Endorfin Foods - Dark Mylk bar - June 18, 2016

Chocolate of the Day: 

Endorfin Foods
Dark Mylk bar
Good
Weight: .7 oz. (20 g.) / 1.4 oz. (40 g.) in total bar
Calories: 105 calories (estimate) in 1/2 bar
Cost: $5.00 for 1 bar ($45 box with 9 different bars)
Purchased from: Endorfin Foods

Welcome to Day #5 of Chocolate and India Theme Week.

Today's Dark Mylk bar was from Endorfin Foods (Oakland, CA). The non-dairy (soy and gluten free) bar was made with un-roasted cacao, coconut sugar, cocoa butter and coconut). The 56% cacao chocolate bar had a smooth, relatively rich cacao flavor with a hint of coconut and brown sugar. (Other Endorfin bars I've enjoyed thus far have had flavor additions.)

Indian Dessert Pairing
After sampling the bar, I thought I would try part of this unflavored bar to pair with some Indian desserts. And I thought a bar made with un-roasted cacao might fare better with the pairings I had in mind.

I paired this Endorfin Dark Mylk bar with various popular Indian desserts. And I have to say, there is a reason why not all things should be mixed together. This had less to do with the chocolate than common sense on my part.

Chocolate is not a common ingredient in Indian cuisine. And now I understand why.

Mostly, today I had fun trying gluten-free Indian desserts that I hadn't tried before: such as diamond-shaped Kaju Katli (cashews, sugar, rose water); and Motichoor Ladoo, tiny muffin-shaped (chickpea flour-based sweet cakes flavored with saffron and cardamom).

Adding chopped pistachio nuts to these two desserts worked, but adding chocolate did not. Far from me to argue with the wisdom of sweets. Lighter, floral and fragrant traditional flavors with a very long tradition like this were better left un-messed with.

The least objectionable pairing: a tiny bit of chocolate bar with candy-coated fennel seeds (from a traditional Indian digestive mix). And I couldn't help but wonder what Endorfin's Absinthe bar might be like...double dose of fennel/anise flavor? But I digress.

Failed experiments aside, I hope to try Indian-made chocolates in the future. For example, I was communicating with Filter (Chocolates) online (Mumbai, India). They offer a series of attractively packaged chocolate bars with flavors inspired by different regions in India. Unfortunately, there is no easy way for me to sample these at the moment, short of flying to India. Field Trip!