I thought a chocolate blog would have a certain obligation to have a Hershey’s bar. As I bought this one, I realized that it’s been years since I’ve had one. I remember when they used to actually look like chocolate bars, wrapped in foil and paper. Now they’re wrapped in skimpy plastic like any other candy. They used to be thicker, now they’re approaching paper thin.
Even though it was a cool and rainy day, the chocolate was still exceedingly melty, making it nigh impossible to break off a piece. Instead of breaking, I had to tear along the marks as if peeling off a sticker. It also vanished instantly in my mouth, allowing little time to taste its caramel flavor. Despite being melty, it has a rather rough mouthfeel. And leaves grease in your throat, which I absolutely abhor.
So I think you guys already know this, but Hershey’s is a candy bar, not a chocolate bar (it’s blasphemy to call it such.) It barely even tastes like chocolate at all, which is why you eat it when you want a sweet, not a chocolate.
Here in Adelaide, South Australia, we have an annual Royal Agricultural Show. A hundred years ago it might have just focussed on livestock and who won the best handmade scones, but these days it’s about vomit-inducing rollercoaster rides, dodgy sideshow games and showbags.
Most showbags are for children but there are a couple that don’t necessarily contain chemically-coloured sherbet sticks, warheads and gummi bears. My favourite is that done by Swiss Glory, local chocolatiers that are owned and made by Swiss emigrants.
For twenty bucks (what’s that in English money – nine quid?) you get this:
Yes, there’s a gingerbread man or person lurking in there, but they gave me a free sample of this bread coated in dark chocolate, so he felt like a teasingly nude version of what they also offer.
I started with the white honeycomb first. White’s not really my thing, but the texture of this – both in flavour, smoothness and in the unusually thin bubble shape is mouth-wateringly fine. The two white truffles in the two triple truffle bags were also very smooth, filled with a milk chocolate creamy centre that reminded me of Lindor.
The bag of four milk chocolate coated macadamia nuts were a genuine surprise. The nuts were crunchy (as well as buttery – often macas can get stodgy and greasy if they’re too old) with a tiny layer of toffee to add to the crispness. I wish I had 444 instead of just four. The milk chocolates – truffles filled with coffee and a honey mixture and a wedge of their classic milk with layers of slivered almonds and a hazelnut praline stick – were all superb.
The two florentine biscuits were coated on their backs with milk chocolate which just blended so well with the honey, almonds, peel and cherries of the biscuit. They are small but very sweet and more than two would be too much. The milk chocolate teddy bear disappeared in a joyous instant.
The dark chocolate truffles were divine. One with an even darker, yet softer and creamier centre that literally exploded in my mouth and slapped awake any taste bud not yet paying attention (but in a good way) and the other with a rum-filled centre. Oh to be able to dive, face first into their dark truffle melting pot….!
If I get nothing else from the show (apart from a stomach ache, sore feet and an empty wallet), I get this showbag because everything in it is absolutely top quality every time.
From Italy, and from the makers of the (frankly inedible but definitely unusual) Absinthe chocolate comes this milk chocolate flavoured with vanilla. As you can see, being Italian it comes in a very stylish wrapper – perhaps not as ornate as the Absinthe bar wrapper (Which I recall as being particularly lovely) but a very attractive one nonetheless.
At 31.7% it’s a little low on the cocoa content for European chocolate, and does veer towards the ‘style over substance’ cliché. It’s very sweet, and whilst the vanilla goes some way to enhancing the overall flavours of the cocoa, it lacks any real cocoa flavour. I seem to find myself remembering the wonderfully complex cocoa flavours of Cocopia’s Ghanaian milk chocolate, and this doesn’t even come close.
I have to say that I am a little disappointed in my Venchi experiences to date. Both bars have failed to live up to my expectations. There is a third (and again very different) bar awaiting my attention. I hope it goes some way toward redeeming Venchi in my eyes.
Regular readers of Chocablog may know how much I love nougat. So when I saw these, it was the picture of the nougat crammed with nuts and fruit that got my attention rather than the chocolate – and just like the Thorntons nougat I reviewed a while back, I found myself looking for any mention of chocolate on the box just to have an “excuse” to buy them.
Luckily, half the pieces in this box are covered in “Belgian dark chocolate” – so I purchased them, safe in the knowledge that these are “work” calories (Chocablog is work! No, really!), rather than some frivolous indulgence.
As you can see, the nougat is packed with fruit and nuts. Or cranberries, melon, pistachios and hazelnuts if you want to be precise. I think only covering half the pieces in chocolate is a stroke of genius, as it’s the pictures of the “naked” nougat on the box that really sells them. Well, that’s what sold it to me, at least.
But what of the chocolate covered pieces? Well it’s actually pretty good, although there isn’t that much of it. The back of the box describes it as 74% “plain chocolate” (a term which I personally hate), but the covering is so thin that the sweetness and fruitiness of the nougat underneath comes through almost immediately. Both the flavour and the amount of chocolate complement the nougat perfectly. And sweeter and the whole thing would be too sweet. Any thicker, and it would just be too heavy.
And the nougat itself is excellent. It’s soft, chewy, fruity and totally delicous. It’s much more moist (and infinitely less polystyrene-like) than the Thorntons nougat. In fact, it was so good that I demolished the entire box as soon as I opened it, and I’m having to write this entire review from memory.
If you love nougat, you’ll almost certainly love these. If you don’t love nougat, well I suggest you go out and buy a box anyway… and send it to me. Thanks.
