All kinds of Chocolate
First, let me scream a thankyou to Bex for sending me this super wonderful bar of El Carmen from Scharffen Berger. Thanks, Bex!
This is a super dark 75% cacao single bean bar. That is, they use beans from the same crop in the same plantation to make the chocolate, whereas typically beans are blended to give a more consistent flavor. Since the flavor can vary from year to year, and crops only last so long, this is a limited edition. Single bean chocolates are becoming very popular, and I think the first ones I saw came from Chocolates El Rey.
This bar was wonderful! Very dark, but no bitter, just pure dark delight. It had that deliciously tart overtone to it that tells me it is quality chocolate. Whenyou eat alot of bad dark chocolate, you forget how very obvious the good stuff is. This is definately the good stuff.
Sadly, as you can see from the picture, this bar had some sort of defect making it evaporate very quickly once I opened it. :)
The next one I bought was Fazer milk and mint chocolates. These are from Finland! The mint was very good, the milk chocolate was so-so. Kinda crunchy for milk chocolate. The mint ones were kinda funky because the filling was very liquidy but half was white and half was clear. I’m not sure if it was supposed to be like that but I liked it anyway. Ofcourse, I ate them all, but I probably would not buy the milk chocolate again. Both of these had vanillin which didn’t help the flavor, but alot of chocolate that is meant to store a while is going to have it.
The last ones are Cashew and Almond Roca, made by Brown and Haley. I had never had these before and they looked like they were filled with chocolate and had the chashews and almonds on top. But they were actually centered with toffee, and had chocolate on the outside with bits of the nuts scattered throughout.
I don’t normally like toffee, but for some reason these were very addicting. I ate too many though and got a bit nauseous. I liked the crunch and the flavor alot. The Cashew Roca had vanillin but the Almond had none, which was a nice surprise. Be careful with these though, because each one has 5 grams of fat in it and 70 calories. Its easy to go overboard. :)
Ok, that’s it for this week. I hope you all are having a good running week. Have a bit of chocolate today to celebrate Chocolate Friday, but please eat responsibly. :)
December 9th, 2005 09:08
Wohoo! Fazer! They make the chocolate in my neighbour!
December 9th, 2005 09:13
Why is there a Canadian Twoonie sitting next to the Roca’s? You gotta love Canadian money.
December 9th, 2005 09:25
mmmmm, chocolate. I myself just filled up on a Chik-Fil-A cinnamon cluster. Not chocolate, but the closest thing to good chocolate I could get this morning is a Krispy Kreme and I didn’t think that would be a good call. All three of those sound delish.
December 9th, 2005 09:49
YEAH for chocolate Friday!!!! I thought everyday was Friday this week while I made chocolate chip cookies on Tuesday night and ate two big bags of M&Ms throughout the whole week and on top of all that I hardly ran at all. I am so bad. It feels sooooooo good to be bad!!!
December 9th, 2005 09:53
Oh my goodness, I was scrolling on the past entries I missed in your blog and just figured out my age in chocolate years. That was soo cool!
December 9th, 2005 10:16
Oh, I like this single-bean chocolate idea. Pretty soon we’ll be like “Dahling! You MUST try the Calraibe from Valrhona this yeah. It’s almost as good as the Santander from ‘05…”
December 9th, 2005 10:35
Yummy - the almond rocha.
December 9th, 2005 10:36
ooops! i mean roca
December 9th, 2005 10:56
chocolate Friday rocks. Just had a chocolate - peanut butter Zone bar. I know, it’s not exactly the same thing, but that’s my healthy version of justifying my chocolate intake. ;-)
December 9th, 2005 12:05
I made a Chocolate Porter Ale using Scharffen Berger unsweetened cocoa. It won a second place ribbon (nationally) in a homebrew competition a few years ago. Good stuff!
December 9th, 2005 12:12
Here’s the (semi-cheesy) label for that beer:
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/badbendrs/detail?.dir=b26e&.dnm=543d.jpg&.src=ph
December 9th, 2005 12:13
I want some of the Roca! I love toffee!
December 9th, 2005 12:24
It ALL looks so good!
December 9th, 2005 12:55
beaten to the punch for the twoonie comment… (is that really how you spell it??)
December 9th, 2005 14:29
*looks down at pitiful handful of mm’s*
I want some of that good looking stuff!
December 9th, 2005 14:31
the “twoonie” is for scale y’all
December 9th, 2005 15:05
It looks great Jon. But I’m sitting here eating my salad for lunch and for the moment chocolate does not exist. I’m down 13 as of this morning. YEAH! :-)
December 9th, 2005 15:08
I”m eating a toberone…is that allowed at this swanky chocolate blog?
December 9th, 2005 19:10
Sooo jealous… I think I’ll my addy to Bex!
December 11th, 2005 00:34
Almond Roca,, yummm,, have never tried the others,, something to aim for,, lol
Heather
December 11th, 2005 14:06
Hi Jon! Back in the blogging world after a weeklong hiatus. Oh, you’re welcome - I knew your palate would appreciate the chocolate.I love giving fun stuff to people. And there are few joys in this world such as chocolate ….