Champagne and chocolate is definitely a treat. Add some strawberries, and I’m in heaven. (Please don’t add chocolate to those strawberries though; inevitably both end up soggy.)
So a bar that combines three of my favorite things should be a sure wind, right? Well, sort of.
The chocolate is definitely a wonder to behold. 54% cocoa, with a gorgeous shine and nice snap when it’s broken. Here, each square is a “truffle”. Usually, I break open bars like these and all the goods spill out of the squares. But CCC manages to engineer their bar so nothing leaks out. And as I tend to crush candy bars, if I can break this bar and not mess it up, it’s solid.
Definitely a strawberry taste when you hit the filling. But think of this as the kind of jammy flavor you’d get on a piece of toast, instead of a straight spoonful. This strawberry blends with the dark chocolate, sometimes taking the lead without being too cloying. In fact, the chocolate itself seems to have a touch of the berry as well. I didn’t get the champagne vibe here…but I have been knocking back several glasses of bubbly, so perhaps a mere hint of the stuff sailed by my taste buds.
As with the caramels, this bar is delicious, but it has a sweetness that doesn’t make me want more, but instead has me stopping myself from going beyond a single piece. The strawberry may not be overkill, but the total amount of sweetness is. Instead of being happy, I feel over-sugared. This is a bar that could have used a touch of sea salt – better still, some chili – to balance it.
Mix this up with plainer or spicier bar if you’re looking for a real chocolate throwdown. But if you just want a quick hit, a square or two will definitely make your inner chocolate monster happy.
