Gone Chocco

I tried Loving Earth’s intriguing Coconut Chocolate Butter a while back and have also previously enjoyed their Lucuma and Maca light chocolate bar; the Activated Almond and Purple Corn dark chocolate bar; and the Goji and Camu dark chocolate.

Today we have the Raw Dark Chocolate and Crunchy Mint Raw Dark Chocolate to try.

As mentioned previously, Loving Earth’s credentials are indeed worthy –organic, gluten-free, vegan chocolate made from single-source Criollo beans from Peru and ensuring that their cooperative growers receive at least 15% above the agreed Fair Trade price for their cocoa beans.  Being Australian and USDA-certified organic give them extra greenie cred.

So what is raw chocolate exactly?  It doesn’t contain any sugar or dairy and is uncooked and unprocessed and is only sweetened with agave syrup (a natural, low GI sweetener that tastes a little bit like runny honey or treacle).  By ‘uncooked’ it means that the cacao is never heated above 40-45C from the time it is picked to when it is eaten and tests have shown that it has up to four times the level of antioxidants as conventional chocolate.

Loving  Earth’s raw dark chocolate has 72% cocoa solids and instead of a ‘snap’ has a moist, soft ‘poth’ sound instead.  This is nothing to be alarmed about because the raw organic cocoa butter, powder, agave syrup, vanilla beans and Himalayan crystal salt give it a compressed texture, not unlike a dense chocolate brownie or flourless mud cake.  The cocoa features very clearly and can be appreciated as dominant ingredient.  Overall, the taste is ‘cool’, like a tiny million little bubbles are being activated, causing a refreshing mouth-feel that feels like the tightly compressed ingredients are gradually coming loose as they relax, melt and separate in the  mouth. 

Second up for tasting  is the one in the green wrapper – Crunchy Mint Raw Dark chocolate.  This also contains 72% cocoa solids and when opened, it emitted a deliciously inviting, dark aroma.

Being ‘raw’, dairy free and sugar free means that it tastes quite different to any other dark chocolate mint I’ve had before.  The peppermint oil doesn’t overpower the unique flavours of the chocolate which doesn’t melt as much as release its compressed mixture of ingredients and leave a cool mouth feel.  Adding some cocoa nibs for crunch and a final kick is a particularly clever touch.

Each 45 gram bar will give you 17.4 grams of fat but you can at least assure yourself that it’s all been for a noble cause and they taste deliciously unique.

Ah, Haigh’s.  Expensive; yes.  Slightly intimidating to walk into their shop when you’ve never been before or don’t know what you want; yes.  Elegant; yes.  Worth the trip; yes.

For many years, Haigh’s was only known to me as the alternative place to meet up with friends in Adelaide’s Rundle Mall (“Nah, not at the silver balls, I’ll meet you at Haigh’s on Beehive Corner”) and the occasional gift bag of delicious chocolate frogs.  The violet crèmes, shiraz truffles, King-Sized frogs and scorched almonds came later; as did the bargain shelf at their factory outlet.

Therefore, amongst their top notch stock and rather glamorous shop fittings, these fairly slim and plain blocks are easy to overlook, which is a shame.  Maybe it’s the photograph of John Haigh, grandson of the founder of Haigh’s – he looks a bit forbidding and as though he’s saying, “Put me back DOWN you peasant and get out of my shop!”

Haigh’s Premium Milk Chocolate has a richer, stronger flavour – even the sweeter milk variety – and is made straight from the cocoa bean.  Haigh’s are still the only chocolatier in Australia (unless Cocoa Farm’s plantation is producing yet?) that do this.  The taste really is something that elevates it beyond what else is available, and at $8.00 for a 100 gram block Haigh’s are certainly aware of it. But – dammit all – their chocolate is unique. 

Plus, they add more cocoa solids into their chocolate than anyone else.  My extensive research (oh alright, a glance at two other brands) shows that Haigh’s has 32% of cocoa solids compared to Cadbury Dairy Milk’s paltry 21% and even Lindt’s 31% found in their Swiss Classic block.  Yes, that all-important extra one percent.

Their Milk Coffee Chocolate is even stronger than their Premium Milk with 36% cocoa solids and 1% of coffee.  The natural cocoa flavour perfectly aligns with the coffee to produce a creamy but edgy combination that sings in your mouth.  Love Chunks and I devoured this in front of Spicks and Specks one evening, punctuating our snorts at the telly with more intimate and earthy, “Oh my god, mmmmm” sounds as we sucked each delicious square.

