Darker than Black, Week 57: Vosges Cardamom Rose Caramels
2017-Nov-11, Saturday 19:10![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dorchadas
As an introvert, I treasure those weekends where I have nothing scheduled. Especially when the weather hits a sudden cold snap. The week-long Chicago fall has ended, and now temperatures are below 0°C and there's snow on top of fallen leaves. A perfect day to curl up with caramel apple tea and eat delicious food, because schoolpsychnerd took advantage of the day to cook up a storm. We had almond-encrusted chicken and matcha waffles for brunch, soft-boiled egg and salmon salad for dinner, and as I write this, she's prepping the dough for a croissant experiment. Tomorrow will also be delicious.
But this is not "Flakier than Croissants," so I'll talk about what we had for dessert.
Dramatic lighting because otherwise the covering reflected too much.
With rose flavors, I was expecting this to taste like perfume. It was unwarranted pessimism--there's not often you'll hear me say that
--because this is Vosges chocolate and I haven't had any of their chocolate that wasn't delicious. The cardamom made itself known without overpowering the other flavors, and kept the rose from being too strong. Even the caramel was well-balanced, without any of the cloying stickiness or over-sweetness that caramel is prone to. I could have had an entire bar of this rather than the three pieces that were my share and been happy.
Though, that does mean that the actual chocolate flavor wasn't very strong. Not that I was expecting to pick up the subtle chocolate flavors from caramels, but even here it was mostly just a shell to contain the caramel and deliver the other flavors. Even something like Sugarfina dark choc caramels had more chocolate taste, though obviously much worse-quality chocolate. I'd rather eat these than those any day, but as much as it pains me to say it,super Milk DudsSugarfina caramels fit Darker than Black better.
I love the pink salt.
schoolpsychnerd's Opinion
schoolpsychnerd took advantage of the day to cook up a storm. We had almond-encrusted chicken and matcha waffles for brunch, soft-boiled egg and salmon salad for dinner, and as I write this, she's prepping the dough for a croissant experiment. Tomorrow will also be delicious. But this is not "Flakier than Croissants," so I'll talk about what we had for dessert.
Dramatic lighting because otherwise the covering reflected too much.
With rose flavors, I was expecting this to taste like perfume. It was unwarranted pessimism--there's not often you'll hear me say that
--because this is Vosges chocolate and I haven't had any of their chocolate that wasn't delicious. The cardamom made itself known without overpowering the other flavors, and kept the rose from being too strong. Even the caramel was well-balanced, without any of the cloying stickiness or over-sweetness that caramel is prone to. I could have had an entire bar of this rather than the three pieces that were my share and been happy. Though, that does mean that the actual chocolate flavor wasn't very strong. Not that I was expecting to pick up the subtle chocolate flavors from caramels, but even here it was mostly just a shell to contain the caramel and deliver the other flavors. Even something like Sugarfina dark choc caramels had more chocolate taste, though obviously much worse-quality chocolate. I'd rather eat these than those any day, but as much as it pains me to say it,
I love the pink salt.
schoolpsychnerd's OpinionI love floral flavors in desserts. The quickest way to get me to order one dessert over another one is to put the word lavender or rose by it and I am 200% in. I love cooking with it as well as eating it. Cardamom features regularly in my coffee. They're beautiful flavors that make so much sense together. These caramels were the perfect combination of flavors and each one got time in the spotlight. As it should be, the rose enhanced the cardamom and visa versa. It's a good thing there were only three each because I would have been sorely tempted to eat the whole box.I see we both had the same opinion! Maybe next time, we should check and see if there are large boxes of these. Anything else will be gone in a flash.
