Mazur Single Origin Organic Chocolates

The minute I learned that Mazur’s calls their business a café and chocolate lab I was intrigued. After all, isn’t a chocolate laboratory full of creative potential and delicious possibilities?

Mazur’s website shows a beautiful, bustling coffee shop replete with happy staff and customers. There’s even a guitarist to make it more enticing. While I can’t beam myself there I was able to sample their chocolate.

All the bars came in beautifully designed artistic cardboard envelopes that re-closed easily. An inner gold foil wrapper was heavy enough to make my chocolate experience neat and contained. The bar’s design breaks easily into a multiplicity of triangular pieces with a central Mazur logo.

Before I share my sybaritic experience with these delights, I wanted to clarify something. Even though I spent a good portion of my life with art and artists, including a summer internship at the Guggenheim and studying art history in college for two years, I believe that when it comes to personal taste all the knowledge and beautiful adjectives in the world are irrelevant. I know that sounds extreme, especially from someone who loves words and knowledge. What I mean is that taste is idiosyncratic. You can study northern Renaissance art until you’re blue in the face, but if it doesn’t speak to you, you might appreciate it intellectually yet find it leaves you cold. Similarly, I can try to parse out the various flavors that emerge for me when I taste chocolate, and you might have a completely different experience. While my major focus is on the gustatory joy of chocolate, as well as its mighty phytochemical benefits for my physical and mental health, I also care about attractive packaging and user-friendly design, where bars break into manageable pieces. You may have other priorities. I simply love experiencing and sharing new chocolate creations with my readers. Your experiences will invariably be different from mine.

On to this beautiful, delicious flight of organic bars….

72% Madagascar is a creamy bar with lucious rounded flavors creating a balanced taste that quells any chocolate craving.

72% Ecuador has a fresh, fruity flavor and lovely, crisp temper. 

72% Belize boasts a rich, creamy texture. It’s a great choice for someone embarking on a voyage to darker bars (over 70%) as it’s not going to overwhelm them with earthy or acidic notes that might turn them off to what they could erroneously consider “bitter chocolate.”

72% Dominican Republic is another silkily well-tempered love note with just a touch of acidity to punch up a fairly gentle flavor profile of light fruit and a hint of chestnut.

72% Ghana captivates with its depth of flavor. A bit earthy, but still elegant and full of fruity sweetness.

72% Guatemala has all the richness of the other bars with dark plummy flavors and a hint of terroir to make the experience more enticingly complex. If I had to pick a favorite, that was it.

I also sampled a 55% Dark Milk from Madagascar. This tasted like a classic milk chocolate with multiple layers of richness. A great choice for those who love milk chocolate and are curious to try its darker varieties.

Mazur Chocolates sources all their single origin beans ethically. In fact, one of their dreams is to lift cacao farmers in Belize out of poverty by building a factory on site. In this day and age, when we know better, we can do better. Buying ethically sourced chocolate from single origin small farms is one way to improve living conditions for people who currently don’t even have running water. 

You can buy Mazur chocolate bars here: https://mazurchocolates.com

A cornucopia of treats from Wooden Table Baking Co.

If you’re looking for a perfect gift for a chocolate lover on a gluten-free diet, you can find it at Wooden Table Baking Co. 

Wooden Table Baking Co. offers a wide variety of cookies, barks, and confections influenced by Argentinian recipes and raised to an art form.

Some are minimally sweet while others are more traditionally sweet.

While I sampled many of their offerings, I would encourage you to look at the website as you will be tantalized by their innovative products.

This cornucopia of delights is created by owner and head baker Andrés Ozzuna, who grew up outside of Buenos Aires and learned to cook from their grandmother. 

Let’s start with four varieties of their gluten free, low sugar (3 grams per cookie), chocolate-dipped cookies. Each attractive window box houses seven cookies. They feature mostly non-GMO ingredients, real flavorings from essential oils and spices, and no fake sugars.

The four varieties I tried were: lavendervchocolate, mint chocolate, orange chocolate, and chai chocolate.

