Chocomize Custom Candy Bar: Currying Flavor

Once again, guys, I am going to indulge my love of creating custom candy concoctions (say that five times fast) by reviewing another bar that the nice folks over at Chocomize let me create.

I love Indian food. This was not always the case. In fact, as I have said in previous reviews, it really took the chef/owner of a sadly now-closed Indian restaurant in northern Georgia to bring me around -- but once he did, I was hooked. (Ken, wherever you may be, I would kill for an Indian crabcake). In addition to loving not only traditional Indian (and Indian fusion) dishes, I also just like the spices and ingredients that go into them.



"Currying Flavor" was inspired by my love of all things Indian. (And I'm hard core here. I even have my own copy of the Bollywood musical version of Fight Club.) As I do with all my custom bars, I am only rating the bar based on the individual ingredients and NOT the overall taste of the bar. Because I put the combination together myself, the ingredients could be top-notch on their own, but maybe never should have been put together -- and if that's the case, the fault is mine and not Chocomize's, so I won't ding them for it.



Anyway, Currying Flavor contains:

A milk chocolate base
Crystallized rose petals
Hot curry powder
Roasted pistachios
Diced mango

I liked the milk chocolate base more in this bar than I did in the first review I tried it with (the "Sugar High" bar). It's still very milky and a little sweeter than I prefer -- but in this case, the sweetness balances the heat and spice from the curry and the mango perfectly, and it just works really well.

The mango chunks are exactly what you'd expect of dried mango. They are generously sized and are a little chewy. The flavor is fresh and it has that nice, light warmth that mango has. The mango pieces are good enough to snack on by themselves!

The pistachios are on the small side, but they whole and very fresh. They were still nice and crunchy, though I would have liked for them to have been salted a bit more. But they were good either way.



The curry powder is liberally sprinkled on the top of the chocolate. There is enough so that you see it and you definitely taste it...but not so much that you feel like it's flocked like a cheap Christmas tree. I like it because it adds just enough curry to wake you up and let you know it's there, but not so much that you wonder what demon ever possessed you to put curry in with chocolate.

The rose petals were a pleasant surprise. Honestly, I was expecting them to simply taste like sugar. And while they certainly do have a sugary edge and crunch to them, you can actually taste the rose! I love that!

All in all, every single one of the ingredients on its own was pretty good. Yes, the milk chocolate is still sweeter than I liked, but when paired with everything else it just worked.

While I will not be rating the bar on the overall taste, I wish I could -- everything just paired up much better than I could have hoped for.

If you would like to try this bar (or create your own), the nice folks over at Chocomize have given my readers a generous 10% off coupon. If you use coupon code "Gigi" at checkout, you get 10% off your order! How can ya say no to that?

This bar was just really, incredibly good!



PURCHASED FROM:
Sample from company

CALORIES:
133 Calories per 1/5th bar.

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Contains nuts. May contain traces of milk, nuts and gluten.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
chocomize.com

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



PURCHASED FROM:
Sample From Company