Gone Chocco

I’ve eyed off Ritter Sport for years and years, seeing them in David Jones, airport gourmet stalls and in sweet shops in classic, bed-and-breakfast historic towns. However, when they were priced at $8.50 for a 100 gram block and a German friend had once said, “It’s just our version of Cadbury,” I duly avoided them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then one day I was passing by a seven-eleven shop and went in to buy a newspaper. There, right by the counter, were these three blocks – Alpine Milk, Dark Chocolate and Marzipan, for $6 each. Time to try ‘em.

Ritter was set up in Germany in 1912 by Eugen and Clare Ritter. In 1932 Clare developed their now famous ‘Ritter Sport’ square block, designed so that “it fits into the pocket of every sports jacket and doesn’t break,” and there’s now around 30 different varieties sold to 80 countries.

Ritter stopped production during World War II and then had to make cocoa-free confectionery until 1950 when restrictions had lifted. These days, the company is still family-owned and run with grandson Albert at the helm, who, if photos are correct, has a pretty wild hairdo for an old guy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

History lesson over, tasting time to begin! The Alpine milk contains 30% minimum cocoa solids and is very creamy. And sickly. And, unfortunately, has a lingering ‘off’ taste that is an unpleasant reminder of milk that’s been left outside for too long. After checking that it was still within the use-by date (which it was), I noticed that the block contained hazelnut paste.

According to my husband Love Chunks, I’ve got a nose and a palate that can sniff out a speck of dried herb or spice from a mile away (ie good tastebuds) but couldn’t get even the tiniest hint of hazelnut paste.  Hmm. Maybe the next one will be better…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, the unfortunately named Chocolate Negro 50% Cocoa has been heat affected, but looks ain’t everything.  This one had very little soft, creamy ‘mouthfeel’ and tasted dry and powdery. Think of eating cocoa dust and powdered sugar and picture a disappointed Kath at the kitchen table.

Third time lucky? I love marzipan and the Germans are naturally good at it. Aren’t they…….?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not on this occasion. Yes, it’s obviously heat affected chocolate and being the same 50% as the ‘negro’ I tried to focus just on the marzipan inside. Ack Ack Blerk: too dry, too crumbly and whatever bitter almond flavour that should have been there had either faded away or never developed in the first place. I even tried to slice off the chocolate and have it on its own but ended up throwing this – and the other two blocks – straight into the bin. In the BIN dear reader….!

So, with the odour of the off-milk from the Alpine chocolate still in my nostrils I found myself $18 poorer and very, very disappointed.

Am I being too harsh? Should I try to seek it out again, this time with my fingers crossed that it’s still in good condition?

Junior Mints were previously only known to me via Kramer from Seinfeld when one flew out of the packet he was eating (whilst watching live surgery) and plopped inside the, um, insides of the patient….  Milk duds too were something that Americans mentioned often in sitcoms and movies that they’d buy at the Candy bar but I’d recently only seen both brands at my corner shop.

Now we all know that the US isn’t exactly world-renowned for the quality of their chocolate (yes, even Godiva. There, I said it) and I wonder if the childish names also have something to do with it?  It’s difficult to picture, say, James Earl Jones asking for a box of Milk Duds or Michelle Obama putting ‘Junior Mints’ at the top of her catering requirements. Then again, until recently we had a bar called a Polly Waffle….

Made by Tootsie Roll Industries (just to add further sophistication to the actual product), Junior mints are essentially creamy white mint fondants covered in dark chocolate. The chocolate itself contains a minimum of 32% cocoa solids so it’s closer to a milk chocolate yet doesn’t have any milk in it. Very strange; but the end result is a very dark looking but very very sweet and oily chocolate and not one I’ll be seeking out again.

