the sweet scrapbook

And then there was loads of Lindt stuff. I would try almost anything that had the Lindt logo, even if it contained stuff that was otherwise "barely tolerable" for me. That's how I got to try whole hazelnuts bars (and while I cannot say I was delighted with the hazelnuts in there, the chocolate was lovely, as always) or coffee chocolates. But the true gems from Lindt all shared one name: Petits Desserts. The Macaron is insanity in whatever shape it comes. I'll never forget my first Petits Desserts box. Oh, and the bars were lovely, lovely, lovely! I've been lucky enough to try almost all of them. I think the Lindt Petits Desserts Irish Coffee au Whisky is the only bar of the range that I haven't tried.

I'm such a child in front of anything Lindt. We don't officially get Lindt in Romania. Most of the bars we get here are made for Switzerland or Germany or, occasionally, we get bars that are produced for Poland or Sweden or France. I often look on lindt.de and sigh. They have so many Lindt varieties in Germany. And I check their other websites from time to time. They'll always have something that's not available in Germany. For example, in Sweden, they have such a wide Excellence range. And I've seen that they have Petits Desserts Sorbetto Cone in Canada. Petits Desserts! I've never tried any of the Fioretto boxes (oh, I was such a fool, I saw them in stores last year, but I postponed buying them and then they were gone). I've never tried anything from the Creation range, any of the Chocoletti bars, any of their fruit/ liqueur filled bars... and so many others...

Yet, I know that, for quite a while, Lindt has been my #1 chocolate when it comes to consumption. I went through the Swiss Tradition boxes, both the regular one and the Dark Collection. And of course, now I'm sorry I postponed buying the Caramel Collection because now it's gone. I went through a lot of the Excellence range, both bars (Extra Creamy, Cocoa Nibs, 70% Cocoa, 85% Cocoa, Crunchy Caramel, Orange Intense Dark, Intense Pear Dark, Walnut, Caramel Intense Dark) and Swiss Thins. Yet I'm complaining that I've never had the opportunity to try Excellence bars like Stracciatella, White Intense Vanilla, Cranberry Intense Mild Dark, Intense Blueberry Dark, Raspberry Intense Dark, Black Currant Dark, Holiday Cinnamon. I've tried five Lindor flavours (Orange, White, Milk, Hazelnut, Dark), some of them both as truffles and as bars, yet I'm complaining I never got to try Lindors such as Cinnamon, Raspberry, Stracciatella. I've tried all the Cresta bars, all the Nuts Intense bars, a few fruit cream bars... that's not enough Lindt bars for me. I've tried chocolate boxes such as Connaisseurs, Pralines du Confiseur, Kirschstengeli, Williamsstengeli, Christmas special boxes, Whisky and Irish Cream truffle boxes, spring special boxes, Easter special boxes, I think almost every holiday special milk chocolate figure they've made over these past years and some of the dark ones as well (Gold Bunny, Reindeer, Bell, Bauble, Snowman, Santa, Chicken, Lamb). I still want more Lindt!

I guess now everybody's convinced that I'm mad. Well, I am. At least my taste buds are. Mad about Lindt chocolate, that is. So why haven't I tried these two bars before? Weren't they available? Well... actually, they were available. But they were big. 300g. Only one kind of chocolate. I don't quite enjoy buying large quantities of the same stuff. One of them is made out of white chocolate. And even if Lindt's white chocolate is one that I trust, it's still 300g of white chocolate. And whole almonds. And while I like how almonds smell and taste, I don't like eating whole almonds. I prefer them as a paste. Or chopped into tiny pieces. Or as Amaretto.

I first unwrapped the dark chocolate with orange and almond pieces. It smelled of everything such a bar should smell of. I broke it into blocks and then I broke a block into four and placed one of those four pieces on my tongue. Oh, it was certainly interesting. As it was slowly melting I could feel different tastes in different places. I could feel the cocoa and a couple of millimetres away I could feel the orange. Did I say that the orange in the Heidi Gourmette Orange bar was acidic? Well, the orange in the Lindt chocolate was even more so (though looking at the ingredients list I find that there is acidifier in the dried orange mix; not the fair way to do it, even if my taste buds really liked the result). And then I could feel the almonds. One more piece... such a nice creamy dark chocolate. I personally would have prefered the cocoa taste to be stronger. I must have had a strong cocoa craving that day. I tried four chocolate bars, two of which were dark - I found them all sweet and I found myself wanting strong cocoa influences. Which is kind of strange for me. My favourite kinds of chocolate are mildly dark chocolate or milk chocolate with a higher cocoa content. Dark chocolates with over 75% have been too much for me, so I'm not usually one that craves extreme dark stuff. I'm also a little mixed about the almond pieces. I thought they were a nice addition to the taste, but I would have liked the texture better without them.

Next one. White chocolate. With whole almonds. I'm fine with biting into walnuts or pecans, I'm not fine with biting into other nuts. There were also caramelized almond pieces, but I'm fine with those. I opened it and I sniffed it - milky, milky smell! I broke it into pieces as well and I put a piece (chosen so that it didn't have any whole almonds) into my mouth. Oh, I should have expected. If the smell was milky, milky, then the taste was milky, milky, milky, milky, milky, but in a pleasant way, not like the taste of the inner layer of Kinder Surprise eggs. It was a very milky, creamy white chocolate with the caramelized almond pieces providing nice variations in taste. Very sweet, but still very pleasant. I managed to eat a few of the pieces with whole almonds in them, but no more. I prefered the ones without whole almonds.

Overall, they were nice tasting chocolates. And in both bars, the chocolate itself has a very nice texture, better than that of any other chocolates that I've tried this month. But there are a lot of other Lindt Chocolates I like better.

Ingredients:
» Lindt Swiss Premium Dark Orange Almond: sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, almonds 10%, dried orange mix 10% (orange 35%, sugar, apple, pineapple fibres, thickeners: E401 & E341, acidifier: E330, flavouring), butterfat, skimmed milk powder, emulsifier: soya lecithin, flavouring; cocoa solids: 49% min.; may contain traces of hazelnuts, sulphite.
» Lindt Swiss Premium White Almond: sugar, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, almonds 14%, skimmed milk powder, glucose syrup, emulsifier: soya lecithin, flavouring; may contain traces of hazelnuts.

Storage: in a dry and cool place.

Nutritional info per 100g of product: why is it that they don't have nutritional info on Lindt bars produced in Switzerland? (they have for those produced in Germany, that's why I don't get it...)

Price:
» Lindt Swiss Premium Dark Orange Almond: 22 lei (300g bar); that's the equivalent of €5.16/ ₤4.48/ $7.12.
» Lindt Swiss Premium White Almond: 18.21 lei (300g bar); that's the equivalent of €4.27/ ₤3.71/ $5.89.