Would you believe it’s mid-February and I’m still ploughing my way through chocolates from Christmas? That says a lot about the volume of chocolate we’ve reviewed in the last few months, what with Christmas and Valentine’s day. And we’ve not even begun to talk about Easter yet!
Suffice to say this is worth waiting for. It’s a simple idea, but one which works very well. 12 small (15g) “taster” bars of Green & Black’s chocolate, with two bars of each six varieties (3 dark, 3 milk).
The varieties are:
Organic Dark 70% Chocolate
Dark chocolate is what Green & Black’s are famous for, and we’ve reviewed the full sized version of this already so I won’t repeat myself. Smooth, rich and delicious.
Organic Dark Ginger Chocolate
Small pieces of crystalised ginger in 60% dark chocolate. I love ginger in chocolate, and this is a deliciously warming, spicy little bar. Yum.
Organic Dark Cherry Chocolate
Simon reviewed the full sized version of this 60% bar back in July and I’m in total agreement. The cherries are quite tart but work well with the sweetness of the chocolate. Tasty, fruity, chewy and moreish. One of my favourites in this collection.
Organic Milk Chocolate
My first ever Green & Black’s milk chocolate! 34% cocoa solids, 27% milk solids. Given Cadbury’s ownership of G&B, this is probably the closes thing to an organic version of Dairy Milk we’ll ever see. Much creamier than I expected though. Very tasty. One of the nicest ‘plain’ milk chocolate bars I’ve had.
Organic Butterscotch Milk Chocolate
A very sweet, buttery milk chocolate with hard caramel pieces, giving it a bit of crunch. Taste a little like a Crème Brûlée. I think I’d find a large bar of this a little too sweet for my liking, but these tiny taster bars are just perfect.
Organic Milk Almond Chocolate
This is packed full of nuts. In fact, I’m not quite sure how they managed to fit so many in such a small bar. I’m not a huge fan of almonds, and I think they’ve overdone it a little with the nuts here. The chocolate is the same as the standard milk chocolate bar, but the nuts make it a little too dry for my liking. Probably my least favourite of the bunch, but still not bad… if you’re a nut freak.
Overall, a really nice little collection of chocolate that allows you to sample a large part of the Green & Black’s range without investing in a big bar that you might not like. I particularly like the fact that you get two of each flavour so you can sample them with a friend… or have two of the ones you like and just give the others away.
Definitely worth seeking out.
The last of the Filthy Food Company’s kind offerings, and this time they contain a blend of caramel and fresh cream – or as they would have it “shamelessly rich caramel whipped into double cream”.
When I posted my original review of the Kinky Crème Brûlée Bites, we received a comment from someone saying that they’d tried these at work “and they were AWFUL!”. Now I wouldn’t go that far, but I have to say that to my palate these tasted rather like they’d been filled with golden syrup.
The overall impression of the filing is of a syrupy, sickly sweet tasting creamy goo – far too sweet for my liking and way to rich. When I ate one, I didn’t feel as though I could have cheerfully eaten a second one. My co-tasters were in agreement as well. Everyone wanted a second (or third) Choc Bite or Strawberry and Cream Bite, but there were no takers for these.
So there we have it – a split decision. I would happily recommend half of the range but I would also steer prospective buyers away from the other half of the range. Still, it’s early days for Filthy, and if they can produce more of the yummy stuff then I can see them carving themselves a niche in the after-dinner, special treat market.
(Footnote: I was in my local Sainsbury’s the other day and I noticed that they are offering the entire Filthy Foods range at 50% off. A good time to try them!)
Swiss Glory is not a isolated nudist outpost but a well-respected chocolate manufacturer that has been operating in South Australia since 1979. It is, perhaps not surprisingly, run by Swiss immigrants who are extremely skilled at chocolate making.
They regularly win the ‘Champion Chocolate’ award at state and national royal shows and yet remain the second-cousin to Adelaide’s most famous chocolatier, Haigh’s. Reasons for their B-list status is unclear but it might have something to do with their location (in the butt-ugly industrial sector of Stepney compared to the heritage-listed inner city ‘beehive corner’ building owned by Haigh’s); total silence on the advertising front or the ‘We’re just getting on with things and not sticking our noses into other areas’ attitude that the Swiss are known for (in fact they don’t even have their own website).