Nutrition panel, Schmutrition panel.  It’s got lots of fat for you – 32 grams per 100 for the plain milk and 33 grams for the coffee respectively; and 19 and 18.8 grams of saturated.  Sugars are around 47 grams if you don’t share the block.  Otherwise, find your main squeeze, share it equally and halve those scary numbers.

Or eat it yourself but realise you have to run 6 kilometres at 12.6 km per hour to burn off the 520 calories in one block….

I’ve been working my way through Andy Van Den Broeck’s generous stash of Heritage chocolate blocks and was in a dark mood today.  The two blocks under review are relatively unadorned; it’s just the chocolate without any other additives like nuts or caramels.

 The darker block on the left is Ecuador 70% and the Premium Dark on the right is a less scary but still serious 50% cocoa solids block.  Both weigh 240 grams, so there’s a very generous whallop of chocolate awaiting you…..

The Ecuador dark has a slightly gritty feel, almost as though I can taste all the cocoa dust in it which isn’t a negative but shows that the block is the real deal.  The chocolate – whether chewed or allowed to melt slowly – soon dissolves into a more buttery and muddy finish and this is meant in a good, albeit unpoetic way.

The block has 38.2 grams of fat per 100 grams of which 24.1 grams are saturated fat, with 27.3 grams of sugar.  The blocks are thick and dense (again, in a nice way but certainly not how I’d describe a human being) and any concerns about nutrition are nullified because a few squares are enough to satisfy at 70% dark craving.

The Premium Dark also has discernible dusty cocoa texture within it but with added hints of what feels like dancing icing sugar resulting in a noticeably sweeter taste.  There’s no milk in this block (which is sometimes included in other 50% cocoa solid chocolate), so there’s no creamy mouth finish at the end; just a sweeter tang to ease the bitterness of cocoa.  This goes down well with a freshly brewed cappuccino (which of course does have milk). 

Having 20% less cocoa solids than the Ecuador block means that it contains more sugar at 46 grams per 100 grams and less saturated fat at 15.6 grams per 100 grams (total fat content is 34.5 grams per 100 grams).

Overall, I think the 70% has more to offer with less sugar to distract you from enjoying the cocoa and less quantity needed to eat it slowly and appreciate the range of flavours from dusty, buttery, bitter and smooth.  Lindt still rules the 70% roost, but this is better than the 70% offerings of Cadbury, Nestle and Green and Black’s.

Remember back in the eighties when spiral perms seemed like a good investment, the movie ‘Cocktail’ was considered high cinema and Jimmy Barnes ruled the airwaves?  Oh, wait he still does, on Fogey FM, doesn’t he…..

Oh well.  One of the highlights of that time was the release of the original Milo bar.

The reason it was so good because it was just Milo – the powdery stuff you mix with milk – compressed into a couple of rectangular blocks and coated in chocolate.  Simple.  Perfect.  Delicious.

Since then it’s been tarted up to resemble something that’s about as comparable to Milo the drink as Geoffrey Edelston is to good taste and common sense.

This latest version strays even further.  It has a Milo Choc Brownie base (what the….?  Who on this planet makes brownies with Milo?), then a layer of caramel and Crunchy Milo Balls that are covered in milk chocolate.

It tastes really nice, but that’s not the issue.  The issue is that it is NOT a Milo Bar.  It is a pleasant chocolate bar with a stodgy cakelike base, some sweet caramel and crispies in it.  Even if the marketing department wanted to get creative with the truth, in reality the closest thing they could call this bar is ‘Inspired by Milo’.  To be brutally honest, it should be called something else entirely.  Brownie Crispy Caramel Bar or somesuch.

We all have a tin of good old Milo in our pantry and the last time I checked, they didn’t have a layer of brownie or crispies in them.  It is powdery and a bar called ‘Milo’ should celebrate this and use that wonderful powder and seal it all in with chocolate.  Like they used to.

After all, the fun of Milo was sneaking in when Mum wasn’t looking and spooning it out of the tin and directly into your mouth, wasn’t it?

I’ve never been a huge Mars bar fan.  They were always incredibly sweet and almost too sickly to get through and yet were most likely the favoured choccy bar of many a burly bloke and busy tradie.  Washed down with a can of coke too of course.

Mars have been selling these in Australia since 1954, so they’ve certainly taken their time in trying their hand at a darker chocolate.  However, seeing the Limited Edition dark version at my corner shop was too tempting to ignore.  Maybe I’ve been living a sheltered life, but I haven’t seen any advertisements for them anywhere.

