Tirol Chocolate – Raisin Butter Sandwich
Raisin butter sand sandwich cookies are a popular souvenir snack in Hokkaido, and it’s simply the combine two butter cookies with a butter cream centre with some sweet raisins. The raisins are usually rum raisins to give them extra sweetness and flavour. I know all this because I tried the smaller sized version of Tirol’s take on this years ago. I enjoyed it back then, so I don’t imagine I won’t enjoy this.
The benefit of these larger pieces over the smaller ones is that they have more room to work with, meaning they can pack more filling in. I tend to find the premium you pay for these is worth it if you like the gimmick or novelty of the flavour. To me, Tirol excels at that so I get pretty excited to see the bigger pieces. It’s like giving them more of a canvas to work with and allows more creative headroom.
The texture is similar to a buttery biscuit covered in chocolate – the biscuit itself is very soft and yields to the bite. The raisins are quite plentiful, and they add that distinct shriveled but slightly chewy quality to it to remind you of a buttery cookie with dried fruit in it. I know some people have strong opinions about raisins, but I for one don’t mind them in an oatmeal cookie if done properly.
The buttery biscuit adds a smooth, buttery richness to the chocolate, and the raisins have a nice distinct grape flavour to them. Perhaps it’s nostalgia, but I feel like the bigger pieces really do help bring the flavour to life. At the very least they can fit more raisins to really get that sugary grape flavour. There’s also a distinct after taste to it which reminds me of maple syrup for some reason, but not sure if that’s intended or not. Not that it really adds or detracts much from it. What I will say is the raisins on their own are a bit on the sweeter side, likely being dipped or soaked in something like rum, so you might not want to eat the raisins on their own in a bite. Best to pair it with the chocolate and biscuit. Or better yet try to finish the whole thing in one bite. This is the way.
No shock that I enjoyed these quite a bit, and I imagine anyone else who remotely enjoys rum raisin as a flavour or the combination of raisin and chocolate won’t enjoy this. It’s a classic combination (at least in my eyes) for a good reason.