Each delicious, crunchy, fresh cookie is coated in 64% dark chocolate and full of flavor. I was partial to the Chai and Orange ones.

These would make a great gift for someone on a gluten free diet.

Wooden Table Baking Co. makes a number of chocolate barks. I tried the Ginger Walnut with dark chocolate and the Peppermint with white and dark chocolate.

A thick slab of 64% dark chocolate Ginger Walnut bark had crunchy nuts both inside and on top. Here, the ginger was a supporting actor, not the main character. There was just enough ginger to amp up the flavor without taking center stage.

The Peppermint bark is your classic confection: a base of dark chocolate topped with a layer of white chocolate and adorned with with crushed peppermint candy.

If you like hot chocolate and want it ASAP, try their Hot Chocolate Stirrers. They come in a variety of flavors: cinnamon, peppermint, and cayenne. Just stir into hot milk and voilà!

I had never had a confection like their Conitos, large mounds of dark chocolate housing a handmade chocolate shortbread cookie, topped with creamy Dulce de Leche. An amazing combination of textures and flavors.

I had heard of Alfajores, but had never tried them. Apparently, they originated in Moorish Spain and later migrated to South America. Each alfajor starts with two buttery shortbread cookies joined together with soft, creamy Dulce de Leche, and covered in dark chocolate. Decadent and satisfying, one cookie is a complete desert. 

All products from Wooden Table Baking Co. would make wonderful gifts for yourself or someone else. You can find the full menu here: http://www.woodentablebaking.com

New single origin Peruvian bars from Fruition Chocolate Works

If you care about beauty, check out the four new Peruvian bars from Fruition Chocolate Works. The packaging is exquisite, whether you buy one bar or the giftable full flight of four. Not only are the designs unique, cheerful, and fun, the re-closable envelope, with its inner cellophane wrapper, assures you a neat eating experience.

There are three 73% dark bars and one 68% dark milk. Each has a noticeably different flavor profile from its sibling. If you balk at anything over 70% this is a perfect time to stretch your legs. The addition of cocoa butter makes the texture of the 73% bars smooth and silky.

These Peruvian 73% single origin offerings are a refined experience meant to be savored. The nuances in their layers of flavor continue to intrigue and delight me. That requires I fully focus on each, so I can be both a mindful would-be Buddhist and a chocophile.

Fruition’s Maranon dark 73% farmed in Cajamarca, Peru has the fudgiest texture which, combined with its lush dark fruit notes, beautifully highlights these rare National beans.

Chuncho 73% from Cuzco, Peru is a bright fruity bar with a velvety texture. If you know someone who eschews dark chocolate, this would be a great introduction as it’s mellow and gentle on the palate.

Piura Blanco 73% is made from cacao farmed in northern Peru. These criollo beans are lighter in color than others and produce a subtle, elegant bar with a hint of acidity for balance. It has a slightly drier finish than the Maranon and Chuncho.

The Origins of Peru dark milk bar 68% blends all three of the previous beans with an extra touch of creaminess. It captures the slightly dry finish of the Piura Blanco, a little edge from the Chuncho, and is rounded out with dark fruit from the Maranon.

All four bars make for a unique tasting flight, treat for yourself, or memorable gift.

You can find them at: fruitionchocolateworks.com

New! Vegan Mylk and Cookie Chocolate Bars from Crow & Moss

The coming holidays are always a good excuse to indulge chocolate cravings, and what better way than with two new vegan offerings from Crow & Moss?

Matt Davies, founder and chief chocolatier, was originally a baker. So creating chocolate bars with cookie inclusions came naturally to him. I love the way he recently spoke about how historically chocolate has been added to baked goods, and his desire to add baked goods to chocolate.

I don’t know about you, but I always associate cookies and cakes with delicious indulgence. To me, an indulgence is something that so thoroughly absorbs my senses that it takes me away from the Sturm und Drang of the day. I have a special affinity for Matt’s Wampusirpi, Vanilla Smoke, and Zorzal dark bars. These new coconut mylk bars are vastly different, but equally satisfying. The most outstanding features they have in common is an ultra creamy texture punctuated with bits of cookie.

