Candy review: Derry Church Artisan Chocolates

Monday, November 23, 2009 - by Linda

Another box of filled chocolates to sample! You guys have no idea how hard I work for you. Derry Church Artisan Chocolates have a schtick which is kind of cute, where each one is named after a city and is flavored with stuff that at least sort of has something to do with the place they are named after. They also have some flavors that I can pretty much guarantee you have never encountered, which is sometimes a good thing and sometimes very much not so good at all.

San Fran – black mission figs. Good dark chocolate. Just a hint of figs really but it’s enough. It’s a good combination.

London – butter toffee and crushed almonds. I picked this up and said to my assistant “I don’t like toffee, you can have this one,” and took a little bite. And then finished the whole piece. (Don’t worry, there were two, he got the other.) Nice and buttery and not the kind that sticks in your teeth. They need to make a whole big bar of this.

Savannah – peaches in white chocolate ganache with oat crumble. I give them credit for this idea. There are lots of chocolate companies making flavors you’ve never heard of, but most of them are European or Asian types of flavors. Here’s a solidly American idea. But… the peach filling is not bad, but I just can’t do the oat crumble with chocolate. A for imagination, but I would not eat this again.

Cairo – date and balsamic vinegar, with a topping of jaggery (brown sugar and molasses). Eating the parts separately, you can taste the balsamic vinegar in the filling but surprisingly, this is not awful like it probably sounds. The little topping bit tastes extremely of molasses and has a nice sandy texture, and is something I could use more of in my life. Eating it all at once it comes together into its own indescribable but mostly fruity-tasting thing.

Burlington – maple syrup and pecan. I hate to be un-American but this is another one that doesn’t do it for me. I don’t really taste any maple syrup. I don’t want maple syrup on my chocolate anyway though, come to think of it. Another A for patriotism, otherwise, not for me.

Winter Haven – orange and white chocolate. This tastes totally like white chocolate and yet also has the flavor of orange juice. Kind of confusing really but in a good way.

Dublin – Irish whiskey cream liqueur and coffee. My assistant, who is a whiskey fan, said this didn’t taste much like whiskey. Which was fine with me, but I still didn’t like this one. Somehow it just gave the impression of not very good milk chocolate – I think the additions weakened the chocolate flavor without adding enough of their own flavor.

Derry Church – bigger than the others, milk chocolate with what they call “dulce de leche caramel,” which basically seems to mean that rather than the usual stiff chewy caramel you get inside a chocolate, this is soft and flowing, and it’s wonderful. It’s that really good caramel flavor that seems to hit every single taste bud in your whole mouth – nice and rich and full. I am not crazy about the milk chocolate in these chocolates, which is not intense enough for me, but never mind the chocolate, in this one you could just eat the filling off a spoon.

Plymouth – the description of this filled me with dread: chocolate with pumpkin pie spice? But it was excellent – the problem is, they’ve named it wrong. It tastes just like one of those chocolate covered gingerbread Lebkuchen cookies, and obviously should be named after a city in Germany instead.

Mumbai – curry. Of this, the less said, the better.

County Kildare – oatmeal. Before you say “yuck,” it might be worth reading the description that says “remarkably similar taste and texture to freshly baked oatmeal cookies.” But you might, like me, still say “yuck” after you taste it.

Rome – cappuccino flavored, and cute, topped with what looks like foam dusted with cinnamon. It’s OK, it doesn’t bowl me over, but what a relief after curry and oatmeal. Sometimes there’s a reason that certain combinations are traditional and certain combinations are unheard-of.

Paris – strawberry jam and white chocolate. This really is strawberry jam, and tasting it makes me realize that jam really does have its own flavor – it’s not just strawberry and it’s not like what fruit flavor chocolate fillings are usually like. And I am not sure I would have thought it was going to be a good idea if I’d known this in advance. But, I like this one.

To sum up, some of these are too off the wall but more to the point they are not really my style, so they are not going to knock Burdick or Theo out of the top rank as my favorite artisan chocolate. But enough of the flavors are good that I am left with a curiosity about the remaining ones that I didn’t get to try. (Hmm, Edinburgh butterscotch sauce?) So I should also point out that you can buy these chocolates packaged in a pretty little Japanese bento box, fancy chopsticks included and wrapped in cloth in the Japanese way, and Christmas is coming, and don’t leave out the London and Plymouth, OK?

• Derry Church Chocolates Website