Willie’s Cacao Luscious Orange

Posted by in Chocolate Reviews on July 6 2012 | Leave A Comment

I’ve never been a big fan of chocolate and orange together. Even as a child, I remember finding Terry’s Chocolate Orange sweet and sickly. I think perhaps the thought of that cheap, greasy chocolate is what has put me off trying it more often.

Will this bar change my mind? Willie Harcourt-Cooze is, of course, the UK’s best known bean-to-bar chocolate maker, and he’s recently come out with his first flavoured chocolate bars. In addition to this orange chocolate, there’s a ginger & lime and a hazelnut & raisin bar.

Having control over the entire chocolate making process makes a huge difference to a flavoured chocolate. As well as being able to match cacao origin to the flavour you’re creating, the chocolate making process can be precisely controlled to enhance the natural flavours in the chocolate.

For this bar, Willie has chosen a 65% dark chocolate made with Cuban cocoa beans. Added to that is just 0.1% orange oil. In fact, it contains just four ingredients: Cocoa mass, Cuban raw cane sugar, cocoa butter and essential orange oil.

As you can see, my bar is a little battered, but that’s probably down to my own mis-treatment. It certainly didn’t effect the flavour.

The chocolate has a nice clean snap, although the texture on the tongue is a little soft and it’s not as smooth or glossy as a lot of the bars I’ve had lately. But the upshot of that is that it melts quite quickly and releases loads of flavour the moment it hits your tongue.

It’s nothing like the nasty, cheap orange flavoured chocolates I’m used to. This is a sweet, natural orange flavour that works perfectly with the warm honey notes of the Cuban chocolate without overpowering it. It’s reminiscent of the natural citrus notes you find in chocolate anyway. It’s very approachable and very difficult to stop eating.

And that brings me to the biggest down side of this bar. You just get a single 50g square per pack. And if you’re anything like me, 50g won’t last very long!

The up side is that it’s great value at just £1.90. You’re unlikely to find a bean-to-bar chocolate at a better price, so you can always buy two or try some of the other flavours. There’s also a fantastic white chocolate that I’m hoping to review very soon!

Information

You might also like...

Comments On This Post

  1. Susannah

    I saw this in Waitrose today will have to try it when I go next … I sadly am one of those who loves Terry’s CO or anything choc and orangey….

Leave a comment




Chocablog: Chocolate Blog