Thursday, February 4, 2010
Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate HeartsIf the statistics braniacs are correct, you’re less likely to receive chocolate this year than a year when Valentine’s Day falls on a weekday. This is because the major heart-shaped confectionery purchasers are men and when the holiday falls on a weekend the celebrations are more likely to be date-related than object-related. I picked up this box of Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Hearts with Rich Truffle Filling on a weekend (long before Valentine’s Day though). The box holds 7.05 ounces and 16 Belgian truffles. Well, the package calls them truffles, I’m not convinced as you’ll see in a moment. The flat and simple box has a stylized cartoonish design on the front though the overall format is similar to the Belgian Fancies I bought before Christmas. I like the overall design, it’s simple and spare and not so precious or frilly that it couldn’t work for either gender or as a gift between friends or family. The box does and excellent job of protecting the candies, which were all shiny and flawless. The hearts are nicely sized for a single bite. They’re about one and a half inches at the widest, about three quarters of an inch high. The ingredients list for these non-flavored bonbons is extremely long. In my perfect world the definitions of things like ganache and truffle are pretty strict. A truffle is chocolate mixed with extra dairy fats like butter or cream. That’s it. There can be flavorings, inclusions and maybe even nut butters but then it becomes a bonbon with a truffle ganache base filling. The Belgian maker of these has things in here like corn syrup (third ingredient) vegetable oils (fourth ingredient) and some other things like glycerin, crystalline fructose, mono & diglycerides and citric acid. The result of those ingredients is not so much of a mock ganache but something that I think of as really good chocolate frosting. The thing is, the reason to put all that extra fat into ganache is to make the melting point lower, so that it actually melts in your mouth quicker than chocolate. (Cocoa butter has a higher melting point than dairy butter.) Putting all those different oils in there just isn’t the same and things like corn syrup add moisture, which makes it chewy and gives it an almost-caramel like pull when it’s bitten. Now, all that aside, they’re not bad to eat. The chocolate shell is rather sweet but very smooth. The flavors are berry and a little bit on the woodsy spice side. The semi-sweet shell plays well with the very sweet center. There’s a slight fudginess to it, I hesitate calling it a graininess but it simply tastes sugary instead of chocolatey. For a store bought box of chocolates, they’re not bad, but at $5 for a box I expect a little better. In fact, I wouldn’t mind paying an extra dollar for fewer ingredients and a more intense chocolate punch. Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:36 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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i never really liked TJ’s chocolate. I wanted too because of the PJ cups, but they were awful.
You just reminded me of how much I love Trader Joe’s. I used to work there about 10 years ago and loved all the wonderful candies and treats they had. They even had really neat private label wines which were very affordable. Cheers~
Love The Blog!
For the quality I expect from TJs, I agree that these seem a little substandard. It sounds like a more ganache-y centre and a less sweet chocolate would improve these no end.
I also tried these about a week ago - while the quality of ingredients was not what I expect from TJ’s, I really did enjoy them. They’re the ultimate guilty pleasure (and two was more than enough for me, which helped prevent eating all of them at one time).
You come off as a candy snob. Let me guess, you are extremely overweight (fat ass) and have cats?
I love the belgien chocolate It’s one of the best in the world.
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