Madre Chocolate Passion Fruit Hawaiian Dark Chocolate

1.5oz (43g) bar

Ingredients: Hawaiian cacao beans, organic sugar, o. cocoa butter, Hawaiian passion fruit, Mexican whole vanilla

Corporate Info: (Copied from 8/11/12) Madre is basically brand new (circa early 2011), the brainchild of a traveler working on social justice in Central America and a botanist with a focus on food and medicinal plants. There's a lot of passion behind everything written about the company: the “About Us” page of their website, the focus on ecology and direct contact with cacao farmers, the now-funded Kickstarter, and even reviews by fans of their chocolate and their shop in Kailua. The cacao is grown organically, some on the Big Island (in the only U.S. state in which this is possible) and some in Central America, and they make the chocolate bean-to-bar in Hawaii. Madre has already been talked up in Saveur and, at greater length, by food personality Aida Mollenkamp after she visited the founders in Hawaii.

Madre currently produces two lines of chocolate, one inspired by Latin American cacao and flavorings and the other using Hawaiian cacao and flavorings. All three of my bars come from the latter line and are listed as “limited edition” because of the seasonality and availability of some of the ingredients. As you might imagine, this is not cheap chocolate: All bars are 1.5oz (half the size of most common chocolate bars) and range from $6 to $10 each on the website, and as my mother experienced, they may cost slightly more in stores. The bars are sold all over Hawaii, but they look to be spreading quickly to high-end and specialty stores in the U.S. and abroad.

[Update 9/5: I forgot to change these scheduled posts to indicate that reader Emma has pointed out that the mold Madre uses is mass produced, and you can find it here. Now you know.] 

Today's Bar: Passion fruit in 70% cacao.

Appearance: Matte, greyish-orangish brown with tiny dark and light specks.

Smell: Sweet, beany, fruity, nutty, and mild.

Taste: Texture is crunchy then smooth, with a fresh, light sweet-sour flavor following in little bursts from teeny tiny flecks of dried passion fruit. Unlike Marabou's passion fruit bar, this tastes like the real deal, subtle but genuine.

Conclusion: Madre Chocolate Passion Fruit Hawaiian Dark Chocolate offers subtle but legit and complex passion fruit flavor.

Madre Chocolate 70% Hawaiian Dark Chocolate

1.5oz (43g) bar

Ingredients: Hawaiian cacao beans, organic sugar, o. cocoa butter, Mexican whole vanilla

A few months ago, in response to my review of Madécasse's pink pepper and citrus chocolate, reader Emma asked if I'd ever tried the pink pepper bar made by Madre Chocolate. I'd never heard of the brand, so of course I looked up Madre online, and imagine my surprise when I saw that the young company is based in my hometown of Honolulu, Hawaii! I implored my mother to buy several bars locally and bring them with her when I saw her on the mainland last month, and luckily for me she complied. So here I am with three bars from Madre, and three weeks' worth of reviews. Today's is for the basic 70% Hawaiian Dark Chocolate.

Corporate Info: Madre is basically brand new (circa early 2011), the brainchild of a traveler working on social justice in Central America and a botanist with a focus on food and medicinal plants. There's a lot of passion behind everything written about the company: the “About Us” page of their website, the focus on ecology and direct contact with cacao farmers, the now-funded Kickstarter, and even reviews by fans of their chocolate and their shop in Kailua. The cacao is grown organically, some on the Big Island (in the only U.S. state in which this is possible) and some in Central America, and they make the chocolate bean-to-bar in Hawaii. Madre has already been talked up in Saveur and, at greater length, by food personality Aida Mollenkamp after she visited the founders in Hawaii.

Madre currently produces two lines of chocolate, one inspired by Latin American cacao and flavorings and the other using Hawaiian cacao and flavorings. All three of my bars come from the latter line and are listed as “limited edition” because of the seasonality and availability of some of the ingredients. As you might imagine, this is not cheap chocolate: All bars are 1.5oz (half the size of most common chocolate bars) and range from $6 to $10 each on the website, and as my mother experienced, they may cost slightly more in stores. The bars are sold all over Hawaii, but they look to be spreading quickly to high-end and specialty stores in the U.S. and abroad.

Appearance: Madre's chocolate is immediately striking because of its interesting mold. All three of the bars I have and most though not all of the bars on the website appear to be made in the same mold, in which half of each bar is covered with abstract, convex shapes reminiscent of lava rock walls and the other half is carved with what appear to be ancient Central American figures. I can't find an explanation of the molding choices on the website, but there is a blurb about the company's logo design here. Aside from that, the chocolate is a middle-of-the-road brown, not especially red or grey or shiny, though it is mostly matte. 

[Update 8/12/12: Emma points out that the molds Madre uses are mass produced, and can be purchased here. Thanks, Emma!]

Smell: Strong. Robust, beany, spicy, a little tart, a little roasty, very complex. I expect a lot of flavor here!

Taste: Texture is waxy, chewy, then smooth—the extra cocoa butter might be doing that. Flavor is fruity and surprisingly mild, like creamy banana or coconut, as well as a little tart and a little bitter in the tannic/drying/astringent way.

