Lake Champlain Five Star Chocolate Bar Fruit & Nut

 

1.9oz (53g) bar

Ingredients: Sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, milk powder, milk fat, soybean lecithin, vanilla, hazelnut paste, pecans, raisins, dried cherries

Corporate Info: I rather like Lake Champlain because it makes my favorite cocoa powder (so far), and because the passionate, creative mind (at least at that time) behind the Five Star Bars is profiled in Candyfreak, a book about a few remaining small businesses in the large-corporation-dominated chocolate world. I'm not sure there's a lot to say about the company otherwise: It's based in Vermont and about 30 years old...not organic or fair trade or whatnot, but if you're in the U.S. you can buy them and support a relatively small American company. (Bonus: Combine a factory tour with a trip to the nearby Ben and Jerry's factory and seriously, that's a good time right there.)

[Update/correction 4/2/12] Lake Champlain does produce a few organic items and is a member of the World Cocoa Foundation, which claims to be working toward various positive aims (focusing on child labor and so on). However, as the WCF includes many of the world's largest chocolate manufacturers, visions of happy workers sustainably producing cheap chocolate to fulfill the world's demand may be a bit of wishful thinking, at least for the time being.

Appearance: Lake Champlain's Five Star bars are all stubby, chunky, and unassuming. This one is mildly reddish-brown and just a little glossy. A cross-section looks like ganache mixed with whitish pecans and not a lot of fruit.

Smell: Sweet dried fruit and nuts, though that might be cheating with this bar. Very pleasant, which is to say nothing pops out.

Taste: The texture in these bars is fatty-creamy, sort of like a less extreme version of a Lindor Truffle (but with actual cocoa butter instead of palm and coconut oils), plus inclusions: Crunchy, low-flavor nuts, dried fruits contributing low-impact complexity and intermittent chew, and a good amount of fatty filling. Since there's hazelnut paste, they're trying for additional flavor and creaminess rather than just nut pieces, and I am getting some minor hints of Nutella that probably add to the fruit/nut vibe. The chocolate feels like an afterthought, but it's really not, because it's well-matched in sweet-tart profile, just not particularly intense.

Conclusion: Lake Champlain Five Star Chocolate Bar Fruit & Nut is an easy, not-so-strong hit of dried fruits, nuts, fat, and pleasant chocolate.

Marabou Premium Filled Passion Fruit

150g bar

Ingredients: Sugar, cocoa mass, vegetable oil, cocoa butter, butterfat, milk powder, passion fruit juice, banana puree, cocoa powder, whey powder, soy lecithin, flavoring

45.5g sugar/100g serving (45.5% by wt.)

During last fall's East Coast trip I traveled as light as possible, which meant I didn't have much reading material other than what presented itself along the way. In New York City that was The Village Voice, and lucky me! That particular issue was the annual Best of New York, perfect for a visitor looking to sight-see. Thus I found myself in a young, bright white, minimally-decorated Scandinavian candy store called Sockerbit. I was mostly looking for licorice, a taste I've been slowly acquiring, but while I was there I also bought three unusually-flavored chocolate bars. Admittedly, all are pretty sweet—i.e. not super-dark chocolate—but they were novel and a compact, cheap souvenir from a big, expensive city. I know they won't be dark enough for my taste, so the question here is about their flavorings. Today's is passion fruit, from a filled bar by Marabou.

Corporate Info: Marabou is indeed a Swedish brand, dating back to 1916 and started by a Norwegian who had already started a successful, identical brand in Norway called Freia. At some point the two merged, and in the early '90s they were bought by Kraft, the second largest food and drink company in the world. You're not going to find much organic, fair trade, small business, or anything else like that with this bar. Oh, well. The chocolate is still packaged under the Marabou name and the ingredients are given in Swedish, Danish, and Finnish, so hopefully I translated them correctly here!

Appearance: Big, matte, medium-light brown. The filling is a truffley sort, basically the same color as the outside and with little chunks in it.

Smell: Sweet and jelly-ish. I think I get more of the banana than the passion fruit.

