Puchero - 75% Indonesia Java Criollo Single Origin (bar) - Nov. 27, 2023

Chocolate of the Day

Puchero 
75% Indonesia Java Criollo Single Origin (bar)
Good ++
Weight: 1.23 oz. (35 g.) / 2.4 oz. (70 g.) in total bar
Calories: 207.5 calories in 1/2 bar
Cost: $ N/A - gift from a friend
Purchased from: N/A - gift from a friend - Thank you Toni! 

Welcome to Day #2 of Chocolate and Indonesia Theme Week. 

Today's Puchero 75% Indonesia Java Criollo Single Origin (bar) was produced by Tostarix S.L. (Vallodolid, Spain). The company offers a variety of small batch, bean-to-bar chocolates.

Aroma notes included: smooth dark chocolate, tropical fruit (ripe, sweet mango), and caramel.

This chocolate had a smooth, almost creamy/milky texture, mouthfeel and flavor.

Flavor notes included: bittersweet chocolate, and sweet fruit (apple, berry, date, mango), faint caramel and very faint gingerbread. What is so special about Criollo cacao varieties? Subtle, sophisticated, complex flavors that also tend to be (depending on the origin and roast) low in acidity and bitterness.*

Puchero maker's notes: "Fermented white cacao from hybrid varieties known as Java Criollo. Complex, creamy and milky. Notes of caramel and tropical fruit."

Ingredients: "cacao beans, organic beet sugar, organic cacao butter."

Allergen-related information: "May contain traces of nuts, milk and gluten"

*Single origin chocolates made with heritage/Criollo cacaos are rare. They represent less than 5% of the fine chocolate market. 

Criollo and/or heritage varieties of cacao beans tend to come from smaller cacao pods, and the trees are often more delicate/prone to diseases, which helps explain why they are found/selected less often for planting in large plantations, where the highest yields and lowest risk of diseases are selected over subtler flavor characteristics. 

Similar trade-offs are made with other heritage/heirloom variety crops, ranging from roses to tomatoes. 

Heinde and Verre - Dutch Vegan Mylk 52% Chocolate (Indonesia, DR, Peru) - Nov. 26, 2023

Chocolate of the Day 

Heinde and Verre
Dutch Vegan Mylk 52% Chocolate (bar)
Good ++ 
Weight: 1.25 oz. (35 g.) / 2.5 oz. (70 g.) in package of 2 bars
Calories: 199 calories in 1 bar (1/2 of a 2-bar package) 
Cost: $9.50 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Bar and Cocoa, online order 

Welcome to Day #1 of Chocolate and Indonesia Theme Week, featuring chocolates made with cacao grown across the Republic of Indonesia--that includes 17,000+ islands--and origins such as Java and Bali.

Today's Dutch Vegan Mylk Chocolate (bar) was from Heinde and Verre B.V. (Rotterdam, The Netherlands). Like the company's name (rough translation: near and far), high-quality ingredients were selected from at least three different continents.

The cacao used to make this 52% cacao bar was from Indonesia, the Dominican Republic, and Peru.

Aroma notes for this vegan bar included: complex dark chocolate, dried fruit (banana), sweet green and subtle rice/oat cereal. 

The texture was thick and creamy, with no unpleasant graininess (from oats, rice). All the flavor inclusions were fully incorporated into the mylk chocolate. 

The sealed packaging helped keep this bar smooth, in-temper,* and fresh-tasting. (And it also made it easy to share a bar with someone else.)

Flavor notes included chocolate, fruit - (fully incorporated), authentic banana, and pleasant, very subtle oat and rice "milk" and very faint coconut.

This was one of the most well-crafted and tasty vegan "milk" bars I've tasted. Alternative milk bars often taste/feel a bit starchy; or the oats or rice can muddle the taste of the cacao with duller flavors.

Today's bar was very nicely balanced, not too sweet, with a pleasing complexity. 

Ingredients: "Cacao beans and cacao butter (52%), sugar, oat, cocos, banana, rice, calcium, sunflower lecithin, salt." 

Allergen-related information: (None listed. See ingredients list above.)

