Today's review is for a rather interesting product, one sent to me by Austrian Chocolate producer Zotter recently. They do a rather extensive and delicious range of chocolates, many in unique flavours you'll see from no other company, especially in their hand-scooped range. They offer shipping to the UK from their Online Store - do check them out!
I chose some of their Dairy Free and Vegan bars to review, and one that tickled my interest was this "Choco Nougat" bar made with coconut sugar and rice milk.
It comes in a long block, looking similar to a Toblerone, with indentations to break pieces off. There's a variety of uses for this chocolate, as indicated in the wrapper above, from melting, cake decorating, fudge making etc. It's basically a sort of Dairy Free Fudge/White Chocolate mixture. The coconut sugar gives it a caramel like flavour and colour, whilst the addition of rice milk makes it creamy and white chocolate like.
It certainly smelled like a vegan White Chocolate when I opened it, maybe even a more Caramac style chocolate similar to the Vanoffee Bars from Raw Chocolate Co.
Splitting a chunk off, there was a somewhat "bloomed" appearance on the inner centre of the chocolate although judging by the wrapper, I think this is supposed to be normal as the coconut sugar crystallizes more near the centre of the bar. Or something! (I'm no expert haha).
I excitedly took a bite. Yum! The taste is creamy, caramelly, melt in the mouth...pretty much a combination of white chocolate and caramac, all in vegan form. It was reminiscent of the Vanoffee bar mentioned earlier, but creamier and more melt in the mouth. I felt like I was eating Vegan Toblerone...but a White chocolate Caramac version, haha.
I decided to melt the rest down and make a few snacks with it, although ended up eating a lot of it in melted form as it was so tasty. This is definitely fantastic stuff to use on cakes or for coating biscuits!
Overall, I have to give this nougat a big thumbs up! I'm just surprised something like this isn't more widely available for vegans or those who are dairy free?! Zotter really are ahead of the curve here - whilst dairy free chocolate may not be mainstream yet there's certainly a higher demand for it (with UK producer Montezuma's soon to launch some Dairy Free bars) so chocolate like this is very welcome. It brings the comforting feelings of soothing creamy white chocolate to the table for any vegan who misses such pleasures. If you're dairy free or vegan - I highly recommend this, take a look on Zotters Online Store for more!
9 out of 10.
