I’ve mentioned before (at least twice) that I love freeze dried strawberries, so these were a must have buy for me. There’s something about that weird cardboardy texture that I just can’t get enough of.
And these certainly look tempting. Large, whole straweberries, covered in a creamy looking white chocolate.
Strangely, they have a slightly sticky / tacky feel to them. That could just be my bag, but I suspect it’s down to the shellac listed as a glazing agent on the ingredients. Call me old fashioned, but I’d rather my chocs weren’t coated in insect secretions, and I’m not convinced it was necessary to use it here. The cynic in me thinks it’s probably just there to help extend the shelf life of the product .
The white chocolate itself is also just a little too sweet for my liking. It’s not the worst I’ve tasted, but it doesn’t need to be this sweet. The (deliciously cardboardy) freeze dried strawberries are already very sweet, and the coating takes them to a level approaching sickliness.
I’d love to see a version of these with a high quality milk or dark chocolate, and without the glazing agent. Unfortunately, as tempting as they look, I don’t think I’ll be buying them again.
I don’t much like Hershey’s. I’ll try and be fair about them, but I’ll make this no secret. Yet their new products seem like spiders’ webs for me: they look decent enough, then turn out to be nothing special. Still, I guess I should respect the Cacao Reserve line for trying to keep up with the times.
This bag is one of those decent-looking products, although I’m still trying to find out how two almost identical chocolates can be an “assortment.” There are ten individually wrapped squares of each.
To my surprise, the chocolates themselves were also decent-looking. Their smooth faces awakened a little hope of getting out of the web’s tangles. The Dark Chocolate with Cacao Nibs was both too sweet and too bitter, along with that wonderful Hershey’s plastic smoothness. After the chocolate melts (which it does much too quickly), you’re left with crunchy, blueberry tasting nibs. They were the better part of the experience. The Dark Chocolate is much the same, only the lack of nibs makes it sweeter. Yet this isn’t a bad thing as there’s also a chance for more flavor to come out. So I actually enjoyed this one more.
They’re okay chocolates. But I wouldn’t go so far as to call them “premium.” Their pleasantness is more like what you get from eating an ice cream sundae. Nice enough, but it ends there.
Not long ago I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted at the door by a courier carrying a box from Italy. Yes, finally Simon from Stainer came good! Among the numerous beautifully packaged bars (and there are plenty) I found this quartet of 50g ‘alcoholic’ bars. Three of the four are 45% ‘milk’ chocolate, and all are blended with one sort of booze or another.
Unlike the other Stainer bars I have seen (many of which are now due for review) these bars use photographs rather than the beautiful paintings that normally adorn the boxes. I suppose the idea is that these are ‘real’ flavours rather than those designed to evoke a certain region or culture. (You’ll get my drift when I start reviewing those bars later).
The Champagne bar was the first one I tried, and it smelled surprisingly sweet, rather like a champagne sorbet. The chocolate flavours are excellent, borderline ‘dark’ tastes of vanilla and cocoa, slightly woody and very well balanced. The mouthfeel is a little grainy at times (I suspect the flavourings or sugar) but overall a very pleasant, light flavoured bar which does indeed deliver the taste of champagne.
The Irish Coffee bar certainly lets you know what to expect. It has an incredibly strong coffee/alcohol aroma and as soon as you pop a square into your mouth your tastebuds are hit with the two flavours. Lots of strong whiskey taste sitting above a reasonable coffee undertone. Again, slightly grainy and a little too sweet for my palate, but a pretty good facsimile of the drink it’s trying to emulate.
My third bar was the Mulled Wine, or ‘Vin Brulée’ bar. It’s flavoured with cinammon, cloves and vanilla, as well as the wine tastes and it’s the cloves that hit the nose first. Not being a great fan of the clove, I wasn’t expecting to like this one much, and as I popped the square into my mouth I could taste little else at first. However, resisting the urge to give up (i.e spit the blighter out), I bit into the chocolate and allowed it to start melting, at which point the citrus of the lemon flavour came and saved me from more clove nastiness. I’m not sure where the wine was in all of this – my friends the cloves were definitely out in front all the way.
The final bar of the quartet was also the only dark chocolate bar, a 70% cocoa chocolate blended with Rum. I was a little surprised to find that the chocolate didn’t reek of rum (like the Irish Coffee one had) but instead I could smell quite complex woody, leathery notes in the cocoa. Of course, once it was in my mouth the rum flavours came out to play, adding a sharpness and an almost citrus tang to the overall taste. If anything, the texture of this bar was grainier than the previous three, and the rum flavours all but obliterated the chocolate tastes until the last morsels were melting away. A little over the top for me, this one.
Regular readers of Chocablog will already know that I harbor quite the cocoa-crush on South Australian Lindt Guru, Matt Thorpe. He’s tall, cute and smart but most importantly he comes bearing Lindt products for my delight, delectation and in order to protect himself from being raped and/or pillaged.
This time, he held up a gold box and then made a hasty retreat when my attention was diverted.
This sleek gold box just oozes class and sophistication, which are qualities I rarely possess; let alone when something of this stature is given to me.
Matt is always aware that we true chocaholics need substance over style, and the fourteen beauties resting in gold were no exception. Plus, they were dark chocolate, pulling it at a minimum of 41% cocoa solids – not bad for filled centres in my book.
Fighting off Love Chunks and Sapphire for more than my fair share, I present you with:
Lune d’Oranges
Not a fondant, but instead marzipan inside flavoured with orange liqueur. If you don’t enjoy marzipan it won’t be for you, but if you do (as I do), having the additional flavour is delightful. I’m not sure what ‘lune’ means in French-Swiss but surely it’s no coincidence that it rhymes with ‘swoon’?
Pistachette
Again with the marzipan, this time made with pistachio instead of almonds and topped with a glazed pistachio and smothered in dark chocolate. Pistachio seems to be a very faint flavour when done with chocolate, so I’d be struggling to pick out anything else beyond marzipan without seeing the green nut on top.
Carmelita
Hubba hubba hubba – this is really something special. Caramel gets over-used and abused in everyday chocolate bars, but when it’s done right, it should taste like this. They’ve put in two slightly different layers of caramel cream and then adorned it in dark chocolate. I’d love to see an entire box dedicated to this little blast of brilliance.
Dragon Classique
The only dark chocolate is the Lindt dragon logo on top, but all is forgiven with the addition of champagne truffle filling hiding in milk chocolate. Describing this as the ‘dark side consolation prize’ is too much of an insult.
Serenade
Another orange-themed chocolate, but this time not with marzipan but a stickier, more caramel-like filling. Distinctly orange and fruity and partners perfectly with the dark chocolate.
Stracciatella
The volcanic grandparent to the limited-release Lindor Stracciatella balls, this has the snow-capped top filled with cookie bits and the lower mountain done in dark chocolate. If this was made full-scale, it’d be even better.
Cornet Excellence
A cute way to present a dark chocolate truffle for purists not keen on caramel, cookies or marzipan. Stands alone.
Amaretti
I’ve saved the best until last. Amaretti (almond liqueur) biscuit pieces, almond liqueur centre and bound together with dark chocolate. Sounds like a mess, looks like a mess and tastes like the tidiest homage to dark-and-crunch combinations the world over.
