MORE Lindt!

I need to finish updating about Lindts, from before the trip to MA. There's only two more!

So, Lindt. Cresta Classic. Basically... milk chocolate with a hint of crunchy caramel [I think?]. Pretty normal.

Annnnnddd...

The Lindt Milchnuss Lait-Noisettes, which, for some reason, had a large indent. Again. Why do the blue ones have large indents? I like the intricate lines on it, I suppose.

It was... nutty? This is such a bland post; I apologise for my lack of review for each piece of chocolate. I suppose it is because these two were quite bland in the sense that they were trite flavours/textures.

More Lindt.

1. I like white chocolate. There's no cocoa in it, but I still like it, as a candy. It's sweet and creamy, even though I don't like either of those in milk chocolate, because milk chocolate just seems to be... vacillating between real chocolate [dark chocolate] and milk candy [white chocolate].
The Cresta was really smooth, which I like, and the centre had a special nutty filling, which was more gooey than the hard outer shell. I just ate a piece that had been in the freezer [I like chocolate from the freezer. It snaps nicely.], and yes, you can tell there is filling.
Note the shape.
NOTE THE SHAPE OF THE CHOCOLATE BELOW!
The one chocolate from the pile that was smooshed. I supposed it didn't fit in the mould correctly, or it didn't harden by the time it reached the packaging deptarment... or something.
Salvador Dali chocolate... anyone?
The funnest one to eat. Seriously. I enjoyed the change in shape. Anyway, the proper one is below:
This is a "correctly" shaped Lindt/Lindor.
It was really smooth, and appeared to be uniform and felt, to me, just like a typical milk chocolate chunk. However, I later ate one that had been sitting in 30 degrees C temperature, and the outer shell was pliable and I didn't even have to bite it, for it to disintegrate into pieces in my mouth. This time, I could tell there was a middle layer, that tasted kinda caramelly, but that totally could've been imagined.
Super milk!
Note the shape. This one has a DEEPER INDENT. WHY?! It was super smooth... why ruin it by REMOVING a slice of it!? It tasted just like the Lindor, except that it was creamier. Though, when I consumed both frozen, they tasted the same, both taste and texture-wise [sans the dent aspect, though].

These actually look appealing too. They're better than the misshapen truffles.

Lindor Fail Update!

Yesterday, I blogged about how Choco Amore manages to make spherical chocolate truffles, and is a relatively unknown company. Yet, Lindor, on the other hand, is a freakin' 5th Ave multi-million zillion $$ company, which produces truffles with dimples.

I was browsing through my Food folder and I noticed that in March I had eaten another Lindor truffle [we get random chocolate once in a while], and this time, not only was there a dimple, but there was also a... tumour!
You'd think that a company so profoundly famous and with such "good standing" and such "rich history" would've figured out how to make spherical truffles by now.

MP's Chocolate!

So, during dessert [after which we ate pizza. Don't ask.] at MP's grad party, I tried three chocolates, from this rather dandy tin box of chocolates. It was a Polish brand. There were five flavours in total, but I tried the chili, coconut, and brandy flavoured ones since they seemed to be the most "exotic".
The chili one was a huge disappointment. Actually, the label just says "HOT CHOCOLATE", which implies that it is either a high-temperature-chocolate-drink flavoured, or a spicy flavoured chocolate [with the chili pepper, right there!]. It was neither, unless you count the fact that it was probably 35 degrees C. In this case [or should I say, in this tin], the whole box of chocolates were hot chocolate. Meaning that the brandy was hot brandy, and the coconut was steamin'.
In short, the "Hot Chocolate" flavour tasted like a dark chocolate truffle and did not taste even a bit peppery or chili-ful or spicy or zingy. Rather huge disappointment, as I wanted to measure my home-made chili chocolate cake [from a few years ago] with something that's actually in industry.
The "White Chocolate and Coconut" flavoured chocolate was really textured, though. No, really, I honestly. Fell. In love. With. It. The taste of coconut was very prevalent, which made up for the failure of the "Hot Chocolate" flavour earlier. There are some brands of chocolate in which the coconut is basically jam-packed in sugar, like the interior of an Almond Joy. This one, however, was literally "jam"-packed, in the sense that it was NOT a saturated dessicated coconut mass. Instead, there was some sort of coconut "jam" or goo, which worked well with the harder outer shell. The white chocolate was extremely smoooooth, not sickeningly sweet, and paved the way for this gelatinous center.

