My husband's favorite Easter treat is Cadbury caramel eggs. This year, we found that Walgreen's has also started selling a store brand version. Since neither of us are huge fans of Cadbury's overly-sweet milk chocolate to begin with, and the ingredients list looked reasonable (ie, real chocolate and in fact less sugar in the chocolate than Cadbury's), we decided to buy a couple and do a taste test.
We both tried both eggs blindly, and could both easily identify which was which. The chocolate in the Walgreen's egg was not as creamy/milky as Cadbury's (it's a tiny bit grainy in comparison), but also not as sweet. It tasted a lot like Hershey's Special Dark to me - trying to be dark chocolate, but still quite sweet. Visually it was also darker. If we were just eating plain chocolate, the Walgreen's would win, although it still wasn't the greatest stuff out there.
However, at least half the point of a caramel egg is the caramel. The caramel in both tasted about the same - BUT the Cadbury's egg had a lot more of it. The Cadbury egg had a shell that was uniformly about 1/4" thick all over the egg. The Walgreen's egg was about the same size, but the shell was very thick on the top and bottom of the egg, leaving only about a 1" sphere in the middle to fill with caramel. It's possible they were going for something that mimicks a real hard-boiled egg, with the caramel being the size of the "yolk." But unfortunately, this led to simply not having enough caramel. The amount of the caramel in the Cadbury egg makes the chocolate hard to taste in the first place, and when you're dealing with chocolate that's kinda mediocre to begin with, that's a good thing.
Overall, we both preferred the Cadbury caramel egg. While the chocolate in the Walgreen's egg was a bit better, it wasn't good enough to make up for the lack of caramel. The masses of ooey-gooey caramel easily hid the drawbacks of the Cadbury chocolate.
I'd post pictures, but unfortunately my camera is still broken. :(
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Hotel Chocolat - 40% milk
I discovered Hotel Chocolat during my annual trip to Boston in January. I was hanging out on Newbury Street and wandered into their store, where all the Christmas chocolates were half off! Score!
HC is a British chocolatier who owns their own chocolate plantation in St Lucia. They are committed to ethical farming practices both on their own estate and when dealing with the local cocoa-growing community.
They also claim to use minimal sugar to keep the cocoa front and center in flavor. I was very interested to try this, since I tend to find most British chocolate (such as Cadbury) to be way too sweet. So I was pretty excited when the variety pack I bought included a few pieces of 40% milk chocolate (they also sell 50% and even 60% milk chocolates).
I definitely liked it better than most milk chocolate. It was noticeably less sweet than the average milk, which was a big improvement. Crisper, as well - so much milk chocolate is slightly mushy. The one complaint I had was that it seemed overly creamy. If it were too sweet, I'd call it cloying, and I don't know what the equivalent of "cloying" is for creaminess. But it bordered on cloyingly creamy, whatever the real word is. But I think it's definitely the best milk chocolate I've ever tasted. Even Crimson, who normally hates milk chocolate for its sweetness, thought it was acceptable.
I've tried a few other selections - some hazelnut truffles, and a lovely caramel-flavored 33% milk chocolate. The caramel flavor really offset the creaminess nicely! I can't wait to get my hands on some 60% milk chocolate sometime.
HC is a British chocolatier who owns their own chocolate plantation in St Lucia. They are committed to ethical farming practices both on their own estate and when dealing with the local cocoa-growing community.
They also claim to use minimal sugar to keep the cocoa front and center in flavor. I was very interested to try this, since I tend to find most British chocolate (such as Cadbury) to be way too sweet. So I was pretty excited when the variety pack I bought included a few pieces of 40% milk chocolate (they also sell 50% and even 60% milk chocolates).
I definitely liked it better than most milk chocolate. It was noticeably less sweet than the average milk, which was a big improvement. Crisper, as well - so much milk chocolate is slightly mushy. The one complaint I had was that it seemed overly creamy. If it were too sweet, I'd call it cloying, and I don't know what the equivalent of "cloying" is for creaminess. But it bordered on cloyingly creamy, whatever the real word is. But I think it's definitely the best milk chocolate I've ever tasted. Even Crimson, who normally hates milk chocolate for its sweetness, thought it was acceptable.