Hershey Company-owned Milk Duds are little blobs of very chewy caramel coated in some form of milk chocolate whose cocoa solids aren’t mentioned. What is mentioned doesn’t make for comfortable reading: corn syrup, vegetable oil (cocoa butter, palm oil, shea oil, sunflower and/or safflower oil), non fat milk, dextrose, brown sugar, whey, mono and diglycerides, sodium bicarbonate, milk fat, salt, resinous glaze, soy lecithin, tapioca dextrin, vanillin and artificial flavour……

They taste like our Fantails but in rabbit poo form – ie hard little lumps. Like the Junior Mints, the chocolate is an after-thought and the main effort is put into gnawing away at the hard caramel until it softens, melts and disappears.  One 52 gram box is considered a single serving, but I could barely make my way through a third of them.

In summary, neither have changed my perception of American chocolate – childish, scary ingredients and next-to-no effort put into the actual chocolate. Avoid.

 

I’m an absolute sucker for specials at the check out or via the chocolate or health food aisle. These two bars were on sale and of course it was the picture of chocolate that attracted me first; not the promise of them being weight loss accelerators.

Made by SlimRight, these 40 gram bars are apparently ‘high in fibre with protein to help you feel fuller for longer’. 

After unwrapping but before tasting them, I thought I’d see what kind of ingredients they had in them in order to see how such a claim could work. It didn’t make very promising reading: 

Milk Chocolate Compound (27%) [Sugar, Vegetable Fat, Milk Solids, Cocoa, Cocoa Mass, Emulsifiers (492, Soya Lecithin), Flavours, Salt]. Firstly, this aint a bar for GoneChocco regulars as it has the dreaded ‘C’ word = compound, and this comprises over a quarter of the bar.  Pooey.

Polydextrose (17%) – This is a fair-enough ingredient for a bar such as this.  Polydextrose is a soluble fibre commonly used to replace sugar, add fibre and reduce fat content.

Other ingredients include Calcium Casienate. Wikipedia defines this as ‘a protein that neutralizes capsaicin, the active (hot) ingredient of peppers, jalapeños, habaneros, and other chilli peppers. It is also used as a dietary supplement by bodybuilders and other athletes, who ingest it before bed, with breakfast, or as post-work out meal, as it breaks down at a slower rate than whey protein, thus supplying the body with a sustained protein release. It is synthesized from dried skim milk, and is very high in glutamic acid.’  Interesting….

After Glucose (Contains Wheat), Soy Protein, Humectant (Glycerine) comes Inulin (Chicory Extract).  Feeling more like Sheldon every minute, I did more research.  Inulin are a group of naturally occurring polysaccharides produced by many types of plants.  Inulin is used by some plants as a means of storing energy. Most plants that synthesize and store inulin do not store other materials such as starch. Inulin contains a quarter to a third of the food energy of sugar or other carbohydrates and a ninth to a sixth of the food energy of fat.  Ah so that’s why it’s in there: to reduce the energy this food provides. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to being a non-scientific ChocGoddess. These taste excrementally awful. The  ‘double choc’ is a dry nothing. There are very faint hints of cocoa and an aftertaste that I can only describe as dirty straw. 

The caramel one is a nano-smidgeon better. That doesn’t mean it’s still not awful, just slightly less so. Think of the inside of a Chokito with all of its personality and naughty, sickly sweetness removed and replace it with the faintest whisper of flavour and another second whallop of stale straw. A nasty and undeserved experience.

Considering that each bar contains 13 grams of fat, I’d rather eat a Kit Kat and enjoy the experience. Or if more fibre is my goal, I’ll follow it with a cereal chaser. Eating these optimistically subtitled ‘decadence bars’ is about as fun as having my taste buds nailed to the floor of a cow shed.

 

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’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.

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.

 

Now, we all know that M&Ms are delicious.  That goes without saying, right?  They’re a handful of heaven and a mainstream classic and – dare I say this – are way better than smarties.