*Chocolate is tempered (using precise cycles of heating and cooling). The perfect temper results in chocolate bars that break with a hard snap at room temperature, and well-tempered chocolates have a longer shelf life as well. If chocolate sits in the sun, or is subjected to other extremes, it can lose its firm texture and desirable appearance and become out of temper.

Marana - Chocotejas Guindon (Dry Plum), Lucuma y Nuez (Lucuma & Walnut); Sugar Plums - Nov. 25, 2023

Chocolate(s) of the Day

Marana Craft Chocolate

1.) Chocotejas - Guindon (Dry Plum)
Good ++
Weight: 1 oz. (28 g.) / 17.82 oz. (504 g.) in total box of 18
Calories: 145 calories in 1 piece 
Cost: $52.00 for 1 box of 18 pieces (6 flavors)
Purchased from: Bar and Cocoa, online order

2.) Chocotejas - Lucuma y Nuez (Lucuma and Walnut)
Good ++
Weight: 1 oz. (28 g.) / 17.82 oz. (504 g.) in total box of 18
Calories: 145 calories in 1 piece
Cost: $52.00 for 1 box of 18 pieces (6 flavors)
Purchased from: Bar and Cocoa, online order?

3.) Andy's Orchard 
Sugar Plums
Good ++
Weight: 1.5 oz. (42.45 g.) (estimate) /9 oz. (estimate) for box of 6
Calories: (No information listed)
Cost: $24.00 for 1 box 
Purchased from: Andy's Orchard, Morgan Hill, CA

4.) Brandy cherries with cinnamon, cocoa
(Small batch - homemade)

Welcome to Day #7 of Chocolate and Cherries Theme Week. Today's four items featured holiday fruit (including cherries) and nut blends with chocolate(s).

Today's bountiful chocolate plate was heaped with two special Peruvian chocotejas confections: (1.) Dry Plum and 2.) Lucuma and Walnut) from Marana Craft Chocolate (Lima, Peru); 3.) "Sugar Plums" (with cherries and walnuts) from Andy's Orchard (Morgan Hill, CA); and 4.) homemade brandied cherries with cinnamon and cocoa.

Marana - Guindon (Dry Plum)
Aroma notes for this large, individually-wrapped, Peruvian bon bon included: dark chocolate and a complex, savory-sweet plum sauce (sweet and lightly salted plum, tomato cream sauce).

This substantial, filled confection's flavor notes included: rich, naturally sweet dark chocolate; and a diffuse blend of very faint salt brown sugar caramel and dried fruit (very lightly salted plum, then a deep dive into moist, delicious prune) that blended with the pieces of melting dark chocolate outer coating.

The moist prunes (dry plums) rocketed me back to childhood memories of Bee Ritchie's chocolate-covered prunes--from the formerly agricultural fruit basket region in the San Francisco Bay Area (South Bay).*  Dark chocolate with dry/dried stone fruit: a robust flavor blend.

Marana - Lucuma y Nuez (Lucuma and Walnut)

Aroma notes for this generously sized confection included: dark chocolate, botanical and rich nut (sweet green walnut, maple-like syrup), and very faint tart green-lemony herb (oxalis, wood sorrel, sour grass).

A creamy, rich, dark chocolate shell surrounded a soft fudge like center with large pieces of soft walnut. Flavor notes included: dark chocolate; brown sugar; faint dried fruit (fig); diffuse, sweet botanical; light caramel; and subtle, authentic walnut.

Andy's Orchard - Sugar Plums

Andy Mariani knows fruit; and his fruit orchard is one of the last of its kind in Santa Clara County. Perhaps best known for their Blenheim Apricots, the company's small orchard-adjacent store also stocks seasonal favorites, like today's wooden box of gold foil-wrapped "Sugar Plums" dried fruit and nut holiday confections.

Moist, tart sweet apricot layered over a plum, was topped with a layer of chopped walnuts and almonds and candied cherry. Sorry cherry, the apricot stole the show.

These Sugar Plums did not contain chocolate but were paired with chocolate(s). 

