Lately, I’ve been amazed at the rate it which Lindt have been able to churn out new and interesting products. Their range seems to be growing on a daily basis. Even my little local corner shop has a whole shelf full of Lindt now. (Although I suspect that’s primarily aimed at me because I just keep buying the stuff). While I’ve pretty much universally liked all the new additions to the range, I am a little concerned that the chocolatiers at Lindt are spreading themselves a little thin.
So what’s this “Swiss Classic” then? Well, it’s an upmarket version of Kinder Chocolate, that’s what. Sweet milk chocolate with a creamy white chocolate centre.
Now, I really like Kinder. It’s very sweet, but it’s just so creamy and moreish. The Lindt bar shares that sweetness, but it just seems to be missing a certain something. The filling isn’t quite as soft and creamy as it could be and it’s just a little sweeter than it need be.
I don’t have any Kinder chocolate to hand, so I couldn’t say if this is actually sweeter, but it seems like it to me. On the other hand, that could just be down to the fact that this is a much bigger bar. With the tiny Kinder bars, you don’t get much, so you’re forced to eat it more slowly.
Having said all that, I do like this bar. It’s just too sweet for me to scoff down in one sitting like my instinct tells me I should.
And that annoys me somewhat.
I bought this around Christmas time (when I was on my hot chocolate fact finding mission on behalf of Chocablog) with the intention of brewing up a cup or two and giving you an in depth review. At £4.50 a tub, I had high hopes for it, especially as I like ginger too.
However…
…I looked at the ingredients before opening it up.
Over 59% of this expensive, ‘premium’ branded drinking chocolate is sugar. Yes, that’s right. I have paid over £2.00 for 200g of sugar.
I felt like I’d been mugged. If I could return it I would.
So beware, good reader. Not all hot chocolate is actually chocolate, and charging us a fortune for a fancy container with a load of sugar in it is an affront and an offence. Avoid this sugary rubbish.
End of rant.
More Christmas chocs (still!) here. This time, a little gold carboard pouch with a slightly pretentious name. And while the packaging is cute, what’s inside is a little less impressive.
What you see above is the entire contents of the box. Five chocolates… or “an irresistible selection of Gorgeous chocolates”, according to the packaging.
I’m not at all sure who (besides professional chocolate reviewers) would buy a 30g box of 5 small chocolates. There is a bigger (200g) box available too, but the contents are the same – you just get more than one of each chocolate!
The varieties are:
- Crunchy Toffee
- Chocolate Latte
- Chocolate Truffle
- Hazelnut Praline
- Dark Truffle
…and while they’re tasty enough, I wouldn’t go so far as to call them ‘Gorgeous’. I wouldn’t have been able to tell you what flavour they were meant to be without looking at the helpful key on the back of the box. They’re all exactly the same size and shape. They’re slightly different shades of brown and white and subtly different textures, but they’re all just too sweet to be moreish.
Aside from a stocking filler at Christmas, I genuinely have no idea who this 5 chocolate box is aimed at. The actual chocolates are Ok (despite being mainly sugar), but I really can’t think of a single reason I’d go out and buy a box of 5 run of the mill chocolates.
Venturing over to the (pause for effect) *Dark Side* can be a little bit scary. When you see blocks and bars stating that they have a minimum cocoa content of 50%, 60%, 70% and 85% it can seem a bit like a choco-challenge of strength and fortitude instead of the fun and frivolous activity it really should be.
A great deal of the standard milk chocolate we’ve all inhaled since childhood often only contains around 20-30% cocoa solids and is instead well-padded out with milk (or the ever-intriguing ‘milk solids’), butter, oils and sugar. It is sweet and melts quickly.
In order to ease yourself over to the Dark Side, Lindt have some assorted squares available to try that range from very milky (around 20%) to the saliva-sucking bitterness of 85% cocoa content.
The best way to start immersing yourself into the joys of dark chocolate is to buy a pack of the 70% cocoa content squares from Lindt. This allows you to enjoy a few small tastes of serious dark chocolate rather than wasting an entire block. I’ve found from ‘bitter’ experience (boom boom) that sinking my teeth into an entire, solid row of intense dark is about as confronting as Pete Doherty a week before bath time, and just as unpalatable. Instead, these squares are big enough for a taste and small enough to counteract the bitterness of the first bite.
On opening my particular packet however, it was obvious from their whiteness that they’d melted and re-set again (bloody Australian weather and boiling hot cars carrying the groceries home). Whilst this does detract from their attractiveness, it doesn’t stop me from eating them (and nor should it stop you). Unless they are way, w-a-a-a-a-y past their ‘best before date’, eat up and enjoy. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder (or chocolate ‘holder’ in our case).
Each square is only a few grams of chocolate each and just the right amount to chew, suck, nibble and taste. Wash it down with a hot cup of black tea or strong coffee so that it helps the actual taste of the chocolate come forward.
You may still need something sweeter (I normally do) for every day eating, but it is still nice to throw off the conventional shackles of 60% or less and get down and dirty with devilish delights of the delicious Dark Side.
