Chocri: Gigi's Sour Cherry Spice Bar

Today is a sad day for me on many levels...

First, as you read this, I am either on a plane heading home from New York City, or at an airport trying to get home from New York. (I hate leaving the city -- anyone there want to hire me?) And second, this is the last of my Chocri stash. I loved both of the previous bars I created to an insane degree (read those reviews here and here), and while I take credit for the combinations that I put together, it is really all about the truly great chocolate and ingredients Chocri makes the bar with.



As with my other Chocri reviews, I will be rating the bar based on said ingredients rather than the overall flavor of them bar. After all, the ingredients could be great, but since I chose the combination, I couldn't fault Chocri if the mixture I picked doesn't work very well.

Sour Cherry Spice was inspired by my love of all things sour. It contains sour cherries and orange pepper, and is made with dark chocolate.



The sour cherries are great! Large, plump and tart. They're just a little salty and that is always a good thing.

The orange pepper is pretty mild. While I could taste both the citrus and the pepper, neither was assertive enough to stand up and say "Hey, I am just as lovable as the Persian Bar!"



Props again to Crocri for the dark chocolate. It's 64%, and has a great snap and a smooth melt. There's a very coffeelike finish. It's good enough that I would be happy to eat it naked...wait, that came out wrong. I meant plain.



Overall I loved the chocolate, loved the cherries. The orange pepper wasn't bad, but it didn't blow me away the way some of the other ingredients have.

I love the whole concept of Chocri, and being able to make a bar with exactly what I want in it is a lot of fun for me. I have literally thought up dozens of bars since I came up with the three I have reviewed. Maybe if I am lucky, I will get some for Valentines day!



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Chocri Custom Bar: Gigi's Persian Bar

It was with great excitement last month that I reviewed the first of the three custom Chocri bars that I got to create (see Gigi's Dream Lemon Bar). Chocri has been creating custom chocolate bars in Europe for years, and is now offering them in the United States.

I've said it before, but I love the idea of creating a bar that has exactly what I want in it. Visit CreateMyChocolate.com to see for yourself.



This bar was inspired by my love of Persian ice cream. Persian ice cream, if you have never had it -- and if not, you should -- is typically a base that is flavored with rosewater and saffron. (A few places where I have eaten it were either cutting costs or catering to unadventurous American customers, and they used vanilla ice cream as the base and added the rose and saffron on top of that.) There are almost always pistachios added. I have also had versions that include ginger and/or pomegranate sauce. I am not sure which of those were the most authentic version (if any) but I liked them in any event.

With this bar I used a milk chocolate base. In retrospect I probably should have used white chocolate -- and Chocri does offer white chocolate as an option. But as we all know, I pretty much hate white chocolate, so I went with milk. Also in the bar are candied rose petals, cinnamon, pistachios and candied ginger.

Just as with the last bar, I am going to rate this one based on the individual ingredients rather than the overall taste of the bar. After all, each ingredient could be great on its own, but it could be my combination that doesn't do the bar justice -- and it would be unfair to ding Chocri for my own poor choices. And if it does taste good together, well...that just makes me awesome. I guess (and modest).



The chocolate: Crocri has a really, really good milk chocolate. It's extra creamy, and you can really taste the dairy. Super smooth, fast melt.

The ginger: Soft and very sweet. If you're not into super-hot ginger, this is perfect for you. If you are into super-hot ginger...errrrm...well, maybe just eat a lot of it. It does taste good.

The pistachios: The bar uses whole pistachios! Not halves, not little pieces, but whole entire nuts. And they are crunchy and salty and delicious!

The rose petals: Super crunchy from the sugaring. The texture is nice. I didn't really notice a strong rose flavor, but they are pretty (they are a really vivid pink) and the sugar was good.

The cinnamon: Large dark sprinkles lay just on top of the chocolate. It adds a tiny bit of extra warmth and spices up the chocolate.



Once again, my compliments to the folks at Chocri for having a perfect sense of proportion. Everything was pretty equally balanced perfectly. And all of the ingredients were fantastic. (OK so the rose petals didn't really taste like rose -- but they did look good, and they were covered in sugar.) I liked the milk chocolate so much I could happily eat it plain.



While I am not rating based on the overall flavor, I have to say it was a pretty good combo. The sweetness of the milk chocolate keeps the ginger hot, but also keeps it from tasting soapy. The rose petals add color and some extra sweetness. The whole pistachios bring salt and crunch to the bar.

