The Curious Chocolatier Dark Chocolate with Blueberries and Almonds

Posted on September 27, 2011 by Hannah

Today, I got into my car after a busy day at work. I slid into the front seat, flicked my hair out of my eyes, and put the keys in the ignition. I looked up, and a movement directly in front of me caught my eye.

Ah, I thought to myself. That car across from me is getting ready to pull out of its parking space too. Better wait for it to go first.

I waited.

And then I realised I was staring at the reflection of my own car in the full-length window of my office building.

Ah, I thought to myself. The driver in that car opposite is clearly in need of some chocolate.

The Curious Chocolatier Dark Chocolate with Blueberries and Almond

This chocolate bar might look vaguely familiar to those of you who’ve been visiting my blog for a year (or more). But I assure you, this chocolate is different to the already-reviewed Curious Chocolatier Dark Chocolate with Blueberries of 2010.

This 2011 chocolate has blueberries, almonds, and cinnamon, instead of just blueberries. Yep, Heidi’s chocolate just keep on getting more interesting. I’m barracking for the 2012 version to have blueberries, almonds, cinnamon, sesame seeds, merlot, and peanut butter chips in the shape of fairies. Who’s with me?

The aroma of The Curious Chocolatier’s 60% dark chocolate blend is one of familiarity and comfort, as I can now easily recognise its sweet vanilla and marshmallow-laced tones. This particular bar also had some fruity notes, assuredly from the blueberries hidden within.

With each smooth, rich, slowly-melting bite of this dark chocolate, I let the waves of marshmallow sweetness wash over me. This is a very accessible dark chocolate; there’s no hint of bitterness or earthiness, just a sweet and full-flavoured chocolatiness that enables you to keep nibbling, nibbling, nibbling.

The blueberries are, as per The Curious Chocolatier’s modus operandi, freeze-dried, which means that there’s more of a true fruit flavour than the cloying sweetness that comes with standard (and often sweetened) dried fruit. The blueberry flavour is nicely tangy here, and the pink-purple-blue colour of each hidden berry is gorgeous. I must admit that I found the cinnamon hard to pick up on, but the almonds provided a nice subtle nuttiness threading through the dark chocolate and blueberry flavours.

Other flavours of note in this chocolate include lychee, demerara sugar, toffee and, as ever, the recurring sweetness of vanilla. The Curious Chocolatier’s Dark Chocolate with Blueberries and Almonds is incredibly easy to eat, and I find myself yearning to visit Heidi again soon to see what new flavours may be awaiting me at her Old Bus Depot Market stall.

And that, my friends, is the reality, not simply the reflection of reality.

The Curious Chocolatier Dark Chocolate with Poppy Seed Brittle

Posted on May 24, 2011 by Hannah

Two wonderful things happened on a recent Sunday. Firstly, The Pilot and I finally managed to rendezvous for a Skype chat, during which time he scared the pants off me by detailing his experience with the tornado that recently ripped through the south-east of America. He saw the sky turn green. This still frightens me. I’m very glad he’s okay, and I’m more certain than ever that he should just move to Australia already.

Secondly, I finally made it back to the Bus Depot Markets to visit my favourite Curious Chocolatier, whose brilliant creations I’ve previously rhapsodized over. Particular shout-outs go to the dark chocolate with freeze-dried apricots and rosemary, the milk chocolate with lime and coconut, and the milk chocolate with honey-roasted peanuts and bananas.

Today, I bring you one of Heidi’s newest creations. Prepare to sigh longingly.

The Curious Chocolatier 60% Dark Chocolate with Poppy Seed Brittle

Yes, you read that right. Poppy seed brittle. Brittle of poppy seeds. In dark chocolate. Poppy seed brittle. In other words, this chocolate is part of the reason why I think of Heidi as single-handedly forcing the world to reconsider its view of Canberra as a dull city populated only by politicians, public servants, porn, and pelicans.

Okay, okay. We don’t have pelicans. But I wish we did.