I’m still mourning what appears to be the death of dark M&Ms and long for the peanut butter ones to be made here and therefore not cost the equivalent cost-per-weight of a European car but, in the meantime, can live my life knowing that M&M classic, peanut and crispy are around and readily available.

In past years, they’ve released a Christmas version of M&Ms which is essentially just the red and green ones in a bag.  So when I saw this bag at my supermarket, I assumed that they fit into the ‘Christmas chocolate review’ criteria.

Wrong.  Cute pack and design, but inside they’re just your normal M&Ms, all colours.

Since when is blue, orange, brown or yellow considered ‘Christmas colours’?

Thankfully these don’t seem to be priced higher than the normal varieties of M&Ms but if you’re wanting something a bit special for your Christmas table (or after dinner snackfest), don’t get these.

Instead, wait for them to be sold off at half price the day after Christmas, empty them out of the tell-tale wrapper and fill up your tupperware containers……

……and after seeing the Maltesers in similar Christmas-themed wrappers at the Reject Shop (rather appropriate really), I’ll assume that their only Yuletide-ish connection is that they look like  something Rudolph shoots out when he’s startled.

 

Coles Nutty Nougat Caramel

Firstly, I want to assure you all that I am most definitely not a chocolate snob.  I love a supermarket bargain as much as anyone and have been guilty of dipping a teaspoon (or seven) into the Milo tin when a chocolate fix wasn’t readily available.

However – and it’s disappointing when there’s a ‘however’ – sometimes you get what you pay for.

This is the case with ‘You’ll love Coles’ (is that an order, a hope or just a brand name?) nutty nougat caramel (no capitals).  Spunky Alan the bass player pictured on the packet says they’re ‘Smooth, yet surprisingly nutty.”  Well, we all know that bass players have been long revered for their intellect and taste buds, don’t we?

Like the Woolworths/Safeway Monza bars, these are Coles’ shameless copy of Snickers bars but unlike the Monzas, these clumsily named ‘nutty nougat caramel treat-sized’ bars taste like plastic first and sugar second.  Yes there’s some caramel in there and nougat and a peanut or two but it’s half-hearted, uninspiring and less flavoursome than a Snickers.

 Again like Woolies, these are also made in Germany (by the same factory?) but don’t taste anywhere near as nice as Monzas or Snickers bars.  There’s a bit of white bloom on them that suggests they’ve melted and re-set enroute from Germany or just via Trevor’s delivery van from the local warehouse.  The layer of chocolate is stingily thin and therefore difficult to appreciate despite having 27% cocoa solids and – erk – there’s palm oil in the ingredients.  Plus, one of these 20 gram bars will give you 5.8 grams of fat (remember, some of it is from the evil palm oil), of which 2.7 grams is saturated.

Sorry Alan, but these aren’t smooth and only slightly nutty.  In reality they’re cheap tasting and not worth the price I paid for them.  Find yourself a Monza or a Snickers because life’s too short for this sort of corner-cutting, soulless crap.

 

Godiva chocolate  was founded over 80 years ago in Belgium but seems to be particularly revered by Americans.  Many’s the movie or television show where Godiva is featured as THE poshest chocolate that produces the required ‘Oohs’ and ‘Aaahs’ – especially if used to woo a loved one.

Godiva has snuck into Australia mostly via the David Jones food halls but the price has always put me off.  Is it worth paying nearly $60 for a 250 gram box of chocolates?  Are they honestly going to be six times as good as Lindt for that price? 

I’m yet to find out but did cough up $8.95 EACH for these tiny 43 gram tins of milk chocolate and dark chocolate ‘pearls’ made by Godiva and sold at the Gourmet Traveller shop at the airport.  It hasn’t escaped my attention that I tend to have a tin of Eclipse mints in my handbag that use exactly the same style, size and shape of tin and they cost me less than two bucks and give me fresh breath for an hour or two, so these two Chocoistes have got big shoes to fill…

…. and they don’t.  Fill their shoes I mean.

