Green & Black’s Bittersweet Chocolate With Cherries

As pointed out by GarnetFox in a comment on my Lindt Cherry/Chilli bar review, Green & Black’s also make a cherry chocolate. The Chocablog Rapid Response Team™ swung into action and acquired one of these bars to see how it fares when compared to the recent rash of cherry-related products that have been staining my shirts.

Green & Black’s bar uses a 60% ‘bittersweet’ chocolate, placing it in the middle of the cocoa content scale for the three cherry/chocolate products I have reviewed. Unlike the Lindt bar, the cherries are whole, dried (and of course organic) tart little things, comprising 20% of the overall bulk of the bar.

Of course, the immediate effect of using whole dried cherries in a bar like this is that it is impossible to snap the chocolate along the guidelines scored into the bar. One simply has to allow the cherries to dictate where the bar breaks.

Unlike the Holland & Barrett cherries, G&B seem to have managed to source cherries of fairly uniform size for their bar (probably just as well when you think about it – they’d never manage to make a flat product otherwise!). When you snap off a piece, it’s somewhat reminiscent of the perrenial favourite Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut – bits of fruit protruding through the chocolate and creating little craters in the bar where they came out.

The chocolate is, as one might expect, delightfully bittersweet and acts as a perfect counterpoint to the sharpness of the dried cherries. The cherries themselves are remarkably similar in taste to the Holland & Barrett cherries, but the chocolate that surrounds them is definitely a more adult oriented product. Where the Lindt bar offered smoothness due to the cherry content being more jam-like, this bar leaves you with a mouthful of delightfully tart little cherry bits to chew over once the chocolate has melted away.

With the chocolate being slightly less cocoa-heavy (10% less in fact) than the Lindt bar, and because it doesn’t also have chilli in the equation, this bar is remarkably moreish. As I sit and write these final sentences I am surprised to see that I have already hoovered up half of the bar! No doubt then that this is a winner.

Oh, and did I mention that Sainsbury’s are currently offering them at half price? See you in the sweetie aisle!

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