La Praline Gothenburg - Truffles Seasalt

The tasting notes reflect my personal opinion.

Name

Truffes Fantaisie Havssalt (Truffles Seasalt)
Main ingredients are non-hydrogenated vegetable fat (coconut, palm), sugar, fat reduced cocoa powder, whey powder, seasalt (0.6%), soya lecithin, vanillin (artificial vanilla flavouring), cocoa powder for dusting.
Cocoa content: minimum 44% cocoa solids

Manufacturer

La Praline Gothenburg AB, Backa Strandgata 12, 422 46 Göteborg, Sweden

Packaging

The 200g package of pralines is sealed in aluminium wrap and boxed in cardboard.

Look

The colour is dark brown with some darker almost black spots. After cutting the truffle, the sides are dark brown with a black hue. Little salt crystals can be visible.

Smell

Intensive cocoa and fat aromas hit you when opening the packaging and linger in the air.

Mouthfeel

The truffle feels solid and cannot be squashed with the tongue easily. It has a creamy and soft surface and melts into a fine liquid. The salt crystals are noticeable int the soft and creamy truffle.

Taste

The initial taste of the cocoa powder until a more mild cocoa flavour combined with the richness of the fat evolves. Once the first salt crystals have started dissolving, they add a little salty edge to the truffle. However, the seasalt dissolves slower than truffle. Thus, after the truffle has molten, only salt crystals are left. You know that it is but it still feels really salty each single time. Occassionally, there is also a salty spicy punch.

Aftertaste

If you manage to get of the remaining salt quickly, the aftertaste is mainly fatty cocoa. However, most of the time I did not and thus, the aftertaste was simply salt.

Summary

This is a rich chocolate truffle with a salty edge. Its richness is comes from the fat and combines to a rich and mild cocoa feeling. However, the undissolved sea salt is a problem.

Verdict

The truffles have a convincing richness and density. They have mild cocoa flavour that is smoothened by the fat. Initially, the flavour is enhanced by mild note of slowly dissolving sea salt. However, the slowly dissolving salt crystals stay longer than the truffle. Thus, you end up with pure salt in your mouth. If you chew the product, the salt crystals are crushed and melt much faster. But this can bring the salt to the foreground. In particular, you get very salty spots nearby the teeth and this spoils the product, too. Melting and chewing included an almost painful salt punch. 1 Star.

Dates

Lot number: JP12HAV1216, best before 31/12/2017, tasted 15/08&03&16/09/2017

Zotter - Monster chocolate

The tasting notes reflect my personal opinion.

Name

Nobelbitterschokolade gefüllt mit Kornelkirschengelee (22%) und Himbeer-Blut-Ganache (30%) (Noble Bitter Chocolate filled with cornelian jelly (22%) and raspberry blood ganache (30%))
Main ingredients are raw cane sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, cornelian puree, glucose invert sugar, while milk, almonds, dried raspberries, pork blood*, butter, skimmed milk powder.
Cocoa content: minimum 70% cocoa in the chocolate.
*not a typo

Manufacturer

zotter Schokoladen Manufaktur GmbH, Bergl 56, A-8333 Riegersburg, Austria

Packaging

The 70g filled chocolate bar is wrapped in aluminium paper and a paper envelope.

Look

The chocolate is middle to dark brown. The filling in the central layer is dark red and shiny. The other layers are slightly lighter coloured than the coating and have an airy/moussy structure.

Sound

The chocolate breaks with soft snap sound.

Smell

The chocolate bar has a surprisingly dark smell of wet wood, leather and cocoa. Fruity notes only peak out occasionally.

Mouthfeel

The chocolate melts quickly and evenly into a fine liquid. The jelly is very thick and reminds of a jelly bean. The ganache is even, soft and melts quickly into a very fine liquid.

Taste

Tasting the chocolate on its own is difficult because the boundary between the chocolate and the top layer of the filling tastes rather unusual, especially towards the edges of the bar. The flavour reminds of an old wardrobe with flavours of wet, moldy wood and leather. This unusual problem unfolds shortly after an initial chocolate flavour. It fights against vanilla and sugar until it finally takes over. An almost stingy aftertaste develops from this. Other parts of the chocolate have a sweet flavour with notes of cocoa, nuts and coffee. The cornelian cherry jelly is initially sour but fruity flavours develop over time. The raspberry ganache starts with a mildly sour flavour. It quickly releases cocoa flavours and sugar. After a short period, a raspberry punch develops but it also has a difficult to describe flavour of metal and spicy nutmeg. Tasted as whole, this chocolate bar starts with a sweet note that is quickly overthrown by the wet, moldy wood, leather and the fruit's sourness. It tastes like an old wardrobe with fruity and sour notes coated with dark chocolate.

