After frantically trying to eat dozens of chocolate bars in the fortnight before leaving Australia, I boarded the plane to America last week honestly thinking I wouldn’t want chocolate again for at least three weeks.
Well, that turned out to be a great big honking untruth, considering I ate and reviewed two bars during that exact same flight.
A double great big honking untruth, actually, because New York City offered up a dizzying array of fancy chocolates, not least of which were deep, dark, and raw.
Readers, I ate them.
Fearless Raw Organic Chocolate Super Seeds Crunch! Hemp Chia Flax
I haven’t reviewed many raw chocolates on this blog, largely due to being hurt by spongy and sour-tasting Australian versions. However, this bar of Fearless Raw Organic Chocolate promised me ELEPHANTS. So I bought it.
So many elephants! Mirrored-shiny-double-vision elephants, the likes of which led me to sing Pink Elephants on Parade in my hotel room. (Look out! Look out! Pink elephants on parade! Here they come! Hippety hoppety! Such a terrifying song.)
If you’re interested, this bar is made of organic raw cacao, organic rapadura sugar, organic flax seed, organic hemp seed, and organic chia seed. Simple and simply marvellous, right? Right.
The aroma was like cacao and nuts, but I also detected cinnamon toast and treacle. I snapped off a square of the 70% cacao chocolate, popped it in my mouth, and only after the third square did I remember that it was raw chocolate. The flavour was so definitely chocolate, and the texture so firm and crisp, that I suddenly realised not all raw chocolate is plagued by being soft and a bit tasteless.
Fearless Chocolate’s Super Seeds Crunch was a pleasure to eat. It did have the distinct tang that seems inseparable from raw cacao, but at least it wasn’t unpleasantly sour; it was more like sweet raspberries and pink lemonade. Furthermore, the crunch and earthy-nutty-golden flavours of the hemp, chia, and flax seeds kept the texture and taste interesting. I’d happily try more of this Fearless Chocolate.
Lulu’s Chocolate Aztec Crunch with Raw Cacao Nibs
I can’t help feeling the actual chocolate part of Lulu’s Chocolate Aztec Crunch with Raw Cacao Nibs could easily be lost amongst the endless marketing on its packaging. It’s vegan! handcrafted raw chocolate! has low-glycemic coconut sugar with a glycemic index of 35! Ecuadorian! Fair Trade! gluten-free! inspired by ancient Aztec recipes! sensual and smooth! deliciously irresistible! compostable inner wrapper! printed on recycled paper with soy ink! made with cacao, Coconut Secret coconut crystals, cacao nibs, vanilla bean, sea salt and love! all the things!
Once I’d read what felt like the chocolate equivalent of Anna Karenina on a chocolate bar smaller than my palm, I unwrapped the raw 75% chocolate itself and breathed in.
I breathed in delicious nostalgia via an aroma that spun me back to a childhood dessert I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was like maple syrup drizzled on my mum’s special Sunday morning Dutch Baby pancakes mixed with the aroma of melted butter being stirred into cocoa and sugar to create brownie batter ready for the oven.
The chocolate was again truly crisp and, while its flavour did taste quite “raw” to my mind, the hints of salt and vanilla helped create an enjoyable flavour. Salted toffee, pineapple, and something a little like the salt rim of a fresh margarita all peeked out.
It was New York, and Lulu’s Chocolate was tasty. That was enough for me.
Fearless is the only raw chocolate I’ll buy. And I love it! It’s so much more buttery than other raw chocolates I’ve had.
I definitely wouldn’t turn down eating more in future, that’s for sure.
I’m glad you’ve had some good raw chocolates, because now we’re on the same page.
I like Fearless, and against my better wrapper-judgment (so many words! all the words! if I was that packaging I would write a novel inside this parenthesis about how many words it contained!), I loved this Lulu’s bar. I’m so glad we agree. We are destined to be such good real world friends, employee #2.
I knew that was our destiny before this, but the raw chocolate seal-of-approval does give us that extra special oomph, employee #1.
Not only are those mirrored-shiny-double-vision elephants, they have WINGS! They are flying elephants!
The best kind of elephants!
I WANT!!! I adore raw chocolate..and elephants.
Looks like a very nice bar of chocolate! I would love to try some.
So perhaps I have not yet fully scoured the archives, but I’m still waiting for your thoughts on that raw chocolate I sent you…
Happy gallivanting!
My dear, you are tremendously right!! I am a fool! I will get onto that. But you make have noticed that I specifically said bad “Australian” raw chocolate.
