The West Coast of Canada has a whole bunch of small companies happily making chocolates, and every so often some work their way over to the East Coast where I cross paths with them. I’ve been given a couple of bars of Denman Island Chocolate lately by people who told me it was the best they’ve ever had – something which I always take with a grain of salt – and they were perfectly acceptable bars of flavoured chocolate which I happily ate.
One had freeze-dried raspberries in it, but it was their wittily-titled Rosemary, Baby bar which I really liked.
A trip to my current favourite chocolate shop revealed that Denman Island had added a new bar to their range – Alto el Sol. It is a special limited edition, made with beans from a single plantation in Peru and it stands out from the other bars they produce for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it has a wonderfully colourful wrapper rather than the monochrome look all the other ones have. Secondly, it is more expensive. The bars aren’t that big in the first place – just 46g – so adding an extra dollar to the price does appear to be a little on the steep side but that could all be forgiven if the chocolate is stunning. Or at least tasty.
And it is a rather tasty bar of chocolate. It tastes like a single origin bar, thanks to its robust flavour which starts off strong with dark, earthy tones and then shifts into vanilla and, for some reason, a hint of bananas. The ingredients reveal that the chocolate is 65%, leaving a little too much room for the cane sugar for my tastes. It turns out that vanilla has been added rather than coming from the chocolate itself, but it isn’t overdone.
While the other Denman Island bars I’ve had definitely benefitted from the flavourings they’ve had added, Alto el Sol doesn’t need that. I do think that the next batch should be ramped up by at least another 10% in the cocoa solids department to balance out the sweetness, but it is still the best bar that Denman Island Chocolate have made to date.
We don’t often write about white chocolate here, primarily because it’s mainly sugar and generally has no real flavour to speak of. Willie’s Cacao El Blanco is a little bit different though.
I’m sure you know about Willie Harcourt-Cooze. The Devon-based chocolate maker who shot to fame after the Channel 4 fly-on-the wall series Willie’s Wonky Chocolate Factory started out by making 100% cacao cylinders as a cooking ingredient. In the five years since the series was made, Willie has steadily expanded his range, and now he’s making flavoured bars, caramels, and this white chocolate.
For the uninitiated, white chocolate is generally made from four ingredients; sugar, cocoa butter, milk powder and vanilla. It’s often so packed with sugar, that it’s difficult to eat more than a single square, and when you do it has little or no flavour. Any flavour there is comes from the vanilla.
Willie has taken a different approach with his white chocolate. He’s using single origin Venezuelan cocoa butter, and sugar is at the bottom of the ingredients list, rather than the top. He’s also taken the vanilla (something that is generally used to cover up bad flavours) out entirely so you can actually taste some of the flavour of the Venezuelan beans.
Now don’t get me wrong, this is still very much a white chocolate. But it’s one that you can happily eat without making yourself sick. Just break off a small piece and let it melt on you tongue. It’s sweet of course, but you can actually taste something other than sugar and vanilla. It’s fresh, light and creamy.
The notes on the back of the 50g box say this chocolate is perfect for desserts and decorating cakes. I’m sure that’s true, but it’s even better just to eat it on its own. It’s easily the nicest white chocolate I’ve ever had.
Whether you’re a white chocolate lover who wants to switch to something a little less sweet, or a sceptic who usually avoids white chocolate at all costs, this is a bar you should try for yourself.
Sure, it’s just a white chocolate, but it’s a white chocolate made by someone with a passion for real chocolate and natural flavours. Highly recommended.
As a child, I loved advent calendars. It didn’t matter so much about what the treat behind each door was, it was purely the anticipation and surprise.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had an advent calendar myself, primarily because I expect more from my chocolate than the cheap pieces of greasy milk chocolate that generally fill them. So I very happy to learn that Valrhona had produced an advent calendar this year.
Now before I go any further, I should say that this probably isn’t the calendar for you if you like to be surprised by what’s inside. The exact contents are proudly displayed on the back of the box: 23 small (5 gram) Valrhona chocolate squares of different varieties, and a single 70g bar of Guanaja for Christmas Eve.
There. Now I feel bad for having told you. But you would have found out anyway.
There’s a mixture of dark and milk chocolate squares of various origins and cocoa percentages. I’m not going to talk about them individually here, as we’ve already reviewed most of them at one time or another.
Suffice to say they’re all quite tasty, and a cut above the average advent calendar treat.
But at the same time, there’s no escaping the fact that this really isn’t very Christmassy. The only real nod to Christmas is some simple decorations on the sightly flimsy box. And although you don’t know which square you’re going to get on any given day (apart from Christmas Eve), it also lacks the element of surprise. Those chocolate squares just aren’t different enough to make it exciting.
Perhaps this is a calendar for those who just like good chocolate, and aren’t that fussed about quirkily shaped chocolate. But I think £19 is a lot to pay for 185g of Valrhona. It’s good, but it doesn’t feel like a great amount of effort has gone into making a truly festive product, and neither does it have the luxury feel that would set it apart from the crowd.
When you think of chocolate producing countries, Vietnam may not be the first place that comes to mind, but it’s rapidly establishing a name for itself in the world of fine chocolate.
My first introduction to Vietnamese cacao was two years ago when I reviewed Demarquette’s Ben Tre bars. These bars were made for Demarquette by chocolate maker Franck Morin, who is now producing a range of Vietnamese chocolates under the Vietcacao name.
Last year I started hearing people talking about a new name in Vietnamese chocolate; Marou Chocolat. Two French guys who were actually making chocolate from the bean locally in Saigon. I was intrigued and had to find out more.
Earlier this month at Salon du Chocolat in Paris, I got to try Marou’s Vietnamese chocolate for the first time and also had a chance to meet the men responsible for these gorgeous looking bars. Samuel Maruta and Vincent Mourou (hence ‘Marou’ name), started making chocolate more or less by accident.
After visiting a cocoa plantation and retuning with some beans, they decided to have a go at making chocolate themselves using instructions downloaded from the internet. Needless to say, the first attempts didn’t go particularly well, but with more research, practice, and investing in some locally built machinery, just a short time later they’re producing chocolate to rival the best in the world.
Samuel and Vincent source their beans from different regions across the country. Each region produces its own bar, and each one has a different cacao percentage, chosen to suit the particular flavour characteristics of the different beans.
As you might have guessed, this particular bar is made from beans from the Tiền Giang province in southern Vietnam.
Everything about this bar is an experience. Inside the thick, beautifully printed paper wrapper the chocolate is covered in a simple and elegant gold foil. Open it up and you’re greeted with a deliciously warm and spicy aroma.
It looks as good as it smells too, with a very pretty diamond pattern and the Marou logo embossed into the bar. It almost seems a shame to break into it.
The flavour is rich and dark, making the bar seem a little stronger than 70% cocoa solids. Those warm spices are also there in the flavour, along with a sweet fruitiness. The tasting notes on the wrapper also mention honey, but that’s quite a subtle note in this robust bar.
I love this chocolate. It’s the kind of bar where you just need a small piece, let it melt slowly and experience the flavours. But to get a real flavour of Vietnam, I recommend picking up a few of the other bars in the range and tasting them together. You’ll be amazed at the variety of flavours that can come from the beans of just one country.
Marou chocolate can be found in Monmouth Coffee in Monmouth Street, London and a number of other locations around the world. See the Marou website to find your local retailer.
