Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Frey Supreme: White, Lemon & Lime and Citron & PoivreIf you haven’t been in a Target store and browsed their candy aisles, you’re missing a price-conscious chocoholic’s dream. There are shelves and shelves of high end bars at reasonable prices these days. They’ve started carrying more European bars and even some lines of organic and fair trade bars. I noticed a series of bars in smart paperboard wrappers called Frey from Switzerland and thought I should give them a try. All the bars were flavored (I kind of wanted to just try their “chocolate” first) so I ended up choosing two of the lemon flavored bars. Frey Supreme White Lemon & Lime is a pretty bar made with, as you can guess, white chocolate as a base. The white chocolate is more off-white (that’s real cocoa butter in there), and has a nicely sweet, milky scent mixed with citrus zest. The little flecks in the bar looked promising too. I didn’t read the ingredients until after I opened the bar, so I was a little confused when I finally had a bite. It was crunchy! There were little tangy, citrusy, crunchy bits, like someone had mixed some pulverized lemon drops in my chocolate! Here I was thinking I was going to get bits of zest. But why was I thinking that? Pure assumption. Mostly because that’s what I wanted. After I got over that initial shock, it wasn’t bad. The tartness of the candy bits set off the chocolate nicely, but interfered with the overall creamy texture because it had a dry aspect to it. There was a very small note of black pepper in this as well, which did give the ordinarily bland white chocolate a little kick. The second bar I picked was also on the lemon theme, Citron & Poivre. Mmmm, lemon and pepper. Lemon and pepper go so well together, they’ve bottled it and called it Lemon Pepper. And if it’s good on fish, it ought to be great in chocolate. (If they had a milk chocolate and lemon bar, I would have bought that, too.) The package says that this is extra fine dark chocolate with a fruity touch of lemon and black pepper. The bar is lovely, large and thin with a good snap. It’s 55% cocoa solids ... which isn’t terribly dark, so I was expecting a sweet and creamy bar. A couple of things bugged me about this bar before I even started eating it. One, it’s very thin. While some folks like that, I kind of like a little depth to my chocolate when I bite it. It also makes the bar a bit more compact. This 3.5 ounce bar was packaged to look big (at least an inch longer than a regular 3.5 ounce bar from Green & Black’s or Endangered Species which are featured nearby on the shelf), but was really no different in mass. The scent of the bar immediately gave off woodsy notes and the black pepper. Biting into it I found the same bitty, crunchy candy crumbles in it as the white chocolate bar. They had a nice tart bite to the, though some had a different bite: the black pepper. The dark chocolate was largely overshadowed by these strong flavors. The texture was nice, not as buttery as the Lake Champlain I had yesterday which was a similar cocoa content. Instead it was sweet and then had tangy bits that just made the sweetness more apparent. The dark bar contains no milk products so is suitable for vegans. (However it is processed in a facility that also uses milk and nuts, so is not for those who are allergic or very strict.) I have to say that I wanted to like these more. The flavor combinations are certainly ones that I’m predisposed to like, but I wanted a smooth, creamy, Swiss chocolate experience. They have a huge selection of bars and I might have to try the Caf? & Cacao, which is extra fine milk chocolate with coffee and crispy cocoa nibs. At $1.99 I certainly don’t feel cheated, they were a fun experience. The White chocolate bar has a slight edge if I had to pick from these two again. The packaging is nice, the box folds back together well and I was able to put a piece of tape on it to keep the leftovers until I finished them. I’m certainly thinking about trying other bars in the line, so stay tuned for what I hope are rave reviews. SugarHog has a review of the Frey Japonais, which sounds like a winner ... a combo of hazelnut and milk chocolate. Nicole of Slashfood (now of Baking Bites) liked the Citron & Poivre bar a bit more than I. Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:29 am |
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Meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world. And the occasional other sweet adventures. Open your mouth, expand your mind.
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You should try their Cinnamon and Blood Orange if you can get your hands on it. It’s in the white chocolate base with the same crunchy bits, but the flavor combo is wonderful.
My BF and I discovered Frey’s a while back. Their blueberry white chocolate bar is yum. Sometimes I think it’s a little too sweet (white chocolate usually is for me) but the blueberry makes up for it.
I also tried the cinnamon and blood orange. I didn’t notice when I picked it up that it was white chocolate, so was a bit startled when I opened the package. It was interesting, and different from many things on the market, but I probably won’t buy it again. I do really like the lemon & pepper one - and I thought of you when I bought it! (“ooh, lemon, Cyele would like this…”) Perhaps I liked it because I wasn’t expecting smooth chocolate. I also like the Dagoba lemon & ginger - have you tried that?
I’ve tried the white chocolate and lime one, and the bitter lime/hot black pepper combination was so overwhelming that I didn’t enjoy the chocolate very much. All I could taste was pepper at times, which was very unpleasant.
I’ve also tried a chile Frey bar. Yuck. It seemed to have powdered chiles and some bits of chile. The powder made it gritty. The chile was hot but not complex at all, and the overall effect was just, well, bleh.
I’ve noticed the ever growing collection of sweets they have. Kind of creeps me out. Just seems wrong somehow.
ahh, Frey bars, they are tasty. I really like the Caeur de Macadamia, a few of these were on sale at my local target this week, along with bags of mini-candies and bulk candy bars
The Gingerbread bar in milk chocolate has me wishing it wasn’t a holiday bar. The winter fruit bar is very good as well, sort of chewy pear with ground almond. Yum.
They have a Tiramisu bar that is SO GOOD. It is evil!
I tried their White Chocolate Blueberry bar, and the Chili Chocolate bar, and both were excellent! Excellent! Excellent!
I love the White Chocate Lemon and Lime bar.
So creamy with the right mix of sweet and tart.
I kept it in the freeze and broke off little bites.
Where is the Kentucky candy company, and what type of candy is made there?
Does anyone know where else you can get this candy bar? Target here has stopped carrying it.
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