German Chocolate: Leysieffer Dark Chocolate with Rose Oil (Rosenöl)

100g bar

Ingredients: Sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, “spices,” rose oil extract

Today we're back to Leysieffer for another odd-to-me flavor, rose. Like last week's cardamom bar, this one has a big ol' fragrance, smelling just like rose-scented lotion, perfume, and of course roses, plus a little chocolate underneath. That's how it tastes, too, albeit somewhat less overwhelming. It's not a bad combination, actually, heady rose and mild chocolate melding into the same sort of heavy sweetness that polarizes people who use perfumes and home fragrances—you'll love it or hate it, depending on how you feel about rose in general.

Also, I suspect Leysieffer's relatively mild dark chocolate is a better match for rose than a darker, more intense chocolate would be, as the latter's usually sharp edges might compete with the powdery floral. As with the elderflower bar, though for totally different reasons, Leysieffer's 55% base is a good pairing.

Rose + chocolate conclusion: For rose lovers and adventurous eaters.

German Chocolate: Leysieffer Cardamom Dark Chocolate (Kardamom Schokolade)

100g bar

Ingredients: [I forgot to write these down, but I believe they were just sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, and cardamom.]

Last week I introduced Leysieffer; today's question is about the combination of chocolate (in this case a mild, somewhat-dark chocolate) and cardamom. I usually associate cardamom with Indian curries, where their cool, spicy intensity is combined with a host of other spices, so I don't spend a lot of time with just cardamom. This should be interesting!

Here's a little background on cardamom: Cardamom is related to ginger, but the spice we use in cooking is a seed pod, not a root, so you won't notice any similarity aside from strong flavor. Two varietals are cultivated widely, one small and green and one bigger and brown. The oblong seed pod or ground seeds are used in many different types of preparations—food, drink, medicine—in India, the Middle East, other parts of Asia, and some Northern European countries (presumably a colonial remnant). I couldn't tell you which type is in this chocolate, but the picture on the front is of stylized brown seed pods.

So, cardamom in chocolate.... It smells great: bright and spicy. Here the cardamom is front and center, and the chocolate is more of a foundation, filling out the scent's complexity. The flavor is similar, not shying away from the cardamom at all, with the chocolate playing backup. I'm not sure I'd say cardamom's piney (wikipedia says “resinous”) flavor is a total natural with chocolate, but it's not a total mismatch, and to be fair I'm also not accustomed to cardamom as a standard sort of ingredient.

Cardamom + chocolate conclusion: For cardamom lovers and adventurous eaters.

German Chocolate: Leysieffer Elderflower Dark Chocolate (Holunderblüten Schokolade)

100g bar

Ingredients: Sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, elderflower extract

Leysieffer is one of those brands I mentioned in this post that has its own shops, and I saw a few of them in various cities. Unbeknownst to me, the place where I finally bought several bars, an off-the-tourist-path, small city called Osnabrück, is also the place where Leysieffer began in 1909 (though they didn't begin working extensively with chocolate until 1936), and the production facility sits outside the city today. The history isn't all that interesting, mostly for the pretty positive reason that Leysieffer is still owned by the family that started the company; it just grew and developed. At this time there are 16 chocolate shops and six “bistros” as well as a lot of “partner shops” that I'm guessing sell Leysieffer products along with other brands.

What made Leysieffer so exciting to me is that it uses all sorts of interesting flavors and inclusions, like Darjeeling tea, poppyseed, and ground black pepper. Unfortunately only a few plain bars are verydark, so I compromised and bought several super-keen flavors in Leysieffer's 55% cacao dark chocolate base. I'll review them over the next few weeks with an eye toward how well their unusual flavorings work in chocolate.

Today's bar is Elderflower (Holunderblüten). You may or may not have tasted elderflower before, as it's not used much in the U.S., but it's not uncommon in parts of Europe, and on a walk in Germany I was able to smell a cluster of the tiny flowers on a nearby tree. (Note: Elderflowers come from the same plant as elderberries, which are also found in various food preparations. If you're looking for the flavor I'm discussing here, make sure you've found the flower!) How to describe it...well, I bought a bottle of “elderflower drink concentrate” from Ikea a while back, on a whim. That syrup also includes sugar and citric acid, but aside from the sweet-sour flavor of those two, the syrup has a lovely floral fragrance that isn't super-perfumy like rose but more light and refreshing, an easy match for candy.

On to the chocolate. It sure doesn't smell like anything aside from chocolate, but it tastes quite nice! For starters, Leysieffer's dark chocolate base is very mild, sweet but not too sweet, more waxy than chalky—not interesting on its own, but a good match for delicate flavors like elderflower. The elderflower is a great addition...I keep wanting to use words like nice, lovely, and delightful, which indicate a sweet, refreshing, light treat, nothing challenging or cloying.

As in the syrup I own, the elderflower works well in something sweet, which makes the flavor more than just flowery. Can you imagine a sugar-free strawberry, peach, or cantaloupe? Sweetness helps luscious fragrance become fruity flavor, and I think it really contributes to what elderflower does when combined with chocolate.

