It’s not often I get to write about my own projects here, but today is a bit special. We’re launching the World Chocolate Guide, a brand new site produced jointly with Jennifer Earle of Chocolate Ecstasy Tours.
We’ve taken on the not inconsiderable task of finding, cataloguing and mapping every chocolate shop and patisserie in the world. More importantly, wherever possible we’ll be visiting these shops for ourselves, taking photos and giving our opinions.
But we’re going to be relying on readers – chocolate lovers like you – for much of the content on the site. You can leave comments on your favourite (or least favourite!) shops and rate them out of ten. The best shops will then appear in our Top Rated section. And if we’ve missed a shop that you think we should know about, then we want to hear about it.
As well as talking about the shops themselves, we’re also featuring the people behind them and the brands of chocolate they sell. Our unique search feature means that you can search the globe for your favourite chocolate, and have the results displayed on an interactive map.
We’ve got lots more features in the pipeline, but the 200 or so shops we’re launching the site with should be enough to start you out. We’d love to know what you think.
They are still rare enough that American bean-to-bar chocolatiers already gain some automatic esteem from me. When I looked at one of these, Theo, in the past, I had further good things to say.
This bar looks quite far from the whimsical Fantasy Flight range and the upper division 91% bar, being a 45% Creamy Milk Chocolate. It doesn’t have the colorful packaging, either, of the range, and is even plainer than the 91% was, but I still like its look. Classic light blue background, the chocolate acting as both a picture and design, and the tiny milk bottle pouring from the top.
As usual, it is both USDA Organic and Fair-trade Certified, with a couple of sentences about sustainability on the back. It maintains a very pure look.
Milk chocolates in the 40’s range I usually really enjoy; this one had the added intrigue of the “creamy” label. The creaminess is what normally starts to decrease as you go up in percentage. The large and plain six segments the bar divides into somehow didn’t look so attractive in milk chocolate, yet I do like the chance to see easily the perfect sheen and classic chocolate color (which the picture just doesn’t do justice to).
The combination of a high cocoa content and extra milkiness does turn out to be the most memorable part of this bar. “Wow” really can be the describing word. Generally, I associate milky with that melty, thin, and greasy texture, yet being a 45%, this one has a firmer texture and a fuller flavor without the downsides. You can perhaps taste the microscopic flavor notes in the chocolate less than in another 45% because the milky taste lures you in, but it’s worth it. It remains a very rich chocolate, which I’m not used to calling a milk chocolate. It’s like a spoonful of honey — beautiful, pure, enrapturing sweetness.
A lovely bar. It would make a fantastic introduction to gourmet chocolate, and is a fabulous getaway bar. I do believe I am in love with it.
Don’t be misled by the words “complex chocolate” on the front, because this is about as simple as chocolate gets, with just three ingredients. Cocoa mass, sugar and cocoa butter. The complex flavours come from the cocoa bean rather than any added flavouring.
The tasting notes on the back of the box say “A full-bodied, elegant chocolate that is well rounded and has a long finish”.
But then it goes on to say “Think interesting adjectives, concentration, debates”. I can’t quite figure out if that’s meant seriously or humourously, but I do like Melt, so I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt!
At 90g, this isn’t a huge bar of chocolate, but as you can see, it is quite chunky. I love the design, but it does make it a little difficult to snap off small chunks. A single 10g square is more than a mouthful, even for me.
When you do break off a suitably sized piece, the flavour is wonderful, and you can quickly see where the wine comparison comes from. It really is full bodied and fruity.
There’s no country of origin for the beans on the packaging, so I’m going to assume this is a blend of different origins. While I don’t have any in front of me to compare, the flavour is similar to, but more subtle than the likes of Valrhona’s Manjari and Amano’s Madagascar bars. It’s not as overtly citrusy, but still light and sweet.
I thoroughly enjoyed this chocolate, and I’m looking forward to trying the rest of the range. At £6.80 a bar, they’re not cheap, but like good wine, you get what you pay for.
Toronto’s legendary Dufflet Bakery is one of those places which becomes an necessary stop once discovered. Their selection of cakes, pies and pastries is impressive enough, but the fact that they taste as good as they look has cemented their reputation and won them lots of fans. These days they are dipping their toes into a new area with their Small Indulgences line of boxed confections, including the Bittersweet Chocolate Crackle which found its way into my hands.
Their Crackle is a new take on nut brittles, with an exceptionally generous portion of nut pieces with a few chocolate chips held together with some Belgian dark chocolate of an undisclosed percentage; my guess would be about 55% or thereabouts. The two varieties that made their way into my hands were Maple Cashew and Toasted Almond although there is also a milk chocolate version with hazelnuts available too, but you’re on your own with that one.
The Toasted Almond Crackle was almost perfect. It had great texture thanks to the thin slices of almonds which invited a more active approach to eating. The chocolate is surprisingly rich, although some of that might have to do with the butter glazing on the almond, and munching brings it all together into a lovely chewy, almondy, satisfying mouthful that I honestly couldn’t get enough of. It isn’t the most sophisticated confection, but it is very yummy indeed and the entire box was gone much faster than it should have.
Apparently the Maple Cashew variety has won a Sofi Award from the National Association for the Specialty Food Trade, something that makes me think that the judges must have a very sweet tooth because the maple flavour really dominates here. It is so dominant that both the chocolate and the nuts have to take the back seat for quite a while until some chewy readdresses the balance. And then the maple comes rushing back again to leave a sweet aftertaste that I wasn’t particularly fond of. I also found that the cashews were a little too soft too, robbing the Crackle of the crunch that was so satisfying in the almond version.
So when it comes to Dufflet’s Crackle, it is a question of how sweet you like your chocolate. And despite my recent Canadian citizenship, I just couldn’t deal with all that mapleness. At least they can’t deport me anymore…
