I found myself at World Market again. In the chocolate isle, of course. I stood there and wondered what delicious thing I should choose. Amongst all the sophisticated packaging, the girliness in me thought these kitties were cute. Then I noticed the name. Bread and chocolate? Okay, you’re coming with me! I’d never heard of such a combination.
This is part of the 3400 Phinney (the company’s address) Fantasy Flavor Flight range, all of which display the artwork of “Kittenchops,” of course. Despite the silly look, Theo Chocolate is very conscious, proudly displaying organic, Fair Trade, and fifty-percent recycled signs. In fact, they claim to be “The only organic, fair-trade, bean-to-bar chocolate factory in the United States.”
When I opened it up, I thought I’d found another Green and Black’s, but then I realized that the aroma is different. Less lofty somehow. The bar is definately plainer than I’d expected, but still not lacking in creativity. Its flawless surface is like a deep mirror. It’s a healthy gloss rather than a cheap shine.
Seeing the little crunchy bits (yes, French Bread is an ingredient), I wondered if it might be like some sort of good quality Crunch Bar. Sitting a piece in my mouth, I found some nice red flavors in the chocolate, along with something sweeter when I came to the bread pieces. Honey, maybe, I thought. But I wasn’t really getting it.
So I decided to chew on a piece instead. Oh, my, what an experience. Now I know how chocolate can be nostalgic even if it isn’t something you ate during childhood. And I didn’t eat bread and chocolate, either. Unsure how to describe the taste, I turned to the ingedients list. Butter made with sweet cream, sea salt. That explains it, then.
This bar is the perfect example of melding flavors together. Deep chocolate, crunchy bread, sweet butter, and tart salt. You can taste them all, and they all work so beautifully together. I can’t wait to try the other two Theo bars I bought. So thank you so much, Theo Chocolate, for an amazing new idea based off the everday “bread and butter.”
Halloween is nearly here, and while I’m not a major fan of it myself, any excuse for more chocolate can’t be all bad. So here we have a seasonal addition to Hotel Chocolat’s “minislabs” range.
Having only ever reviewed their giant slabs in the past, I was looking forward to something a little more managable, although it turns out even these minislabs are more than a mouthful.
The slabs come in four ghoulish designs and feature a combination of milk, white and caramel chocolate, and as you’d expect, they’re all devilishly divine.
We’ve talked about the quality of Hotel Chocolat’s chocolate many times before, and these are right up there with the best. The white chocolate is a little too sweet for me, but the milk chocolate is deliciously creamy and the caramel chocolate (a mixture of milk chocolate and caramel) is so ridiculously moreish that I couldn’t stop myself eating an entire slab in one go.
My only real concern is that these are way too nice to give to any kids that may come Trick or Treating on October 31st. And they’re also too big – I mean, what would the parents say if you accidentally induced a diabetic coma in their beloved offspring?
But I do have a simple solution to that – close all the curtains, switch off the lights and pretend to be out while you scoff them all yourself. Trick the kids and treat yourself….
Another Slovenian offering, again courtesy of BeeBee, and again slightly unusual. The combination of figs and chocolate isn’t one I had come across many times, and this bar was made up of just that – fig pieces and chocolate. Yep, no fancy blending, mixing or special filling creation here; this is a bar of chocolate studded with pieces of dried fig.
It is of course the same 70% blend as the Cedar sap bar I reviewed some time ago – a very pleasant chocolate with a great mouthfeel and a good set of vanilla/cocoa/coffee notes to tease the palate. It softens quickly, releasing the little chunks of fig. Being dried fig, it does take a little chewing to get the flavours out, but it’s well worth the effort (and of course once again one has the option of playing Squirrel Cheeks with the bits and saving them for after the chocolate).
This sort of chocolate bar has me in a quandary. The combination of flavours does work very well, but faced with some of the stuff that chocolatiers like Dolfin manage to come up with, where ingredients are blended to produce subtle, complex flavours this might come across as a little inelegant. On the other hand, there are plenty of people who love ‘chunky’ chocolate. Whether or not this would appeal depends entirely on how you like your flavours delivered. Personally I rather enjoyed chewing my way through little fragments of fig as they blended with the chocolate. The pieces were small enough to mix well and large enough to mean that they did actually deliver their flavour before the chocolate had all melted away.
The whole fig and chocolate combination seems to be particularly European. I now have a number of fig based chocolates in my possession, and the nearest geographically would have to be Skellig’s entirely too moreish Baby Figs. One would hope that British chocolate makers would cotton on to this possibility and offer us something new, but I suspect it will be a small chocolatier rather than one of the big companies that comes up with something first.
Fate was definitely working when I noticed that there was a gorgeous chocolatier shop on the same street as our hotel in Wellington, New Zealand, going by the name ‘Melting Perfection’. We reached it as it was about to close but seeing my eager face threatening to spill over with tears, kindly shop assistant Filip let me in.
Not only was I struck by the wonderfully inventive selection on offer – try amaretto truffle, balsamic vinegar and honey, chilli ganache, ginger caramel and maple cream to name a few – but also by their huge, life-sized chocolate molds of cocoa pods and teddy bears in dark chocolate ‘wearing’ milk chocolate overalls.
Using Belgian chocolate, George Havlik the chocolatier hails from the Czech Republic with a pastry chef background that eventually led to his real love – chocolate. And ya gotta love a bloke who, on his website thanks his wife, Hana for her help and patience.
And thank goodness she stuck it out with him. My selection of chocolates were carefully carried through customs and sampled at home with my friend – and guest taster – Jill.
Firstly, the dark chocolate with the white ‘W’ on it – a deliciously dark coating that instantly melted to release a cool and creamy filling with the barest hint of wasabi. Unusual but not overpowering and rather refreshing.
The only white of the bunch gave another indication of the high quality chocolate used and housed a lemon and thyme cream filling. Jill liked this, even though she’s not a white chocolate fan and, before tasting said, “But these flavours should be on roast lamb, not chocolate.” She changed her mind immediately afterwards.
Pistacchio and marzipan. I adore marzipan and Jill has the same love for pistacchios. Her view was to “leave the pistacchio be, mean old marzipan”, but I loved this as a neat little move away from the usual almond concoction. Both of us agreed that the dark chocolate accompanied it beautifully.
The pineapple was a surprise – despite its rather kitsch seventies shape, it delivered a powerful hit of pineapple followed up by a cheeky dash of black pepper. More importantly, this combination works. Brilliantly.
The small praline cream held its own amongst the more creative flavours by relying on the dark chocolate to work its magic and melt away to reveal the softly creamy hazelnut; so light I wondered if it had been whipped with egg white. Simply the best praline I’ve ever tasted.
The final morsel was the love heart which was another revelation of top notch dark chocolate melting to reveal a tart passionfruit cream that held its own against the cocoa notes. “That’s absolutelyl beautiful,” Jill said, “This shows off the quality chocolate and ingredients.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.
So if you’re ever in Wellington it’s the next best thing to discovering that Lord of the Rings’ director Peter Jackson calls it his creative home. These chocolates are as well.