Firstly the dark pearls.  Yes, they reminded me of what our pet rabbit Skipper tends to fire out from underneath his fluffy white tail when he’s startled (ie, around 80% of the time).  And they taste like nothing much.  The nutrition panel on the back – a sticker hastily slapped on for the Aussie market – is almost illegible, but does say it has 50% cocoa solids.  Fine, but there’s no richness of flavour, or silky smoothness or anything discernible to get the taste buds excited about.  I don’t know what the ‘glazing agent’ is, and am not too thrilled to read that ‘flavours’ are included in chocolate that costs this much money.

The milk ones are slightly better: maybe because milk powder is second only to sugar in the ingredients and actually gives it some ‘kick’ that causes it to stand out. 

What I find sneaky about Godiva is that they trumpet their European/Belgian-ness all over their products and website, but these little tins of bunny nuggets are actually made in Greece.  I’ve nothing against the Greeks – have visited and LOVED the place – but it aint Belgium and aint leading the world in the art of chocolate making.

Not good enough for the price tag, Godiva.

 

I was given a chocolate Buddha as a gift from friends that came from Theobroma Chocolate lounge …….

…and he tasted nice and milky and, being Belgian, was most certainly made from Callebaut chocolate.

That was last year.  This year, right now it’s school holidays and Sapphire and I were out shopping and decided to treat ourselves to some afternoon tea at Theobroma Chocolate lounge.

Sapphire ordered the iced chocolate milkshake ($5.50) and I ordered the regular sized mocha (milk chocolate), and we decided to share a slice of the ‘Heaven-sent nougat fudge cake’.

My drink at $4.90 (might as well be five bucks) seemed a bit steep because the cup is small, so I had high hopes for a lovely mingling of coffee and melted chocolate.  It was okay – nothing awe-inspiring and incredibly sweet, even for a mocha. Sapphire enjoyed her milkshake, assuring me that it was chocolate swirled around the glass and not topping.

The cake however was awful.  To call it ‘heaven-sent’ must only be because it was flung out of there in disgust.  For a cafe that is staking itself on being chocolate-driven, it had precious little chocolate to taste. 

We tried each layer separately to see if we could detect any chocolate or special flavours by concentrating really hard.  Nope: the outer layer of what we think might have been ganache tasted only of thick cream.  The nutty, supposedly nougat layer also tasted of nothing but cloying cream coloured with added cocoa and the cake bits were soggy. I’ll clarify what I mean by ‘soggy’.  Good cakes should be moist yes; but not soggy as though they’ve been deep frozen and then thawed, allowing ice to melt and wet the cake like a mattress left out for hard rubbish collection during a rainstorm.

When two people (both enthusiastic chocolate and cake lovers) don’t finish one slice of cake between them, things aren’t good.

Still, I paid the bill and said to the waitress, “Is it Callebaut chocolate you guys use?”  I knew that it was, and they have ‘Belgian’ splashed over everything in sight, but she didn’t know and asked her manager.  He also said, “I have no idea,” and walked around to a stack of cardboard boxes behind the counter.  They were all stamped with ‘Barry Callebaut’ but he said, “Um, I’m not sure. It’s Belgian though.” Er, thanks for that.  Nice to see that genuine chocolate enthusiasts are working here. 

Theobroma’s website proclaims that they offer a “Total Chocolate Concept…..Chocolate is no longer boring (what the…? when has chocolate ever been boring – Kath) as there is something for everyone and every occasion – milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate, coloured chocolates, liqueur chocolates, hard chocolate, soft chocolate, chocolate drinks, chocolate desserts and chocolate snacks……. Our showcase store was opened …..in December 2006. The public’s response was phenomenal. The constant feedback was that the chocolate and chocolate beverages were the best in the market.”

…….Only because those customers had clearly never heard of or visited Max Brenner, San Churro, Sweet Decadence or the Lindt cafes.