Booja Booja Truffle Box No. 2

It was almost purely by chance hat I came across Booja Booja’s stand at the Speciality & Fine Food Fair in London. I was doing my usual long meandering walk out when I spied their logo and went over to see what had been happening in Boojaland lately.

These Booja Booja truffles are all organic, dairy and gluten free, which puts them in something of a minority, and it would seem that this has informed their retail distribution to some extent. If you look at their web site you’ll see that most of the retail outlets that stock Booja Booja products are health food shops.

As you can see, these truffles come in a more refined package than either the poplar box or the cardboard enclosure we’ve seen in previous incarnations. A thick cardboard box in a rather lovely shade of whatever colour you’d like to call it (I’m saying purple) is home to a plastic foil sealed tray (oddly enough harking back to Beryl’s dark chocolate from Malaysia) which in turn houses twelve truffles in four flavours.

“Which flavours?” I hear you cry.

‘A whimsical medley of melt-in-the-mouth melty truffles and quirky, puddingy delights’, that’s what.

“Which means?” you ask your screen.

It means Rhubarb & Vanilla Fool (one of the new flavours I sampled at SFFF), Hazelnut, Banoffee Toffee and Almond Caramel.

Every one of these truffles is physically identical, dusted with bitter cocoa powder, with a thin shell and a melting, delicate middle. Flavour-wise, they couldn’t be more different.

The Rhubarb & Vanilla Fool takes that smooth, soft melting chocolate and adds vanilla to make it extra smooth, then spikes it with zingy, super-sharp little hits of rhubarb. It’s he sort of chocolate that makes me smile when I taste it, and that sharp acidity works as an excellent palate cleanser although to be honest having tasted one I more or less immediately wanted a second!

Of the four the Hazelnut truffle sounded the least exciting. Hazelnut truffle – big wow, right? Wrong. These organic hazelnuts are really something special and in combination with the soft, rich chocolate they put me in mind of a good Italian gianduja.

The Banoffee Toffee truffle is, I suppose, a cousin of the Flambéed Banana truffle I first reviewed, but in reality it’s a less boozy, more pudding-y affair. There’s a slightly darker, burnt sugar undertone to the toffee which precedes the lingering (but thankfully still subtle and well balanced) banana. Another winner.

Finally, the Almond Caramel. This is the one you’re going to want to hide. Seriously. At the heart of this rich, nutty little beast are fragments of (as described) ‘chewy, gooey caramel’, so as the chocolate melts away you suddenly find you have some seriously rich, very naughty caramel to toy with.

If you know anyone – anyone – with a dairy or gluten problem, who is probably fed up with not being able to eat proper chocolate, buy them a box of these. They’ll love you forever.

If you know anyone who likes rich, gooey, deliciously naughty chocolate truffles with a great pedigree, buy them a box of these. They’ll love you forever as well. I just wish they made bigger boxes!

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