Homemade Brandied Cherries

Not much to say other than these cherries, soaked in brandy with a pinch of cinnamon and cocoa powder, can be a nice, rich addition to a holiday table or dessert. The alcohol in the brandy evaporates over time and some residual flavor remains.

*In the 1900s, Silicon Valley was known as the Valley of Heart's Delight. Gone are 90%+ of all those apricot, cherry, plum, walnut and almond orchards--replaced by office/technology buildings and homes. Happily Andy's Orchard is one of the few places one can still find chocolate-covered, locally-grown fruits in the South Bay/Santa Clara County.

 

Zotter - Cherry Brandy With Marzipan (bar) - Nov. 24, 2023

Chocolate of the Day

Zotter
Cherry Brandy with Marzipan 
Good ++
Weight: 2.47 oz. (70 g.) in total bar
Calories: 380 calories in 1 bar
Cost: $9.50 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Bar and Cocoa, online order

Welcome to Day #6 of Chocolate and Cherries Theme Week.

Today's Cherry Brandy with Marzipan (bar) was made in Austria and distributed by Zotter Chocolates US LLC (Fort Myers, FL).

Aroma notes included: dark chocolate, marzipan, cherry and spirits.

A thin crispy,* dark chocolate shell sheltered a soft, creamy, high-quality marzipan center infused with cherry brandy.

Marzipan can be quite sweet. However, this was a well-balanced and well-executed, flavorful blend. The 70% dark chocolate and authentic cherry flavors balanced out the sweet almond-forward confection layer. And the slightly boozy flavor added flavor depth and richness to this bar that landed squarely in the Goldilocks zone.**

Ingredients: Marzipan+ (25% Almonds+, Sugar+, Invert Sugar Syrup+), Cocoa Mass+*, Cane Sugar+*, Cocoa Butter+*, Glucose Syrup+, Butter (Cream), Cherry Brandy+ (5%), Dry Whole Milk, Sour Cherry Powder+ (2%: Sour Cherry Juice Concentrate+, Corn Starch+), Dry Skim Milk, Skim, Salt, Lecithin (Soy+), Vanilla Bean Powder+*. (+ = Organic; 91% Organic) (* = Fair Traded, Fair Trade Content in Total: 53%)

Allergen-related information: "Contains: Milk, Almonds, Soy. Manufactured on equipment that processes other tree nuts, peanuts, eggs, gluten and sesame."

*Crispy shell in a cool room (64 degrees F./17.7 degrees C.) 

** Something that is not too much, or not too little; it's just right. The likely origin of this reference: an English fairy tale from the 1800s about a girl named Goldilocks (or old woman, depending on the version of the story) who sampled bowls of porridge (and tried out different chairs and beds) in the home of Three Bears. One bowl of porridge was too hot, one was too cold, and the last was just right.

Domori - Chocolate Coated Amarena Cherries - Nov. 23, 2023

Chocolate of the Day

Domori 
Chocolate Coated Amarena Cherries
Good ++
Weight: 3.52 oz. (100 g.) / 5.29 oz. (150 g.) in total container
Calories: 363 calories in 1 serving
Cost: $35.00 for 1 tin 
Purchased from: Bar and Cocoa, online order

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

And Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate this holiday in the U.S. I am grateful for many things, including spending time with friends and family today and enjoying chocolates every day.

Today's Chocolate Coated Amarena Cherries were from Domori S.p.A. (None, Italy). These flavorful rounds were packaged in an attractive, round pink gift tin.

Aroma notes for these Italian "Amarena Ricoperta" (covered black cherries) included: dark chocolate and tart-sweet, fresh cherry/cherry juice.

The thin, almost crispy-crunchy dark chocolate shell melted into smooth dark chocolate that encased a plump, dark cherry.

Flavor notes included: slightly earthy dark chocolate, and sweetened, tart-sweet, dark cherry.

Ingredients: Candied cherries 70% (cherries, glucose-fructose syrup, sugar), dark chocolate couverture 18% (cocoa min. 62%, Cocoa mass, Cane sugar, cocoa butter, Emulsifier: soy lecithin), dextrose, cocoa powder.

Allergen-related information: (Contains soy.)

