Honestly, I’m not sure how or why I began following the Russian Zotter Biochocolate Instagram account. Before Instagram introduced the “translate” button, I certainly couldn’t understand their Cyrillic posts, but I was always mesmerized by their mouthwatering chocolate photos. It was only recently that I discovered the U.S. (Cape Coral, Florida) version on Instagram and continue to follow both accounts to this day. In case you’re curious, there are even more Zotter accounts that I could follow: Austria, Brazil, Hawaii and Poland…each one with unique content!
According to their website: “Our bean to bar chocolate, created in-house, is spread and rolled out very thinly on 15 meter tracks while at the same time, assorted fine fillings and ganaches are prepared using over 400 organic ingredients. As soon as the chocolate has cooled down, it is topped with the filling. Before the next layer is applied, it has to rest. Depending on the recipe, this process will be repeated several times. Lastly, a thin chocolate coating is spread on top and then, this gigantic piece of chocolate is cut into our classic 70g Zotter bars.” Can you imagine a chocolate bar measuring almost 50 feet long?! Next time I visit Austria, I would LOVE to visit their factory for a tour!
As you might have guessed, based on my love of unusual inclusion ingredients, the chocolates that captured most of my attention were the “hand-scooped” (filled) bars! Frequently I see delicious close-up photos of the multi-layered bars and have lost count of all the ones I wanted to add to my wish list. Visiting their website recently didn’t make the choices any easier…if money were no object, I would have happily ordered one of each (from weird to classic, there are 300-400 to choose from)! 🙂
Alas, I narrowed down my selections to these three unique bars:
Pumpkin Seeds with Marzipan
Aside from the bars themselves, it’s hard not to be captivated by the colorful wrappers with art by Andreas H. Gratze, as well as the eye catching embossed gold foil used for the company name.
In addition to the wrapper being printed on environmentally friendly paper with environmentally friendly colors, I like being able to easily slip the wrapped bar from the outer sleeve. Minimal adhesive was used to keep the sleeve closed, so that you could easily unfold the wrapper to read what was printed on the inside and then re-close the wrapper, as needed.
Opening the lightly waxed shiny gold foil inner wrapper, I noticed some discolored patches, which I assume come from pumpkin seed oil that may have seeped out during storage. Matching the outside of the wrapper, the company name was lightly embossed into the chocolate on a diagonal at evenly spaced intervals across the entire back side of the bar.
This 60% dark milk chocolate is filled with marzipan and pumpkin seed nougat (24%), which is a Styrian classic. Slicing a thin rectangle from the bar, you easily see the distinct layers: chocolate sandwiching equal rows of thick pumpkin seed nougat & moist marzipan studded with almonds.
It was fascinating to learn that Styrian pumpkins produce hull-less (“naked”) seeds, meaning that the bright green seeds don’t need to be “shelled” like the standard pepitas that I’m familiar with. The black fleck at the top left of this close-up is part of a caramelized pumpkin seed.
The flavors were well-balanced, with no one ingredient overshadowing the other. There was the nutty sweetness of the marzipan and the earthiness of the pumpkin seeds. One ingredient that surprised me was apple brandy, though this seems to gives the bar a touch of holiday warmth. Until now, I never realized that there could be severe anaphylactic reactions to celery, so it’s a good thing that Zotter includes that their bars might have traces of the vegetable as part of their allergy warnings on the back of each label, given that they use many uncommon and unexpected flavor combinations in their hand-scooped bars.
Goji Berries in Sesame Nougat
Surprisingly, this wrapper was written mostly in German rather than English, so I had to refer to the online description. This vegan bar uses a soy couverture and is filled with goji berries and sesame nougat (25%).
Cutting into the bar, you can see the stripes of each layer: soy/cocoa mass couverture (flavored with coriander, vanilla, star anise and cinnamon), homemade sesame nougat, a green tea ganache and a generous handful of dried whole goji berries. Goji berries have been nicknamed “happy berries” because of the sense of well-being they are said to induce.
The soy couverture had a dull whitish sheen that retained fingerprints very easily, but produced a moderate snap when broken apart. The taste of the slightly dry and dense white sesame nougat reminded me of halva without the associated grittiness. While I’m not typically a fan of green tea, the earthiness was somewhat offset by the chewy sweet goji berries.
Typically Austria
This bar is described online as Mountain Milk Chocolate (40%) filled with caramelized grey poppy cream (32%), homemade walnut nougat (28%) and a thin layer of cinnamon.
Unwrapping the bar, the aroma reminded me of an Almond Joy candy bar even though there is no coconut in Zotter’s bar. I was also intrigued by the tank tread pattern on the back of the bar, which makes sense based on the company’s description of their bar production process mentioned earlier. Since the ingredients are all part of the brown color wheel family, the straight/even layers are harder to distinguish from each other.
There was a mild snap when segmenting this bar into tasting morsels. Overall, the piece was buttery and nutty, but there was also a sour “tang” that reminded me of yogurt or sheep’s milk.
Unfortunately, this was my least favorite of the bunch, but the tiny, crunchy, caramelized poppy seeds started to win me over at the end.
One of the things that I want to learn more about (and potentially experiment with) is the “Mi-Xing bar,” an online tool that allows customers to choose from 99 different ingredients to create their very own favorite chocolate. Just imagine the endless possibilities!
As an added bonus, Zotter sent a tiny plain chocolate bar with my order. The wrapper provide me with a 20% discount coupon code for a future purchase, which I promptly used to order an advent calendar filled with mini hand-scooped bars. In December, I’ll be counting down the days until Christmas with 24 new-to-me flavors…I can’t wait for it to arrive 🙂
To learn more and order your own unique assortment, check out: https://www.zotterusa.com/
Different varieties of tea leaves can vary greatly in their stimulating or relaxing qualities, partly due to different caffeine content. You’re also likely to enhance your experience of drinking green tea if you stick to certified organic green tea brands.