Aftertaste

The aftertaste of the chocolate (everything else neatly removed with a knife) is sweetness and cocoa with some coffee notes. The aftertaste of the cornelian cherry jelly is slightly sour and fruity. The raspberry ganache leaves a raspberry flavour with some sort of a metallic and spicy note. Tasting the whole product leaves an aftertaste of wet wood, fruity sourness and difficult to define spice and nutmeg.

Summary

The chocolate bar's name might sound funny but it is for real and it contains actual blood. The raspberry filling has nice fruity notes but it is offset by the moldy wood, leather and metal flavours.

Verdict

The chocolate melts finely but the filling is on the verge of a jelly bean. The flavour of mold, wet wood and metal of parts of the filling is not pleasing. You have to be prepared for this and you have to like it. Scraping off everything and just eating the bottom layer of the chocolate is the best part. It comes with nice cocoa and coffee notes. However, eating the chocolate bar as a whole is a difficult to describe and surprisingly unpleasant experience. 1 Star.

Dates

Best before 23/06/2017, tasted 28/05&04/06/2017

Dr. Oetker - Ristorante Pizza Dolce al Cioccolato

The tasting notes reflect my personal opinion.

Name

Ristorante Pizza Dolce al Cioccolato (Sweet Pizza richly topped with chocolate flavoured sauce and three types of chocolate, quick-frozen)
Main ingredients are wheat flour, 27% chocolate flavoured sauce, water, 9.6% milk chocolate, 6.4% chocolate, 6.4% white chocolate, rapseed oil, fat-reduced cocoa, sugar, yeast, salt.
Cocoa content: not stated

Manufacturer

Dr. August Oetker Nahrungsmittel KG, Lutterstraße 14, 33617 Bielefeld, Germany

Packaging

The 300g chocolate pizza is sealed in transparent plastic foil and packed in cardboard.

Preparation

The pizza has been baked in a preheated oven at 180°C (fan assisted) for 10½ min.

Look

The chocolate sauce is dark brown, almost black-ish with lighter brown spots. The sauce looks more liquid than it actually is. The white chocolate is yellowish with caramelised, browned areas. The dough is middle brown like a chocolate biscuit.

Sound

The pizza dough is mildly crispy. The chocolate sauce is liquid (no sound) but the caramelised white chocolate has a little crunch to it.

Smell

The pizza has only a few chocolate or cocoa aromas. It mainly smells of baked dough, vanilla, milk and warm, chocolate flavoured blancmange.

Mouthfeel

The chocolate pizza is baked for a shorter duration than normal pizza. Thus, the dough remains soft and still contains a lot of water. It can become a bit chewy when eating. The chocolate sauce has a consistency of warm blancmange or thick drinking chocolate. As with blancmange that is chilling and setting, the sauce can develop a skin. The caramelised white chocolate is a little crispy.

Taste

The pizza tastes sweet with a surprisingly strong dough flavour. Although the dough is coloured like chocolate it has only little flavour beyond yeast dough. There are hints of salt in the product that pop out occasionally. The flavour of the chocolate sauce reminds on thickened hot drinking chocolate or chocolate flavoured blancmange. There is also a slight flavour of flour from the starch. There are only a few hints of cocoa and chocolate flavours. The white chocolate tastes intensely of dulce de leche and caramel.

Aftertaste

The aftertaste is is dominated by the dough flavours and sweetness.

Summary

This is a really interesting product. It tastes similar to a biscuit with warm chocolate flavoured blancmange. The white chocolate adds some crispness and dulce de leche flavours. However, the dough can be soggy.

Verdict

The dough is a major component but is difficult to get this crispy without burning the chocolate. Thus, it is not as crispy as pizza or biscuits. The chocolate sauce is similar to chocolate flavoured blancmange rather than to a rich chocolate dessert. Sadly, this also includes a starchy/floury feel and the lack of real cocoa or chocolate flavours. The frozen pizza looks way more pleasing to the eye than the baked result. Finally, the caramelised white chocolate is the best part of the product. It really offers some added value in flavours, mouth feel and warmth compared to drizzling warm chocolate sauce over chocolate biscuits. 1 Star.

Dates

Manufactured 10/05/2017, lot number: 14 21:161, best before 05/2018, tasted 02/06/2017

Camille Bloch - Mousse Chocolat

The tasting notes reflect my personal opinion.

