Vosges Haut Chocolat: Green Truffle Collection Buddha's Leaf
Buddha's Leaf is: Dark chocolate, cocoa powder, and Malaysian pandan leaves.
First look: This is a dark, dark truffle dusted with cocoa powder and something white that looks a little like itty bitty flakes of coconut. Vosges recommends licking whatever's on top of the truffle so you get an idea of what's to come.
First lick: The texture's like coconut, but the taste is nonexistent. Maybe it's the leaf and the taste got buried under the cocoa powder which I also licked up.
First bite: Forgive me for the all caps, but this is COCOA. The outer shell is perfectly crisp, with a textbook snap when I bit into it, and the ganache in the middle is smooth and creamy and what other dark chocolate ganaches want to be when they grow up. There's a slightly green and herbal undertone to the ganache that might be the leaf, but since I've never had the leaf and don't know what it's supposed to taste like, I could be wrong.
Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I was expecting this one to be a little cocoa bomb, and I was right. I just kind of underestimated how very cocoa it was going to turn out to be. This would be why my search for the Platonic chocolate treat has paused on Vosges for a while. That and kickass customer service. Did I mention they packed my order with reusable, environmentally friendly ice packs? Even though it was heading out to me second-day air? Because they did, inside a thermal pouch for added coolness. Which would be why the truffles are maintaining perfect snap and smooth ganache as though I walked into a store and bought them locally.
In other news, Spouse left a message on the phone at 6:40 AM this morning. He's on the ship that'll be taking him back to Spain, and they were supposed to put into port this Friday. However, thanks to a crazy bad storm (which I could hear in the background), they're sheltering and don't anticipate making port until Monday. We hope they'll get him a temporary email address while he's aboard.
First look: This is a dark, dark truffle dusted with cocoa powder and something white that looks a little like itty bitty flakes of coconut. Vosges recommends licking whatever's on top of the truffle so you get an idea of what's to come.
First lick: The texture's like coconut, but the taste is nonexistent. Maybe it's the leaf and the taste got buried under the cocoa powder which I also licked up.
First bite: Forgive me for the all caps, but this is COCOA. The outer shell is perfectly crisp, with a textbook snap when I bit into it, and the ganache in the middle is smooth and creamy and what other dark chocolate ganaches want to be when they grow up. There's a slightly green and herbal undertone to the ganache that might be the leaf, but since I've never had the leaf and don't know what it's supposed to taste like, I could be wrong.
Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I was expecting this one to be a little cocoa bomb, and I was right. I just kind of underestimated how very cocoa it was going to turn out to be. This would be why my search for the Platonic chocolate treat has paused on Vosges for a while. That and kickass customer service. Did I mention they packed my order with reusable, environmentally friendly ice packs? Even though it was heading out to me second-day air? Because they did, inside a thermal pouch for added coolness. Which would be why the truffles are maintaining perfect snap and smooth ganache as though I walked into a store and bought them locally.
In other news, Spouse left a message on the phone at 6:40 AM this morning. He's on the ship that'll be taking him back to Spain, and they were supposed to put into port this Friday. However, thanks to a crazy bad storm (which I could hear in the background), they're sheltering and don't anticipate making port until Monday. We hope they'll get him a temporary email address while he's aboard.