YOU are the fearless one!
My favourite things to do while in New York: 1. Go for long walks just to see where I end up. 2. Spend hours scouring the shelves of health food stores.
I’m loving reading about your adventures.
Yep, that’s me in a nutshell! With additional 3. Try on the pretty shoes, and 4. See Broadway shows (though not this time). x
How exciting that a chocolate that promised you elephants actually delivered. Well, it didn’t exactly deliver you elephants, at least not any live ones, but it was delicious! I keep eyeing this chocolate every time I end up in Whole Foods. I’ll have to purchase a bar next time since you think so highly of it.
Darnit, now you’ve got me all disappointed by pointing out that I didn’t actually get an elephant out of this. Maybe if I wait by my window tonight, a little bundle of baby elephant will drift in, just like in Dumbo?
Do you know what I think? I think you should try one of the other flavours, so that you can report back to me whether it’s worth buying.
I’ve never tried raw chocolate before… though.. you got me REALLY interested!
Be careful though; some aren’t great.
Well, thank goodness you did eat it, because where would we be if Hannah went off chocolate?! You’d just be wayfaring, and that wouldn’t work at all.
I am so in love with the look of the raw hemp seed one that it almost hurts
Bahaha, you’re so right! And seeing as I still haven’t been able to get rid of my old-old wordpress blog, I really can’t afford another domain change
I never thought I would want to try raw chocolate but it looks so good and your photos make me drool
Any chance of sending over a dozen
Cheers
Choc Chip Uru
A dozen? Sure, just transfer me $85 plus shipping and I’ll get them over to you.
The Lulu chocolate reminds me of Lulu make up that I used to buy. I wonder if they are related?
I’m not normally a chocolate person but reading about Fearless and Lulu got me very excited indeed! I wish they had chocolates like these in Australia – I’d probably be more of a chocaholic! :p
You and your lack of a sweet tooth.
What lovely chocolates and of course, there’s no way anyway can give chocolate a miss even if you have over-indulged in the lead up to shifting continents xx
Apparently crossing hemispheres resets chocolate cravings to rights.
Amazing! You are unstoppable! You and chocolate in NY? Any news on your shoes and views? Must catch up I’ve been a-camping xx
Sadly couldn’t justify the glitter shoes (yet), luggage space is at a premium! But we’ll see what happens when I go wedding outfit shopping
I love how you couldn’t face chocolate again but then you just happened to have some on the flights! Were they an emergency stash?
Interesting to hear about your views on raw chocolate – makes me realise I have never tried it and maybe I should but then I worry about the ones available given your thoughts on the Australian ones and surely they cannot have such an amusing label as lulus
I had over half a kilo of chocolate with me in my carry-on. And ate most of it just before LAX, when an announcement came on saying that we’d have to throw out all our food. I made myself completely sick, and in the end I don’t think I would have had to throw it out at all!
I’d be a bit careful of the Aussie ones, but then again I haven’t tried any in a few years.
All the things! Hahahahaha, was that a shout out to Hyperbole and a Half?
I think yes. It’s just become a phrase we all use now, for everything. Pretty amazing that a blog sparked a universal lingo change, really!
Raw Organic Chocolate has a lovely packaging.
Have I tried Raw Chocolate? Sounds intriguing … I do love your ref to eating the Dutch Babies, pancakes I mean!
Hmm… I don’t think I have given you any, at least recently. Lemon and sugar on the dutch babies!
Oh daaaannngg these look so amazing! I’ve been on a frantic chocolate eating parade lately! But good thing I have self control in that regard, haha. I can’t believe you’re in NY! ahhhh wish you were in CA
I’m in Chicago now, Utah tomorrow, and perhaps CA briefly at the end of the month
They totally cheat you on that elephant chocolate bar. There’s a big part missing from the block! :p
I CALL SHENANIGANS!
It’s nice that there’s a whole world of raw chocolate out there. Ours is quite underwhelming it’s true. And I learnt something! Coconut sugar is low GI. I’ll have to check it out. Glad you didn’t lose your chocolate mojo for too long, especially with all these new chocolates to experience.
Hey wow, coconut sugar is even more impressive now! I hope my parents enjoy the large packet of it I left for them then!
Even if I didn’t eat chocolate for weeks here, I’d have enough reviews stocked up from my frantic eat-all-the-chocolate behaviour in the weeks before anyway
OOOOH! Raw chocolate means no dairy AND no gluten. I CAN HAVE IT! Must. Find. Some….
Go for it! So many exciting flavours, too
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