When I received this tube of Mendiants from Galler, my first question (and probably one you’ve already asked) was “What are Mendiants then?”
Luckily the answers are online (as ever) and so I quote from Wikipedia:
“A mendiant is a traditional French confection composed of a chocolate disk studded with nuts and dried fruits representing the four mendicant or monastic orders of the Dominicans, Augustinians, Franciscans and Carmelites. Each of the nuts and dried fruits used refer to the color of monastic robes with tradition dictating raisins for the Dominicans, hazelnut for the Augustins, dried fig for Franciscans and almond for Carmelite. Usually found during Christmas, recipes for this confection have veered away from the traditional combination of nuts and fruits to other combinations incorporating seeds, fruit peels and other items.”
Got that? Good.
Well on the face of that information, I have concluded that these particular Mendiants are not traditional. There are no figs here, just dried white grapes, hazelnuts, almonds and walnuts, and they sit atop a disc of dark chocolate (presumably 70% cocoa, but I have only my tastebuds to rely on here – no cocoa content is given (again).
The discs have a ‘hand made’ feel to them – slight size variation, odd numbers of raisins etc. – but in essence they all have one of each of the nuts and a couple of (or three, or sometimes four) raisins sat on them. The nuts are crisp and fresh-tasting, and the choice of white grapes means that they deliver a surprising amount of citrus flavour (should you take the time to chew them properly, that is). The chocolate is Galler’s classic Belgian dark chocolate – bittersweet with dark cocoa undertones and a sharpness at the finish. They’re rather like an upmarket version of Fruit and Nut chocolate, but with the ingredients on the outside, and this is where find myself asking “But where do they belong?”
Obviously mendiants are a continental tradition, and one that has been around for a long time, but here in the UK we don’t have them – or at least I haven’t come across them before. I suppose they might go well with a mid-morning coffee, or as an afternoon treat to be served alongside pastries and cakes, but as an ‘everyday’ chocolate I don’t see them working. Of course, I have no idea who buys Mendiants (or how often) in Europe, so I could be missing something vital here (like millions of French people eat them every day at 11:30am for instance) but as a British chocolate consumer and reviewer I’m a little confused by them – both in terms of form and market. Nothing wrong with anything about them – the chocolate is just fine, and each of the added ingredients delivers well – but for some reason they’re a little ‘odd’. I’d say they were a good addition to an afternoon tea platter, but not something I see myself ever buying just to nibble on.
From the people who brought you the ultra-expensive and ultra-yummy chocolate dipped fresh strawberries comes this collection of freeze-dried berries in chocolate.
We have four bars here, in a combination of strawberries and raspberries in white and dark chocolate chocolate. In each case, the berries are from Berry Scrumptious’s own farm and the chocolate is Belgian.
Strawberry and black pepper With Belgian dark Chocolate
A 56% dark chocolate with 10% berries and 1% ground black pepper. First impressions – way too much pepper! It may only be 1% by weight, but pepper is quite light, and there seems to be an awful lot of it here. It completely overwhelms the other flavours, and while a little bit of the fruitiness comes through at the end, the chocolate flavour is all but obliterated by the pepper.
Glen Ample raspberries in dark Belgian chocolate
The same 56% dark chocolate, but thankfully no pepper this time. Although there didn’t appear to be as much fruit in my particular sample, the flavours came through much more clearly. That’s more than can be said about the chocolate though, which has no real depth or character. Pleasant, but ultimately unsatisfying.
Strawberries And Cream
A fairly ordinary white chocolate with freeze dried strawberries. Not too sweet, but as with the dark chocolate, there’s no stand out flavours here. The fruit seems to be finely ground and mostly sitting on the surface of the chocolate, which just doesn’t work as well as larger chunks of fruit would. The flavour may be more evenly distributed, but part of the fun of freeze-dried fruit is the texture and intense fruitiness, which you just don’t get here.
Glen Ample raspberries with white Belgian chocolate
The best of the bunch. This time the fruit flavour comes through quite nicely and complements the white chocolate rather well. Occasional larger chunks of fruit give a nice tangy edge to things as well. Easily my favourite.
Overall, a nicely presented and well made collection, but one that would seriously benefit from some higher quality chocolate and bigger chunks of fruit. Oh… and a touch less pepper!
