Miette et Chocolat
Third Culture Ube Bar With Coconut
Good +
Weight: 1 oz. (28.3 g.) (estimate) / (total weight not listed on packaging)
Calories: 155 calories (estimate) in 1 oz. (28.3 g.) of bar
Cost: $12.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Third Culture, Berkeley, CA
Welcome to Day #4 of Chocolate and Fruit Theme Week.
Today's Third Culture Ube Bar with Coconut was from French patisserie and chocolate shop Miette et Chocolat (Aurora, CO).
As one might expect from the name (and the subtle, beautiful purple color), this bar had an aroma with chocolate, coconut and fruit (ube, sweet purple yam and sweet black/blue berry) notes.
Ube, a starchy tuber that looks like a purple yam or sweet potato, is popular in Southeast Asia, the Philippines, Hawaii, California and elsewhere as a dessert (Ube Halaya) and ice cream flavor, often paired with coconut or coconut milk. (Ube is also the name of the African pear, a purple fruit in West Africa.*)
I'm guessing today's bar was an homage to beautifully bright purple-pink ube glazed and coconut sprinkled (gluten-free) doughnuts I thought I spotted at Third Culture in Berkeley, CA---a bakery known in the San Francisco Bay Area for their mochi muffins.
The percentage of cocoa solids in this bar may have been relatively low; but the thick and creamy, almost fluffy, melt and texture was likely due to a generous amount of cocoa butter. It had the mouthfeel and sweetness level of a white chocolate. (I'm guessing here as there was no detailed ingredients list on the packaging.)
Flavors detected were similar to the aroma notes mentioned above. These flavors included: cocoa butter, sugar, purple sweet potato, very faint tropical fruit and coconut--and a milky, plant-based (coconut milk) chocolate.
This was a fun bar to try. (I pair this Ube bar with an unflavored dark chocolate--a single origin filled dark chocolate from Exquisito Chocolates.)
Ingredients: (Not listed on package)
Allergen-related information: (None listed on package) Contained coconut.
*The ube tuber (Dioscorea alata) here is not the same species as the African Pear aka Safou fruit (Dacryodes edulis) (an edible drupe) that grows in West Africa and also has a purple (skin) color. In Nigeria it is called "ube."
