Super dark chocolate blocks: Reviewing 85% to 100% cocoa options

It's no secret that I love chocolate and my In My Kitchen posts often feature my lastest chocolate discoveries. However, it has been many months since I've done a proper chocolate review. Today's post aims to make up for lost time with reviews of four dark chocolate options. And by dark I really do mean dark - these blocks range from 85% to 100% cocoa.

Starting with the 85% choices, one of my Christmas presents was the M&S 85% cocoa 'Intense Dark Chocolate' block. I featured it in my January In My Kitchen post but didn't elaborate on flavours then.

For a long time I avoided 85% cocoa blocks because I don't like the Lindt 85% cocoa option, and it put me off other chocolates of the same cocoa level. Happily, I am now a convert and know that the Lindt flavours don't generalise to other brands. This M&S 85% cocoa block is delicious. The packaging describes the flavours as bringing "aromas of ripe fruit and a flavour of mixed berries, with the slight acidity balanced by overnotes of honey". I wouldn't have come up with this exact description but agree that the tartness of the berry-cocoa tones is offset by a more mellow sweetness.

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Lindt Excellence Madagascar 70% cocoa chocolate, and Koko Black's 80% dark chocolate

I don't have many words today. It's just not a word-filled afternoon, or at least not a blog-word-filled afternoon. (And no, I have no pre-written post to share. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Today, I don't.)

I can, however, rustle up words for chocolate. Always. Both of these dark chocolate varieties have entered my chocolate rating system as reliable, enjoyable, dairy-free blocks that can be eaten alone, with tea, with coffee, as dessert, as a lunch dessert, as a snack, or just because.

In other words, they are good.

In this Madagascar 70% dark chocolate block, Lindt goes some way towards redeeming themselves for their insistence on including milk products in their 47-50% flavoured 'dark' chocolate range.

The chocolate has a simple, straightforward ingredient list: cocoa mass (70%), cocoa butter, sugar, and vanilla. As the name would suggest, the cocoa comes from Madagascar. I have never been to Madagascar, but my mental images of it (exotic, beautiful, African, tropical, lemurs) come through in the chocolate. Well, not the lemurs. That would be odd.

The vanilla is strong, the flavours warm, the cocoa deep, and the chocolate melt-in-your-mouth.

I like it a lot. Not quite as much as Lindt's 90% cocoa block, but a close runner up.

I have consumed several blocks of this 80% cocoa dark chocolate from Koko Black, but this is the first I have managed to photograph before consumption.

My experiences with the 80% cocoa range are mixed. Sometimes, the chocolate is bitter and boring and plain. Sometimes, it is joyous and deep-slightly-sweet with more flavour than seems possible. This block is definitely in the second category. In fact, there are brownies in this chocolate. I don't know how Koko Black does it, but if you close your eyes as you savour a square...definitely brownies.

Do I like this more than the flavoured Koko Black bars I talked about here? It's a tough call. Would I deem it a better everyday chocolate? Yes. Yes, I would.

What chocolate has featured for you lately? What are your chocolate 'basics'?

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Lindt Excellence dark chocolate with wasabi, Elizabeth Shaw cocoa crunch dark chocolate and mint crisp dark chocolate, and an advent calendar

What a post title this one is. Hang on to your chair, dear readers, because we are covering a lot of ground today!

First, some overdue chocolate reviews. You may recognise the wasabi block from my London shopping adventures (oh! those adventures!); it was also one of the sources of inspiration for my chocolate coated wasabi peas.

The thing is, though, that I didn't actually try Lindt's wasabi chocolate until after I had made the wasabi peas. That was a mistake. Having enjoyed the dark chocolate clad, sweet-but-hot, intense peas...well, this chocolate seemed less wasabi and more sweet.

With that said, I did enjoy it. I would eat it again if it appeared in front of me. The chocolate itself is comparable to the other Lindt Excellence flavours, with 47% cocoa and (regrettably) milk featuring in the ingredient list. It is quite sweet, silky smooth, and easy to eat a lot of. The wasabi ingredient added heat, but wasn't overpowering. Like the Lindt Excellence with Chilli block, you could enjoy it even if you usually steer clear of hot and spicy things.

The Elizabeth Shaw blocks were picked up from an English supermarket I now forget (we visited so many), largely because I hadn't seen them before and they were cheap. They also include dairy in the ingredient list, but provide slightly more cocoa than the Lindt block - 57% in both blocks. They were smooth and glossy, with large and easily broken apart squares.

