The third in Galler’s Elements series, Les Volcaniques promises fire, smoke and passion enrobed in fine Belgian chocolate.
With names like Magma and Eruption and ingredients as firey as Espelette and Sichuan Peppers I had fairly good idea of what to expect, but I am also becoming acquainted with Jean Galler’s style of chocolate making, so I knew there were surprises in store.
Galler’s web site even suggests the order in which one should approach these chocolates – clockwise from top right – so I braced myself for an Explosion. Milk chocolate concealed a creamy hazelnut filling with popping candy (evidently a Galler favourite). There was no real fire here, but the buttery, rich filling was perfectly balanced with the chocolate.
The second Milk chocolate disc was Fusion, and as soon as I popped it in my mouth I knew I was in for something peppery. The melting, sweet centre carried undertones of fruit and spice with strawberry and pepper playing on the palate. Still fairly mild and gentle, the contrast of strawberry and spice was carried off very well. The fruit tasted natural (I have an abiding hatred of nything that is artificially strawberry flavoured) and in partnership with Galler’s milk chocolate it made for a lovely mouthful.
Things became a little more serious when it came to the Eruption chocolate. Dark chocolate bitterness soon gave way to a smooth, light, creamy filling which cunningly waited until it had almost disappeared before delivering a wave of spicy warmth. Never harsh or unbearable, this subtle blending of sweet and spice left my mouth warmed but never scorched.
My final taste sensation turned out to be another first for me – smoky chocolate no less! By using an infusion of Lapsang Souchong tea, Galler have created the first smoked filling I have ever tasted, and I have to say I absolutely adored it. My first reaction was shock – fire damaged chocolate? Something wrong with my tastebuds? No, the final taste experience from Les Volcaniques is your actual smoke and chocolate combination. Another of Jean Galler’s surprises and a masterstroke of flavour mixing. I was laughing again as the smoky filling covered my tongue, mentally paying respect to M. Galler’s imagination and skill.
If you’re more inclined to darker, spicy flavours then this is the Galler box for you. My own personal favourites are still Les Marines, but that is not to say that any of the other Elements boxes are in any way inferior. The whole range has, to date, been a delight to sample. This is chocolate making of the highest calibre, and well worth checking out. Highly recommended.
Here’s something a little different – a do it yourself raw chocolate making kit. These Choc Chick kits contain just three ingredients – raw cocoa powder, ‘extra virgin’ raw Cocoa Butter, and Agave Syrup – and a handy little recipe leaflet with recipe suggestions for chocolate bars and even a chocolate martini!
To make the basic recipe you need to use all of the cocoa butter, around half of the cocoa powder and a little agave syrup, so the remaining cocoa an syrup can be kept for making cocktails or other chocolatey drinks.
Making the chocolate is very simple – break up the cocoa butter a little, put it into a bowl over a pan of hot water, add the cocoa powder and agave syrup and melt the lot together.
It doesn’t take too long before everything starts to melt together and you have your basic raw chocolate mixed and ready. After that, it’s just a question of what you do with it. We decided to make a small bar using some dried chopped fruits – lemomn raisins, black cherries and blueberries in this case. For simplicity a small margarine tub was lined with cling film and then the fruits were scattered over the base before the chocolate was poured in. A spell in the fridge to set it and we had our first bar. Easy as that.
Individual chocolates were made using an ice cube tray – some were left natural but I also experimented with Baileys and Patron XO Café (a coffee liqueur made with tequila which also tastes great on ice cream or as a basis for a tiramisu). Adding alcohol made the chocolate coagulate very quickly but didn’t affect the texture once it had set.
I also experimented with cardamom seeds (a personal favourite) and had good results. The chocolate itself is as you would expect raw chocolate to be. It has that slightly coarse texture, melts very quickly, and is smooth and soft on the palate. Adding other flavours works well – the fruits in our mini-bar were a great counterpart to the cocoa flavours and the alcoholic chocs were delicious.
