More from the Belgian chocolate manufacturer I will always remember for seaweed and seasalt and my first beetroot chocolate experiences. This time we have a fairly impressive cardboard tube in Galler orange. Nestled within is a cellophane bag containing 150g of classic Belgian truffles, dusted with cocoa powder and smelling divine.
As you can clearly see, these are indeed classic Belgian truffles. Note the ultra-thin, crisp, bittersweet dark chocolate shell. Feast your eyes on the rich, mousse-like, rich, buttery, melting filling. Take a bite of one of these (they’re a little large for eating whole) and the cocoa dusting hits you with that bitter, dark taste before the dark chocolate joins in, smoothing away some of the extreme bitterness. The filling may appear solid, but it is in fact made of clouds, cream, and cocoa and melts away almost instantaneously, flooding the mouth with swirls of creamy, rich chocolate flavour. As the chocolate filling evaporates away, small fragments of the remaining shell release a last hit of dark, woody cocoa flavours and the whole thing is rounded off with the remnants of that first taste of dark, bittersweet cocoa.
My only question mark over these truffles is that I see not a single reference to cocoa content, or any other ingredients for that matter. I think it’s very important to relay this information. Knowing Galler’s range as I do, I’m sure these are top notch in terms of ingredients, but nonetheless, I find ‘anonymous’ chocolate somewhat suspect.
As far as taste goes, I don’t think that’s it’s a case of it being too long since I had a decent pack of truffles to enjoy – these really are authentic, wonderful Belgian truffles. I thoroughly enjoyed eating them. Highly recommended as a special treat.
Occasional Chocablogger Sylvia first drew my attention to ‘Beyond Chocolate’ a couple of weeks ago. Neither of us had heard of them (or their creator Simon Boyle), but we both agreed their web site was… how can I put this delicately… awful.
Once you get past the rather scary sounding ‘Beyond Boyle’ name, the man behind the questionable branding comes across as arrogant and annoying. He may in fact be a lovely chap, but his own web site doesn’t do much to promote that idea.
Despite my reservations, I headed to Waitrose to pick up a box. Thanks to the same text-heavy “branding” as the web site I spotted them on the shelf quite easily. Then I saw the price. “Introductory Offer: £6.49”. That’s for a 136g box of supermarket truffles. Ouch.
I very nearly put the box back and walked away, but forced myself to hold on to it – and actually pay for it.
I tried to find the ingredients, but with so much text on the box, it was difficult to find. And when I did mange to locate it, it was written in a bizarre, flowery and totally unnecessary language; “scoop of caster sugar”, “drizzle of glucose syrup”, “pinch of sorbitol” and for some reason “splash of vodka”.
By the time I came to open the box, I was so annoyed with the pretentiousness of it all that I was ready to stab someone. Luckily, Mr Boyle puts his own photo on the box (not once but twice), so I was able to relieve some of the stress before getting down to trying the chocolates.
The truffles themselves remind me of the Gorvett & Stone dark chocolate truffles I tried during Chocolate Week. They’re a similar size and shape and dusted with 100% cocoa powder. The difference is, the Gorvett & Stone truffles were slightly cheaper, packaged much better, and not made with ingredients that allow them to sit on a supermarket shelf for three months.
Taste-wise, they’re pretty good (a fact which I found vaguely annoying). As you’d expect, the 100% cocoa powder dusting is a little bitter and dry, but that soon gives way to the sweeter 60% chocolate shell, which then melts away to a rather pleasant truffle filling that actually tastes like real oranges.
I found myself quite enjoying them – not enough to scoff the whole box (the sign of truly great chocolate) – but I managed to get through nearly half of them before sitting down to write the review.
In the end, it’s a shame these are so expensive and have such horrible branding. They’re nice chocolates, but Mr Boyle has priced himself out of the market and chosen to plaster his product with self promoting nonsense rather keeping things simple. For that reason, I can’t recommend them.
Trader Joe’s has a unique style with their quirky, half-funny cartoons on chalkboards throughout the stores and on their newsletters. I’ve grown fond of it all; this chocolate’s design is also in keeping with that style. Dark brown against bright green and orange with an off-beat font. It draws the eye in differently from most of the usually more formal 85%’s. The potential problems from a name like “Dark Chocolate Lover’s” never really have a chance to form; there’s no blurb on the back explaining why this bar is so great or why it’s only for the dedicated. It’s just there as a simple attention-grabber.
Inside the box are two 50 gram bars, individually clad in brown and lime green. It’s nice to see the design work carry through on the inside. I’m a little puzzled by the logo on the twelve squares, though. The best I can make out, it’s the initials “ChL” inside a circle. “Chocolate Lover’s,” maybe?
It’s Columbian cacao we’re dealing with here, from the Tumaco Region. If there was only one word I could use to describe this bar, it would be “s’mores.” Chocolate and marshmallow are what it reminds me off. It hits that line where it isn’t sweet, it isn’t bitter. (At least not to me – there is a dry taste that gets close and may very well go over the edge for some palates.) The “smooth” description is an apt way of putting the balance it finds. It’s funny because it’s fudge-like while still a serious chocolate. You get a taste of both angles, which I’ll repeat is singular for such a high percentage.
Another chocolate that matches its packaging design well, the fun colors paired with the cacao vine. At $1.49 for the 100 gram total, it’s also a great deal for a chocolate fix.
From the same stable as Cadbury Raisins comes another totally-un-resealable bag of vaguely disturbing looking stuff. This time we have chocolated coated raisins (original, huh?) with the addition of corn flakes and smushed into ‘clusters’.
Like their raisin-only counterparts, these are equally moreish. Despite knowing better, I still haven’t managed to put the bag down.
The corn flakes do make a nice addition, adding a little bit of a crunch to proceedings. You still get a decent helping of that fruity, chewy raisin goodness as well as a good amount of chocolate covering each cluster. Thankfully there’s none of that icky shellac coating either. The overall texture is not unlike Kellog’s Rice Krispie Squares.
One thing worth noting is that although the bag is the same size as the Cadbury Raisins bag, you only get 150g here rather than 200g. Now I’m sure that’s partly because raisins on their own are heavier than raisins mixed with corn flakes, but sneakily, both are priced at £1.67 – making these 25% more expensive weight for weight.
Even so – and despite scoffing the raisins in one sitting – I’d rather have a bag of these. They’re just that little bit more interesting. Don’t go thinking of them as proper chocolate though, as they’re nothing more than a chocolate flavoured snack food. But they fulfil that role quite well.
