Monday, May 4, 2009

Assortments R Us

What's in an chocolate box? Is a creme by any other name just as creamy? Wouldn't mum love a chocolate selection for Mother's Day?

I have put together a little guide to separate the pralines from the truffles... (Part 1)

In the early days of The Chocolate Box’s history, chocolates were made at the back of the Camberwell (Melbourne) shop, hand filled, piped, and decorated. The Chocolate Box co-owner Marion recalls working in the store at age 13, mixing the fondants, pouring them into the chocolate bases, and piping the chocolates with a decorative initial. The chocolates were then laid out on trays behind the glass counter. These were chocolate coated creams, nut clusters, hard toffees and hand-dipped jellies and fruit, in the days before European style chocolates and pralines became dominant.


If you like chocolates with nut clusters, hard caramels, chocolate coated jelly, coconut roughs, marzipans, and the type of sweet soft creams (or cremes) that run (like egg yolks in a soft boiled egg) when you bite into them, you will love our 50th Anniversary Assortment. (If you are a fan of the hard centres, we have Hard Centre only versions of our 50th Anniversary assortment in all milk and all dark chocolate.)

In Europe, the Swiss and Belgian manufacturers had been dominant for many years, but it wasn't until their chocolates were imported to Australia, that Australians got a taste of the very elegant, stylised, and refined European-style chocolate assortments. Characteristically quite beautiful and individual to look at, European assortments often feature pralines (with whipped chocolate centres mixed with finely ground nuts, often hazelnuts or almonds), marzipans (an almond and sugar confection), and truffle centres (made with cream, chocolate and liqueur or other flavours).


If you like chocolates with soft centres, nut pralines, liqueur or coffee flavoured chocolates, and decorative chocolates that frequently have more than one combination of flavours, you will love our La Boite (Belgian box) assortment.


If you would prefer to try an Australian made version of European style chocolates, we have our Classic assortment of chocolates: these include a variety of European style pralines, marzipan chocolates, liqueur flavoured chocolates, creams, buttercreams and chocolate and nut combinations.

The List:
50th Anniversary Assortment
Classic Assortment
La Boite Assortment