My awesome friend Greg from Houston and his friends are total foodies. What does this mean? That they are willing to drive 3.5 hours from Houston to attend the Austin Hill County Food and Wine Festival, even if it means driving through a hurricane to get there.
I am not a big fan of wine – with the exception of amazing New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs – but if there is gourmet food, then count me in! So we arrived at the festival Sunday afternoon, and as I was swishing my glass of overly sweet champagne in desperate need of a little O.J., I spot a chocolate booth.
Wiseman House Chocolates, a local Texas chocolatier, stood at the front of the main tent and just dared you not to stop by with their elegant display of product and fully uniformed workers. I sauntered as quickly as one can in 90ºF with a glass of champagne in hand, eager to pick at the lovely samples they were doling out.
The first was a bowl containing their Mocha Crunch. I didn’t reveal my credentials as a candy reviewer, so when one of the employees asked what I thought, she was taken back a bit by the fact I replied, “It’s too dry. There needs to be more cocoa butter to balance out the ground coffee beans.â€
She seemed more impressed than disappointed that I was able to spot this. Note to self, it is perfectly acceptable to be a food snob at such a festival. Feeling let down, she handed me a complimentary truffle. I bit into it, and it was amazing, but I will extol the virtues of it in another review. She saved the best for last. A plain Almond Toffee.
Now, I have reviewed my fair share of toffees, including some gourmet products produced by LalaBoodle’s and The Choke Cherry Tree. How do these compare? They are so good that my awesome friend Greg became even awesomer (spelling intended) when he purchased a 13-dollar half-pound of these and a small package of truffles for $9.
So when we get home, Greg decides he no longer wants any of the candy and leaves it with me. I don’t do a very good job of feigning ambivalence. Instead, I decide to devour a piece.
The half-pound package contains five squarish (more like irregular rhombuses) that are about four square inches. The piece is also quite thick at about a quarter-inch. The squares are coated and dusted in various bit of almond that ranges in size from flake to chunk. I take a whiff and it smells more like fresh almonds than toffee.
That is because this piece is unlike regular toffee in several ways. First, it’s immensely fresh. The bite is firm, but not hard, with a soft crunch containing almonds embedded within the toffee for an enhanced textural contrast. Lovely, just lovely. No pieces stick in your teeth and the flavors permeate well.
It has a simplicity to it that I feel most other forms of toffee complicate. You taste the butter, which is rich, but not overwhelming, and it is never burdened with excess sugar. Just spot on for the perfect ratio of ingredients and cooking temperature.
The almond coating and the toffee center are separated by a Belgian chocolate layer. This is really where this piece of toffee distinguishes itself from other brands. Most of the time, the chocolate layer is relegated to one portion and is too minimal to be tasted with the bolder toffee component.
In this case, chocolate is listed as the main ingredient, and the whole piece is battered in the chocolate coat, which allows you to blend the almonds and toffee mellifluously with the milky and bittersweet tastes. All of this is further highlighted by an insightful adding of sea salt to balance out the various flavors.
To say I enjoyed this would be an understatement. It’s subtle and sophisticated, yet I can write about the intricacies of this product for days. The only real qualm about these, aside from their stiff price, is that they use corn syrup in addition to sugar. But hey, it’s a small sacrifice for something this delicious.
[...] I recently reviewed Wiseman House Almond Toffee, I alluded to the fact that my friend Greg (still awesome) not only purchased a bag of their Almond [...]
April 29th, 2009 at 2:01 am