It’s taken me a while, but I’m finally getting around to eating this Tiramisu flavoured chocolate bar from Polish confectioners E. Wedel. If you’re a fan of tiramisu flavours, you’d better read on…
I know next to nothing about Polish chocolate and it’s something I’m sure I’ll be investigating on my return to the UK in January. Until then though, I wanted to start with a big ‘Thank You’ to Amy from NewTreats who very kindly sent me this bar. She’s reviewed it herself, so if you’re after a second opinion take a look at what she thought here.
So what do we know about the brand? Well it was founded by Karol Wedel, who moved to Poland from Berlin and began the business in Warsaw during 1851. It wasn’t initially chocolate bars, but rather pharmacy goods and drinking chocolate.
Wedel brand means flavour and superior-quality chocolate with an intense, familiar taste. This recognisable, deep flavour is owed to the top quality cocoa from Ghana and carefully selected ingredients.
The full title of this bar would be “Batonik o smaku Tiramisu”. It comes in five little blocks, which survived the journey from Amy’s hand to my house and then back to Germany relatively intact. The description translates as “The taste of a traditional Italian Tiramisu dessert is enclosed in a bar of milk chocolate.” – thanks Google! But is that the flavour it delivers?
Actually, pretty much!
Tiramisu is a difficult flavour to get right. It needs a creamy, rich base, a touch of coffee and a hint of alcohol and this bar does surprisingly well hitting most of those notes.
Reading the ingredients treats your eyes (and brain) to a list of sugars, fats and emulsifiers. Milk and its by-products, wheat, soya and egg all crop up in the ingredients, along with palm fat. There’s also an interesting 0.3% alcohol.
The chocolate itself is decent for a widely available, standard ‘supermarket carried’ chocolate bar. With 29% cocoa solids it does register nicely enough as reasonably cocoa-y. It’s not overkeen to melt but at the same time it’s not gritty or overly sweetened. As a darker chocolate, it’s not particularly creamy or milky either – but it’s not bitter either.
The tiramisu filling has a thick, ‘caramel truffle meets fudge’ quality and sits on top of a condensed milk creme layer. It’s not all smooth though, as within these layers you’ll find little pieces of amaretto biscuit (1.6%) adding both flavour and a little, light crunch.
Working from the point of view that this does emulate a tiramisu flavour, I’d deduct points for the creme layer. It doesn’t deliver the full fat mascarpone deliciousness that I’d want – which is found is droves in the Loacker Tiramisu wafer. Because it’s not using real cream cheese, it also lacks that slight sour tang at the edges.
Unlike the Loacker wafer though, there is an alcoholic flavour to this bar that I believe tiramisu should have. It’s not incredibly potent but it’s discernible and I like it. I even like the little amaretto flavoured crunch from the biscuit granules, adding a bit of contrast to the bar.
Overall I’d say this is heading in the right direction for tiramisu. If mascarpone could be included in the creme layer, it’d be even better. As it is though, I wasn’t disappointed by the bar and I’d rate it as fairly successful and pretty enjoyable. Thanks Amy for sending it over!
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