ChocolateBet: June 21, 2011

Chocolates of the Day:

The Oakland Chocolate Co.
1.) Lavender Truffle - Very Good
2.) Spearmint Truffle - Very Good
3.) Pistachio Rolled Truffle - Good + - Very Good
4.) Filled Oval Leaf (lime pepper jelly) - Very Good
5.) Filled Scallop Leaf (lemon curd) - Very Good +
6.) Filled Small Log (hazelnut butter) - Very Good - Very Good +

People ask me if I ever have trouble finding new chocolates. No, not yet. But, if I have too many oversampling days like today, I just might. I selected six possible Mediterranean flavors that came in a box of chocolates from The Oakland Chocolate Company (a bean-to-bar-to-bonbon operation). All these individual chocolates were made from Jamaican dark chocolate.

The Lavender Truffle was filled with a white ganache and topped with delicious candied lavender buds. The Spearmint Truffle with a chocolate ganache also was blessed with a tiny piece of what I believe was candied spearmint leaf. My two favorites were: the dark chocolate leaf filled with lemon curd -- a combination that is hard to beat in my opinion; and the small chocolate log filled with hazelnut butter. The hazelnut butter sparkled with bright bits of flavor, sweetness and texture. I much preferred this to overly homogenized hazelnut fillings present in some commercial chocolates.

In the same vein as the leaf with lemon curd, the oval chocolate leaf that was filled with lime pepper jelly was also good -- tart and pleasing, but not overly spicy.

Today was Day #5 of Chocolate and Mediterranean Theme Week.