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Supporting Your Local

 

 

I support my local. If given a chance to order chocolate from far away or support the local makers in my community, obviously I am going to support the local makers. With more and more people venturing in to making their own chocolate or making their own truffles and confections, the choice is pretty easy these days. I count my blessings for all the new shops and new makers in the Boston area opening up. 

Over Thanksgiving, I decided I was already baking and making enough food to feed a small army. I didn't want to spend that much time baking more desserts. I had already made my own fig jam and port wine truffles and chocolate cake, not to mention several other things. I remembered a great local truffle maker in my area, Valerie Conyngham of Vianne Chocolat. I had tasted some of her treats before, but she now has several new truffles. She tweeted out that she had some Mulled Cider Caramels. That's what I had to have. That's what I wanted on Thanksgiving Day. It just sounds like the holidays. It was cold that day too. They worked like a charm. Plus I love her packaging. It's so cute and makes for great little gifts to pass around with the family and taste all the yummy goodness. 

Luckily for me, she came and met me for a drink and delivered me a nice big order of fun things. I ordered Mulled Cider Caramel Cups, Peanut Butter Hives with a Kick, Irish Whiskey Truffles, and Pumpkin Cups. 

The Peanut Hives with a Kick were my favorite. Lovely peanut butter truffles with a touch of honey and a really nice kick of heat from cayenne pepper that does exactly what I want, slowly build on the palate. I am a wuss about hot and spicy food. So if it's not a slow builder, then I don't want it. These were great. I don't have pictures of them because they were very popular at Thanksgiving. But they come in cute hive-shaped truffle molds. 

 

 

Irish Whiskey Caramel Cups

This wasn't supposed to happen. They are pretty popular and she said didn't have any left, but fortunately one box did make it into my bag. Thank you Valerie! 

These are my kind of caramels. Belgian chocolate shells, boozy aroma straight away, as soon as you open the box as a matter of fact. A little green shimmer hand painted on each one. Soft, runny burnt caramel center with a nice boozy kick of whiskey. What's not to love? Butter, caramel, nutty chocolate, and whiskey. Good stuff. 

 

 

Pumpkin Cups

Dark chocolate shell with pumpkin seeds on the top and real pumpkin puree in the center. So many times things that say pumpkin are usually about the pie spices and not actually about the squash itself. This is largely the case with many pumpkin ales, but that's a story for another blog. This has the puree in it and you can taste it. The spices were great too because the truffles were lightly spiced. Pumpkin pie spices tend to be over done and end up cloying. Add a little but of nuttiness from the pumpkin seed and we got a winner here. Perfect holiday truffle. 

 

 

Mulled Cider Caramel Cups

The reason I'm here with this post today. Dark chocolate cups filled with mulled cider caramel and dried apple bits on the top. Very sweet and buttery. Spiced just right like the Pumpkin Cups, soft and runny, buttery burnt caramel center flavored with mulled cider. The dark chocolate leaves a nice lingering coffee-like flavor. Perfect after dinner caramel. 

 

Valerie is really nailing it with these wonderful caramel cups and truffles. I recommend sneaking in a last minute order for your holiday gatherings. A box of one of these these flavors would make for a really nice gift for someone at work too. The packaging is so cute and chic. 

L.A. Burdick ~ Ecuador 73% - 75%

***Archived notes. 

 

This is another Burdick bar that made it through the Spring and Summer with some marginal heat damage. Not nearly as bad as the Bolivia Bar. Because of this, there will be a slight adjustment in the appearance score. These bars were shiny and elegant when bought. The slight ashy appearance is due to to some temp changes and my struggle to keep bars at 60 degrees. 

Burdick's cocoa is single sourced, but not bean-to-bar. They are a couverture company using Felchlin (Swiss) and Valrhona (French) chocolate. This is a fantastic article by The Nibble from 2008, all about how Burdick's began and his history overseas learning chocolate techniques. And the reason behind using some of the worlds finest couverture for their products. From the bars to the truffles, and Burdick's famous hot chocolate. If you've never had Burdick's hot chocolate, you are really missing out. It's so rich and so thick, the antioxidants in it alone are probably enough to give you a super power like Heroes or the X-Men. It's truly some of the best and most rich and decadent hot chocolate on the market. 