I’ve loved poppy seeds ever since I was a child eating my mother’s poppy seed cake. Consequently, when Heidi told me that one of her newest flavours of chocolate involved poppy seed brittle, I jumped up and down like a little kid needing the bathroom. No really, I did. Jump, that is. Not need the bathroom. Because, as we know, I’m a lady, and ladies don’t need bathrooms.

As soon as I unwrapped this vegan chocolate, I was transported to my happy place by its glossy black-brown sheen and vanilla-tinged sweet aroma. Moreover, I was delighted to find, in the chocolate’s cross-section, sparkles of brittle that shone like pockets of crystals in the walls of an underground cave.

(As opposed to an, um, open-air cave…)

I took a bite, and smiled upon tasting the now-familiar-to-me 60% blend that Heidi uses in most of her dark chocolates. Yes, this is a sweet dark chocolate, but it’s such a rich, lingering, smooth, and rich sweet dark chocolate that it never fails to please. The tones of vanilla milkshake, liquid caramel, and chocolate brownie are always appreciated, but I must admit that, as I let the chocolate melt on my tongue, I couldn’t help but eagerly anticipate the arrival of the poppy seed brittle.

And oh, how the poppy seed brittle arrived, and oh, how my anticipation was rewarded when it did. Who amongst you enjoys the flavour of black sesame in desserts? Well, this poppy seed brittle tastes remarkably similar to black sesame, though without the intense smokiness of the latter. Perhaps a good way to describe the flavour of this poppy seed brittle is like a blend of white and black sesame seeds… but more deliciousererer.

Heidi, you’ve done it again: knocked my socks off with your brilliance. I can’t wait to try the other new flavour you gave me…

The Curious Chocolatier Milk Chocolate with Lime and Coconut

Posted on November 27, 2010 by Hannah

Shame on me.

About a million years ago (I didn’t stop taking maths in Year 12 for nothing), I told you about the time I went to the Bus Depot markets, was generously given the four newest Curious Chocolatier chocolate bars, and then found myself face-planting in the gravel for the privilege.

I quickly reviewed and raved about The Curious Chocolatier’s Milk Chocolate with Banana and Honey Roasted Peanuts… and then I went radio silent on that particular chocolate front.

Please don’t think this means that the other flavours aren’t up to snuff. They’re totally snuff. (Wait, what?)

The Curious Chocolatier Milk Chocolate with Lime and Coconut

I’m currently trying to relearn my childhood appreciation for coconut. What better way to help this task along than with chocolate? And, moreover, chocolate crafted by The Curious Chocolatier, whose innovative flavour combinations I’m coming to respect more and more?

Firstly, I love the packaging of this chocolate. Yay green! Secondly, the ingredients list is simple and decipherable, clearly stating that the milk chocolate is a respectable 34%, the coconut is flaked, and the lime flavour comes from lime oil. Tick, tick, tick, in my book.

(Okay, I have to link to something entirely irrelevant now. For anyone even mildly interested in Harry Potter, you should probably watch “The Mysterious Ticking Noise” by the Potter Puppet Pals. Like, now.)

The aroma of this chocolate is, in a [made-up] word, fan-diddly-tastic. It smells like Key Lime Pie, but with chocolate; there’s a fresh lime zing and a cocoa-based caramel sweetness that I found myself hoping-against-hope would translate into the taste.

After all, you put the lime in the coconut. Or whatever that lyric is.

When I took my first bite of this bar, I noticed the same caramel notes to the milk chocolate as I’d found in the aforementioned peanut banana chocolate, yet there was also a subtle freshness from the lime that made the chocolate a little less sweet. This is, of course, a good thing in my book.

The lime oil reminded me more of fragrant kaffir limes than bitter lime zest, but it was never an overpowering flavour. The lime is a subtle note playing at the edges of your consciousness, teasing you with complexity whilst your mind is focused on the milk chocolate’s creaminess and the coconut’s textural crunch.

