Yes, we realise this is a little late for the Fourth of July…
One of my friends told me not to review a Fourth of July/Independence Day chocolate on a UK-based site, but I couldn’t resist. After all, our countries are friends again now, aren’t we? Plus, I was beginning to feel I had to give this tube of Sunbursts some attention; this was at least the second year I have seen it at World Market. I ignored it in the past because it didn’t seem a very interesting product, but approached it this year since there hardly seem to be other Fourth of July chocolates springing to my view (though I would be delighted if there were). Tortilla chips and cupcake mixes, yes, but not chocolates.
Sunbursts are made by the Kimmie Candy Company of Reno, Nevada. They are available year-round in different, non-red/white/blue colorings. And all the company’s products are labelled as Gluten Free and 100% Made in the USA. That last part is fitting. The inexpensive tube consists of 86 grams of candy coated sunflower kernels. This is one of the first ingredients lists I’ve encountered that actually uses the phrase “compound chocolate;” so instead of having quality genes, the chocolate is mainly made up of sugar, partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil, and cocoa powder.
This was also my first experience with a sunflower/chocolate pairing. The concept is basically the same as Peanut M&M’s, but sunflower kernels are much smaller and more delicate and flavorful. The candy coating manages not to overwhelm the tiny sunflower kernels, staying appropriately thin to match them. Instead of tasteless peanuts, the kernels give off their singular, salty flavor. Their almost flaky crunch meshes well with the thin candy coating. It’s all pretty sweet; nonetheless, that soft crunch makes Sunbursts mildly addicting to eat, one small kernel by one small kernel.
If I could change one thing, naturally it would be to trade out the compound chocolate for something just a step higher. These red, white, and blue kernels may not be the perfect embodiment of patriotic chocoholicness, but at least they’re something. Something I can easily picture a family passing around while camped out at night to watch the Fourth of July fireworks.
I’m always a little nervous when someone says they have some chocolate for me because my expectations aren’t always in line with other people’s. But when I was given a little bag on my birthday that someone picked up at our local farmers market, I was pleasantly surprised. They were made by Choco Cocagne which is, not surprisingly, located in Cocagne in Eastern New Brunswick and just a few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to meet the talented chocolatier behind them, Ginette Ahier. I also left with another bag of her creations.
The most immediately impressive thing about Choco Cocagne’s chocolates is how pretty they are. Ahier has gone with a uniform square shape, each decorated with a colourful transfer making them very reminiscent of Montreal’s Chocolats Geneviève Grandbois’ Les Classiques in both size and shape. She also has a wealth of different varieties too – more than twenty are listed on the little leaflet that accompanied the bag of six I tasted. They were all dark chocolate – not sure what percentage but I’m guessing it was around 60% – but the real star of the each and every one was the centres. Here’s a rundown of what I had:
Kashmir – a subtle Chai tea centre with lots of spices lurking in the background. Nothing really takes the lead, so it needs the robustness of the chocolate to hold it all together. The filling was a little on the grainy side, probably because of the spices but smoother would have been better.
Le Feulleté – a lovely rich hazelnut praline, with just the right amount of crunch thrown in for good measure. There’s absolutely no mistaking which nut this is made with. Apparently this is supposed to emulate a filled crêpe, but all I got was deliciousness.
Le Passionné – The token fruity chocolate in the bag. This one is all about the passion fruit centre which is handled without much subtlety, but then again, passion fruit doesn’t lend itself to subtlety. Not my favourite because it was a bit one dimensional.
Le Sucré-Salé – ah, the ubiquitous salted caramel. This is a pretty good one – not too sweet but I’d like just a touch more salt. I really liked the fact that the caramel wasn’t too runny so it was possible to eat it in a couple of unmessy bites.
Le Digestif – I’ll happily eat any minty chocolate so this was always going to be a winning combination in my eyes. This is one of those minty truffles that has the taste of fresh mint, and it is quite lovely. Not too strong – just the right amount of mint. Yum.
Tonka – Some rich chocolate ganache which is flavoured with the still fashionable Tonka bean. The fruitiness of the chocolate centre is slowly replaced by the vanilla notes that come from the Tonka as it all melts away. Nicely balanced, with little bits of the beans to chew on.
So at last I can say that New Brunswick has a very talented chocolatier making chocolates which are well worth seeking out. I’m looking forward to working my way through the others I haven’t had yet and also picking up some more of those wonderful Le Feulletés.
When I think of Valrhona, my mind usually turns to dark chocolates like Manjari and countless French chocolatiers who use their chocolate in their creations. I don’t usually think of milk chocolate bars like this.
Valrhona Andoa is an organic and fair trade brand. As well as this 39% milk chocolate, they also do a 70% dark chocolate version.
The 100g bar follows the standard format for Valrhona consumer chocolate bars; eight large chunks with the Valrhona logo at the top. For a milk chocolate, it has a nice clean snap. It’s not overly soft like some milk chocolates can be, although
There’s not much of an aroma to it, but it does have a very nice flavour. It’s warm, creamy, caramelly, and very easy to eat. There’s nothing complicated about it, it’s just a really nice milk chocolate.
The texture is smooth without being glossy, and the chocolate melts beautifully. The best way to eat this chocolate is just to break a small piece off and let it melt on your tongue. Let the flavours develop and resist the temptation to chew!
If you’re used to the confectionery chocolate that you might find in your local newsagent or supermarket, then this is probably going to be a revelation, and a great introduction to the world of fine chocolate. It’s sweet enough to keep any milk chocolate lover happy, but it’s never sickly.
It’s currently on sale at £4.65 from The Chocolate Trading Company (who sent me this sample), and at that price I’d recommend it to any milk chocolate lover looking to try something new. It’s not going to set the world of fine chocolate alight, but it is organic, fair, and a huge step up from the every day milk chocolates you might be used to.
We’ve been developing Chocablog for over six years now and I wanted to let you know about some updates to Chocablog that I hope will make it even more useful and easy to use. I hope you’ll have a browse around the site, use the new features and let us know what you think. I’d also love to hear the kind of features you’d like to see in the future!
Chocolate Events
Firstly, we have a brand new Chocolate Events section on the site. We want this to become a calendar of all the best chocolate-related events around the world, so if you’re organising something, do let us know about it.
The only rules for events is that they should be open to the public and strongly feature a chocolate theme. You can add your own event directly to the calendar using this submission form, or you can contact us directly if you’d like us to add your event for you.
To keep track of events without having to visit the site every day, you can subscribe in iCal or Google Calendar by adding this URL, and we’ve also got an events RSS feed, so you can subscribe in your favourite RSS reader too.
Chocolate Recipes
We’ve completely revamped our Chocolate Recipes section, so now all our recipes are shown in a single place with photos and a description. We’ve got well over 60 recipes now, making this one of the best resources for chocolate recipes on the web.
Social Links
The design of the site has been tweaked a little to allow us to display a link to the latest post at the very top of every page, along with prominent links to all the social networking sites we’re on. Chocablog is particularly active on Twitter and Facebook, so if you haven’t done so already, please add us there! We’re also now on Pinterest, which we’re still getting the hang of!
And don’t forget, you can get Chocablog by email every day, so you’ll never miss a thing!
If you’ve not had a look around the site for a while, I hope you’ll take a moment to do so and let us know what you think!
