Every day is a new adventure and, for me, eating chocolate certainly helps smooth out the rough edges! A huge thank you to Jennifer Wicks, Burnt Fork Bend’s chocolate maker, for generously sending me samples of 2 bars/3 origins for this “50 States” project!
Did you know that ~38 of the 50 United States have bean-to-bar chocolate companies and Montana is one of the states that has only one B2B maker? This article from 2012 provides details on how Jennifer got started and the inspiration behind the company’s name and logo, while this article from 2015 provides a glimpse into her chocolate making process.
While deciding which states I wanted to feature as part of this collaboration project with Lori from Time to Eat Chocolate, I visited Burnt Fork Bend’s website and fell in love with the stories behind the bar names, especially the “Bob Bar”! One of Jennifer’s former co-workers wasn’t fond of her original 72% dark chocolate bar and wasn’t afraid to honestly tell her. So, she developed a recipe that he liked & named the bar after him 🙂
The bars come in two different sizes: the 2 oz. package is the “small” and the 2.5 oz. package is the “large.” Origins change every 8-10 months or so (based on availability) to keep things interesting, as well as to introduce customers to as many different flavor profiles as possible.
The “Bob Bar” is made with just three ingredients, using evaporated cane juice instead of sugar.
The outer packaging is a coated paper “envelope” that can be opened and re-sealed easily.
Inside each of these envelopes, the thick bar is wrapped in a plastic pouch kept closed with a small silver sticker adorned with the company logo: the silhouette of heron standing in an idyllic, flowing creek.
The mold is made up of 12 equal squares which reminds me a bit of a Ritter Sport chocolate bar. As I’m looking at the bar now that I’ve easily removed a row of squares for tasting purposes, the remaining 9 squares makes me think of a chocolate Rubik’s Cube!
First up is the 60% Costa Rica Bob Bar
If I’ve deciphered Jennifer’s batch numbering nomenclature, this bar is from batch number 8, made on December 18, 2016! I noticed air bubbles at the corners of several squares, otherwise the matte finish was mostly free from other imperfections.
[update April 5th: Thanks to Jennifer for reaching out…seems I was close, but not completely accurate in my nomenclature deciphering. Rather than denote the batch number, the first two digits represent an internal reference to the beans’ country of origin + the rest of the numbers are the packaging date.]
There was a roasted coffee aroma on opening the package and a semi soft snap when segmenting tasting morsels. While the square’s size makes it a bit difficult to “melt” on my tongue like you are supposed to, I discovered that “chomping” the piece a couple of times made “melting” much easier! It’s not abrasive like stone ground cacao, but the texture / mouthfeel is not completely smooth since the beans are minimally processed.
This may be my first experience with Costa Rican chocolate, so I’m not sure if coffee notes are inherent in this origin. After the first few bites, the flavor mellowed to a buttery/nutty one with hints of honey or caramel. I can understand why Bob liked this “sweeter side of dark” bar!
Next were the 72% Ecuador and 72% Bolivia Blue Heron Bars
Like the “Bob Bar,” these have only three ingredients – though sugar is used for the sweetener.
Looking at the bars side-by-side, it appears that the Ecuador bar is slightly darker than the Bolivia bar, though both have interesting swirls on the “back” side of the bar! Depending on how I oriented the bar, I could see different abstract artwork that I would have otherwise missed if I wasn’t inquisitive!
The Ecuador bar (batch number 1, made December 29, 2016) had a medium crisp/slightly hollow sounding snap and seemed to have less air bubbles marring the surface of the matte finish. There was an earthy aroma upon opening the package, a fruity/berry flavor on the melt and a creamy/nutty flavor when “chomped.”
The Bolivia bar (batch number 3, made March 23, 2017) smelled less earthy than the Ecuador bar and there was more chocolate “dust” on the top surface. It seemed to have a drier mouthfeel when chomped (which reminded me of marshmallows) and a lightly astringent finish.
If you prefer milk chocolate, don’t worry…they have that too! Be sure to visit their website for more details and to order bars for yourself: http://www.burntforkbend.com/index.html
Remember to follow the Time to Eat Chocolate blog to hear about the next stop in the “50 States” project!
NOTE: If you know of any other bean-to-bar makers in Montana, please leave a comment or send an email…we like to keep our resource lists as up-to-date as possible!