Gone Chocco

Diamond Creek is where Chocolatier first started. The three Grisold brothers – David, John and Mark – bought the small chocolate company back in the mid-1980s and learned their craft there and now, twenty five years later, they’ve revamped the brand and want to share them with you.

I remember seeing a large and flat gold box with ‘Diamond Creek’ on it for a crazy $5 markdown at K-Mart several years ago, and John Grisold confirmed that I hadn’t imagined it. “Yes, we were trying to work out if we should relaunch the brand or not,” he said, “but it didn’t get the impetus it needed at the time.”

Now they’re trying again but this time they’re only available at Woolworth’s supermarkets who have bought the entire stock.

I’ll be honest and say that the cardboard box and the individually-wrapped chocolates that are thrown together inside don’t scream ‘quality’ or ’something you can give as a gift’, but then again, it’s the first-born of the now successful and respected Chocolatier company, so it’s not going to be crap to eat, is it?

Each box contains  four flavours that all cleverly reference the ‘diamond’ of the company. The Brilliant Milk box has Brilliance (strawberry), Marquise (hazelnut praline); Solitaire (coffee) and Empress (caramel). When they’re out of their plastic wrappers they look rather pretty, don’t they?

At the top is the Marquise. This is a milk chocolate that contains a pretty decent hazelnut praline that has tiny chips of caramelised hazelnuts inside for something a bit extra. Hazelnut praline fans will find plenty to enjoy in this unassuming little square. Or diamond, depending on which way you look at it.

The Solitaire, on the right, has a white chocolate layer on top infused with tiny specks of ground coffee. Inside is a milk chocolate ganache with a coffee infusion. All elements worked perfectly and went down a treat with my hot morning cup of coffee. This could form a speciality box (or block?) all on its own.

Brilliance, on the left, is Chocolatier’s Strawberry Delice; one of their most popular chocolates. It smells distinctively of strawberries with a white chocolate ‘pink’ top covering a fruity milk chocolate ganache underneath. No wonder it’s one of John Grisold’s favourites as well.

At the forefront, the Empress has a dark chocolate top with a firm caramel underneath. ‘Firm’ in the sense that it’s not super-chewy and likely to yank your fillings out like a Fantail, nor is it super-dribbly like a too-warm Caramello; but like a beautiful, burnt-sugar toffee with a ganache texture. I love it when dark chocolate and caramel work this well together.

The Assorted Box has two of the same flavours inside – Empress and Marquise respectively – and two new ones, both in dark chocolate.

Excelsior – at the forefront-  is a delightful berry and coconut creation. The clear flavour of coconut is evident at first with sweet and creamy berry thrills appearing soon after. I could eat box after box after box of just these little beauties.

Crystal – seen here at the top – has a dark chocolate shell with a white top rendered slightly greenish due to the tiny shards of mint chips mixed in with it. When you bite into the ‘fun’ top, there’s a lovely surprise: a dark chocolate, mint-infused soft toffee underneath. Delicious!

The presentation is clearly done to make them affordable and underneath the indifferent packaging, they most certainly are worth it.

And don’t forget the Lindt Chocolate Ball on Friday 6th August, to help fund a cure for FSHD. Frock up and have fun, or just donate to a very worthy cause!

Chocolate-covered coffee beans often make me nervous. As a coffee lover, I generally restrict myself to two cups of the finest per day to ensure that the neighbourhood is not treated to the sight of me doing nude cartwheels, or having the chorus of Gilligan’s Island running through my head at 3am.

Still, these looked pretty good and it was time for my second cup of coffee for the day….

A glance at the ingredients helped reassure me that my modesty and sleep patterns would remain intact as only ten percent of each chocolate was coffee bean, the rest was chocolate (containing a fairly respectable 53% cocoa solids).

I liked what they’d written on the back: ‘Coffee Snobbery. Occasions may arise where it becomes clear your friends don’t share your passion for a quality coffee. So, should they ever serve you an ‘instant’, instead of spurting it out in disgust, thank them for reminding you of your impeccable taste.’

And these little bunny beans of heaven taste delicious. Unlike most choc-coated coffee beans I’ve tried, Newman’s have got the proportion of chocolate to coffee absolutely right.

Less gritty bits in your teeth but a nice caffeine crunch and the sweet swirling seduction of dark chocolate to boot.

Therefore, I scoffed twenty.

Or maybe it was thirty.