Taste: Texture is soft—the outside is a little firmer than the inside, but not much—and with scattered small crispies. Flavor is sweet with low-key banana flavor, real bananas rather than banana candy flavoring. The banana lingers, though not in a bad way, rather like almost imperceptible pieces of dried banana are stuck to my teeth, so I get random bursts of banana flavor. If there's passion fruit, it just contributes to the tropical vibe rather than standing out in any way.

Conclusion: Marabou Premium Filled Passion Fruit is a big, soft, mass-market, filled bar with an interesting banana flavor.

P.S. From the next day: This makes incredibly sweet, insipid hot chocolate. Seriously, don't do it.

Vosges Blood Orange Caramel Bar

 

3oz (85g) bar

Ingredients: Cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla, organic cream, corn syrup, Campari, hibiscus powder, orange zest, blood orange puree, water, sea salt

Vosges' blood orange caramel-filled bar was suggested to me by reader Emma after she read my post praising the similar Black Salt Caramel Bar. Vosges seems to do well with subtle complexity; will this bar fit that mold?

Corporate Info: (mostly copied from 9/24/11): Vosges is based in Chicago and produces a pretty wide variety of adventurously flavored bars and confections, among them the famous bacon chocolate. In the past I have been annoyed by the pretentious copy on the back of the box, and it's silly here too, but the website keeps the flowery text off the front page, and of course it's not as important as the chocolate!

Appearance: Subtle gloss, uniform deep brown color, cleanly stamped. Breaking a corner off reveals a gooey, somewhat liquidy caramel that makes this bar messier than the salt caramel one. (Yes, I know it looks like there's a slug sandwiched in my chocolate there on the left. Not particularly appetizing.)

Smell: Rich, a little dried fruit and nuts, but very cohesive: no smells stand out or seem removed from the central scent. I don't get any particular blood orange or caramel here, though the box claims some “bright citrus.”

Taste: The chocolate is super smooth, creamy, and nutty, and the caramel has, yes, a complex and subtle perfumey sweet-sour flavor. I can't tease out the blood orange vs. hibiscus vs. orange zest vs. Campari, but as with the smell I think that's where Vosges excels, combining ingredients in such a balanced way that they create something new, and that's pretty great. Unfortunately, though, there are downsides to this bar, mostly relating to the consistency of the caramel. First, it does indeed make for sloppy eating. Second, Vosges recommends breaking off “a small piece” and holding it against the roof of your mouth with your tongue until “within thirty seconds the chocolate square will begin to melt”; this is impossible with a bar that consistently breaks in the middle of each delicate square, smashing the caramel between shards of chocolate and leaving you with sticky pieces of the solid chocolate between squares. Third, the problem with this (aside from the mess) is that when you eat those pieces, the caramel melts away before the chocolate does, the equivalent of eating an outstanding sandwich inside-out rather than being able to fully enjoy the magical combination of bread and filling. I suspect the whole experience of this bar would be made better just by thickening the caramel.

Conclusion: Vosges Blood Orange Caramel Bar demonstrates Vosges' skill with subtlety and depth of flavor, but the too-thin caramel detracts from the experience.

Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Bar Caramel with Black Sea Salt

3oz (85g) bar 
Ingredients: Chocolate liquor, cane sugar, cocoa butter, cream, corn syrup, soy lecithin, water, vanilla, Hawaiian black sea salt, sea salt 
13g sugar/43g serving (30.2% by wt.)

This 70% cacao Trader Joe's bar is basically the exact same thing as last week's several-dollars-pricier Vosges bar, except it varies just enough (not organic cream, a sprinkling of salt on the back, higher sugar content) that Vosges clearly doesn't produce it, at least not as an identical copy. I haven't been impressed by Trader Joe's chocolate in the past, but who knows who makes it or how many manufacturers the grocer has used over the years, not to mention this is a filled bar rather than a single-origin, super-dark bar that relies heavily on its beans, so I might feel entirely differently today. It's hard to go wrong with caramel-filled chocolate.

Appearance: Big, thin, flat, matte, uniformly textured, a solid, medium-dark brown. As with last week's caramel-filled treat, this thin, sharply molded bar holds its soft filling well. 

(It only broke just before I took the photo above, when I caught it on the wrapper inside the box.)

Smell: Mild, slightly spicy, dried fruit, no sharpness.

