Lula's Chocolates

Chocolate.  Yes, I am one of the 99% of the world that love chocolate.  I start my day, literally every day, with a piece of chocolate, often a truffle, alongside my coffee.  Honestly, it is what makes me jump out of bed in the morning.

But the rest of my day involves very little chocolate.  Sure, I love a good chocolate cupcake from time to time, or a cookie with chocolate chunks in it, or sometimes a chocolate molten cake but ... its rarely my "go to" style of dessert. 

But my morning chocolates?  Oh yes.

So I was thrilled when I was given chocolate tasting as one of the choices of "fun event" as part of a work (virtual) conference.  A few days before the event, a box of chocolates arrived in the mail, assorted chocolates, from Lulu's chocolates, with a note telling me ... NOT to eat them until the event.  It was excruciating!

For the event, the Founder and Head Chocolatier Scott Lund lead us in a tasting, telling us history of his family and confection making, describing the types of chocolate, and of course, telling us what all our goodies were.  I learned plenty of fun facts about chocolate, from sourcing to how they mark the tops of hand dipped chocolate.  It was educational yet interesting, quite interactive (he asked us lots of trivia questions!), and of course, a wonderful excuse to taste some chocolate.

If you'd like to pick some of these up, Lulu's is based in Monterey, California, but they also distribute via Whole Foods and a few other grocery stores.

Box of a dozen chocolates.

"These small-batch, hand-crafted butter cremes, caramels, nut clusters, and truffles are classic chocolate redefined. Each box includes equal parts butter cremes, caramels, nut clusters, and truffles."

For the event, we were shipped boxes of 13 (chocolatier's dozen?) assorted chocolates, several each of each type that Lula's makes: caramels, butter creams, truffles, and nut clusters.

It became a fun guessing game to identify which I had in my box.

Caramels

"Our small-batch, slow-cooked caramels feature a smooth, rich, and unrivaled combination of chew and chocolately.Discover how well salty and sweet play together with our signature sea salt caramels."

Our boxes contained two styles of caramels, thin luxury salt flavor ones, and larger, square "signature" caramels.

Guide to the Smaller Caramels.

Lula's makes 9 kinds of specialty caramels, all the same shape, all with dark chocolate coating, just with different salts (or spices) used to flavor and top the pieces.  The salts come from all around the world.

My box contained 3 kinds of caramels, and even with the guide, I found it quite hard to guess which was which.  Tasting them didn't generally help either ... my salt tasting skills are not developed enough to know pacific blue salt from hiwa kai salt from alaea salt ...

My mission to determine which 3 I had was made more difficult by not even knowing which 3 I might have.   I was able to rule out the pacific blue, cyprus flake, and fleur de sel, as none were clearly classic white salts.  Which left 6.  I also rules out sriracha as that one was supposed to have the accent marks clustered rather than evenly distributed.  Down to 5.  But from here, I was just guessing.

Anyway, caramels are some of my least favorites in any box of assorted chocolates.   I like chocolate, I love caramel ... just, not together.  The Lula's caramels were clearly well made, but, not something I gravitate towards.

Vintage Merlot?

"With a grape tint, this salt poured in a long band along the surface of the caramel results in a lovely bouquet for any palate."

The flecks on top almost looked like they had a purple-ish hue, so my guess is that this was the "vintage merlot"?  Either than, or it was the himalayan pink (pink tint) or alaea (red tint).  Or, um, even the hiwa kai (grey tint).  See, this was hard!!!

The caramel was good ... for a caramel.

Dark chocolate coating was smooth and clearly high quality.  The caramel had a deep flavor to it, a nice pull and chew to it.

But it was still a caramel, and I still just felt like the chocolate and caramel didn't compliment each other.  I wanted to nibble the high quality chocolate off the sides, and just eat the caramel center later.

I never figured out if I was correct in my guess of which salt it was, I didn't detect a "lovely bouquet" in this ...

**+ because I just don't care for caramels, but, I give credit for what was clearly a well made piece.

Hiwa Kai?

"Large, course, and distinctly charcoal-hued, this beautiful Hawaiian salt is sprinkled breezily across the length of the caramel."

Another caramel, another quasi-educated guess.  The salt *was* down the length, and the hue did seem charcoal and was certainly large and course ...

