The selection of chocolate bars available at the non-specialist shops in town in pretty stagnant – all the usual things from the usual suspects and that’s about it.
And while it is rather nice to be able to pick up some Lindt or even Green & Black without much effort any more, it takes forever for anything new to show up. When it does, however, it sticks out like a sore thumb on the very familiar shelves so these two new, or at least new to Canada, Côte d’Or bars almost demanded to be bought and tasted. And who am I to argue with a couple of bars of chocolate which are apparently talking to me.
Côte d’Or is making some really great chocolate these days. I always pick up their caramelized pistachio bar when I see it, and I can’t really remember being too disappointed by anything they’ve produced recently. So the prospect of a Lemon Ginger bars sounded really good to me, although the Passion Fruit variety was bought more for completeness than anything else. Like the Lindt Creation bars, these filled bars are bigger than your usual brand name bars – a satisfying 150 grams, making them a little more expensive but not ridiculously so.
These are dark chocolate bars of an undisclosed percentage, but I’m guessing no more than 60% because the flavoured filling absolutely dominates over the chocolate. The filling in both bars is much lighter both in colour and in texture – it isn’t whipped as much as a mousse filling would be, but it still melts away pretty quickly. Scattered throughout the filling are little crystals that provide more intense bursts of flavour in a way that I can’t quite decide is pleasant or not. More about that later.
The Lemon Ginger is definitely the better of the two varieties. While the ginger is the dominant aroma on unwrapping the bar, the first taste that rushes forward is lemon with the ginger being more of an accompaniment than anything else. Those who like their ginger upfront and tingly could very well be disappointed. The balance between the two flavours is handled very well until the periodic big boost of citrus from the crystals.
The Passion Fruit bar is big on flavour too and therein lies the problem or lack of problem. If you like passion fruit then you will like this, but it isn’t going to win anyone over with its complete and utter lack of subtlety.
The biggest issue I have with both bars is that they have an artificial fruit flavour which is only magnified by those damn crystals. When there is so much focus on companies using more natural ingredients, I’m not quite sure why Côte d’Or would be making something that tastes so synthetic. So I’m really on the fence about these – I still managed to eat the entire bar (eventually), but I can’t see myself picking them up again anytime soon. Approach with caution.
Educated Chocablog readers will no doubt be aware that ‘Lakrids‘ is the Danish word for liquorice. I, however, am an uneducated twonk and had to look it up.
So as you might have guessed, this little jar contains Danish liquorice. But this being Chocablog, it can only be chocolate-covered liquorice pieces. I nabbed the jar from the recent Chocolate & Love tasting, after having scoffed the best part of a plateful during the the course of the evening.
The first thing I noticed about them was the colour. They don’t look like chocolate or liquorice. They have a yellow-greenish tinge to them that frankly, doesn’t look particularly appetising.
Luckily though, they taste much better than they look.
The liquorice flavour comes through the moment you pop one into your mouth, but the milk chocolate takes some of the edge off the flavour and gives it a subtle creaminess. At the chocolate tasting, even people who said they didn’t normally like liquorice were going back for more.
The liquorice does mask a lot of the chocolate flavour, but at the same time, the chocolate makes the liquorice a whole lot more interesting – not to mention incredible addictive.
Having said all that, I would categorise these as “posh sweets”, rather than serious chocolate, although there may be liquorice connoisseurs out there who disagree. At £5.95 for a 175g jar, they’re not priced like sweets, but I still think they’re worth it.
We were lucky enough to be invited along to the launch of a collaboration between Paul A. Young and the Rare Tea Company’s Henrietta Lovell on Tuesday evening.
After being plied with drink (a cocktail made from gin infused with cacao nibs and jasmine tea), we got to hear all about this exciting new partnership, then watched Paul prepare some water ganache with Henrietta’s White Silver Tip tea. Check out the video above to find out all you could possibly want to know about tea and chocolate.
I’m yet to be completely convinced by the combination, but there’s no doubting the finished chocolates we tried were beautiful. The tea wasn’t overpowered by the chocolate (or vice versa) and the water ganaches were soft and delicate.
With Katie Chrisoffers of Matcha Chocolat coming out with new additions to her range, it looks like 2010 is going to be the summer of tea chocolates. I think I can live with that.
I was at my local Vietnamese butcher the other day. The one that sells chocolate. Naturally. Polish chocolate. As you do.
Amongst my haul of sausages, steaks and chickens I just happened to accidentally stand in front of the chocolate shelves for a few minutes, and by sheer coincidence pick something up. And then quite unexpectedly it found its way to the counter to get paid for.
Gosh, what a surprise! Some more Polish chocolate found its way home. How ever could that have happened?
Today’s haul is “Platki Czekoladowe” – which means Chocolate Flakes.
As you can see from the inside of the packet, presentation ain’t a huge strong point. These are mass produced, and quite cheaply if the appearance is anything to go by.
We have a very thin wafer-style biscuit, coated on all sides in chocolate – hence the flake. At 43% cocoa solids, the chocolate is quite on the dark side. The aroma is not all that strong, and the chocolate layer is quite thin so that you don’t get a huge belt of flavour either. But what you get is quite pleasant. One is nowhere near enough. After eating one, a few more were needed to see if the initial impression was right or not. Did I say a few more? Well, actually about 6 or 10 more.
I then put these on the kitchen table to see what reaction they’d raise from the two teenage vultures. They treat some of the chocolate finds with a large degree of scepticism; not so this time. The remains of the pack were gobbled up, and oldest son even found time in a busy schedule of computer game playing to come and tell me: “Pretty good, those”.
That’s about my feeling too. Not the topmost quality you will ever find, but another of the cheap-and-cheerful products that you can scoff down very easily.
