There are few things us Domestic Sluts love more than chocolate, so I was suitably excited when a box of Les Volcaniques (£12.50) popped through my letterbox yesterday. They're described by Galler Chocolates as full of "smoky aromas" and "intense heat" - not phrases you'd ordinarily use to describe a box of chocolates, but Les Volcaniques are inspired by fire after all.
As each chocolate is only a small disc, you can just about cope with the strong flavours. But that didn't stop a couple of varieties from being over-powering and a little sickly. One of them tasted to me like smokey bacon crisps. Thankfully, the rest were rather lovely and quite fun to eat (yes, I get my kicks guessing what Szechuan Pepper chocolates taste like).
These chocolates would work very well after a dinner party, but for Friday night scoffing I'd stick to Milk Tray.
The sickly swetness comes from the base chocolate used. They are using a 3rd party supplier and it is oversugared and has a number of additives to extend shelf life. It makes balancing the chocolate flavour off a lot more difficult.
ReplyDeleteI keep putting off reviewing a bunch of Toronto chocolate shops because of that - they are working with a bad base and I can see they are passionate about what they do, are innovative and trying very hard but to keep the price point reasonable they have to use this 3rd party "Belgian chocolate" which isn't great.
Pop over to Selfridges and get yourself some Askinosie chocolate. You'll see how the base chocolate itself differs and how it would balance off against the filling better.