Leysieffer's 55% dark chocolate conclusion: Mild, not overwhelming in any way; a good base for light flavorings.

Elderflower + chocolate conclusion: If used well—not too much, not too little, in the right base—elderflower is floral, light, and refreshing in chocolate.

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.

Köln's Schokoladenmuseum / Cologne's Chocolate Museum

The top photo is of the right part of the building 

and the bottom photo is of the left.

The Schokoladenmuseum dates back to 1993, and it sits on an odd sort of pier on the Rhine in an interesting two-part building with lovely views of the bridges and the eastern section of the city. In 2006 the museum partnered with Lindt, and now there's a Lindt chocolate fountain and an entire mini-production line making tiny Lindt milk chocolate bars, a great way for children and adults to see the chocolate-making process up close. Despite the corporate presence, there's also mention of the less savory aspects of cacao growing and the weird history of chocolate advertising, as well as displays about a whole assortment of non-Lindt chocolate companies, like Milka and Kinder. I'd expected less when I saw a big Lindt sign on the building, and I ended up pleasantly surprised.

This museum more or less thought of everything. The first level is particularly kid-oriented in terms of the way the displays were designed, with short eye-level peep holes, buttons that light up countries on a map, and facts hidden behind tiny doors, but really they're a way of making the chocolate business interesting, and frankly there's plenty that would cause kids' and many adults' eyes to glaze over. If you're really interested in chocolate, though...



...you can see old books on trade laws (R)


...and big blocks of text about cacao farmers' compensation (L)






...quality testing of cacao beans (R)


or how the beans are traded on commodities exchanges. 


(You can also peruse the website, which gives a brief overview of what's in the museum.) This is all a bit dry, but there's actually a lot of info floating around this first chunk of the museum, more than I've seen anywhere else. 

Tired of reading? Head into the tropical greenhouse, which simulates the environment in which cacao beans are grown.

The rest of the first level and much (all?) of the second is the production line and chocolate fountain, which are surrounded by plexiglass (including employees!) so that visitors can see every part of the machines.

Chocolate squirting into molds.

Molds vibrating chocolate into shape.

It can't all be machine-made, apparently.

A separate line working on truffles--see them rolling down on the left? 

The coating blorps intermittently from that contraption in the center, 

and the coated truffles move on the conveyor into a cooling box (off-camera).

Chocolate fountain, with views. 

The Deutzer Bridge, as seen from the window of the Schokoladenmuseum.

Upstairs is a large exhibit that starts with the history of chocolate consumption, what you already know about ancient South Americans but also the early western chocolate-drinkers, with their fancy serving sets and chocolate parties. 









Then come rooms and rooms on European chocolate production and advertising. 

Pre-Photoshop airbrushing was weird, too.

A couple of my favorite exhibits were an old Stollwerck commercial (I think this kid was too thin until his parents gave him Stollwerck chocolate to drink?)...

...and the history of the Sarotti Mohr (i.e. Moor), a logo that is obviously problematic. He used to look like this, more or less, until the current owners finally bowed to pressure in 2004 and changed him to a stylized magician. (The company website is here, and is full of annoying Flash and music.)

Take-home on Köln's Schokoladenmuseum? If you're into chocolate and anywhere near Cologne, it's worth it to see a whole chocolate museum that goes deeper than you'd think. FYI, the only free samples you'll get are the little Lindt bars at the ticket counter and a wafer dipped in chocolate from the fountain, but if you want more, you can fill up at the museum gift shop or café. Also, you're at a chocolate museum, which means so is everybody else, from American families to local high schoolers on field trips. 

If you aren't able to make that big trip to Europe, just look at the website and think about how fascinating chocolate is, from history to farming, processing, and marketing. It's simultaneously luxury item and treat of the masses, a lesson in world trade that touches every continent (I bet even Antarctic workers pack candy bars in their luggage) and every age, a product that can cause suffering and joy. Amazing!

Chocolate in Germany

[Note: This post is virtually research-free, just what I noticed walking around in several cities, mostly in busy and/or touristy areas.]

When I was planning a this trip, in the back of my mind I thought “look at all these places known for chocolate—Belgium, France, Switzerland—and here Germany is right next door!” But I got a bad cold on the way over, and between that and jet lag I totally forgot about my favorite sweet treat. 

Then I was eating dinner on a square in Freiburg and spotted a sign saying “Chocolate Shop” (or perhaps just Schokolade) and ventured in, where I found a pretty glass-topped confection counter and a variety of bars. Some brands I'd seen before, but others were entirely foreign (ha!) and intrigued me with their wide range of neat-sounding flavors. I didn't want to add much to my load early on, so I bought a couple items and kept moving. But from that point on, I found chocolate all over the place.

There is simply more chocolate in Germany: more shops, more flavors, bigger chocolate sections in stores. I stumbled upon chocolate shops all over the place, and while most of my trip was spent in the treat-heavy tourist parts of towns, in a larger city like Köln I wandered past at least one dedicated shop in every busy neighborhood I visited. 

