Weird Flavors and Inclusions in Chocolate

yeah I hear you! it's the smoke that makes it difficult, not so much the cheese... IMHO

cool to see your bread comment! i used to spread rounds of artisanal baguette with apricot preserves and enrobe them in 56% by Callebaut..... and also the same process with a thin slice of gianduja on each round of crusty bread.... the texture combo and the salty- sweet- dark is pretty phenomenal

Nothing exotic as blood and cherries, I'm afraid.

mango and jalepeno (white choc ganache) is about as off the wall as I get.

Chai spice is another -butter ganache with typical chai spices

Nanaimo bar is another, a typical Canadian treat, but mine are mini sized--graham crust base, coconut custard top, enrobed in bitter 70%

Strawberry and black pepper work well--again, a white choc. ganache

Thanks to Howard and Hanna ( www.mamorchocolates.com ) and Andrew Donnelly in Melbourne Australia, we produced a Kava flavoured 70% dark chocolate (KokoKava) made from SAMOAN GOLD trinitario cocoa beans grown here in Samoa, now available from www.kokosamoainternational.com in Sydney. We had five islands represented, Tokelau, Routuma, Kiribati, FIJI and Samoa, all sitting around a bowl of grog (kava) and these kava fanatics just loved the Cocoa Samoa Limited KokoKava 50gm bar...with 250mg of Vanuatu kava ... we now want www.c-spot.com to review our KokoKava chocolate bar. X-citing times. Steve stevebrownsamoa@gmail.com

Hi Virginia, do you mind explaining these delicious sounding goat cheese truffles in more detail? Do you substitute goat cheese for butter in the ganache? Or enrobe little balls of straight goat cheese? I want to start playing with the combination as I was just informed that I have a schinus molle tree (pink peppercorn) growing in my garden, sure enough i tasted the little berries and they were the freshest pepper taste you can imagine!

h

Hi Nena

We make two chilli chocolates, they are both fresh cream ganaches, one white and one dark, the white truffle is covered in white chocolate and a Sao Thome version for the dark. The reason we think ours are a little different is that we use fresh red chillies chopped fine in our ganache plus of course a touch of Welsh vodka never hurts does it?

This combination gives an almost fruity heat which creeps up on you when you've already said "that's not very hot is it?" Suddenly WOW "I'm getting it now!" It never fails to amuse especially when we put them out on sample and people try them without asking what they are :-)

White Chilli Truffle - Wales the True Taste - Gold 2010

Dark Chilli Truffle - Academy of Chocolate - Bronze 2011

Dark Chilli Truffle - Great Taste - Gold 2011

Best regards

Emma

Sun dried tomato chocolate sounds nice actually

try this wonderful italian recipe: tortellini di cioccolato alla ricotta con porri e paprika..... very good !!!

I have made chocolate covered gummy bears along with gummy worm bars...pretty good..different and fun! my favorite right now is caramel coconut!

OK, please tell me they dry it out and compost it first. Please. Of course, if it's composted and dried out, and they only add a tiny bit, it may be relatively harmless (although I still wouldn't recommend eating it). I know that when people speak of eating "alternative protein sources" such as termites, roaches, etc. these are often dried and ground into a course meal texture, so you really don't recognize the original ingredient. I'm adventurous, but poop is where I'd really draw the line, even if it's been autoclaved.

My ChocolateBanquet.com spreadsheet of flavors combined (purchased, made, tasted) with chocolate, now tops 300. In the hands of a true artist, almost anything can work -- even smoked salmon or anchovies (Modern Dwellers Choc. Lounge, in Anchorage AK). I've only come across one item I couldn't finish -chocolate covered insects, although I've been told I picked the wrong insect chocolate. Maybe when I'm feeling adventurous again I'll try chocolate covered ants. Yes, I love Zotter's sense of adventure (blue cheese, grapes). The camel milk chocs. aren't bad, no gamey flavor; but I don't care as much for sweet, milk chocolates (no matter what type of milk). Fun to hear what others are tasting.

I think I tried chocolate covered bees when I was in high school, about a hundred years ago. Friends actually held me down on the floor and forced it on me. They're dried and granulated, so you could not detect any bees per se or even individual bee parts, only the knowledge of them andthe crunch that comes with granules of any kind. I didn't know much about chocolate then, so it was probably run of the mill quality. People do eat with their eyes and their heads however, so the thought was enough to cause me to not want it again. There are so many ingredients people have added to chocolate, I have to ask myself the point. More specifically, what doyou (the chocolatier) wish to get out of the combination with chocolate? If it's just to sensationalize the end product, fugettabout it, in my book. (The poop thing comes to mind here.) If to produce a real flavor sensation, terrific.

