This little pack from Zotter contains two 35g bars of something akin to white chocolate. I say ‘akin to white chocolate’, because rather than simply being flavoured, these bars have had most of the milk powder that normally goes into white chocolate replaced by raspberry and coconut powders.
The packaging is a little unusual as well. Two completely different bars in a single pack that opens up like a book, with the gold-wrapped bars gently stuck to the insides of the cover.
Unwrap them and you can see just how striking these bars are.
The aroma and taste are just as striking, particularly with the raspberry powder bar. Bite into a chunk and your taste buds are immediately zapped by the sweet, citrusy zing of raspberries. It has all the consistency of white chocolate, but a taste all of its own. There are literally no chocolate flavours at all.
As you might expect, the coconut bur is more subtle, and you can still pick up a little of the white chocolate creaminess. But still coconut is the dominant flavour – much more so than something like a Bounty bar.
Of course, sugar is still the main ingredient of both these bars, so they’re both still very sweet. The result is something that’s much closer to fun candy than chocolate. If you’re hoping for sophisticated chocolate and subtle flavours, you’re probably not going to appreciate these at all.
Personally though, I loved them both – particularly the raspberry version. I’m not sure quite how Zotter have managed to turn raspberry and coconut into such a fine powder that it can effectively replace the milk powder in chocolate, but they have (and they’ve also done it with soya and green tea!) The fact that they’ve managed to achieve it with organic and fair trade ingredients is even more impressive.
Zotter continue to impress me with their weird and wonderful products. So I guess I’m going to have to try the cheese and wine chocolates next…
Chocolate, cherry, chili. Chocolate, honey, green tea. Chocolate and you name it, it probably exists somewhere. But getting your hands on just the flavor combination you want isn’t always the easiest. So along came Adeline Rem, who wanted people to be able to have chocolate their way.
Chocbite lets you choose between black, dark, milk, and white chocolate, then select up to five toppings. There really is quite a variety, from candies to nuts to toasted corn and spicy mango. Traditional or adventurous, you’re covered. (Chocbite also lets you choose from a few already-put-together bars if you can’t choose, but where’s the fun in that?)
It was all very exciting sitting down to choose my sample bar. But there’s a reason why I eat chocolate, not make it: coming up with the right flavor combinations out of the blue isn’t one of my skills. So instead of getting experimental, I went for the more fun combinations. The first is a milk chocolate with banana chips, Reese’s Pieces, and maple sugar. The second is black chocolate with espresso, cacao almonds, and Cocoa Pebbles.
As you can see, the three ounce bars come in clear boxes to showcase “your” creation. A list on the back reminds you what the toppings are. Because the Chocbite logo has, well, a bite, so do the bars. The obverse side holds the toppings, while the reverse is marked into squares. There are a lot of tiny air bubbles, but it is handmade.
These are pretty thick, which will prove a good thing the more toppings go on. The milk chocolate is okay. It borders on the plasticy; its flavor reminds me of Maramor’s probiotics chocolate. A little nutty with a middle-range sweetness. Nothing much on its own, but it’s not meant to be on its own, is it? The maple sugar doesn’t add to the flavor, but the peanut and banana flavors make for an enjoyable bar. I’ve never had banana chips with chocolate before; they’re a bit stronger and tangier of a compliment than I’d like, but also a simple way to get banana chocolate.
The black chocolate I like more than the milk. Black is a fitting name for it. It’s dark, chocolaty, constant in its flavor, with just a hint of bitter spice. You may be wondering what cacao almonds are. My own wondering is what led me to choose them. They’re regular almonds covered in cocoa powder or some other such chocolaty concoction. And they’re great. I really wish there were more than six. The Cocoa Pebbles add texture in between them (perfect if you want crunch to your bar), and the espresso was a very minor actor. I’m more pleased with my choice of this bar than I’d expected. The first was good and sweet; this one is good and chocolaty.
With Build-A-Bear for stuffed animals, kiosks at Disneyland to put together Mickey Mouse ears, and stores for designing your own flip flops, why shouldn’t chocolate follow the trend? More than allowing you to have chocolate your way, Chocbite is for fun. Move along if you’re not interested, get to choosing if you are.
This rather ordinary looking box conceals 50g of cinnamon flavoured milk chocolate from Britain’s best chocolatier (at least according to The Academy of Chocolate). Picked up from his stand at the London Chocolate Festival for the princely sum of £3.50.
There’s no details about country of origin given, but it has a relatively low cocoa solids content at just 32%. The result is a chocolate that is sweet and milky with some subtle caramel flavours, but is much less rich than you might expect.
From previous experience, it can be quite tempting for chocolatiers to over do things a little when using cinnamon, but in this bar it’s very low key, adding little more than a gentle warmth to the chocolate.
Although it’s a simple bar, the flavours are perfectly judged and work together beautifully. What you end up with is something that is so subtle and warming that it becomes the perfect comfort food. This isn’t the kind of chocolate you’ll want to share.
At this point, you may be wondering why there’s no photo of the chocolate itself. Unfortunately, this is entirely down to the fact that I was unable to resist eating most of it before I remembered, and by the time I did, I was beyond the point of caring.
Sorry about that.
I chose this bar from Hotel Chocolat, partly because I wanted a change from the usual seasonal promotional items they send us, but primarily because I’m a big fan of Madagascan chocolate. This is the first time I’ve had one of Hotel Chocolat’s single origin Purist bars, so I wanted to see how it compared to some of the other fantastic Madagascan chocolates I’ve had lately.
As you’d expect from Hotel Chocolat, the packaging is nice. Nothing over the top, but a simple card box with a slightly industrial sealed foil bag inside.
The box goes into quite a lot of detail about this chocolate, so the first thing I can tell you is that it’s actually made by Hotel Chocolat’s German partners Coppeneur. I don’t have any problem with that, as long as it’s clearly labelled on the packaging, which I’m pleased to report is the case here.
The box also informs us that the beans come from the Menavava Plantation in the Sambirano valley in northern Madagascar and that they’re grown amongst coffee, black pepper and vanilla plants. Cacao is always grown with other plants as they provide shade to the cacao trees, and many chocolate makers will tell you that these other plants directly affect the flavour of the chocolate, simply from having being grown together.
We’re also given some tasting notes: “Lively in the mouth with a fruity sourness and herbal tones”.
I would say that’s a fairly accurate description, and the flavours are all quite pleasant. The chocolate does seem rather soft for a 72% bar though, and those fruity, zingy flavours just didn’t come through as strongly as they did in the Mast Brothers or the Amano Madagascar bars – which remain my favourite two chocolates of all time.
This isn’t quite up to those standards, but it’s still a very pleasant bar of chocolate, that I would recommend to anyone who wanted to try something different from the usual Hotel Chocolat novelties. If you’ve never tried the wonders of Madagascan dark chocolate, I’d highly recommend picking one of these up as part of your education.
