The Good: Great taste, Wonderful quality, Does not melt easily
The Bad: Not strongly flavored of bacon, Still expensive.
The Basics: Chuao Chocolatier Maple Bacon Bars are good, but not for their embodiment of bacon.
Despite being atheists, my wife and I do our best to show our love for one another, even on holidays that are not innate to us. As a result, yesterday, my amazing wife showered me with gifts and as it turned out a number of them were food (especially chocolates) that she picked up for me to enjoy . . . and review. There is something exceptionally sweet (pun intended) about a woman who provides me with candy to review, even though neither candy nor my reviews are truly her favorite things. So, to show her how much I appreciate the gift, I thought I would right away prioritize trying one of the chocolates she picked up for me. The first one I leapt on, the one I was most excited to try, was the Chuao Chocolatier Maple Bacon chocolate bars she picked up for me. The Chuao Chocolatier Maple Bacon Bars are good, but neither of us found them to be a very true embodiment of bacon flavor.
This was my first experience with Chuao Chocolatier chocolate bars and it is clear the company is providing a premium product (given how expensive the bars are). If they were more bacony in their flavoring, they would have easily been a perfect product (the chocolate is wonderful and the maple flavor is present).
Basics
The Chuao Chocolatier Maple Bacon Bar is a filled milk chocolate bar from Chuao Chocolatier. Each 2.8 oz. chocolate bar is wrapped in a metallic plastic wrapper. The actual chocolate bar is 3” wide by 6” long by 3/8” thick and features an imprint of leaves and a stamp identifying the bar as being from Chuao Chocolatier. There are no segments and I was surprised by how the bottom of the bar was smooth; the filling does not make the bar textured anywhere!
The chocolate is very light, but decently solid. Individually, the bars are on the $5.00 - $10.00 range, which is super expensive, until one considers just how delicious these chocolate bars are!
Ease Of Preparation
Chuao Chocolatier Maple Bacon bars are chocolate, not preparing a chocolate fountain! Preparing them is as easy as unwrapping the candy bar. Because the chocolate is so pricy, I recommend eating this a little at a time, not just biting right into the bar.
Taste
The Maple Bacon chocolate bar is delightfully aromatic; the bar smells strongly of chocolate, without a hint as to what the flavors within the bar might be. The chocolate smells like a decent grade of cocoa, without alluding to being milk chocolate, either.
On the tongue, Chuao provides a real mixed bag with the Maple Bacon chocolate bar. The chocolate is thick and sweet, without at all overwhelming the tastebuds; this tastes like chocolate, not the milky, vaguely-sweet crap that mass-produced chocolate has become. Instead, this is sweet and rich without being dry or at all unpleasant on the tongue; it is a firm, flavorful milk chocolate. As the chocolate rests on the tongue and slowly melts away, the sweetness of the maple flavoring comes out; the sugary-sweet flavor is distinctive enough to assert itself from within the chocolate bar and let the consumer know they are eating something intriguing and more than just a high-quality chocolate bar.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the bacon. The bacon flavor is not able to overcome the sweetness and the crispy pieces of bacon in the bar do not carry the flavor of bacon and/or bacon grease well enough to satisfy those who love bacon. Instead, there is a vaguely salty flavor that comes out when one chews the candy bar, but it is not quite strong enough to prove to the consumer that it is actually bacon in the bar.
The Maple Bacon bar has a slightly dry aftertaste that lingers on the tongue for about five minutes after one is done consuming the bar.
Nutrition
Chuao Chocolatier makes their fine chocolates with fine ingredients, which is arguably why they are so expensive. With the primary ingredients being Premium milk chocolate (41% cacoa), maple sugar, and bacon, the Chuao Chocolatier Maple Bacon bars are not a wonderful food to try to survive on. However, they do use natural ingredients and Non-GMO ingredients and none of them are unpronounceable. In a 1.4 ounce serving, there are 210 calories, 120 of which are from fat. This represents 21% of one’s RDA of fat (41% of the RDA of saturated fat). Each bar has 140 mg of Sodium (mostly in the bacon, one assumes) and 3 grams of protein. In other words, this is not a snack to try to survive on.
Storage/Clean-Up
Because the chocolate is so hard, the Chuao Chocolatier Maple Bacon bars are not especially susceptible to heat. Still, these should be kept cool in order to not melt. With that in mind, as long as they are kept cool and dry, these will last over a year (the one my wife presented me with yesterday would have lasted until October 12, 2014).
Clean-up is easy, so long as the chocolate does not melt. The Chuao Chocolatier Maple Bacon bars have wrappers that ought to be properly disposed of, but otherwise, the chocolate washes off skin and non-porous surfaces. It the chocolate melts onto fabric, consult a fabric guide.
Overall
The Chuao Chocolatier Maple Bacon Bar is a delightful chocolate and maple confection, but the bacon flavor is not strong enough to please those who would buy the bar for that flavor.
For other fancy candies, please check out my reviews of:
Lindt Pistachio Nut Bars
Ferrara Milk Chocolate Peppermint Chocolate Orange
Godiva White Chocolate Vanilla Bean bar
7/10
For more food reviews, please check out my Food Review Index Page!
© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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