Tirol Chocolate – Double Sweet Potato

Ah yes, sweet potato. Long been a staple of Japanese cuisine, and only in recent decades has it seen an emergence in western cuisine. Even now, sweet potato fries seem like a fad that never really fully caught on. Baked yams or sweet potatoes even less. The most common occurrence I see is sweet potato casserole, which is already sickeningly sweet, with the marshmallows and what not. Not saying it’s bad….just that it’s sweet. And also not something you see much outside of Thanksgiving.

This variety is called double sweet potato because there’s two takes on it – one is the standard sweet potato with filling that mimics that classic baked, and the fries variety where it’s chopped up and fried and coated with sugar.

I’ve actually had the regular baked sweet potato flavour before, and I have to say that even now I can’t get the smell of Play-doh out of my head. The taste also wasn’t my favourite. I can’t say that this time is any different.

I will say that the texture of the filling is indeed like actual sweet potato. It has a fluffy, kind of soft texture you would expect from a baked potato or baked sweet potato. If you like that, then you will probably like this piece. I guess for me the smell is what I’m not down for, so it’s a pass from me. But if you’re the type that enjoys that almost Play-doh like texture, you’ll love this.

The “fries” flavour doesn’t smell all that different. It does smell a little less Play-doh like, but also sweeter, like caramel almost. The flavour is a little sweeter on this one, on account of the addition of what I believe are toffee pieces. It’s almost got a maple syrup quality, or molasses. Basically that kind of burnt sugar flavour to it, cut with the simple sweetness of the potato.

The texture of this piece is a lot more crunchy, and that seems to be what they were going for. In place of the fluffy sweet potato filling, this one has pieces of toffee alongside pieces of crunchy sweet potato bits. It doesn’t exactly conjure up the memories of sweet potato fries, but it’s certainly tasty in it’s own way, and I much prefer this piece over the other one.

Being someone who isn’t a huge fan of sweet potato, I can kind of understand why in the West here it’s still more of a fad than a staple. I don’t know how much of it is actually nature vs. nurture when it comes to my sweet potato preference, but I’d say it’s most of the reason as to why I didn’t enjoy this variety much. The sweet potato fries piece was great though, and I would do it again. Not sure if fans of sweet potato would enjoy the other piece more, but I personally can’t recommend this variety unless you enjoy sweet potato.