After explaining why it's often difficult to review the chocolate truffles/bonbons from Black Butterfly, today I do have two of them to share. I kept it simple with just the two and you know, it worked out quite wonderfully because both of these turned out to be, not only new flavors to me, but also chocolates after my own heart.
The look of these two is perhaps simpler than some of her work, yet they're still beautiful. The Cardamom Rose is the one on the left. It comes in a rose petal shade of pink with a bolt of pearly lighting going across. Elegant and feminine. The Sour Cherry Vanilla has deep hot pink color with more of the pearly white. In normal times, you can take chocolate making classes at Black Butterfly. Somehow I think, though, that even with lessons it would take me a while to be able to paint chocolate as beautifully, even with simple looks like this.
We'll start with the Sour Cherry Vanilla. There is a vanilla ganache topped with the cherry element. So it is much like a gourmet take on a cherry cordial without the whole cherry. The dark chocolate gives a sweet element--in a positive way since cherry and vanilla are on the sweeter side of things. Yet you wouldn't want to do this with milk chocolate. The cherry isn't at all sour to me, whether because I'm tasting it alongside the vanilla and the chocolate or because I recently bought a bottle of sour cherry juice from Lakewood Organic (they do the 100%, not from concentrate juices) and that was sour. Cherry and vanilla have a comforting, somewhat nostalgic feel. So this chocolate was greatly enjoyable.
Now for the Cardamom Rose. I had just been observing that most chocolate makers don't seem to be doing much with rose lately. Lavender, yes, but not rose. And I do love rose. Rose oil, rose tea, rose lemonade, rose Turkish Delight, rose soap, rose shampoo, and rose chocolate. So I guess Tracy Taylor heard me because she pointed this one out as a new flavor.
The sides and top of this chocolate are white chocolate, while the bottom layer is milk chocolate. When paired with the white chocolate, the cardamom is sweet. The rose is light rather than strong. I mean, I wouldn't mind more of a rose cream, something like that, in the future, something that can highlight just the rose. But that isn't a complaint against this current chocolate: it's lovely.
Because of the cardamom, the effect is like a sweet chai tea, soft and feminine. The white chocolate stands in for the milk and the milk chocolate is I suppose the black tea element. Spices and flowers plus milk and sugar. More gentle than strong, even though cardamom can be a strong spice.
Which of these two you prefer will depend on your own flavor preferences. Both, though, will make an excellent choice if you find yourself by Black Butterfly. Must keep our small businesses in business. Coming up later I'll have two more flavored chocolate bars, as well.
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