Save Your Sanity Part 2

Let's dive into the lovely truffles from Dallmann Confections that they sent us a while back. Today we'll look at eight of the pieces you see in their Sanity Saver box, the first two top rows of the bonbons. I had help with several of the flavors because I want to be fair and I'm not an expert in all the various types of flavors one can find in truffles and chocolates today. I was sent this free box of chocolates from the brand in exchange for a fair and honest sharing of my experiences with them on this blog; no other form of compensation was received.

Let's look at the first eight pieces in this box Each review will be headed by a photo so this is an image intense post.

Matcha Tea: This was tested by one of our blog's many assistants, our Tea Acolyte, because he knows his teas. It looks like white chocolate on the bottom; it has a white chocolate scent as well. It is very shiny, at least the very pale green dome part is. It is a lighter shade of matcha. It is very soft and makes no sound when I take a bite. There is a white cream inside. I taste white chocolate with a matcha tea flavor to it. It is sweet, though like white chocolate. I would get that this was matcha tea because the tea flavor builds up more and more. I like it alot, I'd eat it again.

Strawberry Balsamic: This was a difficult call for me in terms of who should test it for today's posts. I love strawberries but I can find balsamic to be a bit too intense. Given that it also has white chocolate I ended up giving it to our Fruit Acolyte whom we have not needed to work with in over a year so it was great to see them. It doesn't smell like strawberry, it just smells like cocoa. It is gooey inside. There was a little crunch when I bit into it. It tastes buttery; it tastes like butter. Buttery and like a burnt sugar, like a caramel flavor. The inside is dark but I can't tell if it milk or dark from the flavor; it is orangish brown with a caramel layer on the bottom. Not getting anything fruity at all. If I just taste the caramel-like layer, I get vinegar and sour caramel that grows unpleasant as I have more of it. This does not match the description on the website.

Gianduja: I tested this milk chocolate and hazelnut truffle personally because it is one of my favorite combinations. This dome is a work of art with swirls of earth tones and a high gloss. The bottom is not glossy or swirled but clearly a darker milk chocolate in color. Without the shell, the bottom is where I got the most fragrance and I only smell a darker milk chocolate scent. I could easily just pop the entire piece into my mouth but instead I bite it in half; the shell makes a loud, sharp snap and the inside is soft and creamy. The hazelnut flavor is very light, it build up slightly with each chew to create a sweetest in the chocolate. While this is milk chocolate, I stand by my visual and scent description, to say this piece has a more intense chocolate flavor that I find common to European style milk chocolate but lacking in American milk chocolate. While I love the chocolate flavor and the subtle build up of the hazelnut, I wish the hazelnut was stronger.

Vegan: This is more complicated than just a vegan dark chocolate. This has coconut in it along with dates and peanut butter, so I shared it with our Fruit Acolyte because our Coconut Acolyte is currently taking care of her health. It smells like dark chocolate; the smell is really good. I don't detect any other smells just dark chocolate. It's got a little crunch when I bite into it and the inside is like a paste. A very grainy paste that tastes like unsweetened peanut butter. I guess that's coconut, yeah shreds of coconut in the paste. I'm not getting a date flavor. The peanut butter flavors overwhelms everything else, the coconut is just texture. Not sweet, which is okay. The filling inside is very dry for whatever reason. The coconut was confusing. It basically just tastes like dry peanut butter that even cancels out the chocolate.

60 Dark: There was no way your Chocolate Priestess was letting anyone else test out this truffle! This has a strong cocoa scent to it from all sides and is a darker color on the bottom. The shell over the other five sides has a sort of marbled white and blue design but it is smooth, not textured. The shell only makes a soft crunch when I bite it in half to reveal the soft truffle inside. Fruity flavors immediately hit my tongue and since this is a sixty percent chocolate with no added flavors, those berrylike notes must be a result of the where the beans were grown (I don't know) and how they were processed. If the idea of a chocolate at this level of cacao content intimidates you, be reassured that the fruitiness tones down the bitter though that does build up with each chew. I loved this! 

Jasmine Tea: This was also tested by our Tea Acolyte. This looks like the truffle is being called to play Supersmash Brothers; the top looks like their logo. (Geek!) This has a shiny dome and a milk chocolate bottom. It smells only like milk chocolate. That one crunches when I bit into it. I'm not tasting jasmine tea, or any type of tea, only the dark soft chocolate center. As a chocolate it is very tasty, very smooth. If I went into this thinking I want jasmine tea chocolate, I would have been disappointed. I like it, but it isn't any tea flavor at all.

Lavender: I test this floral flavor truffle because I've had several similar chocolates and feel I could do a good job. This has a lavender fragrance to it, particularly on the bottom where no shell covers it, but also a good cocoa scent. The purple pattern is only on the top side of the shell which also covers four of the other sides. The shell makes a soft crunch when I bite into it and the inside is a bit firmer than the previous pieces that I've tested but still soft. I get a good balance of both the lavendar and the dark chocolate with each chew, neither overpowering the other. At first I thought that the 60 Dark would be my favorite from this group, but now I have to say that I like this one even more.

Coconut Curry: This was also tested by our Fruit Acolyte on behalf of our normal Coconut Acolyte. Oh! I can smell the curry right off. This does not smell like a candy; it smells savory. That's a good thing. It broke apart, not sound, when I bit into it. There is a thin shell with a lot of filling. It is white chocolate flavor, very sweet. The filling is very creamy. Again I'm getting the texture of the coconut but not the coconut flavor. This is a very sweet curry, almost milky. I don't know what I was expecting, but that's curry all the way. I like that, I've never had a sweet curry candy before. Yeah, that's unusual and I like that a lot. It's super rich! I would have to eat it slowly.

Between our three testers, we felt that the first eight-pieces of this 16-piece Sanity Saver chocolate box from Dallmann Confections was . 

You can build your own selection of truffles and bonbons and piece the type of message you want on the box here on Dallmann website. I don't currently see the "Sanity Saver" option for the sleeve but there are other choices.