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    Home » Recipe » Dessert

    Boston Luxury Chocolate Salon Tasting

    Published: Jul 30, 2010 · Modified: Oct 22, 2014 by Jennifer Che

    WilliamDeanChocolates
    Trying to avoid refined sugars? Ha! Forget it!

    I had the pleasure of being one of the judges for the 1st Annual Boston Luxury Chocolate Salon. Judges were sent a huge package filled with various artisanal chocolates from chocolatiers all around the US. We then judged on various aspects such as best flavor, most luxurious, most delicious ingredient combinations, and so on.

    I was amazed at the level of artistry that went into some of these chocolates, such as the beautiful gems you see pictured above by William Dean Chocolate.

    I know you can't lick the screen, but I can at least give you a visual tour, and maybe a few descriptions of what we thought of these chocolates. 🙂
    William Dean Chocolate
    From left to right:PB&J chocolate, crème brule custard, fig, orange, and cheesecake

    These were my favorite in terms of artistry, WOW factor, and all around presentation. Each chocolate truffle looked hand painted. The box itself was sturdy, shiny, and resembled an expensive jewelry box. Indeed, they were filled with edible jewels inside! Truly beautiful works of art.
    _1040161
    I also loved their fancied PB&J bar, which was made with high quality peanut butter and dark chocolate.
    _1040151
    Marti Chocolatt
    I think these were overall my favorite chocolates. They weren't quite as dramatically beautiful as the William Dean chocolates, but they had more refined, sophisticated flavors (and they are still beautiful!). We had rose tea with raspberry in dark chocolate, purple yam in white chocolate, and a chevre (goat cheese) chocolate. I actually didn't like the chevre one (it tasted a bit stinky to me), but I loved the rose tea with raspberry and really enjoyed the purple yam in white chocolate as well.

    _1040171
    Dean's Sweets
    The chocolates from Dean's Sweets have interesting unique flavors that work really well. We tried lemon apricot chevre (very nice!), coffee, and Maine sea salt caramel.
    _1040164

    Dolce Bella
    I like Dolce Bella's philosophy of trying to preserve the "just-picked" fruit flavor. They pick their ingredients fresh off the plant and process them into chocolate within an hour of harvest. I have to say that the just-picked flavors were really nice and bright. We tried "just picked raspberry," "just picked chocolate mint," and "peppered rosemary orange" (which I actually did not like). I loved how the mint actually tasted like fresh mint leaves, not just mint oil.
    _1040152
    Dolce Bella's Almond Toffee
    This tasted like regular toffee -nothing particularly special, though solid.
    _1040156
    The Chocolate Truffle
    This company makes more "normal" traditional chocolates, such as chocolate covered pretzels, chocolate covered cookies, and PB&J bars reminiscent of the sandwiches you ate growing up. I thought the chocolates tasted fine, although they seemed a bit less refined than some of the other artisanal chocolates we had tried. This is comfort chocolate at its finest.
    _1040170
    Similarly, The Chocolate Truffle's Cranberry Caramel Turtles were reasonably good, but nothing made them stand out above the rest.
    _1040159
    These truffles from The Chocolate Truffle were HUGE and we were already getting a little tired of chocolate! In general, we thought these truffles were too big and too sweet.
    Aphrodite Chocolate

    Aphrodite Chocolates

    We then tried some creative flavors from Aphrodite: matcha green tea (pretty good but a bit too sweet), Scotland cream (love the shot of alcohol inside!), cherry croquant (really enjoyed how the outside is crunchy, though it was a bit too sour), and cappuccino (nice flavors, but a bit too sweet).
    _1040172
    Amano makes various hand-crafted chocolate bars with different, unique origins. Here, we have chocolate from Venezuela (smoky, toasted, almost woodsy), Madagascar (fruiter, creamy, less interesting), and Chuao (fruity).
    Quinoa Basr
    Dark Chocolate Quinoa
    The only Eco bar in my batch, this quinoa bar was "interesting." Here are some quotes from my fellow tasters.

    “I like Nestles Crunch Better.”
    “The chocolate is pretty good.”
    “The rice is lacking . . .needs more crunch.”
    “Kind of soggy.”

    So there you have it. It was probably the most chocolate I have ever consumed in two sittings (we tried but we really really couldn't bring ourselves to finish it in one sitting!!).

    Final awards will be announced in August! Stay tuned.

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    Jennifer Che Tiny Urban Kitchen
    Jennifer Che Tiny Urban Kitchen

    Hi, my name's Jen and welcome to my cooking, eating, and travel site! I am an expat who moved from Boston to Hong Kong 5 years ago. Born and raised in Ohio to Taiwanese immigrant parents, I am a chemistry nerd, patent attorney by day, blogger by night, church musician on weekends, and food enthusiast always. Feel free to explore away, maybe starting with the Recipe Index or one of the travel pages! I hope you enjoy this site!

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