However, it's Chocolate Week! To celebrate our first glimpse of non-frostbite-inducing weather, here's a limited edition bar from Thornton's in England. Thanks, Lis! It's described as being flavored like cloudy lemonade, the UK's answer to lemonade, but carbonated. The bar features a white chocolate base with lemon oil and popping candy. Thornton's has gotten some fantastic reception from UK chocolate and candy bloggers, so I was excited to have my first taste.
This was a gorgeous bar, from the clean outer package to the co-dependent wrapper slogan on the inside, with a creamy yellow tinge and an abstract pattern on the chocolate blocks. Breaking it open, it was easy to see the large popping candy pieces inside. My first impression was slight confusion, as the white chocolate's flavor seemed to dominate everything else in the bar.
As the chocolate melted, I got a hint of lemon oil, a flavor that got pervasively stronger as the melt went on, but it was a sweetened lemon flavor like a lemon glaze or powdered sugar on a doughnut. The popping candies came in at the very end of the bite, with loud, crispy pops that reminded me more of the crunch of Rice Krispies than of Pop Rocks, but adequately conveyed the sensation of carbonation, at least for part of the time. It's a curious sensation, one that offers a fascinating jumping point with the inclusion of candy that mimics carbonation. What would a Coke bar be like? Or a Mountain Dew? Inquiring minds want to know!
Labels: 7, chocolate, chocolate week, dessert, snack