I have to hand it to Norman Love, he managed to make me like white chocolate. Normally, I turn my nose up at white chocolate. Oh, there’s nothing wrong with it in principle, but it’s all milky and cloying, and doesn’t actually have any cacao in it. White “chocolate,” pshaw.
His key lime chocolate, for instance. It’s a white chocolate shell (shaped like a conch shell, lightly sprayed with green-tinted cocoa butter) that contains a white chocolate ganache with nice tartness, slight nuttiness, and perfectly smooth texture.
The passionfruit heart is lovely. It’s a milk shell decorated with white- and yellow-tinted cocoa butter, and it’s almost too pretty to eat. Passionfruit is usually quite a tart, punchy flavour. In Norman Love’s hands, it’s subtle and gentle. The passionfruit flavour mixes so well with the bitterness of the ganache, and somehow enhances the fruitiness of the passionfruit. The chocolate and the passionfruit help each other out and it’s delicious. And fantastically smooth.
And the strawberry heart? It’s dark chocolate with splashes of red. And it smells – smells! – like a strawberry patch in the height of summer. I’ve never smelled anything like it, at least not in chocolate form. The ganache is smooth and lovely, with just a kick of something boozy. Strawberry liqueur? It tastes almost like strawberry Pocky, but infinitely better.