I've tried a few other selections - some hazelnut truffles, and a lovely caramel-flavored 33% milk chocolate. The caramel flavor really offset the creaminess nicely! I can't wait to get my hands on some 60% milk chocolate sometime.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Cheap white chocolate
No creations to share, but I'm just excited about this. In two different Cincinnati Kroger stores, we discovered Kroger White Chocolate Chips - which are real white chocolate! If you've never tried to buy white chocolate, it's a lot harder than you'd imagine. Many supermarkets only sell Nestle "White Baking Chips," which have hydrogenated oil instead of cocoa butter - less healthy and WAY less tasty. I accidentally bought them once to make peppermint bark, and it turned out downright disgusting. That was several years ago, and since then I have never, ever failed to check the ingredients list when looking for white chocolate.
Strangely, it seems to be the store/generic brands that are most likely to have real white chocolate chips. President's Choice has them, which used to be sold at the Jewel Oscos near me, but they stopped carrying them. Whole Foods' 365 generic has white chocolate chunks, which is what I've been using. (Whole Foods also carries Callebaut bulk white chocolate, which is good, but when we're making a LOT of candy for Christmas price is a concern.)
The Kroger ones are less than $3/bag, whereas WF 365 is $4.50/bag - that little difference adds up when you're making a lot. For some reason, no other Kroger I've been to, or other stores that carry the Kroger brand, has carried the white chocolate chips. So I'm excited to give them a try and see if they're worth using!
Strangely, it seems to be the store/generic brands that are most likely to have real white chocolate chips. President's Choice has them, which used to be sold at the Jewel Oscos near me, but they stopped carrying them. Whole Foods' 365 generic has white chocolate chunks, which is what I've been using. (Whole Foods also carries Callebaut bulk white chocolate, which is good, but when we're making a LOT of candy for Christmas price is a concern.)
The Kroger ones are less than $3/bag, whereas WF 365 is $4.50/bag - that little difference adds up when you're making a lot. For some reason, no other Kroger I've been to, or other stores that carry the Kroger brand, has carried the white chocolate chips. So I'm excited to give them a try and see if they're worth using!
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Chocolate Sudoku
It turned out a bit streaky - not sure why, the truffles we dipped that night didn't. Might be because we'd first started to spread out the leftover chocolate on a sheet of wax paper to set for later use before we realized that what we really should be doing is trying out our new mold.
It's filled with graham crackers! My pics of the center didn't come out, though.
It's filled with graham crackers! My pics of the center didn't come out, though.
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Guittard Couverture Part 3: Marginal Success!
We made one more attempt at tempering the Guittard tonight. It was a cooler night and the stove/oven hadn't been used in a few hours, so the kitchen was even cooler. Success! We dipped some ganache lumps we'd had in the fridge for a couple days, and they set up very quickly!
One thing I've learned: I'm not a fan of putting ganache in the fridge to set up quickly, which we did when our original experiments with this chocolate were failing. It just isn't as stable as ganache that has set up at room temperature over a few hours - as soon as you get it out of the fridge, it starts melting. So that the truffles we dipped tonight wound up having very mushy centers. :(
As for the chocolate itself: It's got a very fruity flavor, but for supposedly having more cocoa butter than average it's not terribly creamy. At about 90 degrees it is very fluid and easy to dip in, which is a plus. However, we both agreed that we actually like the flavor of the Ghirardelli 60% chips better, and the slightly lower viscosity of this just isn't enough to justify paying over 3x the price for general use. Maybe for something extra-special - it does make a nice thin shell for the truffles.
Bonus: We used the leftover melted chocolate in the sudoku mold! I will post pics this weekend.
One thing I've learned: I'm not a fan of putting ganache in the fridge to set up quickly, which we did when our original experiments with this chocolate were failing. It just isn't as stable as ganache that has set up at room temperature over a few hours - as soon as you get it out of the fridge, it starts melting. So that the truffles we dipped tonight wound up having very mushy centers. :(
As for the chocolate itself: It's got a very fruity flavor, but for supposedly having more cocoa butter than average it's not terribly creamy. At about 90 degrees it is very fluid and easy to dip in, which is a plus. However, we both agreed that we actually like the flavor of the Ghirardelli 60% chips better, and the slightly lower viscosity of this just isn't enough to justify paying over 3x the price for general use. Maybe for something extra-special - it does make a nice thin shell for the truffles.