The bars are now 53 grams in size instead of 60 grams to reduce the calorific intake to less than 250.   In a magazine advert from July 2009, Peter West, General Manager of Mars Snackfood Australia, said, “We know that our products are never going to be as healthy as a piece of fruit, but we also recognise that our consumers have become increasingly concerned about the nutritional content and portion size they eat.”

Fair enough.  Back to the Mars Dark.  This  ’dark’ chocolate only contains 38% cocoa solids, and when you consider that Haigh’s and Lindt’s milk chocolates contain around 31-32%  cocoa solids, it makes me wonder just how Mars get it to look so dark.   There’s no answers here, but it is a bit of relief that they’re not relying on any artificial colours or flavours.

And it tastes great actually.  Soft, smooth and eye-bulgingly sweet, just the way Mars Bar aficionados like them.  The dark chocolate flavour is very evident and it works somehow because there’s a really distinct, cocoa-powder flavour that hits the palate before the caramel and nougat sends the taste buds into a sugar high.  Love Chunks tried the second bar over our cups of freshly-ground and brewed morning coffee (NO WAY was coke going to enter the picture) and thought that it was OK but that he still preferred the usual milk chocolate version.

This bar contains 10.1 grams of fat (14% of your daily allowance), of which 6.1 is saturated.   I’d happily eat this again except that the list of ingredients also unfortunately reveals that it contains the dreaded vegetable fat.  Unless Mars contacts me and explains otherwise, (and I’ll happily publish a retraction) I’m going to assume that the vaguely-named ‘vegetable fat’ is in fact palm oil.

Come on Mars, go all the way - you’re concerned about portion sizes and reducing artificial colourings and flavours, so  how about getting rid of environmentally-catastrophic palm oil as well? 

I’m in a dilemma.

I like the ideals behind Fair Trade; who doesn’t?  Giving the farmer – often working a very small plot with his family with absolutely no control over what price he receives for his cocoa crop – a fairer price and more say in the process is both decent and appropriate. 

Having it made from organic ingredients makes it even better and as such, I always try ‘Fair Trade’ branded chocolate. 

Scarborough Fair were first established in New Zealand in 2004 and tell us on their website that they have ”largest range of Fairtrade products under one brand in Australasia,” and that their ”….entire range is Fairtrade Certified so you won’t find us putting out one line to appear to be doing the right thing whilst at the same time exploiting growers with our other range. That doesn’t sit well with us.” 

Well said: as is “Where possible the products will be organic.”  Right?

Er, right.  Trouble is, this one – ‘Rapture’ – 70% cocoa Dark Orange Chocolate – tastes awful.

The overriding first impression is of damp dirt.  Not as in fresh, nature’s-own, deeply rich ‘earthy tones’ as other (poncier) chocolate experts and wine tasters like to describe things, but as in a yukky muddy taste that clings to the back of my throat like potatoes that haven’t been washed properly.

Aware that such a reaction to such a well-intentioned product could be viewed as being unnecessarily harsh, I put the block away and tried it again with a fresh eye and palate a few days later.

Nope.  Still horrible and the orange flavour was barely discernible above that of wet earth.

And a third time.  Nope.  It again tasted like it had been some peat bog had been compressed together instead of conched, making it unravel instead of melt.

And thus the dilemma.  It’s 70% (antioxidants ahoy), Fair Trade and Australian Organic Certified.  Yet for all this effort, surely it still needs to taste good, or aren’t all the efforts in vain?

I might try their milk chocolate to see if that’s better, otherwise I think my $4.99 would be better donated directly to Fair Trade or World Vision.

No, this isn’t seventy percent Madagascar and thirty percent something else, but a block made with a minimum of 70% cocoa solids using only cacao beans sourced from Madagascar.

I used to be a bit doubtful about ’single origin’ chocolate, thinking that chocolate was chocolate and it was only the volume of cocoa in it that made any impact, until I did my 70% comparison and realised that four best-selling blocks can taste surprisingly different.

Opening the block I could immediately smell a deliciously smoky fragrance, hinting at the rich darkness that I was about to taste.

As is usual with Lindt, the chocolate has an inviting sheen and a gorgeous ’snap’ when it is broken. 

The smoky fragrance was evident in the taste as well, even though vanilla is in the ingredients (of which there are only four – a good sign in higher-cocoa content chocolate – cocoa mass, cocoa butter, sugar and vanilla beans).  The square melted slowly away to a smooth finish, with the dark flavours lingering awhile.  I’m tempted to write that it tasted creamy and buttery even though there is no milk in it: it’s just the very best cocoa butter shining through.

