White Chocolate for a White Sky Kind of Day....Green & Black's vs Ghirardelli Vanilla Dream

It is a gloomy day on Manitoulin Island.  It has stopped raining and the sky has changed to a depressing shade of solid white. And I thought, why not celebrate this white day with a little white chocolate?  So I am sweetening up this glum day by tasting a 35 gram Green & Black's organic White Chocolate bar and a large 90 gram Ghirardelli "Sublime White Vanilla Dream" chocolate bar.

I have tasted the Green & Black's white chocolate bar before.  White chocolate bars are not as easy to find as milk or dark chocolate around here, but Green & Black`s has a great distribution strategy and as a result, are readily available in large grocery stores as well as health food stores. After re-tasting it today, it tastes sweet but cocoa buttery to me.  Its texture is hard and it requires a little more time to melt in the mouth than the Ghirardelli. The vanilla flavour is noticeable and little black pieces of vanilla bean are visible, which I love. I can taste the cocoa butter even more than the vanilla, which makes me feel like I am still eating chocolate, rather than a candy bar.

The Ghirardelli melts in your mouth instantly. It is smooth and soft and cravable for the texture alone. The flavour is a sweet vanilla and cocoa butter. The vanilla bean specks are also visible in the chocolate, proving that real vanilla was actually used.  It is much sweeter than the Green & Black's, and because of the organic nature of their chocolate, I wish I could say that I liked Green & Black's more, but I can't.  In this tasting, Ghirardelli wins for me.  I was going to take a great product shot of the chocolate bar, but my husband liked it so much that he ate the rest before I could get a picture.  So I guess it won him over as well.

I love that Green & Black's is so upfront about how much cocoa butter, milk, and vanilla pod is in their chocolate (see ingredients list below). And I normally am not a fan of Ghriardelli, because some of their other chocolate bar flavours use artificial ingredients and colourings.  However, their "Sublime" white chocolate bar ingredients are not too bad, and it truly tastes sublime.  Check out the ingredients list below and see for yourself.

Well, the sun is finally peaking out of the clouds. If you are having a gloomy day wherever you are, I highly recommend that you sweeten it up with a little white chocolate.

Ghirardelli Chocolate Sublime White Vanilla Dream, 90g (3.17 oz)
Manufactured by Girardelli Chocolate Company, San Leandro, CA (USA)
www.ghirardelli.com
Ingredients: White chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, nonfat dry milk, soy lecithin - an emulsifier, vanilla, natural flavor, ground vanilla beans. Manufactured on the same equipment that also makes products containing peanuts and tree nuts.

Green & Black's Organic White Chocolate, 30% Cocoa, 35 g
Green & Black's Ltd., London, England
www.greenandblacks.com
Ingredients: organic raw cane sugar, organic cocoa butter (30%), organic whole milk powder (27%), Emulsifier: soya lecithin, organic vanilla pod (0.08%), organic vanilla extract (0.07%). Contains Milk and Soy ingredients.  May contain traces of nuts and cereal.