Taste: This is the Bam! version of the Vosges bar, with a less interesting chocolate, just-a-bit-thicker and significantly but not unpleasantly sweeter caramel, and to my mind one major improvement, that restrained if uneven sprinkling of salt on the back that hits the tongue quickly and livens up all the flavors. Without it—as I said, it's unevenly applied—the whole package isn't nearly as interesting, because there isn't as much to the caramel or the chocolate, but most people will find this an entirely acceptable substitute for the more expensive Vosges bar.

Conclusion: Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Bar Caramel with Black Sea Salt isn't super-complex, but it's pretty darn good for the price.

Vosges Black Salt Caramel Bar

3oz (85g) bar

Ingredients: Cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, organic cream, corn syrup, soy lecithin, water, vanilla, sea salt

11g sugar/43g serving (25.6% by wt.)

Corporate Info: Vosges is based in Chicago and produces a pretty wide variety of adventurously flavored bars and confections, among them the famous bacon chocolate. The last time I sampled a Vosges bar I was annoyed by the pretentious copy on the back of the box, and it's silly here too, but the website keeps the flowery text off the front page, and of course it's not as important as the chocolate! This filled bar just sounded like fun.

Appearance: Wide, thin, and flat, nicely molded, very smooth, medium-dark, a bit ruddy. I'm impressed such a thin bar contains a filling!

Smell: Not particularly unusual, but tangy and creamy.

Taste: Very nice. The caramel's flavor is rich, creamy, and deep but relatively subtle and surprisingly not too sweet; I personally might like it more toasted, but this is just a matter of taste, and it's well-made as it is. Texture-wise, the soft caramel oozes but fortunately doesn't all flow out like water, so I can take a chunk off without losing the entire filling. The 70% cacao chocolate is just tart, sweet, and complex enough to hold its own against the filling, neither dwarfing nor being dwarfed by the low-key caramel. I've almost forgotten the salt, which as part of the caramel isn't a standout ingredient but rather an integral flavoring element. There's a lot going on here, though you'll have to pay attention if you want to taste the nuances.

Conclusion: Vosges Black Salt Caramel Bar is balanced, not too sweet, and won't shout to be heard, but if you like this sort of thing, it's worth your money and effort.

German Chocolate: Filled Bars from Coppeneur and zotter

Coppeneur and zotter [sic] are both companies I'd never seen before that make a ton of neat-sounding bars, but since it was early in the trip and I didn't want to commit much money or luggage space, I chose just one of each, Coppeneur's Black Beer “Black Abbot” (Schwarzbier Schwarzer Abt; click the link, then “English,” “Products,” and “Praliné Chocolates” to see the varieties in the right-hand column) and zotter's Almond with Grappa Raisins (Mandel mit Grapparosinen). Though I didn't notice it at the time (it is in fact mentioned on the wrappers), both of these are ganache-filled truffle bars rather than chocolate with inclusions.

A few brief notes on the companies: Coppeneur is German and makes not only filled bars but also single-origin chocolate, flavored bars, confections, a few organic (bio) items, and so on—and if you'd like to order from Coppeneur, this Canadian importer claims to be able to hook you up. What I saw in-store was maybe a dozen of the 30 filled Praliné bars, which all come in neat flavors like Blue Poppy Seed and Wasabi & Algae, and I figured Black Beer was interesting and a fun memento of Germany. zotter is Austrian and entirely organic and fair trade. The aesthetic is goofy and fun and the offerings are even more varied than Coppeneur's, not only bars and confections but also ganache in syringes, pink and lilac “gay and lesbian chocolate,” and chocolate liqueurs. Again I saw only, say, 15 of what is a much larger product line of “hand scooped” layered and coated bars. The fillings range from Pink Grapefruit to Port Wine, Celeriac, and Truffles, and with relatively few choices I went with Almond with Grappa Raisin. Looking at Coppeneur's and zotter's websites now, I'd love to try more from both companies.

Coppeneur Black Beer “Black Abbot”

75g (2.64oz) bar

Ingredients: Cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, beer brandy, black beer “Schwarzer Abt” (water, barley malt, yeast, hops, invert sugar syrup), dextrose, butter, glucose syrup, cream, whole milk powder, natural flavoring, soy lecithin, vanilla.

