Zotter Bacon Bits

Posted by in Chocolate Reviews on April 2 2010 | Leave A Comment
The Man From Zotter

On a cold and rainy spring afternoon, I ventured into town and into the depths of John Lewis’s food hall to meet the man from Zotter and sample his wares. That’s him in the picture. And the man with the chocolate covered face is Josef Zotter himself.

Zotter are a bean-to-bar organic and fair trade chocolate maker from Austria. They source all their beans from the Americas and as you can see, have some fairly interesting ideas about flavour combinations.

Zotter Bacon Bits

The first chocolate I’m going to look at is a 70% dark chocolate filled with nougat and 7.27% pork crackling. Yeah. You heard me. That’s significantly more pork crackling than you get in your average bar of chocolate.

The actual format of the bar is quite interesting too. Rather than being divided into chunks, it’s a single, thick slab with lots of filling.

Zotter Bacon Bits

The blurb on the inside of the wrapper recommends you let the chocolate breathe at room temperature for a while, then cut it into small pieces. So rather than attempting to stuff the whole thing into my face (my normal reaction to bacon-based products), I did exactly as instructed.

The chocolate on this bar is quite thin and the filling soft, so it’s quite difficult to sample it in isolation. It doesn’t have much of a gloss to it and the aroma of the filling dominates, but the taste is light and slightly fruity.

The filling – described as nougat – is predominantly a hazelnut paste with a little bit of cinnamon. Oh yes, and crispy chunks of bacon.

It has to be said that the bacon doesn’t add as much flavour as I’d hoped. In fact, there’s hardly any flavour from it until the chocolate and hazelnut have melted away. Then you’re left with a mouthful of tiny pork scratchings. But still, there’s no overt saltiness. There is a little bit of a fatty taste to it, which perhaps isn’t the most natural flavour to go with the chocolate, but it’s not offensive at all.

The main thing the bacon bits add to the bar is texture. A satsifying crispy crunch that reminds you you’re eating meat-chocolate. The overall effect is actually rather nice, but I can’t help thinking that the bacon is a little bit of a gimmick. It’s a tasty bar, but aside from the crunch, it doesn’t add much that couldn’t have been achieved with more traditional ingredients.

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Comments On This Post

  1. GrumpyTart

    Have to say that I love bacon and I love chocolate but I’m not sure that I’d cope with the two together but unlike the chocolate-covered insects, I’d be willing to give this a go 🙂

  2. Sounds very different to Vosges’ Mo’s Bacon Bar, where the salt and baconiness are front and centre! Did you manage to get your hands kn any of their other flavours?

    I actually came across Zotter’s bars in Munich in February but I was so terribly sick, and the range was so overwhelming, that I decided to go back another day to make my selection… and then I was too sick to do even that. Retrospective slap-at-forehead-for-stupidity!

  3. Simon

    I wonder if it’s as crispy as a cricket? (I’ve saved one for you if you’d like to make a comparison).

  4. Amy

    I haven’t found one combination of meat and chocolate that I am fond of yet, although to be honest I haven’t tried too many. These look tasty but I’m not sure I’d give bacon + chocolate another chance.

  5. Gareth

    I used to work in the area in Austria where Zotter is made and shortly after moving there my nice Austrian colleagues who I commuted with presented me with a cheese-filled bar. I thought it was a bit bizarre at first, but after some experience I have come to love the brand. The Schilcher wine and pumpkin one is so emblematic of that province and it brings back so many memories that it is my favourite!

  6. Dom (Chocablog Staff)

    Luckily I have both of those bars, Gareth. 🙂

  7. Gosh I cant wait to get home to England, Im living in the middle east at the moment so I cant eat bacon, add oh how i miss it, lol. As a chocolate fan this is definatly one for the ToDo list.

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