The 40% Coconut Macaroon Cookie bar has macaroon cookie and toasted coconut on its underside.  The combination of crunch and velvety, melt-in-your-mouth chocolate is perfect as a satisfying dessert all by itself. The bar’s lovely richness comes from coconut milk.

The 40% Ginger Snap Cookie bar has a slightly more delicate crunch and a spicy complexity from ginger, cinnamon, and cloves. This trio of warming, enticing spices compliments the richness of the chocolate. Here, the vegan chocolate base is enhanced with oat milk.

It’s not easy creating a great dairy free milk chocolate, but Matt has done it. That said, you certainly don’t need to be vegan to love these new bars.

You can find them, and a cornucopia of other delicious offerings, at: http://www.crowandmoss.com. They offer free shipping with a reasonable minimum purchase.

Wildwood Chocolate

Whether you’re a child or an adult, almost everyone walking the earth knows life can be disappointing. So when we buy chocolate, we want a reliably wonderful experience. I want to be satisfied, delighted, and even, when in the right mood, happily surprised. Thankfully, there are some incredible chocolate companies producing chocolate I can depend on to consistently bring me joy.

Wildwood Chocolate offers a line of classic and innovative bars that will delight all your senses. The bars are artistic, well tempered, and delicious.

I sampled three from their cornucopia of offerings. Each one was completely different from its sibling in appearance, texture, and flavor.

One of the most challenging tasks for any chocolatier is combining chocolate and caramel. In my experience, either the chocolate is too sweet, the caramel is too sweet, the caramel is too runny and messy, the caramel is too hard and chewy, or both the caramel and chocolate are too sweet. Somehow, and I honestly consider this a minor miracle, Steven Lawrence, co-founder and chocolatier at Wildwood Chocolate has been able to create the most amazing caramel filled chocolate bar (a generous 3.53 ounces). Not only is it beautiful, but you can actually break off a piece and not create a mess. The 70% chocolate’s sweetness is perfectly balanced, its temper snappy and crisp, while the thin layer of caramel filling is utter perfection. The texture is neither too soft nor too thick, it stays put, and yet still has that uber-appealing slight chewiness.

The Orange Confit and Cherries bar is both beautiful and perfectly executed. The jeweled fruit tastes freshly dried and preserved, a chewy foil to the chocolate’s crispness. Incidentally, the bar is 3.17 ounces. Heftier than most high end offerings.

The Marcona Almond studded bar (3.17 ounces) has artfully arranged almonds, all in equally pristine condition, happily giving up their buttery, crispness to my enjoyment.

If you love if you’re a visual person who appreciates aesthetics, you will fall in love with the bas-relief designs on these bars. 

I don’t know about you, but it really harshes my mellow when chocolate makes a mess. So I deeply appreciate packaging that keeps little chocolate shards in their place. Wildwood’s bars are innovatively packaged with a cardboard base in a clear reclosable envelope. It’s easy to break off a piece inside the envelope keeping all the little bits that love to adhere to my clothes in their place. 

Last but not least, when I look at the Marcona almonds on the almond bar or the fruits on the orange confit bar I can see how they were carefully, even lovingly, placed on the chocolate. This mindful attention to detail that only comes from truly caring what someone will experience, on the palate, visually, and even emotionally, is rare. I value it. Perhaps you do too. If so, you may want to treat yourself or a loved one to the experience of Wildwood chocolate.

You can buy these bars, and many more, including some incredible explorations of chocolate and caramel, at http://www.wildwoodchocolate.com.

Nahua Single Origin Costa Rican Chocolate

Recently, I have become enamored with Costa Rican Beans. Nahua Chocolate is a bean to bar manufacturer that boasts an extensive line of milk and dark bars. All are packaged beautifully in re-closable cardboard envelopes adorned with paintings of Costa Rican flora and fauna.