The thing about ganaches/truffles, in bar form or not, is that the fat in the cream and/or cocoa butter mutes flavors; in my experience, the filling is usually super-rich and otherwise relatively subtle. I like big old punches of flavor in my chocolate (perhaps due to my American/Hawaiian palate), and I'm still learning to appreciate nuance.

That's what's going on here: mild dark (70%) chocolate encasing a subtly complex, stiff, fatty center, and I'm having trouble picking out the flavors. Coppeneur lists the tasting notes of its bars at the bottom of the label; here you can see this bar categorized as “spicy” and “sharp” (the site I use translates würzig “full-flavored” as well as “spicy”), but I'm not sure I'm able to taste these. Just think of them as complex and subtle.

What can we learn about beer-flavored chocolate from it? Well, maybe I'm imposing based on the name, but I'd venture that while this isn't at all bitter or alcoholic, it is sort of malty, like the flavors you get in beer after you get past the bitterness, and that's kind of fun.

zotter Almond with Grappa Raisins

 

70g bar

Ingredients: Organic fair trade raw cane sugar, oft. cocoa mass, o. almonds, oft. cocoa butter, o. raisins, o. whole milk powder, o. butter, o. Grappa, oft. whole cane sugar, o. sweet whey powder, salt, o. ginger powder, o. vanilla, o. soy lecithin.

This bar has more prominent flavor than the above, not to mention some variation in texture. With the outside's sharp corners I half expected it to contain wafers or something, but it's all truffle, only not smooth truffle: The ganache is blended with ground almonds, with an occasional tiny raisin resting along the bottom. The flavor is creamy, nutty, sweet, and a little salty, with the grappa-soaked raisins making things interesting. Everything in between is fatty richness, but with all those tiny nut pieces and moist raisins and that pinch of salt, it's not like eating a piece of butter. As for the grappa, I pulled out a piece of raisin alone and tried it, and I think it gave me a little more than the usual caramel-fruit flavor, but it was hard to tell.

What can we learn about inclusions from this bar? Fruits and nuts can be intriguing, in both texture and flavor! The ground almonds, raisins “layered” at the bottom, the addition of salt that just barely reminded me of a Reese's peanut butter cup—they all made this a pretty neat bar, and I'd like to try more from zotter.

Lindt Creation 70% Pure Chocolate

5.3oz (150g) bar

Ingredients: Chocolate, sugar, cocoa butter, butterfat, cocoa powder, soya lecithin, vanilla extract

11g sugar/45g serving (24.4% by wt.)

Last week I gave Lindt its first review on this blog, and it was a poor one. At the end I noted that I wasn’t writing Lindt off entirely, and this week I wanted to make good on that promise by reviewing an entirely different sort of bar, the Creation line’s mousse-filled Pure Chocolate. (The other two Creation bars are Cherry & Chili and Orange, which layer a fruit syrup on top of the same mousse.) I’ve bought this bar several times before and enjoyed it as an alternative to a solid bar, and though I usually find it for about $5, it’s less than $1 per ounce, which I consider reasonable for decent chocolate.

Incidentally, the large bar is divided into only 10 squares, and I don’t always want that much chocolate at once. Fortunately the mousse is fairly solid, so I break the squares into smaller pieces inside the packaging and fish them out to eat at my leisure. (By contrast, the syrup-filled bars are gooey and messy. Since quickly scarfing a whole square isn’t always pleasant or cost-effective, I don’t buy them often.) Eating angular shards is actually even nicer, because the denser outer layers often separate from the creamier inner one, which highlights the fun difference in textures. As for the flavor, it's fairly uniform but well balanced, creamy and mild but unmistakably dark, and just tart enough to be interesting. I wouldn’t call it complex or especially deep, but it has some edge, and a lingering finish that doesn’t turn bitter.

Conclusion: Lindt Creation 70% Pure Chocolate is a bit different but not so silly as to be merely novel. It's a good twist on the plain bar.


Update 08/10: I've been looking for the Creation line for months but haven't seen it on store shelves and it's no longer listed on Lindt's website. They do list other dark truffle-filled bars, none dark enough to qualify for this blog. Shame--I write one positive review of Lindt and they discontinue the product!