Cocoa crunch

The cocoa crunch block included cocoa nibs. I like nibs in my chocolate, but am used to them being scattered on top rather than contained within the chocolate. Perhaps as a result, the block was a little too light on nibs for my tastes. I did enjoy the block, but I didn't love it.

Mint crisp

The mint crisp block included mint flavour and honeycomb crisps, which isn't a combination I've come across before. It worked, though, and the 'bits' in this block were more detectable than the nibs in the cocoa crunch block. At the same time, I can't bring myself to rave about it. Elizabeth Shaw may be one brand I can cope without in Australia. The chocolate was okay, but not stellar.

Our second topic for today is sort of chocolate related (if you made one, you could put chocolate in yours...), but not really. It is an advent calendar. Lots of other organised bloggers posted about their advent calendars on the first of December. I admire those bloggers, but am clearly not one of them.

I have, however, made a 12 days of Christmas advent calendar. This has the advantage of being smaller to make (12 days instead of 25!) and giving you extra time to make the thing (13 extra days!). My version also has the advantage of being pretty much foolproof, even if craft isn't usually your thing.

I bought all my components from Spotlight, an Australian chain craft store. I am sure that any craft store would do. I purchased...

• A stretched canvas as the 'base' for the calendar,
• A strip of Christmas-appropriate fabric,
• Colourful Australian Christmas paper,
• Three small paper mache boxes, and
• Pins.

The pack of Christmas paper was a slightly excessive purchase, containing far more paper than I needed, but I liked it too much to leave behind. Why the paper at all? Because my advent calendar was made, in large part, using origami envelopes.

You see, I don't have a sewing machine and my hand sewing is more than a little messy. Glue and I are even messier. Even cutting things out is challenging when you factor in my poor scissor skills. Origami seemed like my best bet. 

I followed the instructions on this page for paper envelopes, but made four small envelopes (the size recommended on the website) and three larger ones. To complement these, I glued Australian Christmas animals on the three small paper mache boxes, and managed to sew two pouches out of the green material.

The rest of the green material? It was cut to slightly larger than the stretched canvas, and simply pinned into place.

The various pouches and envelopes are also pinned on, with their surprise items hidden inside. Mr Bite gets to empty Number 1 today, so I won't reveal too much about those surprises - but suffice to say they are probably similar to what gets included in advent calendars worldwide.

Whether this will appear again in future years I can't say, but it was surprisingly fun to make!

Have you made an advent calendar this year, or in previous years?

How about wasabi chocolate - yay or nay?

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Product reviews: Lindt 90% dark chocolate and Seed & Bean organic Dark Chocolate with Lavender

After alluding, on quite a number of occasions, to my chocolate purchases in England, I thought it time that I actually blogged some of them.

Today, we have Lindt 90% cocoa dark chocolate and Seed & Bean extra dark chocolate with lavender, both of which are dairy free and vegan.

To be perfectly honest, I didn't expect much from the Lindt 90% block. I thought it would be like the 85% cocoa block, widely available in Australia, but darker. I bought it with the belief that I could probably track it down in Australia if I tried hard enough, and as such nearly didn't bother with it at all. 

Such foolishness. I can only say, now, that the 5% cocoa difference between the 85% cocoa and the 90% cocoa blocks makes a world of difference. A world. I loved this block more than I have ever loved a plain chocolate block before.

My first bite saw me inhaling in surprise, and then with deep pleasure, and then closing my eyes in enjoyment, and then opening them again in wonder.

I don't know how Lindt does it, but suspect that the real vanilla bean might be part of the effect. The chocolate is surprisingly sweet for a 90% block, but it is sweet in an entirely chocolatey way - not cloying, or sickly, or even sugary. Just sweet enough to balance the cocoa, and to give a result that is all chocolate and all deliciousness and all delight. It tastes of more than chocolate but also entirely of chocolate. It is lovely.

Having discovered this, I am now doubting my initial (foolish) belief that the block is available in Australia. As far as I can tell, it isn't. And I find that very unfair indeed.

