Happy Birthday from Chocion

In two weekends it will be your Chocolate Priestess's (that's me) birthday so today we're going to look at a new in 2015 product from Chocion where you can have a message and a design printed on the top of their 38% cacao content square chocolate bars. They call these their Motif Panels Bars in English. These reminded me a bit of a company we looked at a few years ago in that the edible printing is done on a sugar fondant layer on the top; those weren't very good but in general I really like Chocion's pure chocolate so let's see how good these are.

The company sent me two motifs -- Happy Birthday and Gute Reise (think of this as Bon Voyage) which you can see in this post. They should have the same type of chocolate (38% milk chocolate) and the same type of base that the design was printed on so I tested one and shared the other to get some varied opinions. In American terms, each 85g bar has approximately 486 calories (or 2443kJ per 100g); the bars list both kJ and kcal as well as information about several important nutritional facts you might want to know. I think of chocolate as something to enjoy for a Purpose and in Moderation so don't worry about it too much, just enjoy it. I love the boxes these came in -- very easy to tear the edge along the back, unfolding it, over the plastic sleeve, slip it out, and then slip it back in and fold up the box; add a piece of tape and you can save some for tomorrow or a few days without a problem.

This has a strong buttery, creamy cocoa fragrance t it and I like the pattern of squares of chocolate around the printed center; the square sections are a surprise that you only see once you open it up. Breaking it apart is a bit difficult I get it down with a "pop" sound and then I see that the central design is on a very thin (1cm or less) layer that is adhered to with white chocolate so I can break it up and taste all the components. The white layer is fondant it tastes like -- sweet but not overwhelming. The white chocolate is creamy and buttery. Taking a bite of just the milk chocolate, my mouth is flooded with creamy, buttery chocolate where the cocoa builds up and melts in my mouth leaving me with a sweet chocolatey flavor that I really like a lot. Taking a bite with the fondant and white chocolate does sweeten it but not in an overwhelming way, the fondant does make it a touch chewy but that's interesting. If you let a piece of just the milk chocolate melt on your tongue you can increase the chocolate essence and decrease the sweetness and creaminess (if you don't like that for some reason).

I would be thrilled to get one of these bars for a special occasion or to hand them out at a wedding or a special event. High quality and lovely to look at, I think these have earned Sacrament Status. There are at least several Motif Panels Bars designs you can get, the company may add or remove others, they might be willing to work with you if you had a large order. It couldn't hurt to ask them, right?