PURE Chocolate Truffles

Tags

Calvados-dark chocolate truffle, champagne, champagne truffles with marc de champagne, Chocolate Truffles, Christmas reviews, coconut milk caramel, dark chocolate, Festive Photo Competition, gin truffle, Kim Bang-Sorensen, milk chocolate-raspberry truffle, New Year's Eve, New Year's Eve celebrations, photography, prize hamper, PURE Chocolate Truffles, reviews, Rosemary and Pork Belly, rum-raisin marzipan, sea salt caramel truffle, Singapore Sling truffle, the Twelve Days of Christmas, the Twelve Gifts of Christmas

I know, you all thought that I would surely choose the bottle of Bluebell Vineyard’s sparkling wine from my prize hamper to be the New Year’s Eve instalment of the “Twelve Gifts of Christmas.” I mean, this is the night for toasting with champagne and all that. But I don’t like champagne, or any fizzy drink (which is very ironic, when I consider that my first blog post involved Champagne mousse), and I wanted to try the product that I would enjoy most on New Year’s Eve.

So, naturally, I went for the box of Pure Chocolate Truffles.

The box contained a dozen mixed truffles, in six flavours, so two of each. The family gathered round, as I got out a thin, sharp knife and painstakingly divided up each nugget of chocolate into small pieces for us to sample.

And guess what? One of the flavours was champagne, so we got in our New Year’s Eve bubbles after all. It was combined with a very creamy milk chocolate ganache and a powdery coating of confectioners’ sugar. And in spite of what I just said about champagne, I actually enjoyed it in truffle form quite a bit!

Then there was the milk-chocolate raspberry truffle with framboise, which was absolutely delicious. Although I only got a corner of it to taste . . . this one was my brother’s favourite–aren’t I nice to give away my prize truffles!

The dark chocolate-apple was a bit disappointing, for I really couldn’t pick up on much of a fruit flavour. I think the dark chocolate was too strong for it, perhaps milk would have worked better. I also, despite tradition, do not like truffles rolled in cocoa powder, because it leaves such a bitter taste on your tongue.

We recovered, however, with the Singapore Sling truffle: a scrumptious concoction of velvety dark chocolate ganache flavoured with gin, amaretto, and cherry, encased in a sleek milk chocolate shell. I split the first one up with the rest of the family, but kept the second one all for myself. Definitely my personal favourite of the lot.

There was also a rather clever sea salt-coconut milk caramel in dark chocolate. If you are caught up in the salted caramel craze, this is a take on it that you should not miss.

Finally, there was the rum-raisin marzipan in dark chocolate. Kim Bang-Sorensen, the owner of PURE Chocolate, first got started recreating the chocolate-covered marzipan of his native Denmark, so this, I suppose, is sort of a signature item of his. Unfortunately, I had just made my own homemade marzipan a few days before, so am spoilt for choice! But I thought his was a clever combination all the same.

If you would like to learn more about Bang-Sorensen’s story, you can read the feature on him over at Rosemary and Pork Belly’s blog, or visit the company website here.