Vosges ~ Mo's Milk Chocolate Bacon Bar

Yes the bacon craze is still in full swing and even more so with bacon chocolate bars. I am totally about it.

Vosges has been taunting me for months now on Twitter with their Mo's Bacon Chocolate Chip Pancake Mix. You know who you are person behind the Vosges Twitter account.

Finally, I found one of their bars at Cardullo's in Harvard Sq. They didn't have the dark chocolate and bacon bar, only the milk, but to be fair they look like they had been wiped out of a lot of chocolate. Cardullo's recently had stocked up on Le Whif for their launch party at a restaurant right next door called Tory Road. I stopped by to try and get Le Whif so I could review it. They were sold out, so I bought a collection of other chocolate bars instead. Apparently I wasn't the only one with that back up plan. But I would gladly choose real chocolate over that stupid novelty anyway. Especially bacon and chocolate!

At little bit of history about Katrina Markoff the owner and chocolatier of Vosges from their website:

Vosges' exotic truffles are made from the finest ingredients offered around the world. Owner/Chocolatier, Katrina Markoff, personally chooses every spice, flower and chocolate that is flown into our Chicago kitchen. Markoff utilizes the original methods of French confectionery artistry which she learned during her training at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. Having graduated with the Grand Diplôme from Le Cordon Bleu and having worked extensively in France, Spain, Italy, Southeast Asia and Australia her collections of haut-chocolats have great, worldly inspirations. Inspired by her global apprenticeships, Vosges truffles have exotic influences of an "East meets West" theme. The infusions of rare spices and flowers combined with premium chocolate give a delicate balance of flavor, leaving you with a layered and lingering sensation of spice and chocolate, a true haut-chocolat experience.

Mission Statement

The Vosges Haut-Chocolat mission is to create a luxury chocolate experience rooted in a sensory journey of bringing about awareness to indigenous cultures through the exploration of spices, herbs, roots, flowers, fruits, nuts, chocolate and the obscure. We invite you to be aware and open to the many cultures, artists and theories of the world's people, through the medium of chocolate. What better way to learn about a culture, person or object than through eating. If we can embrace the idea of trying something new such as the perplexing oddity of curry and chocolate, we just may come one step closer to bringing peace to the world through chocolate. One Love, One Chocolate.

Getting Greener...

Our facility is powered by 100% renewable energy and has been approved as an organic manufacturing facility. Click here to learn more about our mission to get greener.

Vosges Haut-Chocolat is thrilled to be certified as a women’s business enterprise through the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), the nation’s largest third party certifier of businesses owned and operated by women in the US.

Before I get into the review, I must say I am proud of Vosges for not being above beer and chocolate. I noticed once on their website that they had a wine offering with chocolate. I wanted to email them and ask them why not beer and chocolate? Before I could, I found a cool package they are offering featuring Rogue's Shakespeare Stout with their bacon and chocolate collection.

Mo's Bacon Bar + Rogue Shakespeare Stout Gift Box

This makes me proud. More and more you see people being receptive to craft beer. And as someone who used to teach classes on how to pair beer with chocolate or hosted tastings around beer and chocolate, it makes my heart swell.

They also offer their Caramel Marshmallows with Sam Smith's Imperial Stout.

Thank you Vosges for keeping it real with beer pairings!

Mo's Milk Chocolate Bacon Bar

Katrina's inspiration for the bar:

"I began experimenting with bacon + chocolate at the tender age of 6, while eating chocolate chip pancakes drenched in Aunt Jemima® syrup, as children often do. Beside my chocolate-laden cakes laid three strips of sizzlin' bacon, just barely touching a sweet pool of maple syrup. And then, the magic—just a bite of the bacon was too salty and I yearned for the sweet kiss of chocolate and syrup, so I combined the two. In retrospect, perhaps this was a turning point; for on that plate something magical happened, the beginnings of a combination so ethereal and delicious that it would haunt my thoughts until I found the medium to express it—chocolate.

From there, it was just a matter of time…and what began as a love of salt and sweet quickly unraveled into an obsession. No sooner could I wait to unveil the royal coupling in solid bar form, a deep milk chocolate with bits and pieces of applewood smoked bacon and just a sprinkling of Alder salt. Really, what doesn't taste better with bacon?"
–Katrina

Type: Flavored Milk Chocolate 45% cocoa

Bean Varietal: Unknown

Ingredients: Milk chocolate (sugar, dry whole milk, milk fat, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, soy lecithin, vanilla), uncured bacon (pork, sea salt, raw sugar, white pepper, dried juniper berries, celery juice, lactic acid - started culture), salt.

Sample Size: 3oz or 85g

Appearance: Nice rich milky brown color. But dull, not shiny, and muted with some blotches on the surface. Simple monogrammed molding in large square shapes.

Score: 83

Snap: Light snap, fairly crisp sound and firm snap for milk chocolate, clean break lines.

Score: 94

Aroma: Smokey bacon, milky. No real big roasted cocoa aromas, but pure smokey bacon and soft milky cocoa aroma. Fantastic for bacon lovers, not so much for regular chocolate lovers.

Score: 94

Taste: A perfect balance of sweet and salty. Chocolate is smooth and tastes like caramel, but higher cocoa percentage gives more of a nice cocoa flavor, milky and creamy. Bacon is salty and smokey, very flavorful.

Score: 97

Texture: Soft milk chocolate, crispy yet chewy bacon bits. Perfect texture for bacon.

Score: 93

Awesome chocolate bar. This is gluttony wrapped up in a silver wrapper. I loved the quality of the milk chocolate. Higher percentages of cocoa give it a nice chocolate flavor, the milk gives it a nice soft, creamy texture. It worked incredibly well as a contrast to the salty, cured applewood smoked bacon.

I did wish the bacon was more like strips inside the bar instead of chopped up bits, but the texture of the bacon was perfect. Crispy and yet a little bit chewy as well. Nice and salty too.

This is awesome chocolate. A great bar of chocolate in the morning or breakfast chocolate. The bacon revolution rolls on.


Final Score: 92.2

score
B+