Nahua exclusively uses single origin Trinitario cacao beans sourced directly from local farming communities. Their Cacao Renovation Program helps improve the lives of smallholder farmers by providing valuable technical training and access to financing. They also preserve the environment by promoting sustainable farming practices, reforestation and the conservation of natural ecosystems.

I sampled 12 of their 50 gram bars.

The four milk bars are unique and different from any other milk chocolate I have ever tried as they all include ghee (clarified butter). This imparts another layer of flavor and extra richness. All four bars are creamy and decadent.

The Almond bar was generously studded with tiny pieces of roasted almonds, the Moka bar enhanced with coffee, and the Chai bar with classic chai spices. I found the ghee flavor more obvious in the plain milk bar. The Moka had a cafe au lait, light coffee profile. The Chai was spiced judiciously so no one flavor predominated, and all were complemented by the sweet chocolate. I loved the texture of the Almond bar as each bite was simultaneously crunchy and creamy.

The seven bars in their 70% range were all crisply tempered and had a dry finish. None had ghee.

The plain one was enhanced by a slight crunchiness from nano-particles of nibs.

The mint bar was executed with a gentle hand so the herb supported the perfectly sweet dark chocolate, rather than overwhelming it.

Since Costa Rica is a great coffee exporter you would be right to assume their coffee bar was perfectly balanced. Finely ground Arabica beans (from local coffee cooperatives) judiciously imparted both a slight caffeine boost and a delightful mocha flavor. (If you love coffee, check out Nahua’s five different coffee blends: https://nahuacoffee.com/en/)

Cinnamon and chocolate are an interesting combination, especially if you love stronger flavors, as the spice is fairly prominent.

I was surprised that the cayenne infused bar was less intense than the cinnamon version. Here, cayenne was a distinct understudy to the assertive chocolate.

Orange essential oil flavors their citrus bar. Here, the delicate fruitiness perfectly complemented the chocolate.

Essential oil of ginger was also added with a restrained hand so it supports the chocolate while not overpowering it.

Nahua’s 90% bar is made with only two ingredients: beans and sugar. Here, the bean’s natural flavor comes through. It’s a gentle, fairly unassertive personality that, even at 90%, isn’t bitter. I tasted dark fruits without the sweetness. Naturally, it has a slightly drier finish as there’s no cocoa butter.

You can find all their bars here: http://nahuachocolate.com/en/

Squash Blossom Farm To Farm & Bean To Bar Chocolate

Susan Waughtal and Roger Nelson run Squash Blossom Farm, a bucolic slice of heaven in Minnesota. While they have always loved chocolate, it was only when their daughter was working on cocoa farms in Costa Rica that they got excited about adding a line of single origin bars to their menu of breads, pies and wood-fired pizza.

The beans are roasted in that same oven after being fermented in Costa Rica. All are 70%, sweetened with organic cane sugar, and tempered to a lustrous shine with an audible snap.

I sampled the current range of five bars.

My favorite was the Wholly Mole. A unique experience of pistachios, pepitas, cinnamon, chiles, and a hint of garlic. I have had other Mole seasoned bars, but this one hit it out of the park. It takes a lot of courage to add garlic to chocolate…I wouldn’t have gone there…but the spice blend is extraordinary, especially when topped with crunchy nuts.

Raspberry Orange is another great combination of flavors. Just the right amount of orange zest heightens the crunchy freeze-dried raspberries scattered on the bar’s surface, a lovely visual.

Locally grown Minnesota hazelnuts adorn another offering. The nut’s rich, buttery presence adds a delicious dimension to the Costa Rican beans.

Locally grown and toasted Black Walnuts generously dot the surface of the fourth bar I tasted. This time, the nuts impart a crunchy-creaminess. While that may sound like an oxymoron, it conveys my experience and speaks to the almost indescribable way thee nuts enhance the chocolate.

The pure, 70% plain bar allows you to fully enjoy the perfectly tempered crisp break of the chocolate, its captivating cocoa fragrance, balanced flavor profile, and velvety texture.