I found a dark chocolate with a bacon taste in my wanderings.

Dave Lambert

David's Delicious Chocolates

the e home for healthy chocolates for folks with special dietary needs and/or religious needs

I believe more chocolate combinations are attempts by chocolatiers to widen their potential customer base.

I go the other way because I am prominent in healthy chocolates for folks with special dietary and/or religious needs.

Dave Lambert

David's Delicious Chocolates

When it comes to different flavours, I feel it is interesting to note the difference in origins of cocoa beans, for example, whilst nearly all European manufacturers stay away from Smokey Cameroon beans there are some factories that only purchase these smokey beans. In Douala and surrounding regions their cocoa beans are forced through fermentation with the aid of fires, they part sun dry and part artificially dry. However when the beans arrive in Europe if they have a smokey smell to them they are instantly rejected by the receiver most of the time as the flavour is affected. The rejected beans are then normally sold as salvage (tonnes of the stuff) however I had the pleasure to taste a chocolate bar made from these "smokey" beans and I thought it was rather unique and different yet still enjoyable. The barbeque effect was to my liking. Unfortunately due to the lack of demand these smokey beans are rarely used for chocolate making.

I also happen to like the taste of smokey cocoa beans, at least those I've tasted. I'm sure there is "good smokey" and not-so-good smokey. I'd probably take such a bar as you described over one that was just bland. For me, it's how it tastes at about the 75% level. At 50% of below, you can disguise a lot.

I believe (so I've been told) that this 'smokey' effect also changes the colour of the cocoa powder that is produced from these beans. I've actually got some in storage not that I would know how to turn them from "bean to bar". I agree with the minimum 50%.

For me the weirdest combination so far were pretzels covered with chocolate. IDK if that counts as weird enough but that's all I've got now)

I have tried camel's milk chocolate. Several years ago when the volcano in Iceland stopped air traffic in Europe I had to fly to India. I decided to stop in Dubai. On the way back home to the US I got stuck in Dubai for 24 hours (free hotel and food!). I bought several varieties of chocolate made with camel's milk, though I thought the best was the 70% bittersweet cacao, though it had some camel's milk.

By the way, camel's milk is healthier than cow's milk: according to the company, camels milk offers five times more vitamin C than cows milk, has less fat and less lactose and more insulin, making it a good option for diabetics and people who are lactose intolerant.

You can buy their chocolates by calling the company (Al nassma).

Once in Belgium I tried a chocolate with a chili-mango-taste. It was pretty odd and nothing I would eat a second time honestly..

Aussie vegimite and white chocolate. The vegimite kind of caramilises and the sweet from white choc mixes well with the saltiness from the vegimite. We did them for Australia day and ANZAC day. Very yummy.

Oh, and I can think of another one: Once a friend of mine gave me Ouzo-chili-chocolate as a present. Maybe from Greece? I don't remember it. The only thing I remember is that it tasted way better than it sounds ;)

This combo actually makes sense to me. The ouzo is kind of licorice-fennel flavor and the hot chili. I've occasionally eaten a bar from Vice chocolates in California that's 65% cocoa and is topped with dried figs and fennel seeds. I'd like it a little higher in cocoa content but I'm quibbling. Very good.

I have to butt in regarding camel milk. If the company actually says is has less lactose, fine, it may. If they say it has more insulin, then they're big-time confused or just misleading you. No milk has insulin. Further, it wouldn't matter if it did because you can't take insulin orally. If you did, it would be digested and denatured as a protein and would therefore have none of the effects you'd expect from insulin. For a diabetic, they'd probably be better off with chocolate with higher cocoa content than milk chocolate, which has more sugar than very dark chocolate. Sorry for the distraction -- I just don't like anyone being mislead, even unintentionally. OK, back to chocolate!

Very good points. I was merely restating the company's marketing. I will avoid that in the future without referencing peer-reviewed research.

Note that I did say that the best was 70% bittersweet even though it also had some camel's milk. So to your point, chocolate with higher cocoa content is better for diabetics, and in this case it is the best tasting chocolate with camel's milk anyway.

