I love lemons. Lemon juice is a lot like salt – used properly, you don’t taste it, but it makes a huge difference to a finished dish. Also, the masochist in me likes the sour-tart thing that lemons have.
Plus, they go so well with sweets. Seth Ellis Chocolatier makes their own candied lemons, and enrobes them in two layers of dark chocolate. The resulting confection is chocolatey, bitter, sweet and tart – all at once. It’s quite lovely.
Like any good food producer, they don’t let anything go to waste. The delicious lemon syrup that’s left over makes its way into their lemon truffles. Inside a dark chocolate shell is a lemon-kissed dark chocolate ganache that hints at the bitterness of lemon pith, but stops short of actually getting there. There are wee bits of lemon zest dispersed in the ganache, and while I’d normally complain about it, this time I like the textural interest of the zest.
And since we eat with our eyes, I think one of the best parts of this truffle is that they look like little art deco buttons. It’s like eating a chocolatey version of a vintage Chanel suit. And how often do you get to do that?
Seth Ellis chocolates are available at select locations in the Denver/Boulder area, and that page will soon be updated to reflect the five NYC Whole Foods that now carries them. You can also buy them online through It’s Only Natural Gifts or through Foodzie.