With all my time in Santa Fe, I had never come across The ChocolateSmith. Fortunately, Jeff Keenan sent me a few samples: WinterMint Bark, two wax chocolates, and a box of chocolates that I’ll review next.
The WinterMint Bark is a dark chocolate slab with a white chocolate slab, sprinkled in peppermint, on top. My companions all enjoyed it, but there was something not quite right to me. I’m going to attempt to explain the taste I picked up in it, with the hopes that someone out there will know what I mean. I call it a “makeup taste” and before I’ve only encountered it in Mexican sweet bread.
I’ve no idea where this taste comes from, and while it isn’t exactly unpleasant, it isn’t the nicest in chocolate, either. But that aside, the dark chocolate is smooth, with slight coffee notes. The white has a nice bit of depth to it. The mint, though, is barely noticeable. Again, it should definately be stronger. The packaging could always be a big nicer, as well, but it is handmade chocolate.
Next is the wax Joyful Hearth with Sunset Orange Pate. It’s labeled as “dark chocolate orange ganache infused with Chipotle chili and cinnamon, hand dipped in Dutch cheese wax.” This was my first wax chocolate experience; it’s an interesting concept. Pretty and entertaining to peel off after you cut a piece. The ChocolateSmith markets it as “weatherproof chocolate,” which definately comes in handy in the Southwest and for toursits, who aren’t always traveling in the best chocolate enviornments. My first impression of this chocolate was something akin to fudge, only nicer, of course. It’s very soft, but slightly rough. This one has a sweet taste at the start, then a lemon/citrus edge, before moving on to the warmth of the chili. Which flavor is the one in your mouth after it melts. A bit spicy for the weaker palates, a light touch for the stronger. The fudgy chocolate taste isn’t very dominant with so many other flavors, but it’s a nice compliment to them, nonetheless.
The Holiday Tree is a plain Dark Chocolate Pate. It has a wonderfully enticing thick, moist smell that reminded me a little of the Joseph Schmidt truffles. The fluffy ganache has a reddish tinge and is still a little rough in the mouth. Although there isn’t any orange in this one, the chocolate still has a sweet citrus/strawberry fruitiness to its depths.
I’m still puzzling a bit over the WinterMint, but the wax chocolates are amazing. They’re truly something to touch both sides of the chocolate spectrum. Enough to enchant the chocolate-obsessed, but still casual and innocent enough to entice the average person or tourist.
Italy makes some pretty good chocolate, but there’s no official word on exactly what kind of dark chocolate was used to build this 11 meter high, 8 tonne replica of the famous clock tower at the Houses of Parliament.
Apparently, the tower was built for a Christmas food festival in the town of Macerata Feltria and is scheduled to be chopped up and fed to the public right about…… now.
(Oh, and yes, I know Big Ben is the bell. But it’s so much easier to type than “Palace of Westminster Clock Tower”. So there.)
Image from Reuters / Metro.co.uk
Apart from the marriage of ginger and chocolate, one of the great pairings has to be chocolate and alcohol. Preferably the alcoholic thingy should have a bit of flavour. I don’t know that vodka quite cuts the mustard.
Be all that as it may, it’s time for another sampling of the euro-stash we brought back (via trains, planes, yada, yada). We found the Camille Bloch Kirsch in the a shop alongside a train station in Switzerland, the sort of place that sells newspapers, magazines, and in this case quite a nice selection of chocolate. The price sticker is still in the back of the pack: 3.20 Swiss Francs. In Australian dollars, that’s about 3 bucks for the 100 grams, which is not doing too badly.
Kirsch, of course, makes me immediately think of Black Forest Cake, especially the one we make about once a decade that includes a liberal dose of both Kirsch and Cherry Brandy through the cream filling… Oops… drifting away. Back to the task at hand. Besides, my arteries were hardening just thinking about it.
The packaging describes its contents in both French and German: “Swiss Milk Chocolate with liquid Kirsch filling”, and also highlights “without sugar crust” (a method of making a liquor filling stay inside the chocolate). So, it follows that if this is made without using the Sugar Crust process, it would be reasonable to expect the liquor filling to be less sweet than some other products. Because Kirsch is a distilled spirit with no sweetening, this is probably a good thing. The less sugar in our Kirsch the better! On checking the ingredients list, the Kirsch content is 11% of the total! No wonder it also warns (in 4 languages): “Contains Alcohol”. No kidding!
In spite of the vast distance being thumped and bumped in suitcases, the contents survived their journey pretty well. The milk chocolate is very soft and delicate. The cocoa content seems to be pretty low, it’s a long way down the ingredients list below sugar, cocoa butter, milk powder, glucose syrup (!) and kirsch. Still nice though.
The way to eat a piece is to let it slowly melt in your mouth. Suddenly, there comes a burst and you are flooded with the sharp Kirsch… Mmmmm. That no sugar crust thing really pays off. This is goooooooood!
Can we have this exported to Australia, please?
Thanks to my mates Ashleigh and Marie – also new chocablog contributors – for bringing this little 150g treasure back to me after their overseas odyssey, the wonderful Lindt Hot Papaya.
It is another of those tantalizing examples of what Lindt offers its lucky European chocoholics, but denies us Down Under Dwellers. Sure, we have their 70% Creations in chocolate mousse, cherry/chili and caramel, but Ashleigh and Marie were dazzling me with their lists of all kinds of other flavours they saw that are also commonly available in a land perhaps better known for leiderhosen and sauerkraut. Besides, we used to have a Papaya (known as ‘Paw Paw’ in Australia) tree in our back yard when we lived in Darwin, but had no idea that it would one day find itself as a key ingredient in some of the finest dark chocolate known to mankind.
After looking at it longingly for about a month – a personal record of self control, dear readers – and having a week I can only describe as a ‘Weekus Horribilus’, it was time to crack it open and, perhaps most importantly, eat it by myself and not share.
Ahhhh, the beautiful, familiar and yet still appealing aroma of Lindt’s 70% was evident the moment the foil was ripped open. Plus, there was also an inviting whiff of something fruity and spicy.
Inside the chocolate is a fine layer of mousse which I’ve raved about and enjoyed before and could quite happily do a bellyflop into. On top of this mousse is a thin, orange marmalade-like layer of liquid papaya syrup infused with fiery chili. Not unbearably painful sweat-under-your-eye-balls fiery, but enough to add an extra ‘Wow’ to the zesty zing of papaya and have the imbiber automatically reach out for more.
This is absolutely terrific chocolate and I hope – please, Matt, lovey puss, sweetie darling sweetie – that it becomes available in Australia and all other places it’s currently not available in – very soon.