Name

Swiss milk chocolate with chocolate mousse filling
Main ingredients are sugar, whole milk powder, cocoa butter, cocoa powder (12%), vegetable fat (palm, sunflower, cocos, palmisti, illipe), cocoa mass, skimmed milk powder, hazelnuts, soya lecithin, vanilla extract.
Cocoa content: minimum 12% cocoa

Manufacturer

Chocolats Camille Bloch SA, CH-2608 Courtelary, Switzerland

Packaging

The 100g chocolate bar is sealed in aluminum foil and wrapped in a cardboard box.

Look

The chocolate is light to middle brown. Its edges appear lighter. The filling is coloured in a slightly darker middle brown than the chocolate.

Sound

The chocolate breaks with a 'thud' sound.

Smell

The chocolate has a very light milky smell.

Mouthfeel

On its own, the chocolate melts quickly and becomes sticky during the process. But it eventually melts into a very fine liquid. The filling has a surprisingly solid initial mouthfeel and becomes more sticky and softer over time. Combined with chocolate, the filling seems much softer after biting through the chocolate. However, the stickiness of each part is strongly emphasised.

Taste

The chocolate has an initially milky and sugary taste that quickly evolves into caramelised sugar and milky caramel. The initial taste of the filling is comparably blunt but it quickly releases sugar, caramel and increasingly intense hazelnut flavours. Eating both combined (as intended) reduces the flavour to an initial milky sweetness. The filling melts and disappears faster than the chocolate coating. It only leaves a hint of hazelnuts whereas the milky caramel of the chocolate remains prominent.

Aftertaste

The aftertaste of the chocolate is mainly a lingering sweetness with notes of caramel. The filling leaves roasted hazelnut flavours. Eating both components combined, the main aftertaste is milky sweetness with caramel.

Summary

This is a sweet, milky chocolate with a hazelnut filling. Its main flavours are milk and sugar. There are traces of hazelnuts.

Verdict

The chocolate has a strong sweetness but it provides some caramel and milk flavours. However, its consistency is sticky. The stickiness is even more pronounced with the cream filling. Despite its name, the product has some hazelnut flavours. However, the main characteristics are sweetness and a very sticky mouthfeel. 1 Star.

Dates

Lot number: L6180, best before 05/2017, tasted 02/04&07/05/2017

Schönenberger - Chocolate with rice milk and hazelnuts

The tasting notes reflect my personal opinion.

Name

Chocolate with rice milk and hazelnuts
Main ingredients are cane sugar, cocoa butter, rice glucose syrup 17%, cocoa solids, hazelnut granulate.
Cocoa content: minimum 41% cocoa

Manufacturer

Chocolat Schönenberger AG, Täschmattstrasse 10, CH-6015 Luzern, Switzerland

Packaging

The chocolate is wrapped in aluminum paper and a small cardboard box. Packaging size is 100g.

Look

The chocolate is light brown and pieces of hazelnuts are partly visible.

Sound

The chocolate is surprisingly hard to break and does so with a clear snap sound.

Smell

The chocolate bar smell of sugar and something like perfume.

Mouthfeel

The surface is very smooth. The chocolate melts into a doughy liquid before dissolving finely.

Taste

Initially, the chocolate tastes very sweet with a distinct almost perfume-like flavour. After melting, the hazelnuts contribute only little to the flavour.

Aftertaste

The aftertase is dominated by the sweetness and a hint of the perfume like flvour.

Summary

This is a rather sweet chocolate with hazelnuts. The flavour is mainly is sweet with a distinct flavour which might be from the rice milk.

Verdict

The Swiss chocolate lacks the typical richness of Swiss milk since it relies ob rice milk, They surface and smoothness of the rice milk was well mastered. However, its flavour is still challenging. 1 Star.

Dates

Lot number: 16820215D, best before 30/09/2016, tasted 03&04&10/04/2016

Coppeneur - Blueberry Crumble Pie

The tasting notes reflect my personal opinion.

Name

"à la Blueberry Crumble Pie in weisser Chocolade" (white chocolate with blueberry crumbles)
Main ingredients are sugar, almonds, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, dried and sweetened blueberries (5% of total, with 34% concentrated apple juice in them), cane sugar, spiced crumbles (3%)
Cocoa content: no statement

Manufacturer

Confiserie Coppeneur et Compagnon GmbH, 53604 Bad Honnef, Germany

Packaging

The 75g of chocolate is wrapped and sealed in aluminium paper and covered by a printed paper sleeve.

Look

The chocolate is yellow-ish white. The colour of the filling is a mixture of grey and purple with dark purple/black-ish chunks of blueberries.

Sound

The chocolate and its filling break with thud sound at room temperature. After separating chocolate, there is almost no sound.

