Wawel – Brownie and Cherry Chocolate

I found this at a local European grocery store and it instantly caught my eye. Mostly because the bar has huge, but also because brownie and cherry sounds like a wildly decadent flavour and I’m all for it. Granted cherry isn’t always the best accompaniment to chocolate, but when done right it’s usually memorable. For me it reminds me of Christmas and the winter months, and that alone is what made me purchase this. It had nothing do with impulse buying at all. Nope, not at all.

Wawel is a Polish brand known for chocolates and candies, though I haven’t paid much attention to them until now. Based on how today goes it mind just end up on my radar in the future. Lettuce begin.

First thing you would notice if you were to be presented with this bar is how big it is. Not only that but it’s hefty too – this bad boy weighs in at 275g, over half of a pound if you want to think of it that way. Opening up the box reveals a shiny foil and what looks to be a bar segmented into 9 rows and 3 columns, giving you potentially 27 total pieces to work with. That’s a lot of chocolate.

The flavours all work well together – the dark chocolate outer shell is not too bitter and not too sweet, and the brownie layer inside adds a bit of sweetness but mostly texture. The cherry syrup layer while still sweet, also has more of a tart quality to it to add another dimension of flavour to an otherwise dully sweet chocolate. The whole thing comes together to remind me of an actual chocolate brownie topped with some cherries. In that sense it reminds me a little of a classical black forest dessert or cake.

Texture is a bit different from what I was expecting. When I think brownies and chocolate, I think of something somewhat soft and rich. What I get though is something a bit brittle at first due to the dark chocolate outer layer. Once I get paste that admittedly well tempered outer chocolate, the inside has a layer of somewhat softer chocolate which acts as the brownie layer with a fairly generous layer of cherry syrup to top things off. I think the brownie and cherry work well together textually, but the firm, brittle outer shell hampers the experience a bit if you try to take it all in one bite. It’s not enough to make me take pause though, cause the overall experience is great and I’m trying to hold back from scarfing these down.

Overall I quite enjoyed my (somewhat) short time with this bar. Short because I finished it pretty fast and even with 27 pieces I couldn’t seem to get enough. I don’t know if this is some sort of limited edition flavour or it’s a staple flavour, but I’ll definitely be keeping an eye out for it.