So, I've never had brandy before. I don't drink. This flavour tasted like a normal truffle, except that there was this hint of something weird. I suppose the weird thing was the brandy. Because I couldn't detect brandy [as I don't know what it tastes/smells like], everyone decided to sniff it. It was actually quite amusing [Okay, not just amusing. I was literally choking with laughter] watching people sniff the brandy truffle.
The bright side is that none of the chocolates that I ate had dimples due to the plastic or metal moulds at the factory. Thus, I can conclude that they are better than the Lindor Truffles, with respect to their appearances. Actually, the Lindor truffles were definitely inferior to these, tastewise, too. Plus, no condensation, even though this is July, whereas Lindor's sweaty exterior was prevalent in January.
Looks like ganache. Smooth move, Choco Amore doods. [MP gave me some Polish chocolate for my birthday last year. It was really smooth too, which was a pretty huge feat considering it was a fruit and nut bar.]

Lindor Truffles.

I despise the "grown-up" notion that a famous brand name equates quality. I'm sorry, but that is simply false! Just because the name Lindor is on the label does not mean that the truffles that the produce are somehow "superior" than some local chocolate bar.

I'm not bashing Lindor; the chocolate truffles are pretty yummy. They're not as good as some plain dark chocolate bars that one uses for baking. But then again, I have weird tastes.

One of my new year resolutions is to eat 100 different, new, pieces of chocolate/chocolate candies. Here's 1 and 2.
1. Lindor Peanut Butter Truffle.
Aw, the image quality sucks. It was some 500 x 1000 px JPG but I suppose it got compressed. Either way, if you really wanted to see a beautifully-programfully-edited-and-airbrushed picture of a Lindor truffle, all you have to do is go [here].

So. Mind my pun, but the Lindor-Chocolate-Making-Machine fudged (haha. Not.) up the peanut butter truffle. Looks like a golf ball with one dimple. Which thus makes it aerodynamic, but only 1/314th as aerodynamic as a golf ball. Actually, I'm not so sure., because the dimple is kinda big relative to a golf ball dimple. Look's kinda pasty and sweaty, too. Here's a lovely close up:


I did not spray it with cologne.
Taste-wise... The official Lindor website states that it has "...exclusively prepared Lindor Truffles in Peanut Butter for the American taste palate. Delicately pairing the flavors of decadent peanut butter and fine chocolate into a smooth-melting experience, Lindt's Master Chocolatiers have created a recipe to satisfy the cravings of the American chocolate connoisseur".
I LOVE peanut butter. If I could, I would eat jars of that stuff every single day. On bread. On fruit. On chocolate. Even in rice! This truffle should've been the "decadent" thing I asked for. But then again, I'm not American, and perhaps I don't fit this "American palate" of which Lindor speaks. In all honesty, the truffle wasn't that great. The ratio of chocolate to peanut butter was quite unappealing in the sense that the peanut butter taste wasn't that IN YOUR FACE. I am not willing to shell out $2.50 (I think that's how much one truffle cost at the Lindt/Lindor store on 5th ave in NYC?) for a piece of chocolate that. In all honesty. Is average.
Plus, Lindor does nothing for the environment except screw it up.

Organic peanut butter [~$4 for a 400ish gram jar] + organic dark chocolate [~$2-3 for a jar] = many more truffles at a more reasonable price for both me and the world.
One day I'm going to get a whole bar of dark chocolate and spread thick, creamy peanut butter over it, filling in all the smooth crevices. Then I'm going to gently press fresh roasted peanuts over each piece, and tenderly make sure that they are all facing the same direction. I will then use a gold-rimmed sieve and sift light, pure cocoa powder over my suicidal creation.
Psh.... So much for the imagery. As a digression [this will be a later post], doesn't that sound so much more romaniticky-finicky-proper than "mix chocolate, pb, cocoa powder and peanuts together and eat it while chillin'?"

2. Lindor "Extra" Dark Chocolate Truffle.
Was pretty good, I suppose. But wasn't as dark as I wanted it to be. But then again, it's a truffle, not a piece of chocolate for baking into sugar-stuffed cookies.