A Wonderful Gift Box of German Chocolates

Your Chocolate Priestess just had a birthday a few days ago and so I thought I would share an amazing gift box of pralines that I would have been thrilled to get for it.  In Europe the word "praline" has an entirely different meaning than in the USA so let's look at this box from Chocion of pralines made with various types of alcohol.  Chocion gave us permission to rearrange the two boxes of praline they sent us for two different feature articles for you all.  All of these have alcohol so our two Alcohol Acolytes along with another Acolyte helped me test these all. I've combined the opinions below with specific quotations in italics.  Each of us took the time to look at, multiple attempts to test the fragrance, at least two bites one of which we let melt in our mouths, while we wrote out notes.  At the end of each test we discussed our experiences and drank water to cleanse our palates.  We hope you enjoy our experiences. Note: one of our testors is notoriously difficult to please when it comes to alcohol and chocolate both.

A Chiemgauer-Kirsch (Milk Cherry Cream Truffle) has a unique look, doesn't it?  A cup shaped base then this lump on top which is an Amarena cherry and 2% Kirsch (fruit brandy made from cherries).  The truffle is covered in a milk chocolate (38%) with drizzled white chocolate on top. Our testers had a lot of thoughts as they worked with this one: The shape was described in various ways during our testing -- cupcake, distorted, even bunny-like.  We all agreed that the dominant scent before and after biting was a sweet cherry Kirsch scent and not really chocolate.  The chocolate made a soft sound but really it was the squishy sound from the full cherry that made the stronger audible impression on us.  The skin on the cherry, its juiciness, and then the solid chocolate were a series of wonderful textual changes.  However the sweetness of the cheery and the Kirsch completely overpowered the milk chocolate making this great for cherry lovers who really like very sweet cherries. We were very curious as to how a darker chocolate would have been with these cherries.

The Bier Trüffel Praliné (Milk Beer Truffle) is round with a milk chocolate (38%) and white chocolate drizzle shell.  Inside is a beer cream made with 3% beer.  Here's what our test group reported: A light beer scent that was a bit stronger when you took a bite and sniffed the soft center; one tester thought it might be a stout, or some other dark beer.  There was a nice pop or snap when we took a bite but no crunch after that.  The center was a smooth and silky soft milk chocolate and cream.  Oddly while we could taste alcohol, it was more the burn of it than the flavor of any beer, and it blended thoroughly into the milk chocolate increasing the intensity of the cocoa flavor. Three out of four testers would highly recommend this truffle.

A Calvados flüssig (Milk Calvados) is next and it is made with 13% alcohol in the form of Calvados (French apple brandy) that some of you may have heard of before; three of our four testers had heard of it but none had it in the past.  This is a round truffle covered in milk chocolate (38%) with green confectionery cocoa butter lines over it.  Our testers said:  WARNING: the center is liquid and one us almost had an spill before we figured this out. The outer shell has just a milk chocolate scent but the inside which was Calvados, of course, was a wonderful brandy smell.  The alcohol made the milk chocolate a bit soft so it didn't make much of a sound.  The brandy had a definite apple flavor to it and if you were careful you could get the milk chocolate and it together though the chocolate lingered the longest.  Only one of us did not like the combination of apple brandy and milk chocolate; three of us thought it was a nice balance and would strongly recommend it.  We decided this is Chocion truffle you should probably just pop into your mouth to enjoy best instead of eating in individual bites.

The final truffle in this box is the Sahne-Trüffel Erdbear (White Strawberry Cream Truffle) which is a 28% white chocolate shell with a confectionery cocoa butter red drizzle (very eye-catching as one tester put it).  It also has 3% strawberry spirits in it.  Our testers experiences varied a great deal with this one: The scent was not what we expected, it wasn't the normal creamy white chocolate but also not fruit of any type.  It made no sound when we took bites or chewed but three of us noticed that there were tiny strawberry bits in the pinkish creamy center that gave a burst of tartness amongst the creamy strawberry flavor (that two of us likened to Strawberry Hard Candy). Every had a different opinion of the tastes even though we all liked it, just not as much as two others we tried that testing evening.  Two of us thought the creamy chocolate blends into the strawberry well but the others felt the two flavors stayed separate.  White chocolate and strawberry lovers will enjoy this best but even though I'm not a white chocolate fan I did enjoy it myself.

There you go, Sisters and Brothers, four truffles from German chocolatier Chocion.  Have you tried them before?  If you have tried these before please leave us a comment and tell us what you think -- come on German readers, we know you are out there!  Personally, I really liked to loved each of these four flavors so I strongly recommend them.   The quality of ingredients is exceedingly high and so I give them a Sacrament status with a note that individual tastes did greatly vary with these. You can find Chocion truffles under the Praline tag on their website but you don't seem to be able to choose the ones you get... try calling them or emailing them and see if they might accommodate you or, if you are Germany, you can find their shop in München.