These days when I go shopping for chocolate, I tend to look for the unusual. I have a few reliable go-to bars that I know will keep me happy, but after that I prefer to search out something which I’ve never had before. And my last big shopping trip offered me quite a few choices which fell into the unusual category.
To be honest, the main reason I picked up this particular bar was because it was the most ridiculous bar of chocolate that I saw in the shop, and I mean that in the best way possible – it had a lot of different stuff packed into it. Plus I haven’t had the best history with bananas and chocolate to date as it always tastes either too tame or too synthetic. But I was willing to spin the Wheel of Chocolate one more time and willingly land on banana to see what happens.
The bar itself looks a lot like the other Bissinger’s bar I had last year, with crushed pecans all over the back instead of the coconut. The big difference was that the pecans were more firmly embedded in the chocolate, making it a lot less messy. The salt is also scattered on the back too, and that helps to cut through the sweetness of the 38% milk chocolate. And once the chocolate shell is broken and the dark caramel comes into play too, it makes for a pretty tasty mix.
The whole thing tastes just like a chocolatey banoffee pie with some nuts along for the ride, and that’s a very good thing indeed.
It is, however, incredibly rich and decadent, to the point that one of the oversize squares was more than enough for me at one time. But it is still the first banana chocolate which I can say that I genuinely enjoyed and I’d even go as far to say that I’d pick up another one. Consider me converted.
Ever fancied seeing your own chocolate creation on the afternoon tea menu of a five star hotel? Well now you can!
Grange Hotels are offering you to be part of their new Chocolate Afternoon Tea menu in an exciting competition, judged by top chocolatier Marc Demarquette. I will also be on the judging panel looking for the most exciting and creative chocolate recipes.
Renowned for his classically timeless collections with a contemporary twist, Marc will collaborate with with Grange Tower Bridge Hotel Pastry Chef Aleksandrs Taukulis to exclusively create a ‘Chocolate Afternoon Tea’ menu for the five-star hotel. This is an amazing opportunity to see your recipe made by one of the UK’s best known artisan chocolatiers and try it for yourself as part of an overnight stay at the five-star Grange Tower Bridge Hotel.
To enter the competition
In order to enter, simply post the name, the recipe and a picture of your finished creation to either Grange Hotels’ Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest, from now until October 9th using the hash tag #ChocoGrange.
If you can’t fit your recipe into your post, then please include a link to it instead.
Recipes will be judged on the following criteria: originality and creativity of recipe and its name plus the combination of ingredients used.
The winner will be announced on or around October 11th 2014 and will be treated to a special Afternoon Tea for two with an overnight stay at the five-star Grange Tower Bridge Hotel. The winner’s recipe will be featured across the Grange Hotels Group for one month.
So what are you waiting for? Get creative and show us your best recipe!
I’m a big fan of Original Beans, so I was very excited when I found out they were doubling the size of their range with four new bars.
Founded by conservationist Philipp Kauffmann, Original Beans puts conservation at the heart of everything they do. In fact, for every bar purchased, the company plants a tree in the rainforest, and both the outer wrapper in the foil inside are made from wood and are completely compostable. By eating this chocolate, you really are having a positive impact on the planet.
But there’s more to Original Beans than just ethics – their chocolate is reasonably priced and tastes great too. Kauffmann spends much of his time searching out rare and forgotten cacao, and this Papua Kerafat bar is no exception.
Now if you judge a chocolate on name alone, you might think this bar is made with beans from Papua New Guinea – a common choice for many bean-to-bar chocolate makers. But it’s actually made with beans from the Indonesian province of Papua on the western side of the island of New Guinea.
That might seem like a small thing, but New Guinea is the second largest island in the world, and consequently has a huge variety of cacao. Traditionally, beans from Papua New Guinea are dried over fires, giving them a smoky flavour, but these Indonesian beans have been dried more conventionally (or at least more carefully!), revealing more of the true flavours of the cacao.
Those flavours, as it turns out, are really rather good. Open the foil wrapper and you’re greeted by a wonderfully rich, warm cocoa aroma.
As you can see, my bar is a little battered having travelled from Original Beans HQ in The Netherlands to get to me, but that hasn’t affected the flavour at all. It has a smooth, buttery texture and an intense, chocolatey flavour. There’s a hint of cocoa powder flavour and a touch of astringency to it, but for me those just enhance the chocolatiness.
As it melts, it reveals a gentle fruity acidity. The tasting notes on the packet describe it as “pear and dried fruit”, and I’m not going to argue with that. It’s like a smooth, buttery pear dipped in cocoa powder. If you can imagine that!
Original Beans Papua Kerafat is currently only available through a very limited number of stores, but that’s purely because it’s no new. I expect it to be widely available very soon, and recommend trying some!
I’ve been lucky enough to try a slew of new British bean-to-bar chocolates recently and I’ll be sharing some of my discoveries here over the next few weeks.
The first bar I want to tell you about is this Java origin milk chocolate from Chocolarder of Cornwall. Owner and pastry chef Michael Longman set up Chocolarder in 2012 as a reaction to the mass market chocolate he was finding which considered old fashioned and out of touch with modern values.
Michael has a passion for ethics and sustainability, sourcing his beans directly from the farmers and transporting them with zero carbon footprint. He tells me the beans are transported by sail ship into the local harbour at Falmouth and then by horse drawn carriage to the factory up the road for a little added showmanship. If that’s true, it’s something I would love to see!
The packaging is both elegant and functional. The bars are sealed inside paper bags and slipped into an attractive card pouch that can easily be resealed. There’s plenty of information on the label too. I can tell you that this is batch #C6 and the Trinitario beans were conched for 68 hours, it’s 40% cocoa solids, 30% milk solids and contains just three ingredients; Cocoa Beans, Raw Cane Sugar and Whole Milk Powder.
The moulding on the bar wasn’t quite perfect on my bar, but due to a courier who had clearly decided to play football with my parcel, it’s not worth me showing it. Suffice to say even broken into a few pieces, it was well tempered and looked good.
The tasting notes describe Javan Milk as “rich and creamy milk chocolate with clotted cream notes and occasional hints of raisin and fudge”, but I got another flavour note and I got it big time: Coconut. In fact, there is a coconutty aroma the moment you open the packet. Now I don’t know if this is something to do with how the chocolate has been stored, aged, or something in the beans themselves, but I happen to love coconut and I love this chocolate!
It’s very creamy (you can almost taste fresh cream), and has a very pleasant chocolatey flavour, and that hint of fudge is certainly there too. But coconut is the dominant flavour here, and if that’s your thing you really will love this bar.
One of the joys of small batch chocolate, is that I have no idea if this is deliberate, or if the next batch will taste anything like this one. Where mass produced chocolate is specifically designed to maintain a uniform flavour with every batch, chocolate like this changes and evolves with different harvests, slight variations in the roast, the conche, and even how the chocolate is stored.
For now though, I’m very happy with this creamy, coconutty milk chocolate. If you love those flavours and you’re looking to trade up to something a little better, then I highly recommend giving this a go.