As much as I liked my Dream Lemon Bar, I liked this bar even more. If you would like to try it the way I put it together, it's easy: Just go to Chocri's web site and use the reorder option when making selections for your custom bar, and use this code: f9yz1e



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Chocri Custom Bar: "Gigi's Dream Lemon Bar"

It's the day after Christmas, and we all know what that feels like. All the buildup, all the excitement (all the stress!) is over for another year. And we are now left wondering just how good we have to be to make the "Nice" list next year. (I don't think I will make it there in this lifetime.) There has to be something to brighten up the day...

And there is! How about a custom made candy bar?!

About a month ago, I got an email from the German chocolate makers, Chocri. Chocri has been creating custom bars in Europe for a while, and is now expanding into the United States market. (The official U.S. launch date is January 5th, 2010.) And they offered me the opportunity to create my own bars, with my choice of ingredients. BOOOOYAH! Was I psyched? You better believe it!

For the base chocolate you can choose between milk, dark, or white. Then you can add up to five additional items -- and there are over 80 toppings to choose from! I kid you not when I say I spent over an hour designing my bars. And you even get to name your bar if you want to.



I am going to rate this a little differently than I normally would. Because I selected the flavors that went into the bar, I can't really base the rating on the final taste (for good or for bad) of the bar as a whole. After all, the individual ingredients could be great on their own -- but what if I chose a combination that turned out not to work very well? I certainly couldn't ding Chocri for my own poor decision. Therefore, I am going to base the rating, as much as possible, upon the individual ingredients by themselves.



I named this bar Gigi's Dream Lemon Bar. And I included ingredients I have always wanted to have combined in one chocolate lemon bar. Those ingredients were:

* Dark chocolate
* Lemon Chocolate Drops
* Multicolored Pepper
* Organic Cane Sugar
* Real Gold Flakes

Now how could that possibly go wrong? It couldn't, and it didn't!



The dark chocolate is a 64% cacao. It has a fantastic snap and is super smooth. It's got a nice coffee flavor.

The lemon chocolate drops are made of white chocolate, flavored with lemon. Yes, we all know how I feel about white chocolate -- but in this case, the lemon taste is really zesty and just makes for a rich citrus burst of flavor.

The multicolored pepper consists of small whole peppercorns (green, black, red). I really like peppercorns mixed with the lemon. They add just a little heat, but they don't overwhelm the bar.

The organic cane sugar: Very good. None of that all-too-common HFCS nonsense; this is real, old school sugar. You can taste the difference. And the grains of sugar on the top of the bar look pretty nice.

The gold flakes -- well, I just think they're cool, and I wanted this bar to look spiffy. Silly perhaps, but hey, it's my bar! And yes, it is perfectly safe to ingest gold in small amounts. (Surely you've seen at least one of the several popular liqueurs with gold flakes floating in them.)



All of the ingredients on their own were of excellent quality. The quantities were generous, but not one of the flavors overpowered the others. It was obvious to me that the good folks in Germany who actually combine the ingredients you choose have an excellent sense of proportion.

If I do say so myself, I designed a pretty good bar! The pepper adds spice, the cane sugar keeps the dark chocolate and the pepper from being too bitter...but at the same time there is not enough sugar that it gets too sweet. (Again, they nailed the proportions perfectly!) And the lemon drops add a fun, bright flavor to the bar. So yeah, it really did turn out to be my dream lemon bar. (OK, I would have liked some candied lemon zest...but Chocri said that they are still in the process of adding that to the options.)

When you receive your chocolates, you'll notice that the packaging is very simple, very Spartan in appearance (see the first picture). It does what it has to do, namely protect the chocolate it contains, and that's it. It looks nothing like the fancy, artistic packaging that high-end chocolates often come in...but do not be deceived by appearances! After all, even diamonds come out of hard lumps of rock and coal...and believe me, these basic, functional boxes contain some true diamonds of the chocolate world.

Remember the U.S. site: CreateMyChocolate.com launches on Jan 5th, 2010. Once it's up, you can create your own bar. And if you like your custom bar so much that you want to reorder the same one later on, just keep the code that will be printed on the label -- that way, you don't need to remember all the specific ingredients you chose. (If you want to try a bar exactly like I made it, you can use the Reorder option -- which is shown directly below the choices of base chocolate -- and use code: ijoaq7)

Y'know what? Chocolate really doesn't come any more fun than this!


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