Forty? All I know is that I vacuumed the house in record time, found all my tax receipts, folded all the clean clothes, bathed the dog, did the grocery shopping and cleaned out my wardrobe before lunchtime……

Melbourne-based chocolatiers Cacao are award-winning boutique chocolate-makers and they know it, proclaiming themselves as ” the Louis Vuitton of chocolate boutiques”…….

….and I know it too, because spending close to seven hours judging the entries to the Australian Chocolate Championships for the 2009 Chocolate Rush festival - with names of entrants kept from us until after our decision was made – eventually revealed that Cacao’s chefs won the bulk of the categories.

You might think it surprising then, that I didn’t immediately run to their Little Collins or GPO stores to buy more of their stuff afterwards.  I’m not sure either really, except that the joys of this job mean that there was enough other chocolate on my ‘to eat’ pile to review before making a visit.

And even when I did visit, I uncharacteristically ‘got the shys’ and popped in quietly, pointed to a few that I hadn’t tried before and skipped out to enjoy them at home as soon as I could.  I promise to go back again and see if I can chat to the Rush winners such as Jonathon Lee, owner Laurent Meric, Barry Johnston or Justin Yu.

In the meantime, I had these little babies to occupy me:

First up was Passionfruit (yellow swirl) which actually was a tiny bit jarring having a dark chocolate shell paired up with such a tart and strong flavour.  As a Dark Side Devotee it feels very strange to have to write that it would probably match up better with a white chocolate shell….

Honey Ganache was the cocoa-pod shaped one that had a milky, soft centre inside.  I could barely taste a smidge of honey and if blindfolded and unaware of the flavour would have just picked it as a milk truffle.  Were these the same guys who smashed the competition at Rush a few months ago?

They redeemed themselves with the Darjeeling tea chocolate.  This is becoming one of the trendy flavour combinations right now (think salted caramel, lime jelly, sesame seeds as well) and this version is the best I’ve had so far.  A delicate but distinctive perfumey flavour that Earl Grey is known for with a fruity after taste.  Perfection.

The Rose (white patterned) may have been coated with white chocolate on the outside but had a whipped cream/mousse texture inside of milk chocolate with a sensusal, sweet rose essence in the centre.  Again, this one was sublime.  I wanted more than one.  Or two.  Or three…..

The final one was a berry  – I was too self conscious to write the flavour down when I pointed to it in the shop – maybe raspberry or blackberry jelly whipped in a dark chocolate ganache.  The sweet fruitiness was a strong partner to the darker, semi-bitter chocolate and was the ideal one to finish with.

I will most certainly be back for more…..

I’ve been rather surprised and amused by how many emails* I’ve received about the new Swiss Gold White with Almonds block. It’s one of four new Australian-only blocks just released by Lindt but is the only one in white chocolate.

Now I’ve tasted – and enjoyed - the classic almond and brittle/toffee/caramel pieces chocolate combinations before but they’ve always been in milk or dark chocolate (the hard-to-find Cote D’Or springs to mind) and they have always contained almond pieces or slivers instead of whole almonds. Unwrapped, the block looks rather pretty…

….. with the sweet aroma associated with white chocolate and the added bonus of big nuts (meant in the nicest of terms) bulging out the back end:

After tasting these, I’m no longer surprised that no less than five emails** to me included the phrase ‘Nom Nom Nom’ to describe how much they enjoyed it. With a minimum of 29% cocoa solids (how come it doesn’t look brown?) and 12% almonds it tastes….. decadent, deletable and deliriously delicious.

Even Love Chunks – who turns his nose up at white chocolate – was impressed, as was Sapphire, who agreed with the general ‘Nom Nom Nom’ response of many other devotees.

Caution is advised, however, because despite its girlie appearance, the Lindt Swiss Gold White with Almonds is almost impossible to eat politely; ie you’ll gobble it all up in front of Masterchef and hope that your third of the 150 gram block doesn’t really have any fat in it.

Naughty but very, very nice.

* Emails, not comments. I’m assuming that emailers are shy and prefer to contact me directly rather than reveal themselves on this blog, especially if it’s concerning white chocolate…..?

** I kid you not.  LOL-cats have taken over the world as we know it.

I’ve always enjoyed the normal-sized Newman’s bars and buy ‘em whenever I can find ‘em.  They’re a sneaky little breed – sometimes they’re in supermarkets, and sometimes they’re not, but I always find them at DJs or my groovy local corner shop.  They’re a cut above the ‘rest’ in terms of every-day chocolate bars.

I hadn’t seen the ’snack sized’ ones before though.  These mini munchies are only 18 grams each so if you’re one of those sensible people with full control of their appetites but need a treat occasionally, these could be for you.

