After introducing the Hungarian chocolatier Fabric Chocolates, it’s time for me to dive in and taste some of their products and give you a more detailed insight. The intricate design doesn’t end with their packaging. In fact, seeing their chocolate bar for the first time left me speechless. If you’ve ever found yourself silently staring at a chocolate bar for what seems forever then you know what I’m talking about. A smooth, glossy finish is already pleasing the eye but to see such a detailed and intricate chocolate artwork is mesmerising.
I couldn’t get over the fact that despite this high level of detail there were almost no surface errors, bubbles or any other disturbing elements on either side of the chocolate bars. Knowing that Fabric bars are made in custom-designed silicone moulds, it is almost unbelievable. But then Viki explained to me during my visit that although the designs are detailed, the indentations are relatively fine, not deep, so air bubbles don’t cause her that much trouble.
But let’s start with the viewing and tasting of the bars!
Mexican Dark 66% with Smoked Salt Caramelised Almonds
As I am an amateur crocheter, Fabric’s main mould design really appeals to me. It looks like a beautiful crochet tablecloth with a mirrored motif. Fine details, curves and patterns that look like tiny flowers, waves or a fishing net. On the back side of the bar, you can see how generous they are with her toppings. Whole almonds pop out on the surface of the bar nearly on every square centimetre and salt crystals are also visible throughout.
There is a slight smokiness in the aroma with some nutty background, so that’s a good sign. The thin bar breaks with a sharp snap and melts relatively easily alternating between salty, sometimes reminiscent of crispy bacon, and bittersweet flavours. To get the most out of the toppings, I chomped on this bar, as this releases even more smoked, salty, nutty flavours. The balance of flavour notes is perfect as nothing is overpowering, not even the chocolate. This makes it all the more difficult not to eat it all in one go. The Academy of Chocolate gave Bronze for this bar in 2016.
Ecuador 80% with Candied Kumquats and Coffee Beans
Same crochet pattern as previously, but the back side of the bar has a smoother look due to the smaller pieces of toppings used. The thin bar makes it possible for the toppings to be completely covered in chocolate while still standing out visibly on the back side too. If you’ve read my post about Fabric you’ll know that this bar won a Gold at the Academy of Chocolate Awards this year, so I tried it with high expectations.
As soon as I opened the packaging, I could smell the fresh and sweet orangey aroma of the kumquat peel (tiny orange-like fruits the size of an olive) that is candied by Viki herself as this is an ingredient that is not widely available on the market. Again, the chocolate melts easily partly because it’s thin, and also this Ecuador 80% (Hoja Verde couverture) is nice and creamy. If you let the chocolate melt completely, first you’ll get the rich and earthy notes of the chocolate and a slight coffee flavour. Then you’re left with tiny kumquat pieces and some coffee grains which then dominate the aftertaste. If you decide to chomp the bar, the three main components will balance out each other, and the kumquat will really shine through (especially when you actually chew on a piece) and complete the earthy and roasted notes with a light sweetness.
Viento – Madagascan Milk 44% with Almond Oil and Caramelised Cocoa Nibs
Firstly, I stop for a moment to take a look at the packaging. Different from the crochet design, this bar seems smaller, although only by 10 grams. Keeping the beige and black colour combination, this packaging has a lovely watercolour effect in grey-blue to create a sky-like background for the flying birds that cover the front surrounding the title “Viento” (means wind or breeze in Spanish), that looks like a baroque sign. The golden ribbon is tied just on the left side so as not to disturb the picture and creates an elegant finish to the packaging. No wonder that Fabric won a Gold at the Academy of Chocolate Awards for this packaging design in 2016.
When you flip the bar to open it at the back, the two side flaps look like angel wings or a triptych with the bar as the middle image. The thin rectangle has a flying bird and fluffy clouds engraved into its surface, matching the beautiful outer packaging’s theme. And even beneath the engraved motifs the surface of the bar is not smooth but it has a fine floral pattern on it, like a silk tablecloth.
As I opened the packaging, I could already smell strong marzipan notes coming from the almond oil. The thin milk chocolate breaks with a soft snap revealing caramelised cocoa nibs throughout the bar. I decided to chomp the first piece to see how the chocolate and nibs act together. At the start, sweet vanilla and marzipan chocolate dominate the scene, but as I start to chew on a few pieces of roasted, caramelised nibs, the flavour becomes contrasted by roasted, nutty, sometimes even a tiny bit over-roasted (bacon-like) notes. The aftertaste is predominantly roasted, especially if you finish with munching on the nibs. This chocolate won a Bronze at the 2016 Academy of Chocolate Awards.
