Newest Aussie Chocablogger Ashleigh Quick takes a look at something a little different from down under….
Back when I was a kid, if you wanted jam (jelly, for you Americans), you bought Glen Ewin. It was only about 30 years ago one bought local produce, because that was all you could get. Before globalisation, in fact way before long distance transport made it easy to get anything from anywhere, you had no choice. Buy local produce, or do without.
In southern Australia, Glen Ewin had a large property in the Adelaide Hills, where they grew all manner of fruits, which were made into jam. The enterprise started in 1943, the jam-making in 1862.
By the late 1980’s, the business folded – a victim of changing tastes and poor management.
Some good came from all this though: Willa Wauchope, of the current family that own the property, grows figs. Some of the figs come from the original trees planted in the 1850’s. But these are not just any old figs, these little figgies don’t go to market, these go to chocolate.
Willabrand Dark Chocolate Figlettes are the small fellas, little figs – dried naturally on the tree, then coated with dark chocolate. Each is about 1.5 cm in diameter – perhaps ¾ inch. Lay them on a plate and they bear an uncanny resemblance to that other South Australian favourite, Fruchocs.
Remember, these little babies are not some boiled down essence of fig laced with chemical factory wonder, these are the real deal.
A dissection makes an interesting diversion for a Sunday afternoon (such being the things that amuse us), and inside we find the sticky pulp and seeds of the fig within. No messin’ about here. Straight fruit, pure and simple.
Finally, the taste test. No idea where the chocolate comes from, but its rich, sweet, and altogether more-ish. The fig: well, it’s… ummmmm… figgy. Nice. The crunch of little dried seeds adds a wonderful texture. Our friends from Denmark made the pronouncement: Nice!
These chaps have a big brother. If the figlettes look a bit on the small side then try the Chocolate Figs instead. The same idea but with a much larger fig inside. And just as good. Get some today!
There are a lot of strange things on the shelves these days. Although I’m all for organic or raw chocolate, “healthy” chocolate is another story. So I picked up this box more out of curiosity than anything else. The chocolate here was made using Mars Botanicals’ proprietary “Cocoapro” process, which is designed to retain cocoa flavanols, to benefit circulation.
There are five thin bars, each with four pieces. The chocolate’s coloring is very dark. It’s no wonder the box says these are made by the same people as Dove (Galaxy in the UK): that’s exactly what it reminded me of. Thick, smooth, very chocolatey. But I’ve always thought there’s something odd about this. It’s incedibly smooth, but not fine. It’s chocolatey, but of a processed, impure kind, to my view. One of these 22 gram bars comes out to a dollar. That’s a little steep. The overall taste is enjoyable, but odd, so not very amazing.
They’re nice, but the size of them makes it tempting to just eat all five bars like popcorn, defeating the “healthful” purpose. And I can’t help but wonder if a purer, rather than specifically devoped, chocolate wouldn’t be more salutary.
We’ve had another fun email, this time from Nada Wilson who writes:
“I love chocolate especially new and excited foreign varieties. I find it expensive buying these though from eBay, etc. I wish I had someone to trade with… I send them some British chocolate they send me some American (or other country).”
I think this is a wonderful idea, so I’m going to have a think about how we could best implement a chocolate-swapping feature on Chocablog.
In the mean time, if anyone out there wants to swap chocs with Nada (Nada’s in the UK… you should be somewhere else!), leave a comment below and tell us where you are. Be sure to put the correct email address in the comment form and I’ll pass on your contact details.
One of the perks of this “job” is that we often get sent samples to review. Usually it’s the chocolate companies or chocolatiers that send us the chocolate. Occasionally a shop will send us some of the chocs they stock. It’s quite rare that we get sent chocolate by our readers, but that’s exactly what Malgorzata Sychta did.
So this is the first of two reviews of bars from her native Poland that she wanted us to try.
Now Simon reviewed a Wedel bar back in January and found it overly sweet. But my tastes are different and this time we have a solid block of milk chocolate – so how does it shape up?
Well despite the somewhat distressed state the bar arrived in, I really quite enjoyed it.
As far as I can tell, “Mleczna” simply means “Milky”, and that describes this bar quite well. It reminds me of the milk chocolate that you find in Kinder (not the white chocolate). It’s sweet with a distinctive, light, milkiness that’s quite different to the creamy flavour you get with something like Galaxy.
Simon likened the cherry bar he tried to Cadbury Dairy Milk, which is perhaps not entirely surprising, given that Cadbury own Wedel, but personally I much preferred this to Dairy Milk.
I genuinely enjoyed this bar and found myself scoffing chunk after chunk without even noticing, which, given how much expensive chocolate I have in the house right now, is quite a feat.
So if you happen to be passing your local Polish shop (or… er… Poland), I’d recommend picking up a bar and giving it a go.