You can find the bars and fetching photos of the farm here: https://www.squashblossomfarm.org.

If you live within a day’s drive you may want to visit in the warmer months when they host concerts, plays and festivals.

Singing Rooster 78% Peppermint Crunch

I love the combination of dark chocolate and peppermint, but many holiday bars tend to be quite sweet. Not so for Singing Rooster’s Peppermint Crunch, 78%. (You can read about their company here: https://chocolateratings.wordpress.com/2020/12/06/singing-rooster-2-0/)

This intense, attractive bar is adorned with crunchy little shards of peppermint stick candy. It really hits the spot if you seek an adult version of that classic holiday combination.

Right now, you can buy four bars for $20.40, including shipping at singingrooster.org.

These make a lovely treat for yourself or a great gift for anyone looking to lower their sugar intake while still enjoying minty dark chocolate.

Chocolate Tree

In 2005, Alastair and Friederika Gower created an outstanding chocolate company in Scotland. Their wares have won numerous awards and I can see why.

Though I only sampled two of their bars, both were memorable, beautifully packaged, and lovely to behold, as they showed up with a variety of bas relief designs.

It always makes me happy to learn when a company treats their famers well, and the Gowers pay a high price for their beans. Most of the cacao they use is from South and Central America.

Venezuela Chuao 70% Limited Edition is made with beans grown in a completely out of the way area, only accessible by small fishing boats called “peсeros.” Chuao beans from Venezuela are renowned as some of the world’s best. 

Notes of dark cherries, plums and blackberries in an uber fudgy consistency create a rich, decadent bar that is supremely satisfying.

Piurra Chililique 70% is made with beans that come from a remote mountain valley in northern Peru. They yield another fudgy bar that reminded me of Criollo beans, but with more complexity. This bar delivered a super saturated solution of chocolate with chestnut undertones and a lingering caramel finish. It’s no wonder it won a gold medal from the British Chocolate Awards. 

Both bars are delicious and wonderful choices for the chocolate novice or aficionado. They are only two among a truly astounding abundance of choices. Check out their website to see them all: www.choctree.co.uk

Blissfully Better Chocolate

Blissfully Better’s unique organic confections are made with coconut sugar. This high nutrient and low glycemic sweetener, from the blooms of coconut trees, offers the clean sweetness of sugar with a slow release of energy and 16 amino acids. 

I never would have known I wasn’t eating cane sugar unless I had read the label. 

Sampling five of their offerings I was struck by the quality, freshness, depth of flavor and wonderful textures. If I had tried these in a blind tasting I would have thought they were from a very high end boutique chocolatier.

Each good sized piece was enrobed in the perfect amount of 72% dark organic chocolate, while the interiors were all quite different from each other, just as they would be in a fabulous box of bonbons.

Each is sold in a separate box of four pieces. 

The name is a little misleading as they are called Thins, but are actually on the thicker side. This just makes them that much more satisfying. Each piece was a little dessert unto itself.

Crunchy Quinoa Toffee Thins had a slightly burnt caramel flavor. Enough to give the candy a little edge. The texture was deliciously crispy.

Toffee Thins with Almonds were even crunchier and didn’t have that edge. Their texture was a bit more friable and, like everything I sampled, super satiating.

Sea Salt Caramel Thins reminded me of an old favorite dark chocolate caramel I used to crave from a famous California chocolate shop. These, of course, have a much lower glycemic index, are thicker, and incredibly delicious.The texture is perfect, neither too chewy nor too soft.

Vegan Toasted Coconut Thins have a wonderfully chewy texture enhanced by shredded coconut. While the texture is marvelous, the flavor is balanced between coconut, sweetness and dark chocolate.

Vegan Mint Thins house a truffle filling of dark mint chocolate. The picture on the box is a little misleading as it looks like a toffee center, the filling was clearly more of a firm, dark chocolate ganache with mint.

You can find these, and other Blissfully Better confections, on their website: http://www.blissfully better.com or on Amazon.