I am no stranger to coincidence. I find things, things find me. For example, I managed to locate an old friend who had moved to Milan just by looking on the internet. That, however is not the coincidence that concerns us here. It just so happens that right across from my hotel, on the Via Suzzani, is a small artisan chocolate shop run by a gentleman by the name of Franco Aguzzi.
In the interests of research and in order to avoid any more obvious flavours, I picked out only four of the hand made chocolates. I was also given a small slab of white chocolate studded with coffee beans as an extra sample.
The first chocolate I tried was called ‘Passito’. Franco told me that it was made with a wine that is widely available in Italy and has its origins in Sicily and Tuscany. The chocolate shell barely survived cutting for the photo. It just fell away from the rich, dark truffle filling. When I tasted it, I was immediately impressed with the intensity of the cocoa flavours. Dark, rich cocoa with light citrus topnotes. The wine truffle filling added a wonderfully complex extra sweet note to the mix. It’s a sweet, dessert wine like flavour which blends with the citrusy notes in the chocolate. Superb.
The second truffle was a “Pinot d’oltre Po” which contains a more local, Tuscan wine. The top of the shell was wafer thin, with a good solid base. As the top part of the shell disappeared, a mildly alcoholic, orangey, lemony, flavour complex came flooding out. At it’s peak this chocolate tasted almost like alcoholic pineapple.
The last of the truffles was the “Tronchetto alla Grappa” and, surprise surprise it contained Grappa. You can’t get more italian than that eh? (Well, aside from chocolate pasta I suppose). The shells were slightly thicker than the previous two, and the filling absolutely poured it’s alcoholic, slightly spicy flavours over my tongue. It’s very like a classic liqueur chocolate but without the liquid centre. Milder than a brandy truffle and with a uniquely warm flavour, I really enjoyed this one.
Last up in the dark quartet, I tried a few “Ciliega Candida Ricoperta” – candied cherries to you, matey.
They’re very similar to the cocktail cherries you can buy in the UK. Preserved in sugar and wrapped in the same dark chocolate as their alcoholic brethren, they were definitely sweeter treats. I enjoyed the chocolate more than I did the cherries (but there again I used to eat cocktail cherries when I was a kid).
A slab of white chocolate would never be my finish of choice, but it was recommended to me to try, and well, Italy IS quite well known for coffee, so I accepted. Because they’ve used crushed, roasted coffee beans, the coffee flavour really doesn’t get to come out and play until the chocolate is long gone and I found myself cheerfully crunching the beans for ages, whereas I had merely been waiting for the sweetness of the white chocolate to clear off and leave me and the coffee to our own business.
You can email Cioccolato e Sapori – and I’m willing to bet that Signor Aguzzi will be delighted to send you some of his fine products. Alternatively, if you’re ever in milan and looking for an unusual present for someone, trot on down to Via le Suzzani 12, just on the outskirts of the centre of Milan. Well worth the cab fare.
I seem to have trouble possessing the self-restraint needed to stop gobbling up Haigh’s chocolates before they’re artfully arranged and photographed for the visual delectation of Chocablog readers.
If I buy Haigh’s most popular product – a ten pack of their little chocolate frogs (milk chocolate, dark chocolate or milk peppermint), they tend to have a life expectancy similar to that of a real amphibian shoved in a foil-lined paper bag for a bus ride home: i.e extremely limited. Therefore, I decided to buy a selection of products in the hopes that some would remain unsullied enough to write about.
Milk chocolate frogs
These are Haigh’s biggest sellers and it’s not hard to see why. With a cocoa mass of 36%, they are still nice and chocolatey but have a smooth and creamy finish. I’ve never found anyone – even those from The Dark Side – who don’t enjoy them and it is a common refrain to hear or read ‘Please don’t forget to bring some Haigh’s frogs’ from homesick South Aussies.
Better still, Haigh’s also make ten and twenty packs of dark chocolate frogs (approx 50% cocoa) that also hit the mark for those who are young at heart but not in taste buds. Their third variety is milk peppermint which is the only flavour combination I’ve never been fond of – Haigh’s or otherwise.
Having seen the factory staff delicately and skillfully hand make the truffles that Haigh’s are also famous for, I selected three to describe. That’s right, only three but it gives me many other opportunities to keep visiting and trying other varieties for you, dear reader.
Shiraz truffle
This is a relatively new horse to Haigh’s stable and whilst it looks like a dark chocolate blob, once inside the mouth it sensuously melts into sheer, shiraz heaven. The fruity flavour of the red wine forms a perfect union with the dark, buttery chocolate. Maybe one day I’ll try getting drunk on red wine this way…..