I am going through the "Bean to Bar" program at Ecole Chocolat. The program includes tastings to compare chocolate from different regions, cocoa percentage, etc. I've found a couple chocolate bars that had the taste of smoke - one good and one bad.

The Michel Cluizel 85% Grand Noir had an incredible smokey flavor - reminiscent of sherry oak barrels burning in a barbeque pit, with a nice scotch whiskey lingering aftertaste.

On the other hand the Michel Cluizel Mokaya 66% Mexique had a terrible smokey aroma / flavor. While on the one hand it was somewhat bland, it had an unpleasant tobacco undertone. Made me think that they were smoking cigarettes or cigars while they prepared the chocolate! YECCH!

Coco Sala in Washington, D.C. sells chocolate covered bacon strips. I thought my kids would love it but the combination was just too much to handle. They love chocolate. And they love bacon. But not together!

I just got to taste a pretty fascinating set of mushroom pralines, made by the fantastic hungarian chocolatier and bean-to-bar chocolate makers " Rzsavlgyi Csokold " ! Although I like combinations of savory/salty flavors with chocolate (such as more common classics with pepper, chili, or smoked salt...), I have to say that I was a little affraid of eating mushroom flavored chocolates. Their pretty box contains 9 pralines of 3 different mushroom flavors (Chanterelle, Morel and Porcini).

Guess what? They all taste great and I bet they make an incredible combination if eaten with a good, strong wine (the mushroom taste is not overly dominant though, which was probably a wise decision).

Oo I like this topic!

I have tried some strange combinations in chocolate bars before like potato chip, coconut curry and white chocolate olive, but I JUST stumbled upon Cocanu chocolates. Several of the bars have wood in them, and they are surprisingly good!

That one was interesting. I liked it, but it's a strange one, for sure.

Ihave a running theory that chocolate goes with everything, but some of these combinations mentioned are challengingeven my particular brand of optimism.

This week I picked up dark chocolates with basil and white ganache, as well as one with roasted red peppers from Tifa Chocolate in AgouraHills, CA. Both are utterly delicious - strong basil flavor but it still works with itsheavenly chocolate robe.

I'll post pics and reviews of both soon (thechocolatetourist.tv/blog)!

Say what, wood???

Well, I just found out that it's actually wood infused, but it's still very interesting. One bar was made with Palo Santo wood-it's smoked, and the chocolate absorbs the flavor. The other chocolate I tried from that company was made with a bitter Italian drink. The whole line of bars is very good!

That is cool. The place I live is known for fragrant woods (Taiwan), maybe I should give it a shot :D

Definitely! I was very surprised at how good it was.

I never thought I would like any of the more savory herbs with chocolate, but I tried a sage truffle and a basil truffle that were both delicious. The basil with white ganache you mention sounds intriguing!

I feel you at that one^^ I had that kind of flavour too, with a liquid filling

I'm not sure if this is weird or not, but after almost 2 years of experimentation, Ki Xocolatl will introduce two new varieties at the Fancy Food Show in New York this summer:

Dark chocolate with Key lime citrus

Milk chocolate with crushed tortilla chips

The first is like eating an Italian espresso. The second has that hint of corn and saltiness that marries well with milk chocolate.

These sound great. I must admit -- not sure if anyone else feels the same -- but when I pay high-end prices for good chocolate, interesting flavors are awesome to have, but I'd prefer not to have a lot of groceries mixed in. Paying in excess of $50 per pound of chocolate is one thing, but I don't like paying that much for all the lower-priced "particulates", reason being that I'm actually getting less chocolate.

Absolutely agree! That is the logic behind my pricing (and eating!) too. That said, some 'groceries' (well put!) are pretty involved. We do a candied ginger that starts with organic young ginger and after peeling, chopping, candying, drying, and getting it into a bite sized chunk of chocolate that actually looks pretty... Let's just say I'm overjoyed when people will pay top dollar for it!

As to weirdest inclusion, where I live the only one doing novel chocolate making is... me, so if I want something weird I have to make it. I haven't actually tried it before but I have turmeric root paste waiting in the fridge to become ganahe ... Should be interesting.

I love ginger and chocolate! The first time I tried it was weird, but interesting - I didn't like it, but the flavor was sort ofhaunting. Now I can't get enough of it.

Turmeric sounds cool. If nothing else, it will be very bright in color!