Every year on my birthday, my parents would take me out for a special dinner. I used to love getting all dressed up and heading out to what I considered to be a fancy restaurant; the kind of restaurant that required reservations, served Shirley Temples in sparkling crystal glasses, and had beautiful chandeliers hanging from the ceilings. My mother would lay out a freshly ironed dress and a pair of patent-leather shoes for me, and I’d quickly get myself ready for my big birthday night. But it wasn’t the fancy lights or the Shirley Temples or the general fanciness of the restaurant that got me excited – those things were just added bonuses, background prettiness for the real star of the evening: the fancy awesome birthday dinner dessert.
Every year, my parents would “surprise me” by ordering a piece of birthday cake and having the waiters come over and embarrass me to death with a variation of the birthday song. And every year, I’d hand the cake over to my dad and order a big old glass of chocolate mousse.
There’s nothing better than good chocolate mousse. When you go to a restaurant that does it up right, eating chocolate mousse is akin to eating a giant vat of melted 3 Musketeers, with a dollop of whipped cream on top. It is brilliant and lovely and wonderful and all of the things that chocolate should be. Bad chocolate mousse is another story, as it tastes like stale chocolate milk crossed with an egg-crate mattress. It’s bad news, bears.
I like to think of myself as a connoisseur of chocolate mousse. Sure, in 7th grade I tried to make my own with Hershey’s Syrup and Cool Whip, but even the greatest masters make mistakes now and then. (It was delicious, but it wasn’t chocolate mousse, that’s for sure.) So when I was presented with a box of Camille Bloch Mousse Chocolat Noir, I was both excited and skeptical. It’s hard to capture the texture of chocolate mousse in candy form without the candy coming off as too nougaty, so I wasn’t expecting too much. The Mousse Chocolat Noir exceeded my expectations and then some.
The first thing you notice about the Mousse Chocolat Noir is its shape. The chocolate comes in bar form, but each piece stands as a giant bubble of chocolate, similar to the bubble wrap you see in packaging. You can easily snap an individual piece from the rest of the bar, which makes it an easy candy to share or eat in increments.
The outer coating of each chocolate dome is a lovely dark chocolate; robust and smooth with a nice snap. The center of the Chocolat Noir is the real star, however: a creamy, rich mousse that tastes just like the kind of chocolate mousse I went crazy for as a kid. The outer coating blends seamlessly into the mousse as you chew, creating a super chocolaty experience that is both decadent and delicious. There is a faint hazelnut taste that balances the slightly bitter snap of the dark chocolate, which just adds to the pleasant texture of the candy. This is a pretty rich chocolate; I found that I could only eat a few pieces at a time, but the chocolate was so good that just a few pieces are enough to satisfy a big craving.
If dark chocolate isn’t your thing, Camille Bloch also makes mousse candies in the following flavors: milk chocolate, caramel, and milk chocolate/hazelnut. (I am now on a mission to try all of them, so look for reviews soon!)
When my birthday rolls around again, I’ll probably head out for another fancy glass of chocolate mousse. Until then, I’ll get by with the next best thing: Mousse Chocolat Noir.
Buy Camille Bloch Chocolate Online:
- at Amazon.com