As the Lockett household’s two coconut fans, Love Chunks and Sapphire both proclaimed that the Cherry Coconut was ‘better than Cherry Ripe’ and the Coconut ‘was creamier than Bounty’. 

My favourite was the Nutty Caramel. Chewy, crunchy, sweet, creamy and nutty - all the textures were there.  I just wanted a bit more than 18 grams.  In fact, these little sizes just made me….. hungrier….. greedier…..

For some reason, Newman’s haven’t made their classic Ginger bars into the smaller size.  I don’t know why, but I do know that they’re a top-seller, and we Ginger-fans like ‘em big. Or something like that.

The best outcome would be for these bars to be picked up permanently by Coles and Woolworths/Safeway – they deserve as much of a look in as Cadbury, Nestle and Mars.

When I brought this home, my daughter said, “I love that box. Can I have it when you’re finished with it?”

Sad, isn’t it, that my child is keen on the box instead of what’s inside?  Or is it, in reality, just the natural response of a child with a parent whose fridge looks like this:

Back to San Churro’s new autumn/winter truffle collection.

They’re aiming to change their range of truffles (made with Spain’s own Chocovic chocolate) twice a year, with some additonal ‘one-off’ chocolates to be developed for other key calendar dates. They were coy about those, but I heard mutterings about future ones with alcohol inside and one shaped and dedicated to the cupcake craze…..

Called ‘Dessert Dreaming’, San Churro’s current collection is one where all eight truffles have clearly earned their place. 

Starting from top left we have: Apple Crumble, Pistachio Whip, Crema Catalana (creme brulee), Sticky Date, Chocolate Bomba, Lemon Cheesecake, Spanish Latte, Hazelnut mousse and another pistachio to make up a full box.

Not to be dismissive of the hazelnut mousse (because it’s delicious), but it’s the one that’s mostly there to cater for traditionalists who tend to gravitate towards the milk praline. And bless ‘em, San Churro’s version really is worth trying, but let’s get on to the more different flavours.

The Pistachio Whip is coated in a nice dark shell and the pale green centre tastes like a marzipan with a pistachio-ey twist of course. I could quite happily eat this in a slab-of-lasagne size but Love Chunks (my beloved tasting partner) isn’t a marzipan fan, so it’s not going to appeal to folk who’ve had bad experiences with wedding cake or drunk too much Amaretto.

Sticky Date was eery in how well it translated from a moist warm pudding dessert to a truffle. Dark chocolate with dates and butterscotch flavours danced together with a hint of walnut emerging as well. What classic puddings don’t improve with chocolate added?

Crema Catalana was a gorgeous surprise. Think of creme brulee with burnt toffee/brown sugar mixed with fresh cream in the form of white chocolate. Lovely.

Chocolate Bomba was one I didn’t share with Love Chunks because it has a soft liquid chocolate filling. The centre is a particularly smooth and almost-flowing dark ganache and I enjoyed being able to pop it into my gob whole and feel the outside shell crack and the molten rich dark chocolate take over my mouth. Mmmmm….  Note to self: “Mmmmm? That’s the best you can do to describe these?  Mmmmmm?”

The Apple Crumble was brilliant. As the milk chocolate melted, it revealed fresh apple and cinnamon flavours and the centre had a ‘crumble’ and cake texture that was clever and delicious. Again, a lasagne-sized slab for me please.

Spanish latte was a beautiful pairing of white chocolate and coffee and all my scribbled notes say on this one is three ticks.  Considering three is my top score and there’s a tiny smiley face next to it then you should assume that this is one latte I’ll be drinking eating again.

The stand out – no mean feat considering the quality of this collection – is the Lemon Cheesecake. I normally associate lemon with dark or white chocolate, but the flavour here is refreshingly tangy and elevates the milk chocolate to “Oh my god, what sweet heaven is this?” status. 

This clever collection sums up what my ideal dessert always is – chocolate!

UPDATE:  The truffles cost $1.90 each, but – in accordance to my own ‘more is more’ philosophy, they reduce in price if you buy more than one:  9 boxed truffles are $16.90 and 25 boxed truffles are $46.90

Newman’s are a subsidiary of Ernest Hilliers and, like them, have a range of packaging options that can sometimes be confusing to identify.

Just in time for Easter we have ’The Pleasure Society’, a rather sleeker and more sophisticated offering that stands apart from Newman’s more cheap-and-cheerful range.

I like what they’ve written on the side of the box: ‘Cafe Correctness: In Europe it is customary to drink your coffee while standing at the bar. Never linger too long, simply sip and go. Same applies with an espresso egg: if you stand there all day you’re likely to be hen pecked by a hungry crowd.’

