If you’ve read any of my previous Moser Roth reviews you’ll know this is Aldi’s flagship chocolate brand. You’ll also know that in general I consider the range to offer good value for money, as well as offering the occasional gem.
This latest discovery is a limited edition run of Moser Roth Blueberry Panna Cotta milk chocolate. It’s moulded and packaged in the same form as the Cherry & Chilli chocolate that I became rather fond of last year. It’s the same box shape with four stick bars, but this time the chocolate is milk, the jam filling is blueberry and the creamy mousse part is panna cotta. One thing I was fairly certain of was that this wasn’t going to be a bittersweet dark cacao experience!
The combination of the three elements was inevitably going to be sweet. I was quite relieved to discover that it actually wasn’t too sweet though. The panna cotta cream is light in the mouth and not overly sweet, sitting well with the milk chocolate which again is sweet but not too sugary. The blueberry jam could easily have pushed the whole thing over into sugary excess, but happily it retains some of the tartness of the fruit (and there isn’t so much that it has a chance to take over). The finish is equal parts sweet chocolate and tangy fruit and lingers for quite a while.
This isn’t fine chocolate by any stretch of he imagination, but it is a better class of supermarket chocolate. The balance of the three elements is good, and the fruity finish is rather pleasant. It’s a cut above a lot of the big four supermarkets’ offerings and there’s a distinct lack of nasties in the ingredients. Throw in the (very) reasonable price & I think this will be a bit of a winner with milk chocolate afficianados.
This is one of Hotel Chocolat’s relatively new ‘Rabot 1745’ range, the new name for their single origin bars.
The ‘Island Growers’ moniker signifies this bar is made from Saint Lucia beans sourced from estates around Hotel Chocolat’s own Rabot Estate, rather than using the Rabot beans themselves. The beans fermented and dried centrally at the Rabot Estate, before (as I understand it) being shipped to the UK, where the chocolate is made from the bean.
What I particularly like about this bar is the wealth of information provided on the wrapper. With some chocolates, you’re lucky to find the cocoa content listed, but with this bar we have cocoa content, origin, harvest date, conche time, roast time, roast temperature and the name of the chocolate maker. That’s a lot of information!
For the average person, it might be a little overwhelming, but I like to think it will pique the curiosity and encourage people to find out a little more about what the numbers mean and how they affect the finished product.
The numbers that interest me most on this Island Growers bar are the roast time and temperature as the chocolate has a very strong roasted, almost smoky flavour. A smoky flavour on chocolate is often a bad sign, as it can mean the beans have been over-roasted, or that they’ve been dried artificially by fire and the flavour has been contaminated with smoke.
I don’t think that’s the case here though – I think the beans have just been roasted a bit longer than they normally would be. The resulting flavour might not appeal to everyone, but I find it unusual and quite moreish.
Of course, the real talking point of this bar is that it’s a milk chocolate with a whopping 70% cocoa solids. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for milk solids – just 12%, in fact. The result is more like a dark chocolate with a hint of creaminess, rather than a real milk chocolate.
Technically, the chocolate would probably be a little more approachable if the milk solids were replaced with sugar, so this probably isn’t the best way into dark chocolate if you’re a milk chocolate love. The result is interesting and actually quite tasty, but it’s probably more of an experiment than anything else. It’s worth trying though, if only to see just how different a milk chocolate can be.
…Or to give this Pierre Marcolini bar its full title Carré2 Chocolat Los Ríos Équateur Grand Cru de Propriété Hacienda Puerto Romero, a bar composed of Nacional cacao from Ecuador, cane sugar, a little lecithin, and Tahitian vanilla.
As you can see, there’s no mistaking who made the bar – it’s an elegant and bold design which lets you know that M. Marcolini is very proud to have his name embossed into every bar.
So what of the famed Nacional cacao?
Well apparently this particular cacao is grown exclusively for Marcolini to turn into chocolate in Brussels. It’s a darker, purply cacao pod which yields a more intense chocolate, and that’s exactly what it does here. The first hint of red berry and fruit is somewhat deceptive, as it very quickly turns into deep, dark coffee and treacle undertones – and I mean deep.
The treacly flavours are pushed almost to the point of excess before the cacao starts to release its other flavours – sweet, light, floral notes that dance through the darker flavours and provide a long, complex finish. It’s quite remarkable stuff and certainly something I would highly recommend to anyone with an interest in complex, intese cacao.
Marcolini is one of a handful of bean to bar makers and what he has achieved with this cacao is fairly remarkable. I tried hard to resist but the bar didn’t really stand a chance.
For fans of big, bold cacao with complex flavour, and definitely one of my top five so far this year.
I’ve always been a sucker for cool packaging, so when I was given a slender wax paper envelope which bore the name of everyone’s favourite Canadian chocolate maker, Soma, I was very excited.
Chocolate and Friends is a collection of nine flat discs, each made of dark chocolate of an undisclosed percentage – I’d guess 60% or thereabouts – and an added ingredient (or friend). And that’s about it.
There’s not much to them and they are delicate enough that one got cracked during their journey to my hands. For some peculiar reason, the first thing that jumped to mind when I saw them all laid out was Communion wafers, and I could try to come up with a laboured metaphor about worshipping at the altar of Soma as I ate them, but I won’t. Here’s the rundown of the different flavours.
Roasted Sesame
This is a good match simply because the sesame seeds fit nicely into the little circles of chocolate. . And roasted sesame seeds also bring in a nice flavour.
Beets
This was the real surprise in the collection. The dark red beets added just a touch of sweetness and earthiness and is something that I would like to taste more of. There must be someone out there making Beet Truffles – please get in touch…
Raspberry
There’s very little to complain about when freeze dried raspberries and bitter chocolate are brought together, so this was very pleasant indeed. Yum.
Pistachio
The problem with using discs of chocolate which are only a couple of millimetres thick is that there isn’t much room. So the pieces of pistachios within are very small and don’t give much in the way of nuttiness. Or to put it another way, big chunks of pistachios are always better.
49th Parallel Epic Espresso
Another unsurprising combination, but still one which turned out to be a highlight of the envelope. Just dark chocolate and intense, ground espresso beans, but a great blend nonetheless.
Java Cocoa Nibs
Again, a tried and trusted combination of crunchy nibs and dark chocolate. Good stuff.
Roasted Tartary Buckwheat
Adds some crunch and not a lot more. There was a little bit of nuttiness as an aftertaste, but this was my least favourite of the discs because of the ordinariness.
Smoked Salt
As with my previous encounters with smoked salt, I found this to be a bit overwhelming especially when accompanied by not very much chocolate.
Aleppo Pepper
I’ve had one of Soma’s full-size bars which was liberally sprinkled with Aleppo Pepper, so this was just a little reminder of that. This had a nice amount of heat, with just a bit of smokiness. I would quite happily pick up a whole bar like this again.
So while this is a very cool presentation of their chocolate and a nice way to get a little taste of Soma, there are too many things here which are your standard combinations. I’d have preferred some weirder and wilder flavours thrown in and have this be a testing ground for new ideas, but it does function well as a sampler for newcomers to all things Soma.
Veterans like myself would be better served by picking up some of their favourite bars instead.
Information
- Contains dark chocolate.
- Filed under beets, buckwheat, canada, coffee, nibs, pepper, pistachio, raspberry, salt, sesame, soma.
