Monday, May 2, 2011

Norman Love Chocolate Assortment

I did a previous post on Norman Love Black chocolates which are amazing. But for this milk chocolate lover, the Norman Love chocolates I am about to show, 
both because of the visual artistry and the taste, were what were really exciting to me. 
The assortment contained some dark chocolate, although very different from the Black chocolates, some white chocolate and some milk chocolate. My favorites, by far, were the fruit flavors, often combined with white chocolate. To me, this is where the taste and artistry hit a grand slam. Fruit taste in chocolate usually seems over-the-top artificial. They are often the worse chocolates in the assortments. These fruit flavors were strong enough to appreciate, but not over-done. They actually tasted like the fruits they were meant to represent. The fruit chocolates, primarily, are the reason I think these are the best chocolates I've ever tasted. The passion fruit chocolate had a white shell with light yellow stripes in the shape of a heart, covering dark chocolate. 
This was one of my least favorite of this assortment because the dark chocolate over-powered the passion fruit taste. I see on the website that this might have been a special Mother's Day chocolate and that they have heart-shaped key lime and heart-shaped mango over white chocolate. Those are two I would really like to try. The egg-shaped tiramisu 
is vanilla mascarpone and expresso ganache in a milk chocolate shell. 
It did taste like tiramisu. Mint chocolate chip 
was in dark chocolate with a vanilla mint filling 
and tiny chocolate chips. Peanut butter banana was in a yellow shell with brown splotches 
and a combination of milk chocolate, banana and peanut butter. 
Cinnamon roll was another visually beautiful chocolate with swirls of different colors. 
It was cinnamon with sugar icing in white chocolate ganache, cast in milk chocolate. Tough to beat that. One of my favorites was the key lime shell 
which was yellow and green white chocolate covering a key lime filling 
which was light, wet and refreshing. Caramel apple had a white chocolate shell 
with a liquidy center of peanut butter ganache and tart apples. 
Strawberry was another one of my favorites, 
a white chocolate shell filled with a very strawberryie filling. 
Love, love, love. The first one I tasted and maybe the best of the whole bunch. Sweet tea was black tea and lemonade in a white chocolate coating. 
One of my least favorite of the assortment.
Vanilla cupcake was cream and vanilla frosting ganache 
mixed with tiny cake pieces and was good, 
but one of my least favorite of the collection. On the other hand, the pumpkin, in a white chocolate shell, 
was visually outstanding and captured the pumpkin taste perfectly. 
I would like to try the white chocolate raspberry which was not part of my assortment. The espresso truffle 
was cream with coffee-infused dark chocolate. Judy really does not like the taste of coffee and this one was too much for her. I like a hint of coffee, but this one was a little strong for me as well. The dark chocolate cream truffle 
was made with Venezuelan chocolate, but only about 2/3rds of the concentration of the blue chocolate from the black chocolate collection. 
On the other hand, the square Venezualan dark 
had a concentration of Venezualan chocolate even greater than the blue chocolate in the black chocolate collection and consequently was one of my least favorite of this assortment. It was dark, dark. The peanut brittle truffle was toffee and roasted peanuts in a milk chocolate truffle. 
I would have liked to try the hazelnut praline truffle in milk chocolate which was not a part of my assortment. I really feel like this is a find. I would love to tour their factory, I would love to try the chocolates they make I haven't tried, I would love to eat more of the chocolates I have tried and I would love to give these chocolates as gifts. 

2 comments:

  1. Love love love a man that can write a big long post about chocolate. These were truly divine.

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  2. You may feel free to give them to me as a gift. :-) I normally do not like my chocolate and my fruit to mix, but I could make an exception!

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