For 70% lovers, this is as good as it gets and is the type of chocolate you really must savour slowly, one square at a time.

…..and if you’re a 70% lover watching your weight/cholesterol levels, maybe ‘one square at a time’ is all you should have (yeah, right) because it has 5.1 grams of fat in it, or 51 grams for the whole block (thanks to the high level of cocoa mass and cocoa butter, of course.  The price we pay for true chocolatey ingredients).

I’ll go so far as to say – DON’T read the back ingredients/nutrition panel and just enjoy what is the best 70% chocolate I have ever tasted.  Bar none.

We’ve done the fudge and now we have to do the truffles available at the House of Anvers.  As with Paton’s Macadamia nuts, these truffles are available anywhere there’s an airport giftshop, Aussie flags or packets of tiny koalas with grippy hands made in China.

As such, the boxes aren’t classy:

Luckily, the truffles are sold separately at their factory shop and are much cheaper, even if you get them handed back to you in a paper bag.

When we got them ‘home’ (this time at a holiday apartment in Port Sorell), they kind of reminded me of the photos I’d taken an hour earlier at the beach……..

….. but NOTHING puts me off a chocolate review, dear reader!

The flavours I selected (one each for Love Chunks, Sapphire and myself to try) were Mocha, Ganache, Kirsch and Strawberry.

First up was the plain one, the ganache. It was a pale brown colour inside but, with my eyes closed, it tasted entirely of cream.  Owner and creator of Anvers Chocolates, Igor Van Gerwen, loves the richness of the Tasmanian cream and having bought them singly I didn’t have a list of ingredients or any info on how they stay fresh in boxes but it is clearly the signature flavour here, not chocolate.  LC and Sapphire are big cream fans, so it’s a winner with them.

The darkest ‘log’ was second, the Mocha.  For a coffee/chocolate combination, this was entirely white inside.  Again, a hint of milk chocolate, a huge blast of fresh cream and then, eventually, a smidge of coffee flavour.  This is subtle rather than strong version of mocha but is done superbly.  The best of the lot.

The Kirsch was good with the cherry flavour shining through and adding to the enjoyment of the chocolate, making cream a secondary character instead of the main one.

Not so the strawberry truffle.  None of us could detect any hint of strawberry flavour and thought that it might have been a ganache placed on the wrong tray.

If ‘truffle’ to you means logs of cream, then these are for you.  If you like the chocolate to triumph first, then you might need to look elsewhere for that extra ‘oomph’ of cacao.

Anywhere quaint, historical and with a fair sprinkling of bed and breakfasts invariably has at least three vendors selling fudge and Tasmania firmly adheres to this ‘They’re here to have fun…and fudge’ rule.

The most common fudge is made by the House of Anvers, located on the Bass Highway at Latrobe in a rather nice white bungalow.  Now, unlike Cadbury, Anvers do not charge an entry fee and you get to see inside their factory, enjoy some samples of their truffles and fudge flavours and buy some at cheaper prices found anywhere else. 

I’ll admit to not actually craving fudge at any stage in my normal life.  If it’s offered to me I’ll take it but it doesn’t rule my mind, fantasies, taste buds and exercise regime the way chocolate does.  That said, I bought the Orange and the Mocha Walnut fudges to take home (or, in our case, a cabin at Strahan) to try.

Belgian owner and founder of the confectionery company, Igor Van Gerwen, wasn’t there when we visited, so I’m not sure if the chocolate (64% and 35% cocoa solids respectively) is Callebaut or not.

As for Igor himself, the website tells us that he established Anders in Tassie in 1989, having progressed on from the intriguingly-named ‘Institute of  Foodstuffs’ in Antwerp.  He ‘has found the Tasmanian cream and butter to be the richest in flavour of any in the world, ideally suited for truffles and fudge. He believes the reason for this is that the pastures in Tasmania’s pure environment stay green almost all year round, eliminating the need to feed the dairy cows on grains.’  Gosh, that seems pretty specific.

After removing the fudge from its flaccid packet, cutting it up for sharing with Love Chunks and Sapphire (there’s no hiding chocolatey goodies when you’re sharing a small space on holidays) and reading the list of ingredients, I started to realise that Igor might be on to something.  Both fudges have chocolate as their first ingredient followed by cream and butter.  I didn’t dare read the nutritional information.

The orange fudge uses milk chocolate on the outside and white chocolate inside with noticeable (and nice) pieces of glace orange for additional flavour.  The white chocolate blends in ideally with the ultra-sweet cream and butter-rich fudge and two pieces (totalling 30 grams) are enough. 