In the U.S., I can find Hershey's anywhere, but most of it is peanut/nougat/wafer/caramel candy bars, not dark chocolate. Further, because small producers aren't carried in many supermarkets (though I've had good luck with Whole Foods) most of what's available is made by the same few companies. If I want to go beyond that, even a good chocolate city like Seattle only has so many chocolate-specific shops. And we're just so far from other parts of the world: I might see product from German companies like Hachez in the U.S., but I saw entire Hachez stores in Germany. Unsurprisingly, European stores offer greater access to European chocolatiers.

So there's a lot of chocolate in Germany, and with such bounty it's not hard to satisfy one's personal chocolate preferences. I saw and sometimes bought confections (Pralinen), cheap chocolate, expensive chocolate, single-origin chocolate, organic/fair-trade chocolate, dark or milk or white chocolate, chocolate with funky flavorings like alcohol or spices or florals, and so on. 

Of the flavorings, some followed familiar lines, like nuts and raisins, while others were more unusual or particular to the area. Later I'll show you some bars whose flavorings I'd never seen here but were not uncommon sights in German candy shops.

This isn't chocolate, but it is candy, and it entertained me.

Still, you won't find a huge chocolate selection in every corner grocery. The selection at supermarkets is a lot like it is here, which is to say there's a decent amount but it's mostly big brands like Ritter Sport and Lindt (often at a good price, though) and perhaps the store's own label. 

So where to go? The photos from my previous post on Germany were taken in a large department store that had a huge chocolate selection on the lowest level, and I wish I'd spent more time there than the few minutes I had before running to catch a train. 

At least as useful are the aforementioned chocolate shops, which are either storefronts for a specific brand or just small, independent (as far as I could tell) shops with bars and confections and often hot cocoa; those variety shops often carry more pricey options.

Much of the not-so-good stuff we see in this country applies internationally as well. For example, stubby purple Milka and famously prismatic Toblerone, both formerly Swiss, are now made by good old Kraft. Similarly, independent stores are being replaced by chains, which didn't make the chocolate any less tasty but decreased the level of fun surprise—cute new shop, same old shtick. And such a chocolate-loving country likes to flavor foods with “chocolate” that might involve some artificial (that is, not chocolate) ingredients, as in the sugary chocolate syrups we had over ice cream. I guess even a relative chocolate Mecca deals with the usual economic and social pressures, but giant duty-free Toblerone bars seem a little less special now, you know? 

A few other quirks:

One of Germany's most endearing culinary treats is going to an Eiscafe, an ice cream shop with cheap cones to go or expensive, elaborate desserts you eat at sidewalk tables. The biggest shops had a couple dozen flavors at least, among them several different chocolate options, and my favorite was richly dark brown Zartbitterschokolade. (I also saw Zartbitterschokolade labeling some dark chocolate bars.) I don't often see very dark chocolate ice cream in the U.S., and it was a fun way to combine my dark chocolate habit with the joys of visiting an Eiscafe.

In the U.S., most of the chocolate bars I've seen with inclusions have them, well, included, blended into the chocolate so the back of the bar is chocolate-covered and bumpy. In Germany, many (though not all) bars with inclusions are sold with clear packaging that reveals chocolate, molded or irregularly spread, with inclusions sprinkled on top of the chocolate. Here I've only seen that in select bars, usually ones from Europe. I wonder why that is?

Anyone who's traveled internationally will have noticed that the same products we see at home sometimes show up there with different packaging and formulation. I was pretty excited when I came across this version of a discontinued favorite, but that extra chocolate syrup between the mousse and coating just didn't do it for me. Schade.

Up next: A peek inside Köln's Schokoladenmuseum—yes, a whole museum of chocolate!

Theo Organic 91% Dark Costa Rica

[Note: This is the re-post of a review that should have appeared (and did?) on May 12.]

3oz (84g) bar

Ingredients: Organic cocoa beans (Costa Rica), o. sugar, o. cocoa butter, o. ground vanilla bean

4g sugar/42g serving (9.5% by wt.)

Corporate Info: I've discussed Theo many times before. It's a bean-to-bar chocolatier here in Seattle, some bars are available nationwide, everything is organic and fair trade, Theo has an A rating from the Better World folks, etc etc. I've loved the confections but not always the dark chocolate. What will I think of this single-origin bar? (Note: I'm assuming this is the same as the one on the site, but with different packaging.)

Appearance: Orange-brown, and not as dark as you'd think.

Smell: Bitter and tannic, with some tropical banana.

Taste: In order of experience: Quite bitter, almost charred flavor I taste in the middle of my tongue. Texture is very smooth. Tart. I taste sweet on the very back and sides of my tongue. Basically, the flavor is stronger, weaker, or just different depending on the moment and where in the mouth we're talking about. Interesting.

Conclusion: Theo Organic 91% Dark Costa Rica is very dark and challenging, but it certainly isn't boring!