Choki Raspberry Dark Chocolate
Choki of Brockley were new to me at last week’s London Chocolate Festival.
Based in Brockley in South London and started by Gemma and Rowan just last year, they produce a range of handmade bars and truffles. Naturally, the stuff in the colourful wrappers caught my attention first. My passion for freeze dried berries made this a must-have purchase.
Good packaging always gets my attention, and I particularly liked the Choki bars. Gold foil wrapped in simply printed paper, patterned on the inside and roughly cut with a logo in raised gold lettering. The bars are very obviously handwrapped, but they’re done with a bit of style and fun.
The chocolate is dark and glossy and listed at a very precise 70.2% cocoa solids minimum. It’s a little soft, but that could be down to the addition of some natural raspberry essence in the chocolate itself.
It’s rich and smooth with just a hint of fruit, and is quite pleasant although not spectacular.
The freeze dried raspberries are scattered randomly over the base of the chocolate. It would have been nice to have had a bit more attention to detail paid here because you often end up with a chunk that has no raspberry in it at all.
The other issue is with the raspberries themselves. They’re tangy, almost to the point of sourness and just when you expect the sweet fruitiness to come through, there’s… nothing. Just a slightly floury aftertaste. I expect the tanginess, but without the pay-off of the burst of flavour you usually get with freeze dried fruit, they’re just not that appealing.
Overall, this is a nicely made bar of decent quality dark chocolate, but one that’s ultimately let down by less than perfect fruit. I’ve got some more from Choki, so I’m looking forward to seeing if things improve next time.
Information
- Contains dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids).
- Filed under choki, dark chocolate, raspberry, uk.
I’ve found similar with a product here (which I’m trying to get but failing so far). It seems like freeze-dried is a bit disappointing. I don’t know there is much the chocolate makers can do about it – changing suppliers perhaps. Freeze-dried berries and similar just seem… a bit nothingy.
Those raspberries look weird on the bottom of that Chocolate bar. Where the raspberries inside the Chocolate as well? Nice pictures though.
Ashleigh – I usually *love* freeze dried fruit in chocolate. The Thorntons Strawberry bar was particularly nice. But this just didn’t have the sweetness in the fruit.
Laura: It’s fairly standard to just sprinkle ‘bits’ over the chocolate in the mold, but I think these pieces are too light to sink in to the melted chocolate at all. You’re right, it does look a bit odd.