When it comes to presentation, there are a couple of ways to say ‘posh’. Galler have chosen the simplicity of a strong, simple orange box with a simple branded paper wrap for this collection.
So what are “Les Coeurs”? I wanted to know. What would I find in the box?
The answer, folks is this.
I actually sat and looked at this for a minute or three. Impressive design. Four forty gram chocolate hearts with brightly coloured shells hiding under a plastic cover. Striking is a word I might use to describe them.
A sniff at them didn’t give much away. A hint of citrus perhaps, rich cocoa flavours most certainly, but the true contents are an enigma. There is nothing to inform the potential consumer as to what they are about to eat. In short, Galler are so confident about the quality of their product that they don’t feel it necessary to tell you what they’ve been up to.
I had a small “it’s a shame to destroy these lovely looking things” moment and then went straight to the yellow heart. This was the one that had hinted at some prior involvement with a lemon, and was selected as being potentially the mildest of the four. What it turned out to be was in fact white chocolate with a coloured chocolate covering and a very distinctive citrus tingle to it. The lovely thing was that the citrus zing worked to counter some of the sweetness of the white chocolate, mellowing the mouthful into a more ‘lemons-and-cream’ experience. I found myself reaching for more, but overdid it a little and found myself missing the benefit of some of that citrus. Best enjoyed in small nibbles so as to appreciate the subtleties of the added flavour.
The orange heart turned out to be a milk chocolate orange heart, but I had a feeling I was in for a slightly more upmarket taste experience than that of the well known foil wrapped orbs.
The chocolate is a strange hybrid beige colour, and the orange flavour is much more pronounced than the lemon was in the yellow heart. It’s very sweet, and packs a powerful tangerine punch that lingers on after your mouth is clear of chocolate. Fans of chocolate and orange will love this, it’s fresh and fruity and the tangerine flavours work well with the underlying sweetness from the chocolate.
Luckily, the red heart wasn’t loaded with strawberry flavour. What it did have was masses of rich, semi-dark cocoa with a slightly sweet topnote, presumably from the coloured chocolate coating. Think of rich, dark drinking chocolate with a dash of cream stirred in and you’re getting close. Waves of rich but mellow cocoa, semi-sweet and hugely moreish. Very edible indeed.
The purple heart seemed to have a light blueberry sort of flavour on the outside, but the flavours of the chocolate soon took over. Soft in the mouth, this particular heart was bursting with citrussy high notes. Slightly more bittersweet than the red heart and not as creamy, the cocoa flavours had more depth and less sweetness and a god clean finish.
As we all know, Valentine’s is a time for gestures, and traditionally in the West we give chocolates as a sign of affection. Giving these chocolate hearts to your loved one will do nothing if not impress them. It’s a neat modern take on Valentines gifting, artfully conceived and skilfully executed. Be warned though, this sort of classy package comes with a fairly hefty price tag, but rest assured that the object of your affections will be left in no doubt as to your feelings for them.
My own problem now is four broken hearts.
I love chocolate (of course) and I love ginger almost as much but in every form – sweet, savoury, fresh, crystallised, dried, powdered and especially coated in top quality dark chocolate. I’ve eyed off the Newman’s Ginger Treats for a while and decided that in the post-Christmas gift-box fatigue it was time to try them.
A 50 gram bar sells for $1.95, which isn’t too bad considering some of the money I’ve spent on quite ordinary chocolate products lately, but they’re selectively located and have to be sniffed out fairly carefully. Made using dark chocolate that contains a minimum of 53% cocoa solids and not containing any dodgy ingredients was comforting to read on the back of the wrapper, as was their claim that they use using good old Queensland (North East Australia) ginger from Buderim, the Ginger Capital of the land Down Under.
As you can see, it wasn’t your usual candied or jellified ginger pieces in chocolate, but a buttery, sweet dark truffle centre. I somehow managed to control myself and continued to read what the inside filling consisted of before eagerly eating it up – ginger pulp, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, milk, sugar, thickened cream, citrus peels, sultanas and ginger powder. This was sounding even better, containing ‘real’ ingredients.
And it is with great relief and joy to report that it tastes delicious. The crack of the firm dark chocolate outer layer reveals a soft-as-mousse centre that has a very distinct and welcome ginger kick that fans of the root spice will love. There is also a hint of fruit cake in the mix whose flavour emerges after the sensuously soft filling has dissolved.
I’ll be honest – I chewed through the first bar, too greedy and giddy to let anything melt but the second bar I ate more slowly, allowing flavours to gradually dissolve and give my titillated tastebuds a real work out. This really is a ‘treat’ and I’ll be adding it as an essential regular on my choco-shopping list.
Here we have a Valentine’s offering from Tesco’s “artisan” brand Cocopia. Milk chocolate hearts with a raspberry flavoured caramel centre, decorated with freeze dried raspberries.
Of course, the first thing you’ll notice is the rather smart box they come in. It’s simple, elegant and very, very pink.
Inside, we have 6 pretty, heart-shaped chocolates, each sitting in a little paper tray. Like the box they come in, they look simple, elegant and quite delicious…
These are quite big chocs, and as you can see, the milk chocolate is nice and thick. This means that you really have to bite through the chocolate to eat them, and I found that the liquid caramel had a tendency to drip out when I bit into it.
The caramel itself is quite sweet, but doesn’t have much of a caramelly taste. The raspberry is subtle, but it does seem to come through above any flavour the caramel may have had. Thankfully, there’s much more chocolate than there is caramel, and it’s rather nice. It’s 30% cocoa solids, and has a nice flavour that you can actually taste, even with the raspberry and caramel.
The final piece of the puzzle is the freeze dried raspberry pieces each chocolate is decorated. They look great, and again have a subtle flavour, which grows over time as they melt in your mouth.
All in all, I really like these. They’re pretty and well presented and have a subtle, understated combination of flavours. They don’t have the wow factor of some of the other Valentine’s offerings we’ve looked at, but then not everyone would want a 700g chocolate heart.
At £2.33 for 6 chocolates they’re excellent value as Valentine’s gifts go and I’m quite sure they would be appreciated.
Another pink Valentine’s Day offering here, in a nice soft, silver pink. My disappointment in it, though, was at finding only seven squares inside. The heart isn’t very big, but I was expecting more like ten. This explains the awkward opening and closing of the box. If there are only a few, they’ll probably go fast and you’ll have no need to close it up again.
Three of those seven squares were the Dark Chocolate with Raspberry ones I reviewed before. Simple balance of sweet and dark.
Two are Milk Chocolate with Caramel, sitting in gold-edged wrappers. You can’t really get the milk chocolate by itself to taste because of the soft liquid caramel. It’s a smooth and milky caramel, setting on the perfect definition of sweet as it melds with the chocolate. Not “sweet” in a bad way at all. The two orange-wrapped Milk Chocolate with Peanut Butter squares are like Reese’s Cups with a divine makeover. The filling is of the same sort, but with small peanut pieces here and there and a much more “real” taste. Creamy with crunchy, peanut flavor with chocolate flavor. All rather addicting qualities, without the Reese’s grease that even saturates the paper they sit in. Now why were there only two?
The only Valentine’s Day part of this is the heart box since these are regular Ghirardelli offerings. Also keep in mind that there’s also a red heart, which has different flavors in it. Not too fanciful, but they’re still good-tasting, simple delights.