Smell

The filled chocolate smells of cream, blueberry and something artificial. The white chocolate in isolation has butter and milk aromas. The filling smells of blueberries and apples.

Mouthfeel

The chocolate coating is smooth, buttery and melts into a sticky-ish cream. The filling is of relatively solid consistency similar to refrigerated butter. It has a lot of small crispy bits (like undissolved cane sugar) and small poky pieces of fruit and crumble. The fruit turned into chewy bits that reminded me of chewing gum.

Taste

Chocolate is sweet with a little hint of vanilla flavour. The dough adds a fatty, buttery flavour
with cinnamon and sugar flavours and notes of apple.

Aftertaste

Once the butter and cream flavours have disappeared, the chocolate leaves an aftertaste of cinnamon and sugar at the sides and the rear of the tongue.

Summary

This filled white chocolate is buttery and chewy. It tastes of sugar. cinnamon and apples.

Verdict

The chocolate does not live up to its promise to taste of blueberries and crumbles. It tastes of sugar, cinnamon and apples. The colour of the filling has an unpleasant grey-ish shade to it. Despite its initial buttery consistency, the product is very chewy. The blueberry pieces turn into something like chewing gum. 1 Star.
Not contributing to the rating but worthwhile to mention, the manufacturer managed to use three languages in the name of this product.

Dates

Lot number: 27581, best before 05/06/2016, tasted 01/04/2016

Wernli - Jura Waffel-Gaufrette

The tasting notes reflect my personal opinion.

Name

Jura Waffel-Gaufrette
Main ingredients are sugar, vegetable fat, wheat flour, low fat cocoa powder (5.7%), dextrose, dried milk products, wheat starch, corn starch, cocoa mass (1%)
Cocoa content: estimated to 6.7% cocoa

Manufacturer

Wernli AG, 4632 Trimbach, Solothurn, Switzerland

Packaging

The little waffle cubes are arrayed into a larger cube, set in a cardboard tray and sealed in plastic wrap with a handy opener.

Look

The cocoa waffles are light brown which is darker than typical ice cream waffles. The filling is dark to middle brown.

Sound

Breaking or biting the waffles makes very loud crunch sound.

Smell

The waffles have a warm smell of roasted hazelnuts and nougat.

Mouthfeel

The waffles feel light and crunchy. The thin waffle coating immediately starts melting and sticks to the tongue. Nevertheless, they maintain crunch and lightness throughout.

Taste

The initial taste is of the airy baked waffles. After the first waffle layer, the filling tastes like sugary sweetness with flavours of nougat.

Aftertaste

The aftertaste is most strongly perceived at the front of the tongue as sugary sweetness but it also includes some roasted hazelnut flavours at the rear of the mouth.

Summary

These waffles are very airy and light, have nice warm smell of roasted nuts. They are crunchy but their flavour is mainly sugary sweetness.

Verdict

The crunch and the smell of the waffles is very promising but their flavour does not live up to that as it is mainly plain sugary sweetness. 1 Star.

Dates

Best before 13/06/2016, tasted 06/03/2016

Whittard of Chelsea - Uganda 80 Dark Chocolate

The tasting notes reflect my personal opinion.

Name

Uganda 80 Dark chocolate
Main ingredients are cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, vanilla flavouring
Cocoa content: minimum 80% cocoa solids

Manufacturer

Manufactured in Belgium for: Whittard of Chelsea (Whittard Trading Limited), Windrush House, Windrush Industrial Park, WITNEY, Oxfordshire, OX29 7DX, United Kingdom

Packaging

The chocolate is wrapped and sealed in shiny plastic wrap. This package of 90g in then placed in a cardboard envelope.

Look

The colour of the chocolate is very dark brown and black.

Sound

The chocolate breaks with a clear "snap" sound.

Smell

The smell is surprisingly light with sweet, nutty aromas and an earthy note.

Mouthfeel

The chocolate quickly melts into a liquid that feels slightly floury and also has a very few larger bits.

Taste

The initial taste is bitter, earthy and perhaps charred. This is added by some bark flavours but also sweetness from the sugar.

Aftertaste

The aftertaste is dominated by bitter and earthy notes as well as some lingering sweetness.

Summary

This is an earthy, bitter, very dark chocolate but also with a noticeable sugary sweetness.

Verdict

The chocolate is not well conched resulting in a partly floury mouthfeel and some small bits in the chocolate. The flavour is bitter, earthy and has hints of something charred but there is still some marked sweetness in the chocolate to counter the cocoa. 1 Star.

Dates

Lot number: L15258, best before September 2016, tasted 13 February 2016