Time for another bar from Swiss chocolate maker Beschle. Previously, Simon enjoyed their dark chocolate with Fleur de Sel and pisatachio, but this time I have something that sounds more traditionally Swiss – a milk chocolate with small pieces of nougat.
Again, we have some quality packaging to extract before getting to the goods. I’m clearly a sucker for anything wrapped in gold foil.
The chocolate is a 38% Venezuelan Criollo, which has a slightly soft feel and less than glossy appearance than some. That’s not uncommon for a milk chocolate, but there’s less of a satisfying snap when you break off a piece, and close inspection reveals lots of small air bubbles along with the nougat.
Those nougat pieces are very small, but you get plenty of them, as you can see.
The nougat is made with almonds, hazelnuts and pistachios, but the chocolate is still the dominant force here. It’s sweet and creamy, and when combined with the nougat is strongly reminiscent of Toblerone – except for the fact that it lacks that distinctive honey flavoured edge that a Toblerone has.
It probably says as much about me as it does about the chocolate, but with every chunk of this, I found myself wanting it to be more like a Toblerone. If it could just give me that little bit of extra flavour, I’d be happy. Yet despite feeling it was lacking something, it was incredibly moreish, and I found myself scoffing most of the bar quite quickly.
There’s no doubting this is a good looking bar, but it’s also true that you could replicate much of the experience with something as cheap and simple as Toblerone. A small part of me is kicking myself for giving Simon the better Beschle bar instead of this (yes I’m evil) but never mind, I’ve still got more in my stash…
One of the last stalls I visited at the South Bank Chocolate Festival was being run by Raffaella Baruzzo and it was home to a myriad of cellophane bags containing all manner of brightly coloured sweets and numerous chocolate confectionery. Too many to take in all at once, in fact.
Having introduced myself to Raffaella I was mildly surprised to find that she was a fan of Chocablog, so there was much smiling and friendly banter, more so when we were joined by Yael Rose, organiser of the festival. But that, as they say, is another story. While casting an eye over the contents of Rafaella’s stall, my attention was drawn to a bag of what could only have been either orange or lemon slices in dark chocolate. I was right.
“These are lemon. Made with Sicilian lemons.” Raffaella told me in an Italian accent as rich and dark as I hoped her chocolate would be. “Would you like to try one?”
“Of course!”
The chocolate is indeed dark, semi-sweet, with a slight bitter edge giving way to a quick-melting softness which is an ideal prelude to the lemon. Ah yes – the lemon.
Think about your crystallised fruit experiences to date. The fruit generally becomes somewhat stiff, and there’s usually a fair amount of sugar to deal with, yes? Well, this is not the case here. Imagine a fresh, bright citrus lemon with a real burst of flavour but very little acidity. Imagine that it’s still soft on the underside, with the peel retaining much of it’s original texture. It’s sweet but not too sweet, and there is barely a sign of sugar crystals. The end result is a hit of dark chocolate rapidly followed (and then joined by) a summer fresh burst of soft, almost delicate lemon with enough depth to carry through the chocolate but barely a trace of any aggressive sharpness.
Now here’s where have a problem with this product. Have a look at the packaging. A cellophane bag, a ribbon, and a small card tag with a floral pattern on one side. What is THAT about?
There should be a label on this bag proclaiming the magnificence of the fruit used in this confection. Granted, the chocolate is also pretty good, but what sets these aside is undoubtedly the quality of the fruit. I believe I have found the lemon counterpart to those extraordinary Awaji chocolate orange slivers I was given last month. If you enjoy this sort of fruit/chocolate combination I really cannot recommend these highly enough. An absolute delight.
Needless to say I bought a bag. Now I wish I had bought two. Or maybe a whole case.
Back in October, Simon reviewed Artisan du Chocolat’s Mole Poblano, a sibling to this bar. Like the Mole bar, this Ginger & Lemongrass one has some notes from Artisan’s Gerard Coleman on the back of the box:
“According to traditional Chinese medicine, a healthy and happy life can only be achieved with the existence of balance between Yin and Yang. Guided by the oldest instructions of Chinese food therapy, we created this bar by complimenting cocoa and ginger, both Yang foods that warm the body with cooling Yin lemongrass. A balanced and harmonious experience.”
