Our Great Tasting Intensely Orange Chocolate Truffle

A few months ago, we decided to enter our orange dairy cream truffle into the Great Taste Awards. We submitted our samples for judging and waited. It takes several months to get the results so we didn’t really think too much about it and with Easter on the horizon we were pretty busy making our hand made Easter eggs. After the Easter frenzy, life returned to its normal pace and then in August an email popped up from Great Taste – the results were out!  Then the reality hit home – we had been given an award! Excitement and much high-fiving followed.

 

What is the Great Taste?

Up against 12,772 products sent in from over 100 different countries, our dairy cream intense orange truffle had received a one-star award marking it out as a product that delivers a fantastic flavour. We have been big fans of the chocolate and orange taste combination for a good while and use it in several of our traditional, vegan and sugar-free products. Our customers seem to love it as well and often tell us how great our chocolates taste.

But it’s quite another thing to receive an accolade from the world’s largest food and drink awards! The awards are judged by over 500 of the most demanding food critics, chefs, cooks, restauranteurs, buyers, retailers and producers, writers and journalists. Great Taste, which is run by the Guild of Fine Food, is acknowledged as the most respected food accreditation scheme for artisan and speciality food producers. The unmistakeable black and gold Great Taste label, which we can now use for our orange truffle, is a signpost to a wonderful tasting product.  When you see the Great Taste Awards label you can be sure of the quality and flavour. It means the product has been selected through hours and hours of blind tasting by hundreds of judges. To say we are beyond excited is an understatement!

 

How to Make the Best Chocolate Truffles

So, what goes into making a prize-winning chocolate? Behind the scenes there’s many, many hours of experimenting with different chocolate origins and blends, refining the filling (which involves making batches, continually adjusting the ingredients and of course tasting each batch until we have achieved just the right flavour balance). All of us at The Pod are experienced tasters and there’s never any shortage of volunteers!!

Since making our first chocolates in 2006, we have followed this same process to develop the recipes for every one of our handmade chocolates, chocolate bars and fudge flavours. Our mantra of ethical, sustainable and natural has never been compromised, as we always research the origins and journey of our chocolate and ingredients before deciding to use them. The flavour of an ingredient has to be exactly right to pass the taste test and make it into the recipe. As we are always on the lookout for ingredients that can improve our existing products, or allow us to develop new and exciting flavours, this is an on-going process.

 

Did Someone Say Christmas Caramel Selection?

So, what’s next? It is a tad nerve-wracking when you think about putting your products up for judgement by an eminent panel of food industry professionals. It takes time and determination to perfect a chocolate, but it is amazing when you’ve developed a product that you believe in and then other people agree with you! So, will we enter again next year? I rather think we might!!

In the meantime, we’re very busy finalising our new flavours for Christmas. Our Christmas range is small, intimate and guarantees you some amazing flavours, so please keep a lookout on the website for some seasonal delights, for gifts and for your own celebrations.