We were very excited to discover a new chocolate maker for us in New Zealand: Wonderland Chocolate. Wonderland Chocolate is based in Lyall Bay, Wellington. They create bean to bar plant based milk chocolate goodies. They use Uncommon Cacao, transperant trade beans for their chocolate. The bars we bought are milk chocolate made with cashew milk. We loved the packaging artwork. ROCKET MAN ROY SMOOTH CASHEW MILK CHOCOLATE 50% cocoa solids from the Dominican Republic. The chocolate is very smooth and melty. It has a nice strong chocolate flavour for a milk chocolate. There is a mild nut flavour to it and some wood and vanilla notes. It has a nice sweetness that is not overly done. This is one of the nicest plant based milk chocolate we have tasted and is definitely going onto our 'Favourites' page. STAN THE STRONGMAN STRAWBERRY & CHAMPAGNE The same cashew milk chocolate with 49% cacao. The cocoa beans have been soaked in Champagne and the chocolate bar has a scattering of dried strawberries. The champagne and strawberries weren't distinct flavors, but together they added tang and berry fruit flavor notes to the wood, musk, vanilla notes of the chocolate. RONNIE & RITA HAZELNUT PLUM The cashew milk chocolate this time is 44% with hazelnuts and a scattering of dried Black Doris Plum. That same yummy wood, musk, vanilla chocolate notes, combined with some definite hazelnut flavours with a hint of plum. This was a dessert like combo for us. We really liked this cashew milk chocolate. Can't wait to try more from Wonderland Chocolate.
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There was a clearance on some fairtrade chocolate at our local Countdown. We had never tried the Dark Passionfruit before, so we grabbed it. 55% Organic Fairtrade chocolate. Cacao from Dominican Republic, Peru and Paraguay. Ingredients also includes 4% freeze dried passionfruit.
The freeze dried passionfruit is nice and tangy and goes well with dark chocolate flavours. The dark chocolate flavours are there, but hard to pick out different flavour notes through the passionfruit. The passionfruit was too strong for Johanan, but Joni liked it. Another bar we picked up from Capers Cafe in Rotorua, was Ocho Peppermint Crunch. This was just a limited release. Made with 49% single origin cacao from the Pacific Islands, it also includes bits of hard peppermint candy. The peppermint bits are really crunchy. We sucked on this chocolate rather than chew it. The chocolate was slightly fruity in flavour. It was great we could taste both the chocolate and the peppermint and that the peppermint didn't overpower the chocolate. We think Ocho did a great job of balancing the flavours here.
We always enjoy Ocho creations. They offer flavours just a bit different from the norm. This is another find from the Rotorua Capers Cafe. Bennetto Natural foods Company, Pistachios in 60% dark chocolate. The cacao is from Samoa. The other ingredients include: 15% Pistachios, sea salt, vanilla beans and cane sugar. This bar is vegan and fairtrade. The chocolate was smooth and melty. You could taste the pistachios and a pinch of salt. There was flavours of vanilla and wood with a hint of pepper. Everything seemed nice and complimentary. We liked it.
This was a little bar we picked up from Capers Cafe in Rotorua. Bennetts of Mangawhai 73% single origin from Papua New Guinea. This is mild to medium strength and quite sweet. It is has vanilla notes and a homemade chocolate biscuit taste. It also resembled chocolate sauce. We saw in the ingredients afterwards that it does include natural vanilla flavour. Johanan gobbled it up pretty fast.
A new offering from Wellington Chocolate Factory is a Blueberry Milk Chocolate. The blurb describes it as:
"Handfuls of delicious freeze dried blueberrie are blended with our creamy, organic milk chocolate, leaving you with the lingering taste of blueberries, the taste of summer". The ingredients says there is 2% of dried blueberry and some natural flavour. The cocoa solids is at 48%. We couldn't see any blueberries but we could taste them. The blueberry is mild, so you can still taste the milk chocolate. We found it quite well balanced in flavour as we imagined if the blueberry was any stronger with the milk chocolate, it might start to taste a bit bubblegummy. Blueberries tends to be not our berry of choice. If there a range of muffins to try, blueberry muffins will be our last choice. We wouldn't buy this again, but if you like blueberries, you may like this. We think it would need more blueberries to go with a dark chocolate. This was a recent purchase from Capers Cafe in Rotorua. It looked so pretty we had to grab it.
It has caramilised macadamias, and bits of crystilised ginger in 55% dark chocolate. We really enjoyed the sweet, slightly crunchy of the caramilised outer of the macadamias. Johanan is not a fan of ginger, but Joni is, and enjoyed the big chunks of it. It reminded us of home baking, cocoa and ginger. Some new choccie snacks have caught our eyes at the supermarket, so it is our duty to try them of course! SNICKERS PEANUT BROWNIE The chocolate brownie part does taste like cake. It is very sweet. Not many nuts. It was nice. Johanan prefers this over the original. Joni prefers the original. PASCALL JELLY GEMS - TWO TO TANGO AND BANGIN' BERRIES The Two to Tango are a little jaffa, orangey in flavour. The Bangin' Berries are a raspberry flavour. Johanan preferred the berry, while Joni preferred the tango. They are fine but we probably wouldn't buy them again. M&Ms COCONUT These are inspired by one of Joni's favourite novelty bars, Bounty. They do have a coconut and chocolate flavour though they don't beat a Bounty. They were really nice though. If they were mixed with some plain M&M's Joni would buy that packet over the originals. As it is, we will just have to buy a packet of each and mix them for an ultimate M&M munchdown.
We have done this twice now. We order something we haven't tried from Wellington Chocolate Factory, and then a week later they release something new. This time they released 3 new bars, so we had to order again. SAGE AND BUTTER Ingredients include browned butter, (milk) and fresh sage and 71% Vanuatu cocoa nibs. The fragrance is plummy. The texture is nice and smooth and the taste is creamy and buttery. There is a slight astrigency and there is also some jasmine and plum notes. The sage comes through with bigger bites and leaves a freshness in the mouth. There is also a slight saltiness. This was nice. We really liked the herby floral notes to this. SPICY DORIS Ingredients include freeze dried black doris plum, Aleppo chillies, lime oil and 70% Vanuatu cocoa nibs. This had lots of fruity candy type notes. There was citrus, banana, plum and cherry along with a chilli hit. It reminded us of Cherry cola or Berry ripple icecream with a chilli hit. Everything was nicely balance and well as flavoursome and we really liked it. 85% VANUATU SINGLE ORIGIN We have tried the 70% Vanuatu version before and found it strong. This is an even stronger tasting dark chocolate. We discovered more flavour notes with this 85% batch. We got banana and pepper and a hint of caramel. We are calling it 'The very strong banoffee chocolate'.
FINAL THOUGHTS This was an exciting tasting. Bursting with lots of flavours but all with the Vanuatu base. We enjoyed it a lot. Whittakers released their new chocolate bar today. Honey Nougat and Almond with Creamy Milk chocolate. This will be a permanent line in their selection. The description says, "We've paired crunchy roasted almond pieces with the delicate taste of clover honey nougat crisps in our super smooth, 33% cocoa, 5 roll refined Creamy Milk Chocolate." We agree with descriptions, 'delicate taste of honey'. The first flavours you get is the almond along with creamy milk chocolate. A sweetness becomes more of a honey flavour the more you eat, and honey flavour is what lingers on the tongue afterwards.
The texture is nice with the smooth chocolate and small crunchy bits. If you like the Whittakers Almond Chocolate, we think you will like this too. |
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