Okay, before we go any further, can I ask a favour. Just read that title again please. Now think about it for a minute.
Those of you who regularly read my bits here on Chocablog may have correctly guessed that when I read the label at the Speciality & Fine Food Fair, I was immediately somewhat more than curious, but there were only three bars left on the stand and when Duffy Sheardown tells you he only has three bars left, he’s not saying “I only have three bars here, but there’s another box back at the hotel.” he means there are just three bars left, so I was particularly pleased when, after a brief consultation with his wife, I was handed this bar.
Such is our love for Duffy’s chocolate here at Chocablog that we’re a bit competitive when it comes to Duffy’s wares, and when I mentioned to Dom that I had been given this, his immediate reaction was to call me a rude name. That’s how much we love Duffy’s work.
So what about the chocolate? Well, from my immediate point of view, oak smoked salt sounded wonderful, and with the promise of a few top quality cacao nibs to chew on as the milk chocolate melted away, I was sold. Duffy’s explanation of the salting process “I just sprinkle salt over the bars, it’s completely random” and the fact it was smoked salt had me on the verge of a Homer Simpson moment right there.
So, what can you expect from this latest creation (assuming you can get hold of one)? A rich, milky chocolate with a creamy softness, spiked with little peaks from the smoked salt, which softens off some of the saltiness but also adds its own intriguing, almost savoury flavours into the mix. As the chocolate melts away and the final tang of the salt disappears, you’re left with the crunchy, nutty cacao nibs to finish. That nutty, slightly earthy flavour and light, acidic finish were a perfect end to a real taste adventure, and provided that final ‘grown up’ element that lift this chocolate further towards greatness. Yep, I love it. It has to be one of the best milk chocolates i have ever tasted, and it is in no small way due to Duffy’s inspired choice of ‘extras’.
One thing you can definitely say about Red Star Chocolate is that it will always surprise and delight. I don’t know how he does it, but Duffy has been getting his hands on small batches of amazing cacao beans almost since day one, and when you consider that day one wasn’t all that long ago, he’s doing pretty well at this chocolate making lark. He’s turning into something of a rare cacao wizard, and I can only hope for more from Red Star Chocolate in the near future.
You may be able to find this bar at Paul a Young’s shops at some point. It isn’t currently on the Red Star site, but believe me, it’s worth finding.
Clerkenwell Chocolate are a name I know from having been involved in the organisation of this year’s Academy of Chocolate Awards. They did rather well, picking up five awards in total, including a sliver for these truffles.
Despite my involvement in the awards, I don’t think I’ve actually had a chance to try Clerkenwell’s chocolates before. My time there was mainly spent entering numbers into spreadsheets and I hardly got to try any chocolate, so I’ve very much been looking forward to getting my hands on these.
As you can see, the presentation is very simple, dare I say plain. It does the job of containing the chocolates inside and nothing more. But sometimes that’s all you need.
The chocolates inside are also quite simple. Dark, not too shiny, with a small fleck of gold leaf on each one.
Open one up and you’ll find a thin shell with plenty of smooth, dark ganche inside.
The ganache is made from Valrhona Manjari, one of my personal favourite chocolates. Manjari is a 64% cocoa solids chocolate made with a blend of beans from Madagascar, renowned for their sweet, fruity, citrus flavours. According to the label, the shells are also Valrhona dark chocolate, but they don’t seem to be Manjari.
Manjari is a popular choice with high end chocolatiers, as it goes so well with many other flavours. Paul A. Young, for instance, uses it in his Marmite truffles and bars amongst other things.
But it’s also great on its own, and these truffles are the perfect example of how good a simple plain dark truffle can be when it’s made by someone who knows what they’re doing – and Clerkenwell clearly know what they’re doing, as this chocolate as delicious!
The thin shell is sweet but doesn’t have any distinct flavour notes of its own. I assume that’s a deliberate decision so as not to obliterate the flavour of the ganache. And the moment you bite into the shell, that smooth, fruity, creamy ganache comes to the front. And it’s really very good indeed. The cream takes the edge off the Madagascan citrus notes, but a touch of fleur de sel seems to lift the deeper chocolatey notes just a little.
My only real problem with these chocolates is that I was only sent a box of four. I guess I’ll just have to buy some more – along with the rest of Clerkenwell’s range. They don’t seem to be available to buy online yet, but if you’re in London you’ll find them at Kaffeine, 66 Great Titchfield Street, from late September. Go check them out.
Another of the Belgian chocolate legend’s bars, only this time it’s a 54% dark chocolate, often referred to as ‘bittersweet’ chocolate and in this case not without good reason, for once again I see that 21g of it’s 50g is indeed ‘sugars’. Tsk.
This time the chocolate is joined by one of my perennial favourites, cocoa nibs, but it’s the sugars that win the initial taste battle, more or less crushing the cacao opposition from the off. What cacao flavours are there are fairly bland and uninteresting, putting this firmly ino the ‘mass produced confectionery’ bracket in my book, despite Leonidas’ impressive pedigree.
On the basis of the two bars and a box of pralines I had a while back, I can’t help but feel that Leonidas (and other long established chocolate companies) have stagnated to some extent. Yes, I know that globally there hasn’t been an upsurge of interest in fine chocolate in the way that there has been in London and other parts of the UK, but I had expected something a little more exciting than what I ended up with. The best part was the nibs at the end, but after two chunks I didn’t even want to have to eat the chocolate to get to the nibs.
My final word? Dull, formulaic chocolate with too much sugar in it from a company trading on it’s name. If Swiss companies like Lindt can produce fresh looking, innovative products surely you could do similar? Time to update your range I feel, because this sort of thing isn’t going to cut it for much longer.
I seem to have unintentionally made candy my focus recently.
This time my victim is a bag of Jelly Belly’s new Chocolate Dips in Very Cherry. Although they are also made in mint, orange, and coconut, orange was the only other flavor for sale where I went. Incidentally, the orange bag was the first I saw, and given that I dislike orange and chocolate pairings but wanted to try out the jelly bean and chocolate pairing, I spent a split second trying to decide if I should go ahead and get it, anyway. Thankfully, the cherry flavor greeted me next, rescuing me from having to resort to orange in order to give the product line a try.
I really picked up these Chocolate Dips with curiosity, not making previous assumptions about what they would be like. They’re the sort of thing you ought to approach casually, right? Especially when you factor in the description from the back:
“Jelly Belly beans take a dip in rich, dark chocolate to bring you a tidal wave of deliciousness. Gourmet jelly beans meet up with chocolate. Wow.”
Wow is the word alright: surf speech paired with “gourmet” can either mean a successful combination of the two sides or just plain randomness. Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t read this until after tasting.
Because the fact is I’m growing rather fond of these chocolate-covered cherry jelly beans. I hardly know what constitutes a gourmet jelly bean since I’ve barely ever tasted any not made by Jelly Belly. But I am coming to see that there is perhaps a reason why they are so dominant; I detect a great deal of balance. The chocolate is at just the precise thickness to make its presence distinctly, yet not overbearingly, known. Despite having chocolate and jelly beans paired up, I don’t feel like I’m eating too much sweet stuff. That may also be due to the nice, tiny size of the beans that I never took the time to appreciate before. And in case anyone needed to ask, no, the jelly beans do not taste like real cherries, and, no, the chocolate is not gourmet even if the jelly beans may be. But I find that, in this case, I really don’t care. It isn’t as if there are negative flavors.
My only complaint is that I wish the chocolate had the familiar white Jelly Belly stamp on it: it would complete the look so much more. Not that the stamp would slow me down eating these or anything like that.
