pieces. Although barely noticeable when looking at the chocolate, it turns out those little pieces are just the right size to give you that crunchiness.
The chocolate is smooth and creamy and although not as rich as some of the higher percentage milk chocolates I’ve had recently, it’s rather nice. I could easily demolish a whole bar without thinking about it.
The butterscotch pieces don’t add quite as much flavour as I’d like, but what there is is nice enough. A little more smoky, caramelly, buttercotchyness wouldn’t have gone amiss though.
This is a really nice chocolate to enjoy with a cup of tea. It’s not a luxury product, but falls squarely into the “well above average” category.
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Buy Beautiful
Chocolate Gift Baskets full of Ghirardelli, Godiva, Belgian and other fine chocolates.
Would someone tell me why there is so much rainy weather in Arizona in January? I just don’t understand it. The only advantage it has for me is an increased enjoyment of such life’s comforts as warm hats and hot chocolate. Truly ideal timing for Steven Meyers from Boulevards to send me over some of their dairy-free, sugar-free hot chocolate. In existence since just 2005, Boulevards has a line of hot chocolate mixes (with cold mixes coming in the spring) designed to present this pleasurable beverage with quality ingredients that stay on the healthy side.
Hence all the labels and logos on the container: USDA Organic, dairy-free, sugar-free, Kosher, and no whey or rice fillers. It can all be a little heavy if you aren’t asking for all these qualities, but it was the cat that got more of my attention. Maybe I’m just a sucker for animals, but he has that spark of naughtiness in his open-mouthed smile that makes him a worthy mascot. Turn the container around and you’ll find the brief ingredients list: organic erythritol, organic cocoa, organic maltodextrin, organic guar gum. Erythritol is the naturally-occurring sweetener used in place of sugar.
Peeling off the lid, the mix is a rough powder with little sugar-look-alike crystals. It smells something like Ovaltine, if my memory serves correctly, a sweeter cocoa powder smell. The directions instruct one tablespoon per cup (making 20 servings). I filled my mug to what I guessed was about a cup, but the tablespoon didn’t seem enough, so being too lazy to get a second spoon, I just poured a little more mix in. And then I chided my laziness when too much powder fell into the cup, worried that I had ruined my tasting. Yet I had no reason to fear. Being prone to add extra mix to my hot chocolate, this excess ended up the right amount.
The mix has a tendency to clump up as you stir it in, yet a small layer of welcoming foam forms on top after it’s all mixed. The taste is creamy, light on chocolate. This is the mild-flavored one, though; there are also dark versions. The erythritol gives it, to me, a slight odd smell and taste, but it’s preferable to stevia, not so strong as that. This chocolate feels good to drink, in the end. No sugar/sweet rush, no chocolate overkill if that’s something you avoid.
So it works. A standard hot chocolate that will meet your not-so-standard needs or wants with at least one of those numerous labels.
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From what I’ve tasted so far, I’ve come to really appreciate Soma Chocolatemaker with their rather splendid bars created from small batches of chocolate made in their Toronto factory. Nevertheless, there is still something really intimidating about any 100% chocolate. Just that number and the realisation that there is nothing to dull or sweeten the flavour of the cocoa beans. This is a really thin line to walk along because disaster lies on either side. There is absolutely no room for error. And Soma absolutely nails it with their Arcana 100% bar.
Even from the outside, it looks like a special bar of chocolate. Their futuristic, space-food-esque packaging is rather appealing, not to mention it does make sure that the contents are fresh too. And once it is torn open, the rich, rich aroma comes flooding out in an almost overwhelming way. A good time to pause and consider if you really want to do this. My nose says yes.
The bar might be a little on the small side at a mere 45 grams, but this isn’t the kind of chocolate that you wolf down. It has a nice high gloss and when snapped, it breaks cleanly without much crumbling, suggesting that this isn’t going to be overly dry like some high percentage bars. In fact, it is a remarkably smooth and satisfying chocolate that doesn’t quite hide its pedigree but doesn’t scream 100% either.
Soma use four different types of beans from Papua New Guinea, Ghana, Madagascar and Ecuador, and that is reflected in the complexity of the flavour. It starts off, not surprisingly, with a rush of bitterness that doesn’t last nearly as long as expected. Instead, it changes into a second wave of burnt fruitiness with warm, leathery undertones that continue to shift in surprisingly subtle ways. And those almost constant shifts are what will keep you coming back for nibble after nibble until the whole bar is gone. Eating a 100% bar really shouldn’t be this easy.
And now it’s all gone and I find myself still wanting more, signifying that this is an extraordinary bar of chocolate. If you are feel the need to experiment with the darkest and purest of chocolate, you should search some Arcana 100% out because you will not be disappointed.
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