This box of J. Emanuel Classic Truffles also came as free samples from J. Emanuel via Chocolate com.
From left to right, the top row is Marzipan, Mocha, Peppermint, and Gianduja. The bottom row is Paris, Raspberry, Amaretto, and Champagne (which was identical to that of Monday’s wine truffle collection).
Marizpan was dark chocolate contrasted against a dry and crumbly marzipan center. I could feel the bits of almond in it, which makes me think it could have been homemade.
The marzipan was sweet and grainy. It wasn’t as sweet as marzipan can get, but it was still on the sweet side for me. And it had a light residual mintiness from the Peppermint truffle.
Mocha was made of milk chocolate and topped with a little roasted coffee bean. Most of the coffee flavor came from the bean, though if you look closely, you can see little black flecks of bean in the ganache.
The ganache was sweet and tasted of fruit and caramel. As one of my friends put it, it would be great if coffee could taste like this truffle!
Peppermint was a dark chocolate shell cut with a white chocolate slash and filled with a dark chocolate ganache. The filling was mild and understated, sweet with a light freshness. It was like a quietly sophisticated and much-weakened York Peppermint Patty.
Gianduja (below) had a milk chocolate shell with a nutty gianduja (chocolate and hazelnut) filling. The filling was amazingly genuine – I could tell that it was made with real hazelnuts, as it had that hint-of-astringency edge to it. It was definitely a cut above Nutella!
Paris was the ambiguously named one of the lot. Its center was a smooth, fatty, buttery caramel-flavored ganache with a savory finish. Think sophisticated butterscotch.
Raspberry was sprinkled with the red dust of crushed, dehydrated berries. Its ganache had a thick and sticky texture.
This truffle packed a powerfully bright punch of genuine raspberry fruit flavor, like a whole flat of berries concentrated into just one bite. It also had a great tanginess to it, and just a hint of manageable astringency to the finish.
Finally, Amaretto, easily identifiable by its topping of crushed almonds.
I love the taste of Amaretto, especially drizzled over vanilla ice cream. I loved the smell of this – just like uncorking a bottle of the actual liqueur.
Its ganache and flavor was smooth and buttery and tasted of sweet, almond extract. The liqueur was nicely highlighted with the crushed almond bits.
The Amaretto, Raspberry, and Gianduja were the standouts of this bunch. They get OMGs, while the box as a whole is OM-worthy. I really enjoyed it, but not as much as I enjoyed the wine truffles.
Varsha