Rose crème
Topped with a sugared piece of rose petal, the pale rose fondant is generously coated in a thick layer of dark chocolate. The scent and taste is of rose and yet is nothing like the jelly flavour of Turkish delight – it is much purer than that and partners up a treat with the wicked dark outer layer.
Violet crème
These are my all time favourite soft centres. Ever. Anywhere. Anytime. The flavour of violet may not be to everyone’s taste but these babies have been around forever, so it’s a compliment to Haigh’s that they’ve conquered a tricky taste and turned it into a long-standing favourite. The cremes are incredibly sweet and I wouldn’t recommend eating more than two in succession. I’d also recommend just eating them on their own without a strong hot or cold drink in hand in order to fully appreciate their fine flavour. They stand proudly on their own.
Cappuccino Bars
If a small handful of fine-but-pricey artisan chocs are not your thing, Haigh’s have not forgotten the person who wants to appear as though they’re going to share but really just want to eat them all by themselves. They have packages of four small chocolate bars to try. Their milk chocolate covered caramel bars and peanut crunch bar are sensational, however my favourite milk bar is their cappuccino variety. It is not merely a boring sugary paste flavoured with coffee essence but is instead a light, fluffy mixture that truly represents the milky flavours of a good cappuccino.
I’ll tell you about their dark bars in another post, as well as their lemon myrtle creams, passionfruit creams, berry chocs, dark peppermint crunch, mandarin creams, vanilla almond dark and chocolate-dipped orange slices. Not to mention their Giant 350g frogs, cointreau truffles, rocky road, macadamia nougat, white strawberry block, berry mousse dark centres, roasted almonds, café latte truffles…..
Recently I reviewed a product from Cadbury South Africa that combined Dairy Milk with white chocolate. Well this (British) chocolate could be considered the exact opposite. Dairy Milk chocolate with a soft dark chocolate centre.
Inside this rather attractive cardboard box are eight small, individually wrapped bars…
Now I hadn’t even heard of the “Melts” range, so I didn’t no quite what to expect. But the packaging certainly looks a cut above the rest of the Dairy Milk range. I was so intrigued, I even went and read the blurb on Cadbury’s web site – a wonderfully dry page full of marketing speak and statistics which made it quite clear that this chocolate is not aimed at me.
In fact, Cadbury seem to have positioned Dairy Milk Melts quite specifically. Reading between the lines, it’s aimed at a 45-year-old married, working mother from Yorkshire who is watching television with a cup of coffee in the evening. I particularly like the line which starts “Children are clearly detrimental…”
Cadbury obviously knows its audience.
But enough of this frivolity! You want to know what the chocolate is like right?
Well you’ll be pleased to know that it’s completely divine. Easily the best variation on Dairy Milk that I’ve tasted in a long, long time.
Let a chunk melt on your tongue and the creamy milk chocolate slowly melts away, leaving the truffle-like dark chocolate centre. As you might expect, the trick is to let a single chunk melt slowly, and when you do, the flavours gradually build, becoming richer and more chocolatey. But the taste isn’t at all bitter, just more intense.
A lot of thought has obviously been put into the development of “Melts”, and I think that has paid off. I’m genuinely looking forward to trying the rest of the range. And if you’re a married working mother from Yorkshire, I recommend trying them for yourself.
I found this in an Austrian service station while driving from Brno in the Czech Republic to Ljubljana in Slovenia. No, really.
Physically, this bar falls into the same category and the Cherry/Chilli bar I reviewed some time ago. What you get is a mousse base topped with fruity jelly, wrapped in Lindt’s 70% Bittersweet dark chocolate.
I remember when I tried my first Lime chocolate bar a couple of years ago. I found it in Germany and it scored a big hit with me. That was just plain chocolate with lime oil though, a much less fancy affair than this. I had high hopes for a Lindt Lime bar.
As soon as you bite into a piece of this chocolate your tongue hits the tangy, sweet lime jelly. The mousse in the base starts to melt, mingling with the lime jelly and drifting away, leaving the bittersweet dark chocolate as the finishing taste. The mousse is light and delicate, rich but not overly sweet. Had there been much more sweetness in this bar besides the lime jelly, it would have become far too sweet for the rich dark chocolate.
The green pepper element is held in the jelly and is much less fiery than I had anticipated. It is possible to taste the green peppercorns but they by no means overpower any of the other flavours. It’s a slightly spicy, tangily citrus combination held in check by smooth, rich dark chocolate. The citrus notes in the chocolate make a great finish with the light peppery warmth – more great blending of flavours from the great Lindt.