Choc Chick market these kits as a fun way to spend an afternoon with children or a way for foodie types to explore chocolate making at home. I’m a little dubious about how much fun a group of children would have with this – after all, standing over a bowl which is resting on a pan of simmering water isn’t for young kids, and there is only really space for one stirrer at a time. The fact that the bowl also gets hot means a good deal of adult supervision is required, and I could see the potential for arguments around who gets to stir and blend the ingredients, never mind who gets to lick the bowl, spoon etc.
Once the chocolate is ready, the business of pouring it into moulds requires a steady hand, and at 30p per chocolate you’re not going to want to waste this stuff! I can’t help thinking that £10 plus postage is a little on the pricey side, but obviously these are expensive ingredients – just look at the price of packaged raw chocolate bars! Choc Chick also have impeccable social and environmental credentials, so customers should be aware that their money is going into a business based on sound principals, and again, that comes at a premium.
If you quite like the idea of raw chocolate and fancy trying your hand with a few flavours I’d say give this a go. If you’ve never tried raw chocolate before I’d suggest popping into a health food store and buying a bar first just to be sure.
Here we have the dark chocolate selection that complements the milk chocolate ‘Paris’ collection. I’m not entirely sure why Milan is dark and Paris is milk, but I am eagerly awaiting the ‘Scunthorpe’ and ‘Wokingham’ collections. They should be fun.
Like the ‘Paris’ box, we have a total of 28 chocolates here, with 8 unique varieties. But despite suffering from a little bit of blooming, these look a bit more appetising than their milk chocolate siblings. Looking at the menu, there seems to be much more variety in the flavours too.
So let’s see what we’ve got:
Espresso
A “freshley brewed” coffee mousse covered in dark chocolate and sprinkled with cocoa powder. Nice enough, and the coffee taste is OK, but it’s not very strong. I’m guessing this signifies another fairly bland box of chocolates..
Lemon Mousse
Similar to the Espresso, but made with lemon. This one has a bit more flavour and is actually quite zesty and refreshing. Better.
Milanese Truffle
A “hazelnut liqueur truffle” that tastes of nothing. That’s quite a feat.
Tiramisu
Looks, tastes and feels nothing like a tiramisu. Mine was actually rock hard too. Oh dear.
Cannella
I don’t know what this is. Apparently it has lemon in it. I’m losing interest.
Crunchy Nougat Praline
This one’s not bad. A soft praline with tiny crunchy pieces of nougat that actually taste of nougat.
Panna Cotta
A fairly pleasant vanilla cream, decorated with white chocolate.
Amaretti
A quite sickly honey truffle with “italian amartti granules”. Gah.
Ok, so as you can probably guess I’m not impressed with these at all. Some of the ideas were interesting, but the execution was poor and the ingredients cheap and nasty. Not to mention the large indentations on the back of each chocolate that look like someone has stuck their thumb into them.
This is really disappointing – I was prepared to give the Paris collection the benefit of the doubt, but these are simply nasty. Luckily, I know there’s some high quality stuff coming from Thorntons soon, so if you see this in a shop, avoid it.
And Thorntons – please stop wasting your time and money on junk like this and concentrate on quality. Please.
These cute little things are tiny little balls of shortbread cookie coated with orange-flavoured white chocolate. Each ‘pumpkin’ is about 1cm in diameter and there’s a total of 115g in each pretty little bag. Yes, this one is another Halloween special.
As you’d expect from white chocolate, they’re quite sweet, but they’re small enough that the sweetness is never really an issue. At 28% cocoa solids, they’re higher than the likes of certain milk chocolates too, so you’re still getting your fair share of the good stuff.
Still, they’re “sweets” rather than luxury cocoa-rich chocolates, and for what they are, they are simply gorgeous.
The subtle but noticeable aroma of the real Valencia orange oil is evident as soon as you open the bag, and that real orangeyness comes through in the flavour too. For a few seconds you get that natural orange hit, followed swiftly by the sweet creaminess of the white chocolate and then by the unmistakable crunchy creaminess of shortbread biscuit. And all too soon, it’s gone, and you have to stuff another ten of them into your mouth (in a completely dignified manner, of course).
What else is there to say about these? They’re simply yummy. Way too good to give away to trick-or-treaters though.