Conclusion: Madre Chocolate 70% Hawaiian Dark Chocolate is lush and tropical, with added cocoa butter creaminess.

Green & Black's Maya Gold

3.5oz (100g) bar

Ingredients: Organic fair trade chocolate, oft. raw cane sugar, oft. cocoa butter, soy lecithin, orange and spice flavor, oft. vanilla, o. whole milk powder

18g sugar/40g serving (45% by wt.)

Corporate Info: Check out this Brand Overview from March.

Today's Bar: Maya Gold is Green & Black's nod to “Mexican” or otherwise “Central American”-themed chocolate flavorings. Often that's a mix of hot chile and cinnamon, maybe pepper and/or vanilla; here it's (according to the website) a non-hot combo of orange, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla, and they're claiming inspiration from the Maya of southern Belize.

Appearance: Green & Black's usual semi-glossy chocolate in a lightly scored mold. Color is kind of flat looking, with a purplish undertone.

Smell: Well-incorporated sweetness and light spice; the nutmeg stands out along with what I'm guessing is orange oil rather than some other orange extract.

Taste: I've had Maya Gold before and liked it, as it conforms to Green & Black's standard: Thoroughly flavored, balanced, not challenging. Texture is thick and rich. Flavor is sweet (it's only 55% cacao) but entirely appropriate to the chocolate here, as while it does have bitter and sour tones, they're all curve, no edge. Similarly, the spices are complex but blend entirely. Think of, say, a good oatmeal cookie or pumpkin pie, which should taste redolent of autumnal spices rather than separate cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, and so on—they just have an aura of warmth that lingers pleasantly, in this case for a rather long time. I do think the nutmeg is standing out and perhaps the orange (we're not talking citrus here, but rather heady, aromatic orange oil), whereas I don't get a lot of cinnamon, and to my taste buds vanilla is more backup than headliner. So some flavors are louder than others, but they harmonize well.

Conclusion: Green & Black's Maya Gold isn't challenging, but as an everyday flavored chocolate its spice and balance excels.

Newman's Own Organics Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

1.2oz in three peanut butter cups

Ingredients: Organic sugar, o. chocolate liquor, o. cocoa butter, o, soy lecithin, o. vanilla, o. peanut butter, o. whole milk powder, o. palm kernel oil, palm kernel oil, peanut flour, salt

12g sugar/34g package (35.3% by wt.)

Corporate Info: Newman's Own was famously founded by beloved (seriously—can you find anyone who would disagree?) actor Paul Newman in 1982, and his daughter Nell founded Newman's Own Organics in 1993. They are truly separate companies, as while Newman's Own Organics started as a division of the parent company, it split off in 2001; even the websites are entirely different. The older company makes the salad dressing, microwave popcorn, and other products (some of which are organic), while the younger produces all the chocolate as well as other sweets, snacks, and assorted items. Newman's Own is well known for its philanthropic intent and follow through, while Newman's Own Organics seems to make organic sourcing its sole priority. So you shouldn't think your chocolate purchases are helping with Paul Newman's charitable causes, but you can still feel good about the whole thing.

Today's Confection: Newman's Own Organics produces five kinds of chocolate cups: Dark chocolate filled with caramel, peanut butter, or peppermint, and milk chocolate filled with caramel or peanut butter. Most ingredients are organic, the cacao is Rainforest Alliance Certified, and the cost they pay for the cacao is “tied to the Fair Trade market price of organic cocoa beans.” I found this package on sale for I think less than $1.50, not a major luxury price. I should also mention that the ingredients' milk powder and other elements were part of “organic yogurt coating,” which I suspect was combined with the chocolate rather than being a separate piece of the cup or mixed with the peanut butter, but I'm really not sure.

Appearance: Flattish, steep-walled cups in a milky, friendly-looking brown.

Smell: Like chocolate and peanut butter. The chocolate smells like real chocolate, a little beany and raw but not too much, and the peanut is subtle but present.

Taste: The chocolate is smooth, creamy, and rich, holding its own but not the deep, intense type of dark. The peanut butter is soft and flowy but not liquidy, so you'll get some on your lips but not drip it on the floor. It's mostly smooth but like natural peanut butter, which is to say mouth-fillingly oily rather than the greasy, thick consistency of common store brands containing hydrogenated oils. (I'm not saying those peanut butters don't have a sort of appeal, but you can't deny that they share a texture with Crisco.) What I really like is the balance between chocolate and peanut butter, both because of the quantities and because the chocolate is mild enough not to overwhelm the peanut butter, one solution to the problem I had with Justin's similar product. The flavors of both elements won't approximate a Reese's, if that's what you're looking for, but Newman's Own Organics does an admirable job with its own peanut butter cups.

Conclusion: Newman's Own Organics Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups are well balanced in texture and flavor, a good choice for organic, not-too-sweet peanut butter cups.