I was in my local Foodland a few days back, and saw Nougat. Being something of a sucker for a nice Nougat, I just had to pick one up to see what it was like.
I have to confess mixed feelings – a name like “Gourmet Provisions” – a brand of Gourmet Brands – does rather put me off. I’d rather make up my own mind about a product being Gourmet, instead of being told via marketing and branding consultants. So I guess I treat the name as a bit of a warning of what might be to come.
Even more peculiar, this product comes from Holland – not a place normally renowned as a supplier of top-rate chocolates. Cheeses and clogs, perhaps, but chocolate? Hmmm.
Come taste test time – the conclusions are also mixed.
The chocolate is nothing much to write home about. The ingredients tell us its milk chocolate 26% and go on to list its make up. It’s not clear if the 26% refers to the cocoa content, or to the chocolate percentage of the whole product. There is no real flavour there to speak of. The nougat is reasonably soft, chewy, but there is a slightly strange plastic kind of taste.
The nuts are visible in the nougat so the pieces are reasonably large (and yes, those are my tooth marks). Passing these around our guests, their conclusion was that either the nuts, or some other oil or fat is slightly rancid. Perhaps that’s the chemical / plastic taste I could pick. As far as the remaining ingredients go, glucose syrup is at #1 position, then sugar (!), then hazelnuts, vegetable fat, a few other things, and honey! Total sugars come to 55%. No wonder it’s sweet.
With a banner proclaiming “Premium Quality”, and being well before the Best Before date – this product comes as a disappointment. It’s very sweet, and the off / rancid / chemical taste is a little unpleasant. Once you go past that the remaining nougat taste and texture is actually not too bad. But it’s possible to buy better. I won’t be buying these again.
Ask me to list my favourite chocolates of all time (which people do all too frequently), and right up at the top of that list are Paul A. Young’s sea salted caramels.
We saw quite a craze for sea salted caramels last year, with all the big name chocolatiers producing them. I tried many myself, but nothing quite matched the sweet, salty, liquid centres of Paul’s creations. So when I heard he was making a sea salted caramel egg this year, I had to have one.
Actually, I had to have several, but he would only send one. Meany.
The egg comes in a tasteful white eggcup with a china spoon. Unfortunately, Royal Mail chose to break the spoon in transit, so I was forced to use a non-china, non-Easter spoon of my own. I’m fairly certain this didn’t affect the flavour, but it was still a little disappointing.
There’s no weight listed on the packaging, but as you can see from the pictures it’s slightly too large for the standard size eggcup. It’s a sturdy beast, too. When you break into the chocolate – or cut into it with a knife, as you’ll find you have to – you can see why. The chocolate is really quite thick.
Thankfully, the egg is only half full of caramel, so it’s just about possible to get into it without it going everywhere.
The chocolate is a 64% dark chocolate, and although there’s no country of origin on the packing, it’s quite light and fruity with a natural sweetness like a Madagascan bean. On its own, it’s really quite delicious, but combined with the caramel, it’s heaven.
It’s clearly the same caramel Paul uses for his individual chocolates. It’s almost liquid, flowing relentlessly downhill on its inevitable journey toward the tabletop and carpet. The taste is a perfect combination of sweetness, buttery smoothness and saltiness. On its own, it’s delicious, but too rich to scoop out a whole spoonful. You need to combine it with the chocolate to really get the most from the flavours and textures.
But therein lies the problem. The chocolate is so thick and the egg is so big, that it’s almost impossible to get a nice mixture of chocolate and caramel into your mouth without coating every piece of furniture in the room with a thin layer of caramel.
By the time you figure out how to get both into your mouth at the same time, it has all become a little too much.
At £17 per egg, these aren’t cheap at all, and while I love the flavours in the context of smaller chocolates, the downfall of this egg is the size. It’s impossible to eat in one go, yet it’s impossible to store for more than a day. You could share it, but you’ll still need to get through the whole thing in one go.
This is clearly designed to be an indulgent, over the top gift. But for me, it’s just a little bit too over the top. It’s a quality product made with fantastic ingredients, but it’s simply too difficult to eat! Give me a bag of mini-eggs like this though, and I’d love you forever.
Paul doesn’t sell online, so if you do want to pick up something from his Easter range, you’ll have to visit one of his London shops.
