Dear reader, let me introduce you to Holly Race.
Holly, and her Youtube show Feestyle Baking can best be described as the offspring of an illicit encounter between Nigella Lawson and Bridget Jones in a rather messy pantry. At least that’s the picture I have in my head, and frankly it’s an image I’m quite happy with.
Holly took it upon herself to not only make us some chocolates, but to make a video of herself making us some chocolates…
And here are the chocolates..
As you can see, they’re very pretty, each with a unique decoration. They have a certain rustic charm to them as don’t have a glossy finish (due to the fact they haven’t been tempered and have had to endure Trial By Royal Mail), but I actually like them this way – they’re much more ‘freestyle’.
The centres are interesting, being soft and crumbly, rather than creamy like a ganache. The flavours Holly has used are all quite subtle, so the chocolate flavour comes through nicely in all of them.
As for using Sainsbury’s value chocolate – well, I’m not convinced by that idea, although the result does taste good. Personally, I’d recommend Holly keep a stash of something like Green & Black’s 70% in the cupboard for her baking adventures, but I really can’t complain about the results Holly has achieved.
Of course, a gift like this is as much about the love and effort that has gone into making it, and frankly, in the week of my 40th birthday, I don’t think I’ve had a gift that’s made me smile quite as much as this little box of chocolates and its accompanying video.
If you enjoyed it as much as I did, do yourself a favour and subscribe to her blog and Youtube channel.
There’s already a ton of great videos there, and I can’t wait to see what she comes up with next.
This milk chocolate bar packs a hefty 52% cocoa solids and is the sibling to the Purist 72% Dark Madagascar bar I reviewed recently. It features beans from the same Menavava plantation, extra vanilla and cocoa nibs.
The format and packaging of the bar are exactly the same as the dark chocolate version. A nice, shaped slab, embossed with the Hotel Chocolat logo. There’s no defined chunks here, but it’s thin enough that you can easily snap off pieces of any size.
I saved a little of the dark chocolate bar to compare with this, and they really are quite different. That extra milk powder & vanilla and the addition of nibs make this an entirely different beast.
Where the dark chocolate bar is bright and fruity, this is duller and drier. Sure, there’s a bit of creaminess in there, but it seems to take away from the chocolate, rather than add to it. I guess the extra vanilla and nibs are there to put something back and give it a little more flavour, but for me, it doesn’t quite work.
The addition of nibs and vanilla give the chocolate a coffee-like edge, which while being nice enough, is a little harsh. The 72% is actually sweeter, lighter and more accessible than this version.
Having said all that, it’s still very nice in it’s own right. I just happen to love Madagascan dark chocolate, so adding milk and vanilla just doesn’t seem right.
I’ve been itching to try these since seeing them appear on our Supermarket shelves some time ago – a new (?) Lindt offering! Or at least – one I’d not come across before.
The small bag contains filled chocolates; to quote from the label: Dark with Raspberry filling, Milk with Caramel filling, and Dark with a white mint filling.
Each is individually wrapped – a good idea with stronger flavours because it stops them infusing into each other.
Then things get interesting. The pack says “Manufactured under license for Lindt & Sprungli (Australia)”, but not by whom. So it’s a Lindt chocolate but its not a Lindt chocolate? Strange.
The small packs inside give the game away: “Imported by Lindt & Sprungli (Australia)” and “Manufactured by Ghiradelli Chocolate Company, San Leandro, CA, USA”.
So, these are not a Lindt Chocolate at all. Curious. But now it’s tasting time.
Dark with Raspberry
I’ve taken a photo of this after I’ve taken a fair size bite – just to show the generous amount of filling, which is not quite the same vibrant colour as the picture on the packet would have us believe. This is always the way, and when you do find an atomic-red, you know it’s chock-full of the goodness of artificial colour. At least this one looks real.
The filling has quite a pleasant raspberry flavour, and I even found a few seeds – it does contain real fruit. The disappointment is that the filling is dominated by sweetness. The dark chocolate melts and releases its flavour quite slowly, a consequence is a whack of fruit and sweet followed quite a lot later by the richness of the chocolate. It you just scoff the thing down, you get pretty much no flavour from the chocolate at all.
The cocoa percentage is not stated, I’m taking a wild guess at around the 50% mark based on colour and “snap”.
Dark with Mint
I did not photograph this one. It’s a darkish chocolate filled with the kind of white minty stuff that is fairly commonly available from many manufacturers. On opening the small pack there is quite pleasant minty aroma. The mint is a very strong flavour, and like the dark with raspberry, the chocolate takes quite a while to warm, melt, and release its flavour. The mint tends to overwhelm.
I can’t regard this as a happy marriage, more a domineering mint shouting at a cowering chocolate. The chocolate seems to be the same as the raspberry – dark but not hugely so.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had worse, but I’ve also had better.
Milk with Caramel
This is another that I didn’t photograph, the contents being a fairly predictable gooey caramel filling.
I also left this to last, mainly because I’m a very fussy fan of caramel – in general I don’t like it. I also prefer a dark chocolate to a milk. I was very ready to dislike this one.
I have to confess to being quite pleasantly surprised. The caramel is good. It’s very sweet, but also has quite a mellow flavour with none of the horrible chemical overtones you can sometimes find. The milk chocolate is also sweet, but there is a nice chocolate flavour coming through. High praise indeed from one who’s not a big milk chocolate fan.
From being prepared to hate it, I’ve surprised myself by finding this is probably the one I like the most. It is very sweet, though. One will be enough at a sitting.
Summary: I’m a little disappointed with the two dark chocolates. I ate these at room temperature on a pleasant day, when the flavour should have been able to spring through easily – and it took quite a long time to come through. They are both dominated by sweetness. The raspberry would be improved by toning back the sugar a little. The mint is very minty, and again, toning it down would improve it and allow the chocolate to speak as well. The caramel is a stand-out for flavour, but still a heck of a sugar bomb.
A little web searching leaves my thinking these are probably from the Ghiradelli “Squares” range. It also turns out that Ghiradelli is owned by Lindt & Sprungli.
It may surprise you to learn that there are only two people making chocolate from the bean in the UK. The first was Willie Harcourt-Cooze (of Willie’s Wonky Chocolate Factory fame), and now we have Duffy Sheardown and his Red Star Chocolate.
Duffy produces his single origin chocolate out of a small industrial unit in Cleethorpes. Perhaps not the most glamorous setting, but from what I’ve tasted so far, the results are amazing. I met him for the first time at the Real Food Festival last week and picked up a few bars to review.
The first is this 70% bar made from Panamanian beans.
The first thing you notice about all Duffy’s bars is the packaging is fairly run of the mill. Each wrapper features a nice photo, but the paper and foil themselves are a little flimsy. The branding is also potentially confusing, with Duffy using his own name rather than the company name on the wrapper.
But once you unwrap the bar, things quickly start to look up. The chocolate has a beautiful glossy finish and warm reddish colour. It’s simple and elegant and looks like it’s been made with love and attention to detail.
And it tastes divine too. I’m no expert at describing the flavours of dark chocolate, but I know what I like, and I like this. It’s light and fruity and quite sweet – not annoyingly so, but enough to make this an accessible dark chocolate. It’s the kind of bar you could easily get through without noticing if it happens to be sat on your desk. This particular bar seems to be disappearing much faster than is healthy.
At £3.50 a bar, this is actually much more affordable than many of the high end artisan bars on market at the moment, and it comes with the knowledge that Duffy has made it by hand from the bean. I’m starting to regret not buying more of this particular bar, but the good news is that Duffy sells online on his web site. I suggest you pick up a bar or three before I wipe out his entire stock.
