Fine & Raw
Chocolate Hazelnut Chunky
Good + - Good ++
Weight: 1 oz. (28 g.) in total chocolate
Calories: 155 calories (estimate) in 1 chocolate
Cost: $6.00 for 1 chocolate
Purchased from: Chocolate Dispensary, online order
Chocolate Hazelnut Chunky
Good + - Good ++
Weight: 1 oz. (28 g.) in total chocolate
Calories: 155 calories (estimate) in 1 chocolate
Cost: $6.00 for 1 chocolate
Purchased from: Chocolate Dispensary, online order
Welcome to Day #5 of Chocolate, Pistachio, Hazelnut & Almond Theme Week.
Today's rainbow-packaged Chocolate Hazelnut Chunky was from Fine & Raw (Brooklyn, NY).
Fine & Raw was founded in 2007 by Daniel Sklaar in a Brooklyn artist loft. The company offers a variety of chocolate bars (typically made using cacao from Belize and/or Ecuador). They also make at least one bar made with mesquite.*
Aroma and flavor notes included: dark chocolate (dark ganache, slightly smokey, earthy cocoa); coconut sugar; sweet green and nut; faint caramel and vanilla.
Texture: chunky and smooth. The hazelnuts were fully incorporated into the chocolate, and this "Chunky" had the mouthfeel and melt of a hearty, roasted nut butter and chocolate truffle bar -- likely similar to the company's other small chunky chocolate truffle bars (that I haven't tasted yet).
I liked that this chocolate was dark, nut-roast-y and not too sweet. I loved that my teeth weren't coated with sugar or tannins afterwards. This bar reminded me that the buzz/jolt one feels after eating chocolate is more often from the sugar than the inherent stimulants in chocolate (theobromine and caffeine).
The Fine & Raw made hazelnut butter added nutty flavor and balanced bitterness/acidity. (This bar was more roasty than it was bitter.) I enjoyed the soft, substantial, almost stone-ground texture. And I appreciated the maker's choice of a short list of organic ingredients in this homemade hazelnut butter and raw cacao bar.
Ingredients: organic hazelnuts, organic coconut sugar, organic cacao bean, organic cacao butter
Allergy-related information: Made in a factory that processes tree nuts
*Years ago I was searching for more chocolates to try that were made with mesquite. (The first chocolate with mesquite that I found was featured here was 2010.) I found Fine & Raw's mesquite (and Alderwood smoked salt) bars in Brooklyn (featured here on Chocolate Banquet in 2019).
As expected, I also found other wood and smoke related chocolates in the Southwest U.S. (Arizona, New Mexico and eventually Texas). But, I still remember those Brooklyn/NYC bars, that seemed novel at the time.
