A couple of weeks ago I was invited along to sample some of Pierre Hermé’s new range at his shop in Lowndes Street in London. This was a preview for a range that won’t be launched until September. I’m not entirely sure why it’s being previewed in June, but I assume Pierre Hermé and his PR team are more used to dealing with old-fashioned print magazine journalists with long lead times than bloggers.
The upshot is that nothing I was shown is likely to be available for a while, and by the time September comes around, I will have completely forgotten about it. And this jar of “Pietra” chocolate and caramelised hazelnut spread will be long gone.
There were two main themes to the products I was shown; “lemon” and “breakfast”. I tried a rather nice lemon macaron that contained absolutely no chocolate, so I probably shouldn’t even mention that here.
Pierre is also launching a granola, which seems a bit of a strange thing for a patissiere to do if you ask me. It was nice enough, but not something I would buy myself. I did try a few chocolates – most of which weren’t part of this launch – but this jar of spread was was the only thing I really wanted to take home. Lucky for me, we were given a jar in the goody bag we received.
The thing that makes this a little different from post chocolate spreads is the hazelnuts. Not little pieces of chopped hazelnuts, but whole nuts. And plenty of them.
The problem with most chocolate & hazelnut spreads is that the main ingredient is very often vegetable oil. By contrast, the ingredients listed on this jar are:
Hazelnuts (31.3%), Sugar, Cocoa Beans, Hazelnut Paste, Grape Seed Oil, Hazelnut Oil, Cocoa Butter, Natural Vanilla, Emulsifier
The result is that this is one of the few spreads that I actually like. The whole hazelnuts give a wonderful crunch to anything you spread it on, and you can actually taste both the hazelnuts and the chocolate. It’s really rather nice spread on brioche, and might even get me eating breakfast again.
The spread will be available from Pierre Hermé’s shops and online from 4th September. Which is unfortunate, as I’m going to need another jar a lot sooner than that.
You know what the medals and award markers that have been appearing on chocolate packaging remind me of? The same medals printed on book covers. While I have read plenty of books with such awards, I have never read a book because it had one; it’s just something I’ll notice afterward, agreeing that the book had been worthy enough for such acknowledgement.
It’s the same with chocolate. I didn’t even read where this award was from (the Los Angeles Chocolate Salon 2011–it’s a Gold for Best Caramels) until after tasting the agave caramels inside the long, slim box. The first time I met Amella Caramels was three years ago, when the quaint and pretty packaging on their dessert-inspired caramels won my affection.
After the designs on those, the plainer, eco look of the new set agave caramels Amella sent me this time was a tad disappointing. This look just doesn’t hold my attention in the same way, though it will certainly attract the consumers seeking chocolate-dipped caramels that are free of gluten and corn syrup, all natural, and made with pure cocoa butter and raw blue agave nectar. The latter item is what replaces the corn syrup.
The first thing to come to mind on tasting was the flavor of a Riesen, and I think that was before I had even registered the caramel beneath the layer of dark chocolate. Yet I would say that the chocolate here, funnily enough, isn’t as dark of flavor. I does, though, melt just like the feeling of silk slipping across your fingertips. Somewhere in the midst of this whole concoction is what I want to call a bitter taste, although that is hardly the right adjective. Since it also seems connected to the sweetness, I want to say it’s the agave nectar. And since there are both agave nectar and sugar in here, the caramels are sweeter than I expected. You could, I suppose, call it a more grown-up sweetness since its basis isn’t of the confectionary sort.
Concerning the caramel itself, it is neither stiff nor liquid, its chewiness is slight, and it has a mild graininess–overall, it has a natural, handmade feel. So though I probably got less excited over these caramels than the colorful ones last time, they’re still quality. They did earn that little medal picture. I wouldn’t quite call them truffle-like (as their description on the box indicates); the experience is still of a caramel, but in perfect cohesion with alluring chocolate to allow you to melt away for a few moments.
This is a bar I’ve heard people talking about lately, so I decided I had to try it for myself. It’s a collaboration between Paul A Young and Brick House Bread. That’s right. Bread.
Brick House is a bakery in East Dulwich that specialises in sourdough bread. Apparently the bread is slow roasted to intensify the flavour and give it a nice crunch, before being mixed with chocolate and moulded into bars.
The bar is standard format for Paul A Young. It’s 50g and costs about £4 (it was marked at £4.50 but I was charged £3.95 in Paul’s Soho shop).
The chocolate is a blend of Madagascan and Dominican Republic origin, and has an incredibly intense, fruity flavour. It’s difficult to get a handle on how much of the flavour is coming from the chocolate and how much from the crunchy bread pieces which are scattered liberally through the bar, but it’s intense, chocolatey and delicious.
But the real highlight of this bar is the texture. The bread feels like tiny biscuit pieces and make this just about the crunchiest bar of chocolate you’re ever likely to experience. Somehow the crunch itself seems to intensify the chocolate flavour, making this a bar that’s very difficult to put down.
But as delicious as this bar is, I’m still not completely convinced that I want to have to crunch, munch and chew a bar of fine chocolate. I’d much rather let it melt slowly, but if you do that you do end up with a mouthful of toast when the chocolate has melted.
This is a chocolate that demands to be crunched. If that’s your thing, then you’re unlikely to find anything quite as crunchy or packed with flavour as this. For me, it’s more of an interesting experiment rather than something I would buy regularly.
Just a quick note for iOS users. The companion app for our sister site World Chocolate Guide is available to download free of charge from the App Store from now until 24th June. We’d love it if you could download the app, try it, rate it, and let us know how we can improve it.
The app works on iPhone, iPad and iPod touch and shows chocolate shops around you. You can change the location by dragging the blue dot, filter and refine your search, and even search for the closest shop that sells your favourite chocolate brand.
Click here (iTunes link) to download the app, or search the App Store for ‘Chocolate Guide’ on your device. Happy downloading!
