A side-effect of doing the Great Chocolate Experiment posts is that I’ve become a lot more inclined to try unusual chocolate bars when I see them in stores. After all, if even my hopelessly amateurish attempts at candy-making can make unlikely combinations like garlic and chocolate taste good, then how much better will a professional chocolatier’s efforts be? So, when I found this Dolfin Chocolat au Lait Hot Masala bar in Montreal, I decided to give it a try.
According to the Food Lover’s Companion, masala is “a word used throughout India for a spice blend with myriad variations. It can refer to a simple combination of two or three spices (such as cardamom, coriander and mace) or a complex blend of 10 or more ingredients.” Masalas, especially the most popular variety, garam masala, are often used as a spice base for curries. Chocolate and curry couldn’t be any worse than chocolate and pickles… right?
Once I’d brought the bar home, a look at the ingredients quickly dispelled my hopes of rocking the chocolate/curry combo. The bar’s spices of cinnamon, cardamom, pepper, cloves, ginger and vanilla were more consistent with a different type of masala – tea masala, used to make the popular sweet beverage known as masala chai, usually just called chai in North America. Now, I love a good cup of chai almost as much as I love a good plate of curry, so I wasn’t really all that disappointed.