 

Ranger Chocolate Co. - Dark Chocolate Cherries 70% - Nov. 22, 2023

Chocolate of the Day

Ranger Chocolate Co.  
Dark Chocolate Cherries 70% 
Good ++ - Good +++
Weight: .95 oz. (27 g.) / 6 oz. (170 g.) in total package
Calories: 170 calories in 1 serving (4 cherries)
Cost: $10.00 for 1 package
Purchased from: Bar and Cocoa, online order

Welcome to Day #4 of Chocolate and Cherries Theme Week.

Today's Dark Chocolate Cherries were from Ranger Chocolate Co. (Portland, OR).

The whole Bing cherries at the center of these confections were from Hood River, Oregon, played a starring role.

Aroma notes included: rich, flavorful dark chocolate (with very faint fermentation and fruity notes); very faint molasses/brown sugar; and dried fruit (cherry, plum).

The texture was very pleasing to bite into. Creamy dark chocolate gently collapsed into a soft, chewy (whole) cherry center.

Flavor notes included: dark chocolate (fudge brownie), very faint, fleeting stone fruit (cherry) and fermentation notes (after the package was first opened); and cherries with sweet, authentic fruit flavor that had its own gentle, undulating arc.

The high-quality ingredients were complementary and delicious. The cherries were not too chewy or hard. Quite the opposite. The 70% dark chocolate helped modulate the sugar in the (sweetened) cherries.

Ingredients: Dried fruit (cherry, sugar, citric acid, sunflower oil), chocolate (organic cacao, cacao butter, organic sugar), cacao powder

Allergen-related ingredients: "Manufactured in a facility that uses gluten, egg, milk, tree nuts" 

 

Moka Origins - Cherry, Dark Chocolate Tanzania 72% Cacao (bar) - Nov. 21, 2023

Chocolate of the Day

Moka Origins
Cherry - Dark Chocolate Tanzania 72% Cacao (bar)
Good ++
Weight: 1.2 oz. (34 g.) / 2.4 oz. (68 g.) in total bar
Calories: 200 calories in 1/2 bar
Cost: $10.00 for 1 bar
Purchased from: Bar and Cocoa, online order

Welcome to Day #3 of Chocolate and Cherries Theme Week.

Today's Cherry - Dark Chocolate Tanzania 72% Cacao (bar) was from Moka Origins (Honesdale, PA).

Moka Origins began its operations (Moka Farm) in Cameroon (the 4th largest cacao producer, in West Africa) in 2015. The founders gained experience working with cacao farmers, setting up a training center to encourage sustainable farming practices, and planting thousands of cacao trees.  

The "Trinitario, Neo-Nacional" cacao used to make the chocolate was grown in Tanzania, produced by Kokoa Kamili*, and obtained from sourcing partner Meridian Cacao.

Aroma notes included: subtle, bittersweet dark chocolate; dried tart-sweet red fruit (dark, sweet cherries, fleeting fig,); and faint spice and tart-green (oxalis, wood sorrel, citrus).

Texture: smooth dark chocolate with plump, chewy dried cherries.

Flavor notes included: dark chocolate with a balanced bitterness; faint woodsy-earth; very faint brown sugar; and authentic dark, sweet, concentrated, complex, and authentic cherry flavors that lasted into the finish. 

The blend of bold 72% dark chocolate and dried cherries made for a flavorful match.

Maker's tasting notes: cherry, raspberry, citrus

Ingredients: Organic cocoa beans, organic dried cherries (organic cherries, organic cane sugar, organic sunflower oil), organic cane sugar, organic cocoa butter

Allergen-related information: "Made in a facility that handles milk, eggs, wheat, soy, almonds, and other tree nuts."

*Kokoa Kamili is located in the Mbingu Village in the Kilombero Valley (Morogoro Region) in Tanzania. This centrally located fermentation facility buys wet (freshly harvested) cacao beans at a premium price (the "highest price paid in Tanzania") from "more than 4,000 smallholder farmers in this region." Kokoa Kamili also offers training on how to "increase quality and yield rates" and distributes cacao seedlings to farmers.