I love World Market. Lately, they’ve been adding their own products to those that they sell. I’ve yet to try their chocolate bars, but their Hazelnut Cocoa Spread has been a friend of mine for a while now. But when I went to buy a new jar, I found this one in its place. (At the time, they didn’t have a new spread that wasn’t “crunchy,” but they now do.) Would it be as good? I worried.
It is. Although the design is different, the ingredients are much the same, except that this one has real vanilla instead of artifical. The old spread was just like a hazlenut truffle filling, but this is less thick and more butter-like. It loses a little richness, yet that makes it more suitable for everyday. I wasn’t too excited about the pieces of hazelnut, but they’re a nice addition. Again, they turn it into a spread that won’t lose its charm after the initial excitement.
Whether on toast, bagels, crepes, or chips (both potato and tortilla — I was in a creative mood), this spread passed the test. Maybe it’s because of belief that hazelnut and chocolate were born for each other. Still, I think many people will be glad to have a chance to have chocolate for breakfast.
It’s been a while since I wrote a review for Chocablog. However, when Sainsburys gave me a free 125g bar of the new Galaxy Smooth Dark chocolate (and I’d already eaten through about half of it), I thought it would be a good idea to come on and inflict my opinion of it on you.
The packaging design falls into the simplicity category – the familiar Galaxy logo is on the paper wrapper, albeit in darker silkier tones than normal. The foil underneath also echoes the rich coppery hues.
At this point, though, I do have to make a complaint. Galaxy, WHY do you have the nutritional information for a 46g bar on the wrapper when it’s actually a 125g bar? Not only is it the height of laziness, it’s also highly misleading – you can’t even really claim 46g is a portion size, because there’s no earthly way you can divide the bar into 46g portions without weighing scales, a lot of patience and a bit left over. Sort it.
Unwrapping reveals a slab of dark chocolate in a five by five grid of little wavy squares (I think… remember, I ate half of it before it occurred to me to do a review… I’m extrapolating from the bits left). They look as though they wouldn’t snap cleanly, but actually mostly they do. It looks fairly unassuming, it’s the taste where this bar really comes into its own.
Now, I’m not normally a fan of dark chocolate. There is no way I would have actively chosen to buy this bar. However, it’s actually really nice. It’s not overly sweet, like the milk version of Galaxy chocolate, but there’s no bitter aftertaste either. It has a rich and smooth texture and is actually very pleasant. I’d buy it again.
For hard-core dark chocolate fans, this is probably going to be too mild for you. But if you like non-sweet chocolate without the bitterness hangover, Galaxy’s new offering might be just the job.
This particular bar is made in Italy and is a brand owned by the Sugar Company. As you can se, the metallic box with it’s somewhat abstract artwork and textured finish puts it firmly into the ‘Posh chocs’ department.
According to the (thankfully available in English) website Cuorenero is produced only with finos, the finest cocoa varieties from the plantations of Latin America (Santo Domingo, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Antilles, etc.). Finos are the premium cocoa beans and are produced from the Trinitario or Criollo variety of cocoa trees.
This particular bar has 60% cocoa chocolate with 14% dried kiwi fruit pieces. My only previous experience of Kiwi fruit and chocolate is Anton Berg’s Kiwi discs, so I was quite intrigued to find out what a bar with a relatively high proportion of fruit would taste like.
The chocolate is (of course) a good dark colour with lots of fruity, citrussy aromas, some of which were definitely cocoa based. On the tongue the initial taste is very dark, burnt sugar and rich deep cocoa notes, immediately softened as the kiwi pieces are released.
The Kiwi fruit in this bar has been freeze dried, and so there’s quite a difference in texture between the smooth, rich chocolate and the hard, chewy pieces of kiwi fruit. As the chocolate melts away, you get a very light, sweet, fruit taste which intensifies as the cocoa disappears and you’re left with a collection of Kiwi pieces to chew. It’s quite ‘bitty’ (after all, kiwis have all of those seeds), rather like a Toblerone but with fruity inclusions as opposed to nuts or nougat. It’s definitely an unusual bar, and I found myself tucking into it with a mixture of intrigue and gusto.
There’s tons of lovely dark cocoa tastes to tantalise the palate, enough to make me wish I’d bought one of their ‘plain’ chocolate bars as well.
Whittaker’s chocolate has been proudly New Zealand-owned and made since 1896 and has just started to make an impact in Australia in the last couple of years.
However even keen Chocabloggers such as myself need a holiday occasionally and this year I decided to eschew the usual sun, sand and sea of tropical north Queensland for New Zealand. Staring forty in the face meant that it was getting embarrassing and shameful that I’d never set foot on the soil of my closest neighbour, land of the Long White Cloud, the mighty All Blacks rugby team and whoever is left of the Kiwi folk not already living in Australia and London.
After landing in Auckland in time for dinner (Thai food swilled down with icy cold NZ sauvignon blanc across the road from the purple-lit Sky Tower that Love Chunks plans to bungy jump from), we popped into the convenience store next to our hotel and found this, the ultimate Whittaker’s block:
Despite popular belief, the Kiwi fruit is not merely the bird (New Zealand’s faunal emblem) with its beak removed, but a bona fide fruit altogether. It is very tangy and considered by most people as best suited to sitting on top of fruit salads and pavlovas, so this block was bought out of touristy exuberance (and a surfeit of wine) rather than any real optimism. As you can see, it looks neither different nor especially promising:
However it’s such a thrill to start off a holiday with a pleasant surprise, because this tastes especially delicious. The chocolate isn’t particularly dark at 33% cocoa solids and 30% milk powder – but very flavoursome – and combines with the chewy kiwi fruit pieces extremely well. The actual fruit pieces are a fair bit more ‘honest’ than the berry pieces I once reviewed in the Nestle Fruits of the Forest dark chocolate block; consisting of more kiwi puree than apple paste and having a very noticeable and real flavour.
The chocolate is made from Ghanaian cocoa beans (as is most of Whittaker’s range) but it is the added ingredients below lose listed for chocolate that aroused my curiosity – humectant (glycerol), wheat fibre (why?), acidity regulators malic acid and tripotassium citrate which I can only assume are to do with keeping the kiwi fruit flavour well preserved and appetising. If it’s for any other reason, I don’t think I want to know any more.
Whatever the ingredient list, it’s delicious, and my husband and daughter agree too. There may be a case of When in Rome (or why ouzo sipped in Greece by the sea tastes a thousand percent better than when taken home and sampled in a freezing bedsit), but it is mostly because it is well made milk chocolate with a unique and perfectly matched fruit flavour. Well done, Whittaker’s.