Firstly, as much as I tried to ignore the spelling mistake there, I couldn’t. Unless Mr Coleman really hoped to enhance the flavours by telling the cocoa beans and ginger how lovely they looked today, I think the word he was probably looking for is ‘complementing‘!
Luckily though, I did manage to ignore the fact that the whole thing sounds like a bit of old hippy nonsense to me. I’m sure Gerard will compliment my restraint.
Formalities out of the way, let’s get to the actual chocolate. You might not believe it from the first 160 words of this review, but I love pretty much everything Artisan du Chocolat do, and this is no exception. The simple but elegant box reveals an equally simple but elegant bar of milk chocolate.
I say ‘bar’, but it’s actually more of a very thin slab, weighing in at just 45 grams. The ‘chunks’ are simply raised outlines, which look pretty, but don’t really break off into regular pieces. And is is so often the case with chocolate, I just want more.
Having said that, when it does snap, it makes a lovely sound and the chocolate is a wonderful reddish brown colour. And the flavours are just as wonderful. It’s a nice, rich 40% milk chocolate that’s sweet and creamy and completely delicious.
This is a much simpler bar than the Mole one Simon reviewed, with ginger and lemongrass being the only additional flavourings, and they never overwhelm the cocoa. I absolutely love ginger in chocolate, and being used to huge chunks of candied ginger embedded in bars, I was a little disappointed at first with just how subtle the flavour is here. But that disappointment soon faded as the warmth slowly grew. This chocolate is about flavour rather than heat.
The lemongrass is even more subtle, adding a a touch of freshness to the bar, but not a great deal of distinct flavour. A touch more would have been perfect for my tastes, but as it is, it’s just enough to cool the warm ginger. A bit like Yin & Yang after all, I guess.
So another winner from Artisan. The bar didn’t last me very long, but did leave me with the urge to buy more – and to try the rest of the range as soon as possible.
These two bars from Trader Joe’s don’t make any claims to gourmet or out-of-the-ordinary. Named “Classic,” priced at sixty-seven cents each, and molded into thin bars, they’re obviously not intended to be spectacular feats.
The funny thing about them, which I didn’t realize until setting them next to each other for the picture, is that the milk chocolate is 44 grams and the dark is only 41. Looks like Trader Joe’s is trying to save a little money there. Though wrapped the milk is slightly bigger, the chocolates themselves seem to be the same size — it may be in the thickness that the three gram difference comes in.
I decided to take up a Hershey’s bar wrapper from my archives to compare its ingredients, with this comparable Trader Joe’s milk chocolate.
Hershey’s:
sugar, milk, cocoa butter, chocolate, soy lecithin, vanillin.
Trader Joe’s:
sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate liquor, whole milk, soy lecithin, salt, natural vanilla flavor.
Similar. The aroma here is nutty, very boozy with vanilla. It has a decent snap for a milk chocolate, though this reveals lots of air bubbles on the inside. It has an earthy taste; the nuttiness is still there, as is a very strong vanilla taste. It’s alright, and the price is right – it’s worth getting.
The dark chocolate is another matter. It has a 53% minimum content (why they think we don’t want to know the content of the milk chocolate, too, I don’t know), and has much the same ingredients, with the positions of the chocolate liquor and cocoa butter switched up. It smells very much like the Dark Chocolate Lover’s bar, with the main difference with those ingredients being sugar. Instead of more chocolate, we get more sugar with this one.
Starting on the first piece, I waited to see if I would pick up similar flavors. And waited. And waited. And it was gone. some dark brownie flavors, maybe a little licorice. The flavor gets more apparent after a couple pieces, but there’s a watered-down feel to this bar, as if we’re trying to extend our chocolate supply. Not all bad, but not the greatest, either. They’re both the kind of chocolates you’ll pick up when they’re in front of you, not seek out especially.