Like the lime, the coconut in this bar is subtle. The toasted flakes are crispy without being burnt, and thankfully don’t get caught in your teeth or throat like desiccated coconut can.

The word I kept returning to in my tasting notes for this chocolate was “subtlety”. The milk chocolate’s sweetness, the lime oil’s fragrance, and the coconut’s nutty richness each seemed to be playing the role of quiet achiever rather than schoolyard bully, linking hands to play Ring a Ring o’ Rosy* harmoniously instead of standing apart to boss everyone else around during a game of Cops and Robbers.

Or, in less metaphorical Hannah-just-went-away-with-the-fairies-back-to-primary-school language, this Milk Chocolate with Lime and Coconut is a lovely, fresh, zingy, coconut-y, creamy and refreshing chocolate creation.

* Without the plague reference, of course.

The Curious Chocolatier Milk Chocolate with Banana and Honey Roasted Peanuts

Posted on October 9, 2010 by Hannah

I’m ridiculously excited about this chocolate review. Truly, I am. Do you remember when I told you about my chocolate windfall and then my karmic real fall? In that post, I mentioned that there was something stupendous about a chocolate I’d received from my ever-innovative friend Heidi, The Curious Chocolatier.

Actually, each new flavour that Heidi has come up with this season is stupendous in its own right. However, for you and I, this is the really thrilling chocolate. Read on to find out why…

The Curious Chocolatier Milk Chocolate with Banana and Honey Roasted Peanuts

Here lies the story of how the above (and below) chocolate came into existence, and why we should all be giving ourselves a pat on the back right now.

Once upon a time, at the end of reviewing The Curious Chocolatier’s Dark Chocolate with Blueberries, I asked the following innocent and off-the-cuff question: “What fruit do you wish you could find embedded in a chocolate bar?”

In the comments section, many of you (being the wonderful, interested, and chocolate-lovin’ people that you are) responded with a plethora of fruit combinations that you wished to see enveloped in sweet cocoa goodness.

Little did any of us know that our Chocolate Fairy Godmother was sparkling in the background, reading our every word. Yes, folks, Heidi looked at the flavours people were interested in, and she created this very chocolate bar as a result of our desires.

It turns out that Heidi had been trying to figure out a way to employ banana in her chocolate, but was having trouble thinking of what to pair it with. Enter us and our talk of banana, honey, and peanuts…

When Heidi told me that my blog had helped inspire this chocolate, I all but spontaneously combusted with delight. And then I scampered home to gobble-gobble, because I knew that it was my solemn duty to ascertain whether this chocolate could be as delicious in reality as it was in our imagination.

Heidi uses a 34% cocoa content milk chocolate for this bar, and its aroma is pleasantly sweet with overtones of fudge and Jersey Caramels. This rich caramel aroma also translated into the flavour, with clotted cream and dulce de leche comprising the milk chocolate’s strongest notes.

Of course, it’s not really the chocolate alone that we’re interested in here, is it? Nope. We (okay, I) want to know what the banana and honey-roasted peanuts brought to this chocolate party.

In a word? They brought awesomeness. I’ve mentioned before that I’m not the biggest fan of bananas, and I unreservedly hate the artificial banana flavouring used in milkshakes and mass-market icecreams and lollies. Heidi avoids the pitfalls of such artificiality by using unadulterated freeze-dried bananas, which are subtle in flavour and therefore contribute a lovely light, tropical, almost-floral tone to the bar.

And then the peanuts. Oh, the honey roasted peanuts. Each whole nut (or legume, if we’re being pedantic) is coated in a thin layer of crackly I-don’t-know-what-but-by-golly-it’s-delicious, and tastes of toffee, peanut brittle, roastedness, and glee. Yes, this deep near-burnt crackly caramel toffee nuttiness combined with the soft fruitiness of the banana and the fudge-like rich melt of the milk chocolate tastes like glee.

