Friday, October 7, 2016

A Flavor Blast Overcomes The Initial Taste: Godiva Chocolate Lava Cake Dessert Truffles Delight!


The Good: Amazing ganache flavor, Great aroma, Good ingredients, Affordable, Reasonable serving size
The Bad: Waxy chocolate on the outside
The Basics: Godiva Chocolate Lava Cake Dessert Truffles smell great, then underwhelm with a waxy coating, before hitting with an amazing chocolate cake flavored ganache that redeems the whole work!


Occasionally, I review a food product that truly has a transformative flavor; a taste that develops well from its initial impressions on the tongue to something very different as it is consumed. The Godiva Chocolate Lava Cake Dessert Truffles I have been eating lately are definitely one such food. The Godiva Chocolate Lava Cake Dessert Truffles transition from being incredibly inviting to the nose to utterly underwhelming in the mouth before revealing a flavor that is just delightful. And while I could wish the middle portion of that process were different, the sense of revelation that comes from the Godiva Chocolate Lava Cake Dessert Truffles reaching their full potential is just amazing.

Basics

Godiva is a famous fancy chocolatier that is most known for their gold-wrapped boxes of chocolates that are most frequently used as gifts and consumed by people who can afford the calories. They make high-end chocolates, but in recent years, Godiva has been marketing a line geared toward Target shoppers and their individually wrapped and bagged truffles seem to be the cornerstone.

The Chocolate Lava Cake Dessert Truffles come in a 4.3 oz. bag, which puts it in direct competition with Lindt and Ghirardelli products on Target's shelves. The bag has twelve truffles in it, which represents three servings. Each truffle is individually wrapped within the bag in a lavender-colored wrapper. Unwrapping foil wrapper reveals the 1 3/8” in diameter by 3/4" tall dome of chocolate that is the truffle.

Ease Of Preparation

Eating Godiva Chocolate Lava Cake Dessert Truffles is not a real challenge. After opening the bag, simply pull out a truffle, unwrap it and stick it in your mouth. There is no real preparation required for consuming the Chocolate Lava Cake truffles, unlike making an actual chocolate cake. Unwrapping a truffle before eating it is pretty much all the work one needs to do to consume these!

Taste

The Chocolate Lava Cake Dessert truffle have an appropriately strong chocolate scent to them. Unwrapping the truffle exposed a scent that was thick and familiar and immediately evocative of chocolate cake, which impressed me. It's virtually impossible to describe the difference between the scent of chocolate and chocolate cake, but there is one (is it the flour in the archetypal chocolate cake?), but the Godiva Chocolate Lava Cake nails the chocolate cake scent right away, which makes for an instant olfactory treat.

In the mouth, the Godiva Chocolate Lava Cake Dessert Truffle bursts forth immediately with sweetness and a slight waxy quality. But what is impressive is how quickly the ganache inside comes to completely dominate the palate. The center of the Chocolate Lava Cake truffle is a thick, rich, powerful chocolate flavor that is anything but waxy. Instead, the sweetness of the exterior is pummled with a delightful flavor of a dark chocolate cake with sweet frosting and the combination is absolutely delightful.

The Chocolate Lava Cake truffles have a very dry aftertaste that lasts in the mouth for about ten minutes after one consumes a truffle.

Nutrition

Godiva chocolates are intended as a dessert product, not a source of incredible nutrition! These twelve truffles represent three full servings of the chocolates and those looking for anything healthy will have to look elsewhere. Made primarily of sugar, cocoa butter, and unsweetened chocolate, these are fairly high-quality chocolates. This is not an all-natural food product and these truffles were produced on equipment that forces them to add a disclaimer about peanuts, wheat and other tree nuts.

In addition to no ingredients I cannot readily pronounce, Godiva’s Chocolate Lava Cake Dessert Truffles have 200 calories for each four truffle serving, with 110 of the calories from fat. A full four truffle serving represents 35% of one’s RDA of saturated fat and 3% of the RDA of cholesterol. Surprisingly, they are fairly low in sodium with only 35 mg per serving and there are two grams of protein to be had by eating a full serving. These are not a significant source of vitamins or minerals, though the serving does provide 6% of one's RDA of Iron and Calcium and a single gram of dietary fiber.

Storage/Cleanup

As a chocolate, Godiva Gems’ Chocolate Lava Cake Dessert Truffles are fine as long as they are stored in their bag and wrappers at a cool, dry temperature. The bag gifted to me at the beginning of the year had no problem remaining fresh for at least ten months, so they have a decent shelf life. If they melt, they will stain. Otherwise, cleanup is simply throwing the foil wrapper away and recycling the paper bag the truffles come in.

Overall

Godiva Chocolate Lava Cake Dessert Truffles are an intriguing flavor surprise, one that gives the consume a surprisingly varied taste experience, even if that experience is not homogeneously good. It is, however, an experience well worth having!

For other Godiva chocolate reviews, please check out:
Godiva Dark Chocolate Assortment
Godiva Vanilla Sundae in Dark Chocolate Truffle Bar
Godiva Dark Chocolate Mint Truffles

6.5/10

For other food and drink reviews, please visit my Food And Drink Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

No comments:

Post a Comment