I really adored the salt on top.  The large crystals were perfect for giving a serious pop of flavor.

The caramel itself seemed much the same though, I didn't taste anything different in the caramel, it again had a good chew, but isn't really my thing.  Same with the dark chocolate - fine quality, but, eh?

So again, overall mostly **+, but I did like the salt a bit more on this one.

Himalayan Pink? Vanilla Bean?

""Marked by the soft pink tint, this coarse salt is hand-mined deep in the Himalayan Mountains and scattered lightly over the surface."

My final caramel was the hardest to ID.  The salt was coarse, and it was scattered over the entire surface, rather than down the length, but I truly couldn't tell if it was "marked by a soft pink tint" (Himalayan Pink) or not (Vanilla Bean).  Tasting it did not help.

This one was much like the others - thick, rich caramel inside, decent depth of flavor, and decent enough dark chocolate coating.  And, much like the others, I found it just "ok", not really appreciating the melding of the chocolate and caramel flavors.

Yet again, **+.

Guide to Square Caramels.

Lula's also makes larger caramels, generally part of their assorted chocolate boxes, in 7 varieties, milk or dark chocolate coated, or with nuts such as almonds, cashews, and macadamias, all with their signature sea salt caramel filling.

Our box had only one of this kind, the basic milk chocolate.

Milk Chocolate.

Well ... I liked this even less than the other caramels.  In those, while I didn't like the combination of dark chocolate and caramel, I did still like the dark chocolate.  This one ... the milk chocolate clashed even more for me than the dark chocolate had with the caramel, and the caramel was extremely chewy.

I had a hard time liking this one, it just seemed sweet, and more like a classic candy bar, than a nice piece.

**+.

Truffles

Truffle's Guide.

"At first bite you detect the unique difference in Lula's truffles - a lighter, creamier, more perfectly accented ganache in flavors designed to delight every chocolate lover's palate."

Truffles are generally my favorite types, so I was happy to see four in our box, out of Lula's lineup of 10 pieces.  Two were easy to distinguish - cafe with the coffee bean on top, and blood orange, one of few round pieces, but the other two I mostly had to guess - cinnamon and chocolate?  Although warm cholula or lavender were my next guesses.

Blood Orange.

The first truffle I tried was the one I could fairly easily identify: blood orange.  I picked it first because I wanted dark chocolate, and I wanted to save the only other one I could guess (cafe) for last.

While I like oranges, blood oranges in particular, orange and chocolate isn't generally a combo I go for, even though I know it is a classic pairing.

This piece basically met my expectations.  Smooth dark chocolate shell, smoother, lighter but still dark, chocolate ganache inside.  All fine, but not extraordinary.  The orange flavor was very intense, the blood orange Lula's uses comes from Italy.

Overall, fine.  But not really my thing.

**+.

Cafe.

This was one of the easiest pieces in the box to identify, clearly marked with a coffee bean on top.

The shell to this had a nice snap, and the coffee bean provided additional crunch.  Inside was smooth dark ganache.  The ganache didn't seem coffee flavored as I expected however, the only coffee flavor I detected came from the bean itself as I crunched it up in my mouth.  The bean was of course an intense flavor, but, I wished for more flavor throughout.

Still a nice enough piece, ***+.

Chocolate?  Warm Cholula?

Now the guessing game really began.  Was this the "chocolate" one?  "Warm cholula"?  Even ... maybe perhaps "lavender"?  My eyes couldn't tell if this was slightly purple hued, and the granules on top didn't look large enough to be the chocolate, but didn't seem light enough in color to be the cholula.

I think it was the chocolate, but I'm really not 100% certain.  I say this only because I couldn't taste lavender, and it didn't really seem to have any zing to it from hot sauce ...

It turned out to be my favorite piece, whatever it was.

Thick, smooth, rich dark chocolate ganache inside.  It seemed richer and darker than the others.  Snappy, slightly sweet, dark chocolate shell.  A very decadent feeling piece, and I enjoyed it slowly (you know, two bites).

****.

Lavender?  Cinnamon?  Chocolate?

Lavender?  Cinnamon?  Chocolate?  I think lavender?