Whatever: they make sensational chocolate. It is with a great deal of trepidation that I make the following statement: Swiss Glory’s plain milk chocolate bar is the closest reminder to Lindt’s that I have ever tasted. Truly. It has a very creamy consistency that easily dissolves on the tongue, providing the classic good ‘mouth feel’ expected and delivered by Lindt. On the negative side, having three fingers molded in a generic bar-shape, wrapped up in plastic with no ingredients listed on the back doesn’t make it the most attractive option for gift-giving.
Swiss Glory’s dark chocolate also refuses to divulge any ingredients or cocoa-mass on the back of the wrapping. My guess is that it’s around 40-50% and can be placed in Lindt’s dark blue Lindor ball category. Very, very nice and definitely needs a more respectful packaging to give it the respect such top quality chocolate deserves.
Luckily for me, Swiss Glory had some ‘special selection’ hand-made truffles on sale in, again, a plastic bag. Never one to judge by appearance (especially where bargain-but-good chocolate is concerned) I rushed home and eagerly shared them with my husband, Love Chunks.
Honestly, I tried my best to still my excitedly-fidgeting hands long enough to slice some truffles down the middle and photograph them but this picture does them about as much justice as Paris Hilton to humanitarian causes.
These modest little lumps were a real find. The dark chocolate heart literally sang to us with its filling of a deliciously delicate honey crème. Thank goodness there were two in the bag! The dark barrel was filled with a well-crafted rum filling that wasn’t over powering but perfectly complemented the chocolate; the white truffle was a buttery, creamy ball of hazelnut ganache gorgeousness and the liqueur milk truffle with real cherry pieces was a delightful surprise. The white-chocolate dusted truffle was filled with a milk chocolate and coffee mixture that worked surprisingly well for this lover of dark-choc-n-coffee combos and the dark truffle with even darker filling was sublime.
The milk chocolate truffle was the only disappointment with a significant sugar crackle between the chocolate coating and inside – perhaps a hint as to why they were on sale in the first place – the ‘best before’ date was rapidly approaching. Who cares – I’ll be a much more frequent visitor to the Swiss Glory counter in future.
Time to cast my eye (and mouth) over another offering from the Filthy Food Company. As you may already be aware, Filthy Food have done a deal with Sainsbury’s in the UK and you can find their fresh cream filled chocolates in the chilled desserts section.
After two reviews Filthy are on an even keel – I disliked their Crème Brûlée Bites but was won over by the Dark Chocolate Bites. How would the strawberry chocs fare?
All of the Filthy Foods range come in these very well made ‘fold out’ boxes, and the chocolates are nested inside a sellophane wrapper, looking for all the world like a nest of pyramid-shaped chocolate eggs. As you can see, the insides of the boxes are colour-co-ordinated. Full marks for presentation.
The chocolates themselves are ‘restrained’ in the usual ‘thick, hard’ Belgian milk chocolate shell, and the cream filling has been ‘whipped’ with ‘lashings’ of double cream. (Very Carry On Spanking, Matron). Now I have a personal hatred of ANYTHING that is artificially strawberry flavoured, so I was pleased to see that these are filled with the real deal. Strawberries and cream – not particularly avante garde, I have to say, but a timeless classic is a timeless classic after all, and these carry it off well. There’s plenty of fruity strawberry flavour in each bite, and of course the cream works splendidly with the strawberries, as it has done for many a year.
They’re a good deal lighter on the palate than the Dark Choc Bites, and as such they were destined to have a short but happy existence chez Michalak. We hoovered these up in one sitting, and the general consensus was that they were very moreish.
Where the Dark Choc Bites were very much an ‘grown up’ after dinner, cup-of-coffee kind of treat, these little fellers have universal appeal, although at 41p per bite you’re probably unlikely to want to turn your kids loose on a box. (Strawberries and donkeys and all that). If your tastes don’t extend too far into the Dark Side, then give these a go.
