Now I don’t know about the rest of you, our beloved readers, but I’ve never really got on with coffee in chocolate. It seems to me that two flavours which should get along famously (and I refer specifically to espressochoc and chocolate coated coffee beans as examples that work) somehow seem to end up disagreeing when they find themselves being blended in a bar of chocolate. Think about the ‘coffee one’ in a bag of Revels – whoever heard of anyone scrabbling to find THAT choccy?
So when I saw this bar sitting on the shelf I immediately thought “Aha! Lindt coffee chocolate! Surely the Swiss cocoa wizards can come up trumps!”
Wrong.
Yep, just when I had convinced myself that Lindt could coat horse manure in chocolate and make it delicious, I find myself backing away from one of their products. The strange thing is, it should all work. I mean, we have Lindt’s 47% dark chocolate with 1% coffee. Okay, the chocolate could be a little more cocoa-heavy, but ostensibly the thing should work. It just doesn’t – at least not for me. The chocolate seemed to be somewhat dull tasting, and the coffee flavour didn’t really lift the overall taste to any new level.
The standout ‘wrong thing’ for me had to be when I bit into a square and came across what felt (and tasted) like an instant coffee granule. I haven’t touched a cup of instant in many, many years, so that really did it for me.
So there you have it – my first Lindt reject. Proof that not everything they do is amazingly good. Just most of it.
Footnote from Dom: Simon reviewed this without realising I had already reviewed it… and that I liked this bar, primarily for the reason he didn’t – the ‘granular’ coffee. Just goes to show, you can’t please everyone all the time… not even a Chocablogger!
When I make trips to London’s west End I like to visit the See Woo supermarket in Chinatown to stock up on noodles, sauces and other hard-to-find-locally Chinese delicacies.
Oddly enough it was only recently that it occurred to me that I might be able to lay my hands on some Asian confectionery there, so last week I went there and had bit of a poke around.
Sure enough, I found these – Chocolate Koalas.
What are they? Well, they’re little koala shaped biscuity things filled with a cheap and cheerful chocolate flavoured cream type stuff. Hardly gourmet fayre, but definitely a great novelty item, especially as there are a huge range of cute little koala faces in the box. So as well as a tasty (and they are surprisingly tasty considering the low cocoa content) nibble, you can spend time looking at the various koalas and (if you’re a kid) playing with them before snarfing them up.
The biscuit shell is very thin, crispy and has a good crunch to it, and the melty creamy filing is darker than you might expect and not too sweet, so older palates will also enjoy them.
As far as I can ascertain from the box, See Woo import them, so I couldn’t tell you whether or not they’re available in any other Chinese supermarkets. What I can tell you is that if you’re throwing a birthday party or want a novelty cake decoration which isn’t going to send the kids hyper, then these could well be worth tracking down.
They’re surprisingly tasty.
Continuing my comprehensive review of the entire Conscious Chocolate range, we reach bars number seven and eight.
First up, ‘Love Potion Number 9’ – the only chocolate bar I can think of that has been named after a classic 60’s pop ditty.
This bar contains Organic Otto Rose oil and Maca (the South American root which can allegedly perk up your libido).
If you recall (or look back at) my review of the Superfoods bar you will see that it too contained Maca, and that I mentioned it having a somewhat earthy taste. Well, this bar has a similar taste, so I can put it down to the Maca. I’m guessing that this is showing up on my palate differently to other people, as my tasting friend was more than happy to dig in, whereas I find the earthy, rooty taste doesn’t sit to well with the lovely chocolate base.
Next up is the Goji & Coconut Delight
This another bar which has ‘bits’ in it. In this case, flakes of coconut and fragments of Goji berry, and again the texture and flavours of the added ingredients sit beautifully with Emma Jackman’s Best Ever Plain blend. Break a piece of the bar and you see lovely deep pink pieces of Goji berry and tiny flecks of white from the coconut. Pop it in your mouth and chew and the extra ingredients lend the chocolate a lovely fruity, chewy texture.
Like the Citrus Zest bar, this one ranks in my top three so far. The additional ingredients are an excellent choice. They sit well in the chocolate and add a splendid twist on the original flavour of Conscious chocolate’s Best Ever Plain. If I were in a shop and faced with the entire range it would be this one and/or the Citrus Zest I’d be reaching for.
However, we still have another two bars to review, so all that could change.
Watch this blog.
‘It’s the way that it shatters that matters’ is the traditional catch-phrase for this famous Australian bar which has been around since 1913. ‘Violet’ was the inventor’s wife’s favourite flower, and the ‘crumble’ was the honeycomb.
Apparently Mr Hoadley found that the best way of preventing his honeycomb from becoming soggy was to dip it in chocolate (now if we could only persuade the makers of popcorn, corn-chips and cup cakes to do the same……). Since then, they have been one of Australia’s most popular chocolate bars: in the 1980s, ‘our’ ** Olivia Newton John even sold them from her Malibu-based, Aussie-themed ‘Koala Blue’ shop.
No doubt you’ll be imagining that, as a proud Aussie, I’ll now start raving about this ‘classic icon’ of a bar and how poor your Right-Way-Up (as opposed to ‘Down Under’) lives are for not having any.
Nope, I can’t do it. The good old Cadbury Crunchie quite easily gives Violet Crumble the Chocolate Chomping Championship Titles butt kicking to end all butt kickings.
When you first bite into a VC it is reminiscent of trying to sink your teeth into a teacher’s blackboard – very chalky and about as orally pleasant as aurally hearing someone’s fingernails rake across the surface. Usually my first reaction on biting into one (sadly, yes, every twelve months or so I find myself eating another one to keep reminding myself as to why I dislike them so much) is to automatically spit it back out, saying “YUCK – I’d rather chomp a chalk stick.”
Also, the instant crackle to melt-on-your-tongue sweetness that is the attraction of the Cadbury’s Crunchie is sadly lacking in the Violet Crumble. Instead, it has a much denser texture that doesn’t dissolve but needs to be thoroughly chewed until it congeals into sticky, yellow strands that then annoyingly stick in your teeth and, once eaten, coat your teeth in furry plaque. Not too romantic when trying for a quick snog at the movies. My advice is to avoid them at all costs – get a Crunchie and go crazy.
It therefore doesn’t surprise me to find out that Hoadleys (and in this era of company takeovers – Nestlé) apparently sweep the floors for broken pieces of Violet Crumble and set them in cute little molds and sell them as ‘Bertie Beetles’ at agricultural and side-shows around the country. They actually taste much better this way and are also much cheaper.
** We can’t really claim that she’s an Aussie; it’s just our tendency to do so when foreigners become famous (ie Crowded House and Russell Crowe are from New Zealand). Livvy-babes was raised in England until her early teens; moved to Oz and became fairly well-known only to move to the US at the height of her ‘Grease’ fame and happily settled there in her slide into obscurity. These days she only bothers to visit Australia for the occasional well-paid appearance at a royal variety performance or ‘Carols by Candlelight’ concert.
