After working through several pieces from Cacao, that lovely store just down Connecticut Ave. from my place, I was left with one lone milk chocolate-based bar.
But this was not just a bar. This was a loaded bar.
Raisins, almonds, pistachios, candied lemon peel, and coconut. Oh boy.
Nutty and caramel aromas are most apparent from this bar, and no fruitiness was evident despite the abundance of fruit on the surface of the bar.
The base chocolate is pleasing, with a smooth melt and a strong caramel flavor with a creamy undertone. This sweet chocolate is complimented by slightly tart, juicy raisins; the lemon peel also adds a bit of tart and bitter flavor to add to the complexity but unfortunately does not blend well with the chocolate from a texture standpoint. The nuts, on the other hand, are soft and not flavorful, and are stuck on the back in large pieces. Oh, and the coconut? Barely noticeable with everything going into this bar. Though several of the components are pleasing, the bar overall has too many components and several of them are in large chunks that make it difficult to enjoy in harmony with the chocolate.
Have you ever had a bar with too many extra components?
Holy crap dude, that bar takes "fully loaded" to a whole new meaning. O.o I'm not even sure that *looks* appealing. I definitely don't prefer my chocolate marred by large chunks of non-chocolate foods...though it sounds like the fruit by itself may have been a nice combination?
ReplyDeleteDamn those soft nuts.
ReplyDeleteI bet this bar weighed like two pounds. Would have been more but for the soft nuts.
No. I don't know if I would be able to handle all of those features good heavens. I would eat my favorite parts out first and have a super mangled bar ha. ;)
ReplyDeleteWhen I invented my own Chocomize bars, some of them were pretty crazy and full-on. I like the sound of this minus the raisins, though :)
ReplyDeleteHmm...this looks like a kid's bark project. I think the coconut is visually the most distracting, so it's interesting that it was the least noticeable eating-wise.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a huge fan of mixing my chocolate with other ingredients especially nuts. I always hated it when people put nuts in brownies...ick.
ReplyDelete