Camaya Assortment

In addition to the four slabs I received, Anita from Camaya also enclosed this small box of twelve assorted truffles and ganaches, complete with a menu listing the full range of Camaya chocolates. There are twenty seven available in all, so I had a chance to review just under half of the range.

The chocolates all have a quite distinctive look to them, as you can see.

So, what did I receive?

First one out was a white chocolate ganache with lemon, reinforced with a hint of limoncello. The tartness of the lemon was balance nicely by the soft sweetness of the ganache and white chocolate shell. Soft in the mouth, the lemon flavours were sharp and clean. A good counterpoint to white chocolate.

The other white chocolate ganache was a cardamon and cream blend. The cardamon flavour was there from the first bite, infusing the sweet creamy filling with its distinctive flavours. If you like cardamon, you’ll love this.

A milk chocolate with Tonka Bean was next up. I’d tried Tonka Bean before in a Stainer chocolate bar, and quite liked the flavour. It’s a distinctive, slighty nutty flavour which works very well with milk chocolate.

A basil and lime concoction provided some interesting subtle flavours. I’ve tried both basil chocolate and lime chocolate before, but I’ve never seen them combined. Both flavours are quite subtle – there’s no citrus blast or overpowering taste of basil, and the two work together surprisingly well. Top marks for bravery.

A real standout was the Sesame Crunch. Caramelised ganache with sesame brittle in dark chocolate. Burnt sugar and sesame flavours combine with the dark flavours of the cocoa to give a mouthwatering caramel/nut/cocoa hit. Delicious.

The Tanzanie proved to be a little disappointing. The dark cocoa flavours were there but the centre seemed to be lacking in moistness. It was a little too chewy compared to the previous ones. Possibly a storage or transporting issue, which was a shame.

A Mace and Lemon ganache had some interesting flavours. Both dark and milk chocolate were used to make this subtley flavoured concoction, which didn’t pack the lemony punch of the white chocolate ganache with lemon, but came across as a more delicate, cakey sort of flavour combination.

The ginger ganache was a lot less upfront than I had expected. The warming ginger flavour came through very slowly and never detracted from the dark cocoa flavours. Perhaps not strong enough for some people, but you could tell there was ginger there alright.

The dark chocolate and spearmint ganache was a bit of a let down. Not much mint flavour going on at all, but the ganache was soft and full of cocoa flavour.

The three truffles I tried were definitely the runts of the litter. From the menu I ascertained that I had been given a Malt Whiskey truffle, a Menthe truffle, and an Amaretto truffle, but the flavours just failed to make any sort of impact. I had expected much more flavour from these three, and I was disappointed to discover that two of them were indistinguishable from each other! Maybe they weren’t as fresh as they could have been, I don’t know.

Overall, a good selection of ganaches but with a slightly patchy performance. Based on the slab tastings, I know that the chocolate Camaya use is of a good standard, but I’d say that some of these chocolates need a bit of work to get them up to the high standard that’s expected from handmade premium chocolates.

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