As you know, I don’t often enjoy chocolate that skates upon super-sweet ice. However, the interplay of flavours in this bar, and the way each bite brought a different taste to the fore, ensured that I was completely won over.

Well done us, but more to the point well done The Curious Chocolatier. Heidi, you pulled this one off with aplomb.

Not The Chocolate Overlord Of All Things Chocolate

Posted on September 27, 2010 by Hannah

It was inevitable, really.

But first, some background: I’m not usually someone who gets a big head about things. In fact, this blog has been a steep learning curve in terms of my accepting when people emit nice sentences in my direction. I’m used to shrugging such words off and instead making a joke that is utterly irrelevant to whatever was said, in the hopes of precluding any further uncomfortable compliment-tinged scenarios.

There’s even a video recording of a time when I had to be up on stage whilst certain things were mentioned and applause happened… and heavens, people. I hate that video. I look so miserable and uncomfortable up there – like I want to disappear into nothingness.

So, yes. On the whole, I have a very strong awareness of my overall insignificance in this world.

But I have to admit that, over the past week, I started to have this niggling suspicion that I was, perhaps, maybe, just a little bit, maybe, a Chocolate Overlord of Chocolate Magnificence.

First, I found out that I won $50 worth of Cadbury chocolate via Jeroxie’s blog competition. (Expect reviews.)

Then the lovely L.LadyLawyer slipped me, in the midst of a two-hour epic story-telling catch-up session, five (count ‘em!) bars of 99% Lindt. (Expect reviews.)

And then on that very same L.LawyerLady day, I went to the Old Bus Depot Markets to catch up with Heidi, my beloved Curious Chocolatier, who had hinted to me that a new chocolate bar was in the offing.

Readers, friends, darling fellow-chocoholics… I have *such* a treat in store for you.

Four (count ‘em!) entirely new, never-before-released, utterly innovative chocolate bars. Seriously. Innovative. And deeply, deeply exciting, for reasons that will become clear (and are relevant) to you, when I review them on this blog.

Thank you, Heidi. And thank you for the two mango and white chocolate macarons that you also slipped into my bag after our much-enjoyed hour chat. I cannot express my joy, surprise, and gratitude at your generosity.

Honestly, readers, if you were me and had received nine chocolate bars in one day, news of $50-worth more coming your way, plus has found chocolate packages from L-squared, The Hungry Scholar, and T.CheeseFarmerLegend in the past 6 weeks in your letterbox…

Surely you would also start speculating that this world truly is a Chocolate World, and that you are its queen.

Here’s why you shouldn’t think that, though.

Because if you do, you might just find yourself walking away from the markets with a jaunty-spring in your step and nine chocolate bars in your handbag, and then you might just find your foot catching on a metal pole running perpendicular to the ground.

You might just hear someone yell “Watch out!”, and you might just take one, two, three desperate semi-leaps in an attempt to regain your balance. You might, though, not regain your balance, and might instead absolutely faceplant on the gravel in front of at least 20 people.

And then you might remember that you aren’t a Chocolate Overlord at all. In fact, you’re a bit of a Nincompoop. Because, after all:

Chocolate Pride Goeth Before The Fall.

Ouch.

Wayfaring Chocolate

adventures in chocolate, travel, cooking, and living

Tag Archives: The Curious Chocolatier

The Curious Chocolatier Dark Chocolate with Blueberries and Almonds

The Curious Chocolatier Dark Chocolate with Blueberries and Almond

The Curious Chocolatier Dark Chocolate with Poppy Seed Brittle

The Curious Chocolatier 60% Dark Chocolate with Poppy Seed Brittle

The Curious Chocolatier Milk Chocolate with Lime and Coconut

The Curious Chocolatier Milk Chocolate with Lime and Coconut

The Curious Chocolatier Milk Chocolate with Banana and Honey Roasted Peanuts

The Curious Chocolatier Milk Chocolate with Banana and Honey Roasted Peanuts

Not The Chocolate Overlord Of All Things Chocolate