Cuban Dark 75% with Tonka Beans and Raspberry Balsamic Vinegar
The packaging stands out from the usual range as this is the result of a cooperation with a Hungarian wine maker (Egri Borvár Tóth Ferenc Wine Cellar), thus the name and drawing on the front showing grapes and grape leaves as a wreath. The Fabric-style comes with the ribbon and gemstone that decorates the front and of course the bar itself. This depicts the picture from the packaging engraved into chocolate. It’s so hard to break it up (not literally!) destroying this artwork.
The smell of this bar is astonishing. Sweet fruity and spicy aromas hit my nose straight away. I love tonka beans and their warmth resembling a perfect cinnamon-nutmeg-vanilla mix, but there’s more here. I wouldn’t be able to tell just from the smell that it’s raspberry balsamic vinegar (perhaps because I haven’t tried it on its own yet), but it’s a pleasant sweet fruity smell.
No visible toppings here obviously, so I just let the chocolate melt on my tongue. The tonka bean’s taste comes first and stays central throughout, here and there the flavour becomes sweeter or a bit more acidic, but never unpleasant, creating a beautiful pairing of spice and fruit vinegar with the chocolate from Cuba (Pralus couverture).
As an interesting comparison, Viki also gave me a few tasting squares of the same chocolate paired with tonka beans and date vinegar. This combination won a bronze at the Academy of Chocolate Awards this year as well. Same spicy notes in the aroma, but this one is less sweet, the chocolate is rich, earthy with coffee notes that get stronger in the aftertaste. The tonka is less dominant. The acidity of the vinegar is more noticeable at the back sides of the tongue but it’s still pleasant. Amazing, how different the end result becomes by only changing one ingredient.
Lenka Milk 35%
As you could see from the tonka flavoured bar already, Fabric is open for creative projects with other companies. While the tonka bar was specially created to suit the wines of the maker, in the case of this bar, the visual representation was seemingly more important.
Lenka is a little girl who gets bullied in school for being a bit crummy and has no friends, so starts playing on her own drawing on the pavement until a little boy notices her… The short story is all about empathy, friendship and diversity. Viki really liked the story and was happy to create a Lenka bar for the book. It’s a plain milk chocolate couverture, so there’s not much to talk about the flavour itself, but the design is amazing on its own. Using the book’s own illustration about the crummy red haired, big round-eyed girl, Viki made Lenka’s portrait in chocolate so well that I actually prefer it to the drawing.
Lemon and Cinnamon Pecans
This beautiful round tin is the previous packaging for Viki’s award-winning dragée, pecans enrobed in lemon and cinnamon white chocolate. She was working on her new design when I visited her, and by now, it’s available in a square box, mimicking the packaging of her crochet-style bars to fit more into the whole collection.
The content is the same though. It’s like opening a jewellery box. Brown tissue paper discreetly covers the nuts, you have to open these delicate layers to discover this highly addictive delicacy. We all know, nuts and chocolate are a match made in heaven. You can’t really go wrong with this combination. But to create something that is unique, both pleasing the eyes and the taste buds, is all the more challenging. Viki decided to use her lemon-cinnamon white chocolate, a flavour inspired by the Spanish dessert, crema catalana, and pair it with whole pecan nuts. It smells divine.
Orange and cinnamon are frequently used together to create a warm, cosy feeling bringing back memories of winter and Christmas time. Here, lemon is used as a twist, and it creates a fresher flavour, more like a summer dessert or ice cream flavour. Biting a pecan in half reveals that the spicy chocolate layer is infinitely thin around the nut, which makes it possible to create a perfect balance between the ingredients. The warmth of the cinnamon works really well with the soft nuttiness of the pecans rounded out by the zingy lemon. Can I just have one more? Oh wait, it’s all gone… This should come with a warning 😊
Conclusion
Fabric really is a tiny chocolate manufacture full of creativity and brave innovation when it comes to flavour combinations. Art, design and textures have a very important role from the first step until the last so the customer gets a product that is both pleasant to look at and also memorable when tasted. Perfect gift idea, or something to treat yourself to. Although the flavour combinations are unique and maybe sound weird sometimes, I think that they are so balanced and well-thought that they can easily become crowd-pleasers. I want to thank Viki for making time for me to visit her and talk about her company and her chocolates and I can’t wait to try her bean-to-bar chocolates in the future too.
Which Fabric bar would YOU like to try?
Disclaimer: I received these chocolates from Viki (Fabric) as a gift during my visit to her atelier but not as an exchange for a good review. My review is 100% my true personal opinion about the products (whether I bought them myself or received as a gift). This is not a paid advertisement for the company.
