Impact
Valrhona waxes on about this confection as a curator at an art exhibit.
Some tidbits:
Fountain, Marcel Duchamp, 1917
Some tidbits:
While preparing a dessert for a major event, Chef Bau, from L'Ecole du Grand Chocolat, left some white chocolate in a bain-marie & became absorbed in a new technique. 10 hours later, he was drawn from his creative reverie by the delicious aroma. His alarm quickly turned to delight... after 8 years of pain-staking research, Valrhona finally developed the perfect recipe.S'pose next it'll segue into Monet, Impressionism, en plein air, and the Water Lilies series. Continuance inevitably leads onto objets trouvés and eau de toilet chocolat.
Appearance 4.3 / 5
| Color: | dirty blond... filthy blond... obscenely kinky blond |
| Surface: | virgin |
| Temper: | putty with a soft bounce back |
| Snap: | dud |
Aroma 7.5 / 10
bullet-proof double-scotched butterscotch... 'til it farts casein protein (whey to go)
Mouthfeel 12.6 / 15
| Texture: | creamy sludge |
| Melt: | faster than anticipated |
Flavor 42.8 / 50
buttercotch Aroma transfers over, emphasizing browned butter -> caramelized butter cream -> small toffee -> lightly burnt sugar -> more butterscotching on the way out
Quality 14.7 / 20
Comparisons between this & Nestlé's Caramac seem... well, infantile. C'mon kids, time to grow up, or at least Valrhona counsels as much in its parenting of Dulcey. Adult-erous candy.
A better tilt however pits Valrhona's Dulcey vs. Fruition's Toasted White.
Whereas Bryan Graham of Fruition moulds a spare formulation (CB / sugar / milk), Valrhona takes shortcuts via addition -- adding a battery of ingredients to the recipe: cocoa butter, sugar, whole milk powder, dried skim milk, whey, butter, soy lecithin, & vanilla extract.
The differences between the 2 bars tastes of a pompous artifact versus a flavor that inheres with elemental gastronomy.
Despite all the hoopla, stuff like this abounds in boxes of bonbons around the world. What Valrhona fashions well, though, is to contain the buckets of sugar piled in. While sweet, it never approaches the tooth-aching onslaught of other similarly constructed confections.
Nor, alas, does Dulcey exude much White Chocolate essence.
Any talk of it creating a new category in chocolate amounts to 'oo-la-la hyper-hype', French-style: sounds good & looks good, & fails to compute in the same vain as 20th French philosophy from Existentialism thru Post-Structuralism.
8 years in the making? Good thing Valrhona ain't in charge of a manned Mars landing or the war on cancer.
Reviewed June 24, 2013
A better tilt however pits Valrhona's Dulcey vs. Fruition's Toasted White.
Whereas Bryan Graham of Fruition moulds a spare formulation (CB / sugar / milk), Valrhona takes shortcuts via addition -- adding a battery of ingredients to the recipe: cocoa butter, sugar, whole milk powder, dried skim milk, whey, butter, soy lecithin, & vanilla extract.
The differences between the 2 bars tastes of a pompous artifact versus a flavor that inheres with elemental gastronomy.
Despite all the hoopla, stuff like this abounds in boxes of bonbons around the world. What Valrhona fashions well, though, is to contain the buckets of sugar piled in. While sweet, it never approaches the tooth-aching onslaught of other similarly constructed confections.
Nor, alas, does Dulcey exude much White Chocolate essence.
Any talk of it creating a new category in chocolate amounts to 'oo-la-la hyper-hype', French-style: sounds good & looks good, & fails to compute in the same vain as 20th French philosophy from Existentialism thru Post-Structuralism.
8 years in the making? Good thing Valrhona ain't in charge of a manned Mars landing or the war on cancer.
Reviewed June 24, 2013