While looking at this one I couldn't quite tell which it was, and had guessed lavender, but as soon as I took a bite it became clear.   Cinnamon!

This piece was much like the previous, a rich, dark, smooth chocolate ganache inside, lovely texture, and seriously, so rich.  But this time it truly did have a different taste to it, quite clearly fairly sharp cinnamon.

I really appreciated the stronger flavor, and the smooth creamy nature of the filling, but I wasn't particularly into the cinnamon, as it seemed to clash with the lovely chocolate.  Another one that I could tell was really a quality piece, just not my pick.

**+.

Butter Creams

Butter Creams.

"Every butter cream is distinctively marked with a letter designating the flavor." 

Butter cremes come in a dozen flavors, ranging from fruity (cherry cordial, raspberry, orange, lemon), to nutty (almond, pecan), to flavors like mint, vanilla, and coconut.

The butter creams were easy to figure out which was which, all round pieces, as promised, with distinctive markings.  Our box contained only 2.

Milk Chocolate Penuche.

I started the the penuche, easily marked with a "P" for penuche.

If you are wondering what penuche is, so were we, and it was explained to be a fudge-like candy made from brown sugar, butter, milk, and vanilla.

This was ... really, really sweet.  The filling, a light blonde color, reminded me of a maple sugar candy, just without the maple taste, if that makes any sense.  Just, sweet.  So sweet.  It was smooth, creamy, and unlike anything I've had before.  Penuche, I guess.

The milk chocolate shell didn't offset the sweetness.  

I was happy to try something so different, but, this piece didn't really have a place in my life.  Too sweet.

**.

Dark Chocolate Mint.

The final buttercream piece was easily the most distinctive: it came wrapped in foil.  The only one in the box presented this way.  Inside was a dark chocolate piece, marked with a "M" for mint, just like the penuche.

This was a decent piece: smooth dark chocolate coating, and fairly minty filling.  The mint didn't taste fake nor medicinal.  Like a big peppermint patty, just, higher quality than your standard York.

***.

Nut Clusters

Nut Clusters Guide.

"A collection of perfectly fresh nuts complemented by Lula's dark and milk chocolate."

Nut clusters are commonly amongst my favorite pieces in assorted boxes of chocolates, so I was glad to see three in our box - two dark, one milk.  I wouldn't have been able to tell which was which though had the class leader not tell us, they all looked ~the same, and the guide wasn't exactly helpful -  "almonds, cashews, pecans, & macadamia nuts", is all it said.

Milk Chocolate Macadamia.

Yes, macadamias.  One of my favorite nuts. In the class, we learned that the macadamias come from Hawaii.  I was quite excited for this one, although I do generally prefer dark chocolate with my macadamias.

It was, yet again, a perfectly well made piece.  3 full macadamias inside.  Smothered in plenty of milk chocolate.  No complaints really about the construction, the ratios, the quality of the nuts or the chocolate, but ... it was rather boring.  I'm not sure why, but no flavors popped.  That said, the day I tried this was the day after I had polished off a bag (yes, entire bag) of dark chocolate macadamias from Hawaii, so, uh, perhaps my baseline was skewed having had so many from a company that specializes just in pieces like this, and were dark rather than milk chocolate ...

Anyway, a fine piece, it just didn't excite me.  ***.

Dark Chocolate Almond.

My final nut cluster was the most boring sounding to me, as almonds are rather ... "everyday" nuts for me.  And indeed, the almonds used by Lula's are Californian.  Nothing exotic here.

The piece was good, whole almonds, plenty of them.  Quality dark chocolate.  

It didn't blow me away, there was nothing particularly unique about it, just a decently well made standard piece.  

***.

Dark Chocolate Cashew.

The last cluster I tried was also dark chocolate, this time with cashews.  In the class, we learned that Lula's sources the cashews from India.  I find cashews rather polarizing, sometimes I love them, sometimes I hate, but smothered in dark chocolate,  I had hope.

It was much like the almond cluster for me.  Whole cashews, at least 3 in my piece.  Good crunch from them.  Quality smooth dark chocolate.  And yet, boring.

I think what this piece, and the other nut clusters, was missing was salt.  For me, I just needed something to make the flavors pop a bit more ...

***.