 

 

 

 

Ecuador 73%-75%

 

Type: Bittersweet, Between 73% and 75%.

Bean Varietal: Probably Nacional

Ingredients: Cocoa beans, sugar, cocoa butter, may contain vanilla, may contain soy lecithin. 

Sample Size: 100g or 3.5oz

 

Appearance: Non-monogrammed small squared tablet, deep dark ash brown color, smooth, unblemished surface. *Minor matting on surface with some slight sugar bloom. 

Score: 90

Snap: Medium snap quality. Not too firm or crisp and not too soft either. Low snap sound but very clean break lines. 

Score: 89

Aroma: Huge aroma! Lightly sweet, big almonds, big oak wood, almost marshmallow-y, vanilla, soft roasted cacao notes, a little spicy. 

Score: 95

Taste: Subdued cacao, bitter, sugar, roasted cacao, almonds, slightly inky and flowery, oak wood, vanilla, mild hints of cinnamon, subdued berries, *Indian spices, *Curry, marshmallow. 

Score: 93

Texture: Waxy up front, opens up nicely with a medium melt time, slightly viscous and smooth texture. 

Score: 89

 

Again the score on the appearance is based on what it looked like when I bought it. It was super smooth and shiny. It's not scored too high because of the boring molding and dull ash brown color of the chocolate. I mentioned the matted marks on the surface, but did not take that out on the score. I also wanted to explain the ashy  sugar bloom for those not familiar with that kind of bloom and what can happen with temperature fluctuations. 

The snap was pretty boring. Nothing special to write home about there. I have had better snap quality on other Burdick bars. 

The aroma had quite a lot going on. Lightly sweet with huge almonds and oak wood. It was very floral and pretty. It had a sweet candy marshmallow scent on the aroma with some soft roasted cacao and even some vanilla aromas. Some mild spicy characters too. I was most please with that huge woody oak aroma. I loved that and sat there inhaling it for about 15 minutes really trying to take it all in. Very good aroma. 

The flavor also had some interesting notes to it. It has some subdued bitterness, and soft roasted cacao, then it opened up with its sugars and almond flavors. There were berries there, but they were being subdued, definite oak wood flavors, slight hints of cinnamon. I put stars next to Indian spices and curry. While I was tasting, I accidentally read the package which mentions it's flavor profile of black tea and Indian spices. I think I let that interfere with my tasting. If I thought enough about it, I could taste those flavors in the bar. I can't tell if it's really in there or if I was influenced. If it is there, it's very slight and subtle. The package did mention mint flavors, but I did not detect though.

I am not the biggest fan of Ecuadorian beans especially Nacional varietals. I feel like they tend to dry the palate out kind of like the difference between rye on a beer or in whiskey. Similar flavors to bourbon but a unique drying effect on the palate rather than cloying sugars. I think that's what was holding down some of the bitterness, and keeping the true potential of the berry flavors at bay. This was actually okay just this one time because it allowed for amazing oak characters and earthy spices to come out and play. 

A lot to think about with this bar. Lots of good aromas and flavors. One of the better Ecuador bars I have had. I would like to put this side by side with Askinosie's San Jose Del Tambo bar. 

It did have a bit of a waxy texture of front when tasting it, but then it smoothed out fairly nicely and left a smooth creamy texture. Overall this is a fairly good bar of chocolate. Lots to think about with the taste and the aroma. It goes back to my early roots with describing chocolate, "It's thinking chocolate." That used to drive some of my more knowledgeable chocolate friends crazy. "What do you mean 'thinking chocolate'?" I mean I need longer than I usually take to review this chocolate to really let it sink in. To really understand if my palate was influenced or not by the packaging descriptors. Let those rustic earthy oak woods sink in. Not bad for a couverture bar and not a bean-to-bar.

 

Final Score: 91.2

  score
B+