Fair enough; let’s get into it!

Nice looking fella, isn’t he?

The Arabica egg consists of dark chocolate with 53% cocoa solids that has whole roasted espresso coffee beans crushed into the mix.

Now, regular readers will know that I love my coffee and often do my chocolate testing with a hot cup of freshly ground or an milky glass of iced coffee.  To blend real beans in with chocolate is doubly decadent because it marries my two favourite flavours together, and this egg smelled delicious when the foil was avidly and greedily torn open, carefully removed.

Leaving it out of the fridge to sit in the warm Autumn air for an hour or so was a bonus move as the chocolate was at almost-drooping point which means that whilst there wasn’t the satisfying ’snap’ or ‘thock’ sound when broken, there was instead a stronger flavour.

This is one hundred and ten grams of utter deliciousness.  The dark chocolate is still sweet enough to handle the crispy bitterness of the beans.  The overall effect is a densely fudgy and creamy sensation that provides a surprise when a bean is crunched into. 

The closest thing I’ve had to this is Heritage’s dark coffee block, but the beans here are in larger pieces so that the overall effect isn’t grittiness but more like the inclusion of nut pieces, albeit with a perkier result.

Absolutely top notch, Newman’s.

Gut Springenheide, family-owned-and-run poultry farmers in Germany, have found a truly novel way to use up their egg shells after making pancakes and omelettes – by re-filling them with chocolate.

The mind boggles regarding how many shells were broken in their quest to remove the yolk and whites, clean them to a hygienic standard, fill them with a hazelnut praline chocolate, paint the outside in a ‘polkas’ design and pack them but these are the first real eggs I’ve seen that aren’t hard-boiled (and therefore containing the far less fun rubbery egg yolk with a grey film on the outside) or blown and hollow (therefore no filling – or fun - at all).

When taken out of their boxes (featuring two cartoon bunnies looking for all the world as though they’re leaning in for a first-class snog), you can see that the bottom of the eggs have a little flower-shaped sticker that politely covers where the chocolate was inserted.

See? It’s a beautifully accurate little circle and it is quite amazing that it could be cut so neatly and leave the rest of the shell intact.

And, unlike the boiled eggs you have to peel for sandwiches or salads, the shell comes off very easily.  It feels a shame, though, to ruin what they’ve taken great pains to save, decorate and present to us but hey, there’s chocolate inside……

….. chocolate that isn’t rock hard but soft and hazelnut-ty and creamy and very easy to slice in half. 

The white on the edges is actually from the Belfine white Easter chick that I’d cruelly murdered a few minutes earlier; this egg is all milk chocolate. 

They – the Gut people – don’t have a website and the nutritional panel (translated from German to English by Premier Food and Beverages) doesn’t mention the cocoa content but sugar and hazelnuts are the first two ingredients which are then followed by cocoa butter and cocoa liquor.   Sweetness is guaranteed but there no other additions to be frightened about.

So yes, the chocolate is very sweet, but it’s exactly what you’d hope for considering the cute packaging and the excitement that a child (or forty-something reviewer) would feel on receiving one.  How cool is a real egg compared to one that’s not remotely the same size and wrapped in foil?  What better presentation for Easter treat than in nature’s own perfect packaging, the egg shell? 

‘Sweet’ in more ways than one, these little beauties can be found in Myer, Leos gourmet supermarkets and Chocolate Box.

You could win one of three trips to Melbourne during the Australian Open Tennis championships to meet World Number One tennis star Roger Federer – proudly Swiss and proudly associated with Lindt (now we know where he gets his energy from).

All you have to do is spend $15 at any Lindt Cafe and then click here to enter.

The winning chocolate will be a ‘limited edition’ available in-store.

And please, don’t do what I did and merely write – Roger, dipped in Lindt Excellence 70%, sprinkled with gold leaf and rose petals, lying on a bed of Lindor balls.’

 Competition ends 27^th December 2009.

….I hope he shares the Lindt with his wife – mothers of twins need all the treats and energy they can get!

And for something different, we have a new survey for you do complete.

Over the December and January holiday, summer and silly season, we want to know about love, baby!  What kind of chocolate would a potential lover need to give you in order to win your heart?  And what kind of chocolate would you give someone in order to win theirs?

Finally, we want to wish you all a safe, chocolatey and fun silly season, whatever your religious or agnostic persuasion.  Posts will be sporadic for a few weeks whilst we travel, eat, enjoy time with family and friends, eat some more and of course find more chocolate to try and review.