Chocolate Moderne Lime Chocolate and Toffee Bar

I can’t help feeling sheepish when I look back at this post about Chocolat Moderne’s Espresso Toffee chocolate. As much as the three separate shots of my chocolate-lovin’ visage beg to differ, I don’t really delight in taking photos of myself. What I do delight in, though, is reviewing another of Chocolat Moderne’s toffee-filled chocolates (and leaving my own face out of it).

Chocolat Moderne Lime Chocolate and Toffee Bar

Christmas colours!

Just like the Espresso Toffee bar before it, this lime-infused toffee creation is made with 65% Valrhona chocolate. Pleasingly dark and glossy in appearance, there was definitely a citrus tinge to the aroma, although I’m not sure I could pinpoint it specifically as lime. Upon breaking the chocolate up, I was happy to find the bar jam-packed with toffee chunks. I must admit that the toffee didn’t seem quite as crisp in this bar as it did in the Espresso chocolate, but that’s probably because I carted the Lime bar halfway across the world before eating it.

See? Not stingy with the toffee.

The lime flavour in this bar is pleasantly subtle and smooth, forming a light and tangy undertone to the buttery-caramel sweetness of the toffee pieces. The chocolate is equally enjoyable, melting easily on the tongue and contributing a deeper, darker edge to the bar’s sweetness. This Valrhona blend isn’t as complex or swoon-worthy as the Guanaja Grué, but its richness definitely indicates a high-quality chocolate.

Bear with me... whenever I see this photo, I think of The Land Before Time. Except instead of a scary swallowing-creatures-whole chasm, we're looking at a delicious chocolate chasm.

As you might be able to tell, I liked this chocolate but I wasn’t blown away. There was nothing untoward in the taste, and yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was having to work for the flavours. If I didn’t concentrate, this chocolate seemed to offer little more than a pleasant, unexciting sweetness. Every now and again, a big punch of lime juice or buttery toffee would surprise me, and in those moments I thought far more highly of this creation. For the most part, though, I’d rate Chocolat Moderne’s Espresso Toffee chocolate as more worthy of a repeat purchase than this Lime version.

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Not Post- but Choc-Modernity: Chocolat Moderne Espresso Bar

Note: Just another day or so, dear readers, and all shall be revealed about the exciting adventure, engendered partly through this blog, that is leading me to Florida for a few days before I make my way to London. Isn’t the suspense just eating away at you? And speaking of eating…

In all honesty, I should be researching what/where to do/eat/sleep in Europe right now. Instead, I’m going to talk about a chocolate toffee bar, because, well, my head is going gobbledegook.

(But if anyone wants to alleviate my impending panic and give suggestions about Paris, Florence, Germany, Belgium, and Amsterdam, I shall be utterly grateful. Have at it in the comments, or by email! Seriously. Do.)

Chocolat Moderne Espresso Chocolate and Toffee Bar

My "Look! I have new chocolate!" face.

Chocolat Moderne makes a variety of products using Valrhona as the chocolate base, and while the Bistro Bars sound pretty good, I found myself picking up the Espresso Moderne Bar. Described as “Butter Toffee Infused with Espresso Crumbled into Fine Dark Chocolate”, this chocolate has a respectable 65% cacao content and incorporates sizable chunks of butter toffee.

My "But is it any good?" face. Also known as my "What's the floor plan of this hostel?" face.

The first thing I noticed upon breaking into this bar was its generosity with both the size and dispersal of the espresso toffee chunks. Second was the aroma, which seemed both chocolate-y and coffee-like without being overly strong in either. (Um, I also seem to have “cheddar cheese” written down as an aroma in my tasting notes. I’ll let you all figure that one out.)

Jam-packed with toffee goodness.

I like the toffee in this bar, as it has that perfect texture of simultaneously cleaving, crumpling, and crunching beneath your teeth. The toffee is definitely shot through with coffee flavour but also maintains its own buttery caramel integrity. It’s almost like two kids playing on a see-saw – one minute the coffee is up and waving its arms in the air, the next minute it’s the buttery sweetness yelling for its mother to take a photo as it goes ever up, up, up.

The chocolate hold its own too, with some red berry notes, slight smokiness, and a smooth melt. Of course, Valrhona tends to be a reliable option for such rich sweetness.

More toffee goodness.

Chocolate and toffee lovers as well as dentists could easily be fans of this one. The chocolate, coffee, and toffee flavours blend together as an harmonious whole, while the toffee displays that uncanny ability to stick to one’s teeth. It is worth mentioning that the coffee flavour is pretty mild, so those who are not a fan of coffee’s bitterness would still, I believe, be able to enjoy this. (My notes state “like a mocha with caramel syrup”, though this may be a reflection of my recent Starbucks visits more than anything else.)

Ultimately, though, we should leave the final say to my face. Face, what say you?

My "You taste scrumptious" face. (I make no apologies for acting like a nincompoop. Sometimes, things like this just happen when one travels alone.)

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