Cherry, Chili and Dark Chocolate...an interesting "creation" by Lindt with some strange ingredients

Despite having tasted many more expensive and higher quality chocolates over the years, a favourite chocolate bar of mine is a Lindt Creation, specifically the Cherry & Chili 70% bar. For me, it is the ultimate combination of a really great chocolate truffle, a dessert and chocolate bar all in one affordable 150 gram bar. I like the dark truffle, the bitter enrobing chocolate, the hint of cherry sauce and I especially like the after-taste with the heat of the chili warming my mouth.

Although I have tasted this chocolate bar before, someone recently gifted me with a new one. And since I have not blogged about it, I thought today was a great day to do so.  Actually, I woke up craving it this morning, which is the real reason why today was a great day for re-tasting and blogging about it.

Except for the name and overall flavour, I had forgotten other key details about this chocolate bar. After reading the ingredients list today, I was reminded why I had found it so interesting before. Firstly, although "artificial flavour" is on the ingredients list (an ingredient I am not a fan of), the rest of the ingredients are natural. What's funny though, are these natural ingredients.  For instance, why are there almonds in the ingredients list? It is not chunky, crunchy or nutty in any way. There are also hazelnuts listed, but that is a normal ingredient for a creating a smooth, melt-in-your-mouth truffle centre, but almonds are not usually used for that reason. So I ask: what's up with that Lindt?

As for the other ingredients, well seriously, this chocolate bar has the strangest list of ingredients I have ever seen in a bar that is not intended to be a "health food" product. It also includes the following: carrot, grape, chokeberry, chili extract, and the list goes on.  So I find myself wondering: why do they need carrot in this chocolate? I am assuming it is for colouring the cherry sauce, and so I commend Lindt for using a natural source of food colouring.

I usually do not read the ingredients list until after I've tasted and assessed the flavour, so that my opinion is not based on prior knowledge of ingredients. So after I had eaten quite a bit (and vowed not to eat any more chocolate today!), I read the ingredients for this Lindt bar, and then had to go back and get another piece to see if I could taste the  almonds, hazelnuts, carrot, grape or chokeberry.  I guess it tastes a bit nutty, but it was not apparent when I tasted it the first time.

Regardless of the ingredients list, I recommend that you try the Cherry & Chili Lindt Creation 70% chocolate bar if you like dark chocolate truffles and if you like cherry or chili-flavoured chocolate.  It is about $4.99 and in Canada is available at Shopper's Drug Mart and other Canadian pharmacies and super-stores like Walmart.  I believe pharmacies, like Walgreens, or Walmart is also where you will find it in the U.S.A.

Here are the details (as written on the package) of the Lindt Creation chocolate bar that I tasted today:
Lindt Creation 70% Cherry & Chili, 70% cacao, 150 g
"70% cacao dark chocolate shell with a cherry-chili and truffle filling"
Manufactured by: Lindt & Sprungli AG (France)
www.lindt.com

Ingredients: cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa powder, cocoa butter, glucose syrup from wheat and corn, milk ingredients, almonds, cherry, pectin, concentrated cherry juice, hazelnuts, concentrated lemon juice, natural bourbon vanilla bean, soya lecithin, artificial flavour, carrot, grape, chokeberry, chili extract, vanilla.  May contain traces of peanuts.