Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Bruno's Chocolate Creations: Nutty Pieces

The box of chocolates that my boyfriend got me from Bruno’sChocolate Creations down in Florida had a pretty nice variety of pieces in it, and fortunately, that variety included the all-important nutty pieces. One simple but delicious piece was the chocolate covered cashew.





The piece has a faint aroma of nuts and coffee, and the couverture offers flavors of vanilla and coffee with just a hint of sugar. The density is just perfect for the cashew, and there isn’t any messy breakage to deal with. 

The cashew inside is a tiny bit under-roasted, but is by no means raw, and is quite flavorful. It is also nicely salted, and blend well with the mild chocolate.

If somebody gave me 30 of these, they’d last about 30 minutes.

Maybe. 15 is probably more like it.

But instead of a pound of chocolate covered cashews, my box had variety, so I moved along to another nutty piece, a peanut butter cream.
This piece has a distinct peanut aroma, and the chocolate has a smooth melt with a distinct vanilla flavor – nothing notable, but nothing offensive either.

The interior is very dense and smooth with an intense roasted nut flavor and a hint of salt. The texture is creamy and well-matched to the chocolate to minimize breakage with each bite. As a whole, the piece is completely delightful, and almost as good as the Recchiuti peanut butter pucks.

Perhaps I need some more of each piece for comparison purposes. Perhaps.

Friday, May 4, 2012

Bruno's Chocolate Creations: Tropical-Inspired Chocolates

Even though that box of chocolate that my boyfriend got me from Bruno’s Chocolate Creations down in Florida was huge, I only reviewed two pieces. Is it because I ate the rest so quickly that I couldn't review them?

NO. OF COURSE NOT. WHY WOULD YOU ASK SUCH A THING?

But really, I did want to stretch it out rather than write 18 pages about one box of chocolates in one post. So, continuing along, I’ll go over some of Bruno’s tropical-inspired flavors. First up, the pineapple pate de fruit.

The piece has a mild coffee and vanilla aroma, and the couverture has a smooth melt with a mild earthy flavor. There’s a bit of a sweet edge to it, but the earthy flavor dominates.




The pineapple interior is sweet, not tart, in nature. It is smooth, with an easy-to-chew texture, and the density matches up perfectly with the couverture such that the interior and exterior don’t break apart. The pate de fruit makes up the majority of the piece, and I would have preferred a bit more chocolate to balance out the sweet pineapple, but overall, it was an enjoyable piece

Moving right along to another tropical-themed treat: a coconut-filled piece.




The piece has an aroma of strong vanilla and weak coconut ; the couverture has a strong coffee flavor along with hints of cream and berry.






The coconut inside is where this piece really shines; the coconut is nicely toasted to bring out the flavor, and is neither dry nor gummy. There is just a touch of sugar to enhance the flavor of the coconut, which allows you to enjoy the coconut flavor rather than a coconut-flavored sugary center. It’s really perfectly spot on. If I got another box of these (HINT), I would love several of these coconut pieces.









Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Bruno's Chocolate Creations: Cherry and Citrus Creams

 I get gifts that look like this often.



When you blog about chocolate, people know what to get you. My boyfriend figured this out soon after he started dating me, and decided to get me some chocolates from Bruno’s Chocolate Creations in Fort Pierce, FL, which is near his hometown.

He also sent a cute note.




It was obvious who it was from, right?

Since this was a large box of chocolates, reviewing them all is going to take a while. With that in mind, let’s go ahead with the fruity chocolates, starting with the cherry cream.





The piece has a clear cherry aroma immediately, and the dark chocolate couverture has a smooth melt with a strong coffee flavor accented with hints of vanilla.


 The cream inside is quite sweet, with a hint of cherry flavor. The texture is fudge-like, though a bit dry, and overall…it is sweet. Very, very sweet. The dark chocolate tempers the sugar overload a bit, but it’s still a bit overwhelming.

Moving along to another fruity piece: the orange cream, which featured an orange aroma from the start.
Again, Bruno’s has used a dark chocolate couverture; it is again smooth, with noticeable coffee and earthy flavors. 

The interior features cream and orange flavors reminiscent of an orange creamsicle.  This is not a bad thing. The flavors are pleasing and cut back on the sugary base of the center, and complement the dark chocolate nicely.

If given the choice in picking my own box, I’d leave out the cherry and replace it with an orange. But that may just be because of my fond childhood memories of creamsicles.