DARS Chocolate – Tiramisu
By now I’m sure I’ve made it quite clear that coffee as a drink and flavour is just not my jam. I prefer to find other ways to get my caffeine intake if necessary, and coffee is not even an option. That being said…I love desserts and am willing to tolerate a good coffee based dessert like tiramisu. Not generally my dessert of choice, but I am hard pressed to say no to trying one, or a having a good one. That being said, respect to anyone who can make a good one – they are a beast of a dessert to make, and even harder to do well.
I like DARS for many of the same reasons I like Tirol – they are consistent in shape, easy to share and enjoy, and they consistently crank out new and creative flavours. Well, not nearly as frequent or with as much fervor as Tirol, but enough that I don’t see my self running out of flavours to try anytime soon.
The smell is very coffee-like, but in it’s liquor form, which has a bit of an almost alcoholic smell to it, as well as some sweetness. Hey, is that what coffee liquor is? My light bulb moment right now is so bright it could light up a dark damp cave…
The flavour is actually surprisingly tasty, even for someone who doesn’t typically enjoy coffee flavours. Similar to other DARS flavours I’ve had in the past, I feel the best way to enjoy this is to let it sit on your tongue and let it melt and release all the flavours on your palate nice and slow. The coffee liquor is the most prominent flavour, but it’s not the only one as there’s a sweet, egg flavour that chases it, along with a mild cocoa flavour. While you lose a lot of the joy of eating an actual tiramisu from the soaked lady fingers and the soft mascarpone cheese, the flavour is still there and it’s obvious what they were going for. They nailed it on the flavour front.
The texture is fairly standard affair, and is solid standard piece of milk chocolate throughout. The filling isn’t particularly different in texture from the milk chocolate shell, so I prefer to let it melt away slowly on the tongue. The piece works just fine if you chew it, but I like to let it melt as I get to savour each piece for longer. For these standard DARS chocolates, I feel like the flavour is what makes them stand out, as the texture is fairly to the point and nothing exciting or novel. Good thing the flavour is pretty awesome.
I would do this again, despite my general misgivings against coffee flavours. That’s how much I enjoyed these. While part of the charm of tiramisu is the spongy texture of the lady fingers, the flavour more than makes up for that misgiving, and I’d imagine someone who actually like coffee or tiramisu flavours would enjoy this even more.
