New Zealand’s best craft chocolate makers are a rebellious and trend-setting bunch, so it’s no surprise that they’re making some of the most unique and experimental bars in the country.
The craft chocolate community adheres to the ‘bean-to-bar’ ethos, meaning they make chocolate from scratch on a small scale. Most small chocolate companies buy pre-made chocolate (known as couverture) from big industrial makers, but craft makers choose to do things the hard way. They start with roasting speciality cacao beans, before removing the shells, grinding the inner ‘nibs’, refining and conching the chocolate (to make it super smooth), and tempering the bars (so that they have the perfect shine and snap). It’s very time and labour-intensive, but the result is much higher quality chocolate with vastly superior flavour to mass-produced confectionery.
Working outside of the mainstream chocolate world allows craft makers more freedom to be creative and push the boundaries of flavour. Here are ten unique bars that will change your perception of what chocolate can be...
Baron Hasselhoff’s
Viva Frida
Baron Hasselhoff’s is well known for its fun flavours, brightly-coloured wrappers and amusing stories. Viva Frida is a ‘spiced almond molé’ bar that was inspired by Frida Kahlo’s personal molé recipe, which may or may not have been stolen by the Baron on a trip to Mexico. Wherever the recipe came from, this bar is a perfect combination of Mexican cacao, roasted almonds, five different chillies, and a selection of other spices. The toasted pepitas sprinkled on the back add a perfect amount of crunch.
Flint Chocolate
Number 29 Olive Oil
Olive oil in chocolate? That’s right! And it works incredibly well. All chocolate contains fat—usually in the form of cocoa butter—so this bar replaces a little of the butter with Number 29 Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Waiheke Island. The result is a rich, smooth and subtly aromatic chocolate that melts beautifully. The organic cacao beans from Öko-Caribe in the Dominican Republic provide incredible depth and complexity.
Half Baked
Coconut Milk Chocolate
Vegan milk chocolate is becoming easier to access these days, and Half Baked has created one of the most interesting options out there. This Coconut Milk Chocolate is made with ethically-sourced cacao from the Solomon Islands, coconut sugar and... wait for it... mushrooms! That’s right—every bar contains a handful of chaga, reishi and lion's mane medicinal mushrooms and It’s A LOT more delicious than it sounds.
Foundry Chocolate
Ucayali River, Peru 70%
Foundry Chocolate specialises in two-ingredient chocolate, meaning that they only ever put cacao and sugar in their bars. So, how unique can that be? Well, when you taste this bar, you’ll understand. These highly-rare beans are considered some of the best in the world, and currently, Foundry is the only chocolate maker using them in New Zealand. The flavours in this Ucayali River bar —which include raspberry, tamarillo, cinnamon and coffee—all come from the natural notes of the beans. This is the magic of small-batch, single-origin chocolate.
Hogarth Chocolate Makers
Kumara
The Kumara milk chocolate from Hogarth in Nelson is one of the most surprising and smashable bars you’ll ever taste. It’s made with red, gold and orange kumara, sourced from fellow Nelsonites Proper Crisps. The kumara is ground completely smooth within the Peruvian milk chocolate, so you taste the sweet, caramelised flavour without any crispy texture. It makes so much sense when you taste it.
Miann Chocolate Factory
Lamington Bar
Miann is known for baked goods as well as chocolate, and the Lamington bar brings the two together in perfect harmony. 40% Mexican milk chocolate meets freeze-dried raspberries and shredded coconut, resulting in a fun and flavourful reinterpretation of a raspberry lamington. If you’re a fan of this classic Kiwi treat, be sure to seek out a bar from one of Miann’s Auckland stores.
Shirl + Moss
Hazelnut, Orange & Sea Salt
Hazelnut, Orange & Sea Salt instantly sounds amazing, but wait until you taste this bar. It's an interpretation of Italian gianduja, meaning that the hazelnuts are ground smooth within the chocolate, creating the most incredible silky texture (think Nutella, but a million times better). The sprinkling of Marlborough sea salt emphasises the natural flavours of the cacao, hazelnuts and orange, creating a bar that’s wonderfully balanced and outrageously tasty.
Lucid Chocolatier
Port 68%
This indulgent masterpiece from Lucid Chocolatier, the Port 68% won the Supreme Award at the New Zealand Chocolate Awards last year. Beautiful and rare cacao from Peru's Marañon Valley is soaked in a 10-year-old tawny port, before being dried out and ground into 68% dark chocolate. The result is an incredibly rich and complex flavour journey that sings with raisin, toasted nut and caramel notes. Watch out though, this is a bar you can totally lose yourself in.
Raglan Chocolate
GingerNutty
Warning—you will not be able to put this bar down. Raglan Chocolate has created the GingerNutty—a fiendishly yummy bar that combines 34% milk chocolate with classic gingernut cookies. The way the crunchy, crumbly cookie texture combines with the super-smooth chocolate is absolutely divine, and the ginger heat perfectly complements the sweetness. Dangerously good!
OCHO
Horopito & Kawakawa
Dunedin’s OCHO has reinterpreted chilli chocolate with a uniquely New Zealand twist. Horopito and kawakawa are native plants with a spicy, peppery flavour that beautifully blends with this 66% dark chocolate, which is made with beans from Papua New Guinea. A lot of New Zealand’s chocolate culture stems from Europe, but over time, products like this are helping to develop our own chocolate identity.
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Image credit: Flint Chocolate, Baron Hasselhoff’s, Half Baked, Foundry Chocolate, Hogarth Chocolate Makers, Miann Chocolate Factory, Shirl + Moss, Lucid Chocolatier, Raglan Chocolate, OCHO.