The mocha walnut consists of dark chocolate on the outside and the milk chocolate inside combines well with walnut, coffee and vanilla.  The walnut flavour is the first to emerge, biting through a sort of ‘mud cake’ texture before the subtle tones of coffee are evident.  Again, two pieces were enough.

Fudge fans will love these and Anvers have many more flavours to choose from.  Prices vary from $4 for the standard 85 gram slab to $6.95 at tourist-oriented gift shops.  Whichever one you select, make sure you enjoy it with a cup of tea because these babies are saliva-suckingly sweet.

G’day GoneChocco readers and a very belated Happy 2010 to you all. I’ve been away offline doing the Christmas and new year thing with family and then spent a glorious two weeks in Tasmania; the state of boiling hot coffees, roadkill and fudge (you can read about it here).

However, even the most vague eater of chocolate tends to say, “So isn’t the Cadbury factory down there?” and my wordy indeedy it is. However, I was aware that they’d cancelled their factory tours a couple of years ago (my heartbreak can be witnessed here) but that their on-site shop and displays were worth a visit.

So, when the day arrived, bright and sunny, I was excited.  Yes, it’s just Cadbury and yes, I’m a relatively responsible 41 year old with a child and a mortgage, but I still felt a bit of a thrill walking through what – it must be said – was a rather uninspiring entrance to our largest Chocolate manufacturer.

It cost three of us (Two adults and a child) $17.50 to enter. “But I just want to check out the shop,” I whinged but the uncaring old bag behind the counter pointed to a sign that said even those just wanting to visit the shop were required to pay the entry fee, ‘but we encourage you to visit our informative displays as well.’  I frowned, undecided, until Love Chunks said “Oh come on, we’re here now, let’s go inside.”

We were each handed a 95 gram box of favourites as we walked in, which was rather nice.  The bloke was reaching into this rather large treasure chest and I noted that each box was perilously close to its use by date: not that that’s ever put me off before.

I felt a duty to visit what the brochure describes as ‘a rich diverse chocolate experience, bringing locals and visitors together to enhance the Cadbury brand’ and ventured into the demonstration area.  A nice chap was chatting about the ingredients of Cadbury chocolate, standing behind a counter with clear plastic boxes filled with things like cocoa nibs, sugar and milk powder in them.  If we were patient (and when chocolate’s around, I always am), we got a tiny cup of crumbed chocolate to try and a cup of their ’secret ingredient’ which tasted suspiciously like crumbly brown sugar.

Perhaps the demonstration of chocolate molding would be a tad more, um, interesting.  Alas, no.  What we saw was a woman who was perhaps the Aussie relative of the ‘Computer says no’ lady from Little Britain and Patsy Biscoe’s (ask your mother) sister, clearly bored out of her skull and trying (unsuccessfully) to show us how just exciting it is that Cadbury have made larger sized molds now for their caramello koalas.

Perhaps the shop – with all my pre-heard tales of crazy bargains – would be worth the entry fee….?

Nope.  To be fair, you could buy nearly past their used-by date family blocks (200- 230 grams) for $2.75, but bars were at supermarket prices and the only crazy bargain available during our visit were huge 5 kilogram bags filled only with dodgy versions of the strawberry chocolates found in Cadbury Roses and in a square of the execrable ‘Snack’ block.  No thanks.

I might have been one of the few people to wander out empty-handed and my last resort was their historical display (some lacklustre posters and old easter egg shapes) and souvenirs.

And, after paying $17.50 for frankly a pissweak ‘experience’ that does not ‘enhance the Cadbury brand’ in my or my family’s eyes, I was not then going to pay $60 for a dodgy polar fleece jacket or five bucks for a plastic pen.  Surely if we have to shell out a fee to come in, then the souvenirs could be scaled down to merely ‘expensive’ prices instead of ‘blatantly insulting rip off’ levels?

Later, after chatting about the experience with the owner of a BnB we stayed at, Peter nodded and said, “You’d be better off going to our Chicken Feed shops which are all over Tassie. They always have cheap Cadburys available.”  Plus you don’t have to pay a $17.50 surcharge to get it.

By all means enjoy Cadbury chocolate and your visit to Hobart, but don’t bother with the factory.  It’s a pretty sad day when such a huge corporation offers such a tepid Visitor Centre only designed to suck more money from gullible tourists and whose leaflet can only legitimately shout ‘Ample FREE parking’ as a genuine attraction.  AVOID.