Ikea Choklad Mörk / Dark Chocolate

3.5oz (100g) bar

Ingredients: Cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa powder, cocoa butter, soy lecithin

13g sugar/33g serving (39.4% by wt.)

Corporate Info: It's Ikea, international home of cheap flat-pack furniture and Swedish meatballs. Their stock of groceries includes a few chocolate bars.

Today's Bar: Among Ikea's three chocolate bars (milk, milk with hazelnuts, and dark) is this 60% cacao option. Nothing special, just “dark chocolate,” and it costs 99¢.

Appearance: One of those big, thin bars, but with a pillowy top. Fairly matte, with a purply-grey cast.

Smell: Pretty nice, with a light, spiced nuttiness like nutmeg or almonds.

Taste: First sweet, followed by a whole flavor experience that doesn't work for me. It reminds me of cream that's gone sour: There's nothing wrong with cream, and we expect cacao to have tart elements, but the richness and sourness don't mesh here, and the sweet sits on top of the whole thing and lingers weirdly for a long while along with a thin, tinny sort of bitterness. The flavors here all make sense, but for some reason they just don't meld in this bar.

Conclusion: Ikea Choklad Mörk / Dark Chocolate has all the right flavors, but they don't mesh well.

Leysieffer Les Extra Fins Bittersweet (Edelbitter)

100g bar

Ingredients: Cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla

Corporate Info: (Copied from 6/9/12; see that post for more) Leysieffer was founded in 1909 and began making chocolate truffles in 1936. The company is still family-operated, but it now includes 19 confectionary shops throughout Germany as well as a half dozen “bistros” serving cake and whatnot. And if you're really curious, you can order its products online.

Today's Bar: In addition to all the flavored bars (and other products), Leysieffer does have an assortment of plain chocolate in various cacao percentages and origins. Today's Les Extra Fins Bittersweet is a fairly plain choice: It's not single origin and, at 61% cacao, it's only slightly darker than the 55% base of its semisweet flavored bars, which I thought might make for an interesting comparison.

Appearance: A rich, reddish brown not much different from the 55%, though I do think it has more red-orange in it. It's actually a rather lovely color.

Smell: Warm, beany but with rounded edges, nothing sharp there. Comfortable.

Taste: Texture is waxy, smooth, just a tiny bit chalky. Flavor is indeed deeper than the 55%, though the sweetness hits me first, which isn't my favorite experience in general. However, once the chocolateyness catches up, it's quite nice in an accessible way, like a bittersweet chocolate chip: a touch sour, enough bitter to taste like real chocolate, nowhere near raw but still within sight of the tree—as opposed to, say, those super-smooth, creamy chocolates that taste like they sprang up on their own in a Parisian chocolaterie. This isn't anything special, but it might satisfy some people's everyday cravings.

Conclusion: Leysieffer Les Extra Fins Bittersweet (Edelbitter) fits the label of bittersweet chocolate.

Leysieffer Berry (Beeren)

100g bar

Ingredients: Sugar, cocoa mass, dried berries (cranberries, sour cherries, blueberries), cocoa butter, soy lecithin

Corporate Info: (Copied from 6/9/12; see that post for more) Leysieffer was founded in 1909 and began making chocolate truffles in 1936. The company is still family-operated, but it now includes 19 confectionary shops throughout Germany as well as a half dozen “bistros” serving cake and whatnot. And if you're really curious, you can order its products online.

Today's Bar: Berry. Ordinarily I wouldn't have selected this from Leysieffer's more intriguing choices, because we in the U.S. see so many “mixed berry” drinks, yogurts, candies, and so on. The difference is that this bar isn't our lovely but common strawberry-raspberry-blackberry; instead, it's blueberry, which is popular here but not in chocolate; cranberry, which we mostly associate with Thanksgiving and plain “craisins”; and sour cherries, which we usually see only in pies but are very common in German jams and desserts. That hit my “novelty” button, so I went with it.

Appearance: Unlike the other Leysieffer bars I brought home, this one has large, irregular chunks visible under the chocolate on the back and revealed in cross-section.

Smell: Basically just plain chocolate, which makes sense given that the berries are intact.

Taste: Flavor is sweet chocolate plus sweet, just slightly tart berries, and texture is Leysieffer's smooth, slightly waxy base with chewy, moist chunks of whole berry; individual bites are likely to be mostly chocolate with a little fruit for additional texture and flavor. As I've said before, I think Leysieffer's 55% cacao base is a fairly ideal match for more ethereal flavors like elderflower and lavender, but here it doesn't work for me, and there's a lot of it. The dominant, sweet chocolate and rather sweet berries prevent me from appreciating the three particular fruits included here, reminding me of why I love Green & Black's cherry bar, with its darker chocolate and plentiful, sweet-sour fruit. I'd like more fruit here, but mostly this is an issue of what the eater considers “balanced”: For me, the sugar here is getting in the way of the rest of the experience, though for others it may be exactly right, making this a satisfying bar they want to return to again and again. So it goes.

Cranberry + sour cherry + blueberry + chocolate conclusion: Inconclusive, since I couldn't get past the sweetness to really appreciate the fruit.