Bonus: We used the leftover melted chocolate in the sudoku mold! I will post pics this weekend.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Guittard Part 2: Continued failure
Well, I think that it is officially too hot and/or humid in our house to temper chocolate. Our second evening of attempted tempering was a massive failure. We finally topped off the molded truffles and put them in the fridge to set up, and are waiting for better conditions before trying dipped truffles so that we don't waste too much expensive chocolate. Which means either cooler weather or the AC getting fixed!
I brought the refrigerated truffles to a meeting today, though, and they went over quite well. The ganache is really soft, though - I think that setting it quickly in the fridge just doesn't leave it as stable as letting it set up at room temperature overnight does. When we do that, we have nice firm centers. Now they're very mushy when not right out of the fridge. I like my truffles firm, like Harry & David's.
Not going to bother with the pics, I don't think - save that for when something actually works!
I brought the refrigerated truffles to a meeting today, though, and they went over quite well. The ganache is really soft, though - I think that setting it quickly in the fridge just doesn't leave it as stable as letting it set up at room temperature overnight does. When we do that, we have nice firm centers. Now they're very mushy when not right out of the fridge. I like my truffles firm, like Harry & David's.
Not going to bother with the pics, I don't think - save that for when something actually works!
Monday, August 3, 2009
Guittard 72% Couverture Wafers - Part 1
We made it down to CakeWalk Chicago - wow! What a great little store! Too bad they're 45 min away; we only made it there on our way to Cincinnati. But we scored some Guittard couverture chocolate as well as a couple of new molds - they have a TON of molds. We'll be coming up with something creative to do with this Sudoku mold for the puzzle competition we go to every January...
Anyhow, I've been hoping to get my hands on some real couverture chocolate at a decent price. Couverture has a higher percentage cocoa butter, which makes it thinner and ideal for dipping. Since our recent attempts have been plagued by a goopiness that makes it hard to dip anything, I thought this would be great. Guittard is considered the "low end" for couverture, and it was still $13.50 for a one-pound box. If I find something I like, I'll be able to buy online in bulk for less per pound, but I don't want to shell out $50+ for 5 lbs unless I know I'll use it!
We started out with some molded truffles tonight, and ran into some problems. Basically, the chocolate just never really tempered properly. I have no idea what we did wrong, or if it's just too warm in here - the AC doesn't work, so the room temperature was in the high 70s. But I'm afraid these truffles will not be shiny and pretty the way that properly-tempered chocolate should be. We lined the molds, and piped in the ganache, then piped the rest of the ganache into lumps to be dipped tomorrow once they're set.
We'll see how this all works out - maybe tomorrow we can get the temper to work better. I will post pics of the results later this week, either way. So far, I'm disappointed and am still on the search for anything that can beat my old standby $4/lb Ghirardelli 60% chips (which we used for the ganache today, btw) in value for the money.
Anyhow, I've been hoping to get my hands on some real couverture chocolate at a decent price. Couverture has a higher percentage cocoa butter, which makes it thinner and ideal for dipping. Since our recent attempts have been plagued by a goopiness that makes it hard to dip anything, I thought this would be great. Guittard is considered the "low end" for couverture, and it was still $13.50 for a one-pound box. If I find something I like, I'll be able to buy online in bulk for less per pound, but I don't want to shell out $50+ for 5 lbs unless I know I'll use it!
We started out with some molded truffles tonight, and ran into some problems. Basically, the chocolate just never really tempered properly. I have no idea what we did wrong, or if it's just too warm in here - the AC doesn't work, so the room temperature was in the high 70s. But I'm afraid these truffles will not be shiny and pretty the way that properly-tempered chocolate should be. We lined the molds, and piped in the ganache, then piped the rest of the ganache into lumps to be dipped tomorrow once they're set.
We'll see how this all works out - maybe tomorrow we can get the temper to work better. I will post pics of the results later this week, either way. So far, I'm disappointed and am still on the search for anything that can beat my old standby $4/lb Ghirardelli 60% chips (which we used for the ganache today, btw) in value for the money.
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