Vosges Gingerbread Toffee Bar

Posted by Edmund in Chocolate, Featured Articles, Gourmet Chocolate Bars, USA | 0 comments

Composition: Gingerbread Spiced Toffee, 65% Dark Chocolate.
Region of Production: USA.
Price: $7.50 from Vosges’s site.

Aesthetically, this bar generally impresses. As with all of Vosges’s bars, it is completely smooth, seamlessly integrating the ingredient. There are some signs of chocolate bloom (discoloration) across the top, but I actually enjoy the refreshingly blackish color—something not usually so intense in 65% chocolates. Finally, the bar has a very nice, though hard, snap that allows it to break easily into perfect squares.

After taking just one bite, though, I can tell that this is one of the less interesting bars in Vosges’s collection, mostly for its rather mild flavor. The problem is most noticeable in the bland chocolate. It simply tastes too much like lecithin, i.e. it tastes and feels waxy. Nor is it all that complex. I actually found no strong overtones to mention, except for perhaps some coffee. Thus, this chocolate really needs to rely on the toffee for flavor, but that toffee just doesn’t seem to synergize all that well with it. Instead of infusing the chocolate with an even flavor, the toffee comes in bursts, as you munch into cookie-like, crunchy pieces. Part of the time, then, the chocolate feels bland, and the other part it feels like underwhelming gingerbread. Thankfully, the intense, but fleeting, burst of cinnamon saltiness that hits you right as you crunch into the toffee helps to relieve some of these issues. Unsurprisingly, though, this bar is extremely short-lived, fading within a couple of minutes (at most) from the palate.

More positively, the gingerbread spiced toffee flavor is actually quite good when I get to taste it. The bar has a very nice cinnamon kick that hits you at the very end of the chocolate, cleansing the palate. I also got some good nutmeg (I think) and some light saltiness, along with what felt like chunks of very buttery cookies (from the toffee). Still, these flavors mostly emerge near the end, and there is little in between to keep me all that interested.

The texture does not fare much better. As mentioned, this bar has a particularly waxy feel. Moreover, the chunks of toffee harden it too much, so that it is tough to the bite and slow in the melt. I did enjoy the very easy, gritty crunch of the toffee, though.

This bar isn’t horrible per se, but it isn’t even close to the cream of the crop among Vosges’s fantastic selection. I’d suggest looking into Vosges’s Bapchi Caramel Toffee Bar for a true toffee-chocolate experience.

Disclaimer: This bar was a gift from Vosges Haut Chocolat. I have tried to keep the review as fair and objective as possible. Take the scores for what you will.

Scores

Presentation: 3.0/5.0. 4.0/5.0 excluding all the discoloration.
Taste: 2.2/5.0
Texture/Melt: 2.5/5.0
Flavor: 2.0/5.0
Length: 0.8/5.0
Value: 1.5/5.0
Verdict: 2.0/5.0