Where I had moderate expectations of the Lindt block, I had soaring hopes for the lavender chocolate. Ever since my adventures with lavender cheesecake and lavender cookies earlier in the year, I have been sold on the concept of edible lavender products. On looking at the website for the Organic Seed & Bean company, I also wish that I'd seen more of their range around. Seed & Bean are an English chocolate company that started in 2005, with a focus on organic and fair trade ingredients. Their other blocks include such flavours as lemon and cardamom dark chocolate and pumpkin seed and hemp oil dark chocolate, both of which I would have snapped up if I had seen them.

The lavender block is 72% cocoa, and uses lavender oil rather than dried lavender. The result is a smooth block, quite silky in texture and taste, with a subtle lavender smell and a strong lavender taste.

At first bite, the lavender actually seemed a bit too strong for me. This remained the case at second bite, and possibly even at third. Over time, though, the block grew on me. By the end (and I ate it spread out, so the end wasn't immediately after the start), I was a convert. 

It is difficult to accurately describe the taste of this chocolate. It is definitely floral, but once the initial shock of that wears off, the lavender balances nicely against the cocoa. There is no hint of bitterness, and it is also not particularly sweet. It is deep and mellow but with lavender, which isn't something I could have imagined before tasting it.

I don't think I will pine for this chocolate in the way that I may pine for the Lindt 90% block, but I am very glad I tried it and would be keen to try other Seed & Bean blocks in the future.

For another complementary review of Lindt 90%, see Hannah's 2010 post here. She found brownies and cookies in the flavour mix, which makes me even more keen to try it again!

Have you tried either of these blocks? And what are your thoughts on lavender in food form?

This post is part of my Vegan Month of Food contributions for October 2012. 

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Lindt chocolate discoveries and musings

Thank you to everyone who provided thoughts and advice on pear-related baking. It sounds like pears are a surprisingly challenging fruit! Layering them on top of baked goods, rather than mixing them throughout, definitely seems to be the way to go. I guess you live and learn.

Today, I am moving from fruit and baking to chocolate and purchasing. It's an easy step to make. There are four reasons why I feel compelled to make that step today.

1. This week, Coles and Woolworths both have Lindt Excellence chocolate blocks on sale. Woolworths has them for $1.99 and Coles has them at 2 for $5.

I think we've established that I am vulnerable to buying products on special, even when I don't much like the product in question. Given that I do like Lindt, and these are the chocolate blocks I buy and eat most often, we now have a lot of Lindt Excellence in the pantry.

All of it mine.

2. Not only are the blocks on special this week, but Coles provided two new flavours (Woolworths is lagging behind).

Not one, but two.

And two good flavours.

I tell you, I nearly stopped breathing. I may have hugged the blocks. Mr Bite does not understand me at these times.

3. Not only were these flavours new, and appealing, and on special - but they actually delivered in taste too.

(I had a sad experience with the new Lindt Passionfruit flavour last year. That didn't deliver at all.)

Both had Lindt's standard 47% cocoa content, and both managed to deliver as dark chocolate with a twist.

The strawberry ended up being my favourite. I may have made delighted exclamations on discovering that there were actual, freeze dried strawberry bits throughout the strawberry block. I like bits in my chocolate, so this was a very good start.

These strawberry pieces were sweet, but not excessively so, and they worked as a contrast to the deeper flavours of the chocolate. The chocolate itself was what I've come to expect from this mid-range cocoa selection: smooth, slightly sweet in its own right, but strong enough to cope with the introduction of strawberry.

The coconut version was perhaps a little too coconuty for me. I have only recently discovered I like coconut at all, and prefer it in small rather than large amounts. I still greatly enjoyed this though, and again was pleased at having actual coconut pieces throughout the chocolate.

Kind of like a Golden Rough for adults.

There is, though, one sad and disappointing thing about these blocks. They do both contain dairy (butter fat), something that now characterises all of the flavoured Lindt Excellence blocks. I don't know why, as it isn't necessary with 47% cocoa - and what is more, it didn't use to characterise the chilli flavour in the range. It was a very sad day when I noted the ingredient list had changed for that.

4. All of the above culminated in me creating a Lindt Excellence flavour hierarchy in my mind. And then on the computer.

It is likely to change by next week, especially given the novelty advantage currently given to strawberry and coconut, but for now - here it is:

Lindt Excellence Blocks

I think it would be nice if Lindt acknowledged this by sending me some free selections from the top tier. Or new samples to try. Or just removed the dairy from all of the 47-49% cocoa blocks.

Are these two Lindt flavours new to anyone else?
And how would your chocolate hierarchy differ?!

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