Max Brenner Selection
Having recently visited and loved Max Brenner’s, it was time to try some of their chocolates that are displayed as reverently as jewellery in glass cases.
Lovely shop assistant Siwei had thoughtfully written a kind of tic-tac-toe inspired diagram that listed the flavours I’d selected, just in case I’d forget when I got home. I hoped it wouldn’t be necessary, as surely chocolates that aren’t exactly cheap would be easy to tell apart?
Just to be sure, though, they are:
Top row
Dark chocolate with raspberry, White and milk chocolate mousse, Praline mixed with roasted coconut.
Middle row
Dark chocolate ganache with lemon peel oil, Dark chocolate ganache with spices, Dark chocolate truffle
Bottom row
Luxury truffle (dark), Luxury truffle (milk), Praline cream mixed with peanut butter.
I very carefully cut each one of the nine little art works in half, not only to photograph but also to share with my husband Love Chunks and daughter Sapphire, who always know when it’s time to hang around nearby. However I need to apologise to Dom because my greed and need were too great to stop and take any further photographs.
Firstly, the negatives, which to be honest aren’t really negative. Yes, the luxury truffles (milk and dark) and the dark chocolate truffle sound nice but here’s a shout-out to posh chocolate makers everywhere – please STOP dusting them in cocoa. All it does it leave dust marks on my front, mess on my fingers and fill my mouth with dry and bitter dirt before any nice chocolate flavours emerge. So, three out of nine here were already little dust bombs (with two looking more like something my dog tends to leave in our front garden) that overrode the actual chocolate inside. Oh well.
Luckily the rest of the six were j-u-s-t fine. The four stand outs – and ones I’ll be buying more of were the dark chocolate with raspberry – fine dark filling with tiny raspberry seeds to remind me of the quality ingredients; Praline with roasted coconut – a triumph with the coconut shreds producing an extra crunchy toffee flavour; Dark chocolate ganache with lemon peel oil- delicious and delicate and Praline cream with peanut butter – a sensation of milk chocolate, peanut butter and a pinch of saltiness that was utterly delicious.
The dark chocolate ganache ‘with spices’ was nice, or OK. Nothing earth shattering and the milk and white chocolate mousse got the same reaction.
In summary, I can see that I’ll just have – yes have to, dear reader – go back and try them all so that I can formulate my own collection of stand outs. All without cocoa dust, of course.
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- Filed under australia, max brenner.
I agree, the peanut butter one is one of my favourites as well. The only other one I’ve tried from those you’ve listed is the dark choc ganache with spices. I seem to remember not picking up much of a flavour with that one.
That’s right Christine – the spice one wasn’t as full of flavour as it should have been in my opinion. The lemon peel and the raspberry flavours were stand outs though and I’ll be buying them again, that’s for sure!