Review: Koko Black’s winter evening of chocolate

Posted on 25 July, 2014

There are lots of places that do food challenges. For example, Mad Mex has a 1kg burrito challenge and Smoque has a 50 buffalo wings in 30 minutes challenge. I would never do those (but hats off to those of you who have). Instead, I prefer the challenge of finishing all my desserts (yes, plural) at Koko Black’s annual winter evening of chocolate events.

These dessert degustations are honestly one of the highlights of my year. A friend and I first discovered them back in 2012, and we now keep a keen eye on our inboxes in June, when they’re usually announced, so we can book in right away.

The first time we ever went, we managed to get through all of our desserts, but then made a rookie error. After your desserts, you get to choose a drink. This could be tea, coffee, hot chocolate or iced chocolate. We decided, since we’d already eaten that much chocolate, that we might as well go the whole hog and get a chocolate drink. So we ordered hot chocolates. We were defeated. We could not finish them, and my pride in my chocolate tolerance was a bit dented (this also happened the very first time I ever went to Koko Black in Melbourne back in 2006, when I decided that I could eat a Belgian spoil AND an iced chocolate on my own. Yeah, no…)

Now, three years later, we are older, wiser, and more experienced in the ways of dessert consumption. Which means we also take great delight in recommending that the friends who come with us for the first time get a chocolate drink to finish. But more on that later.

The format of the evenings is consistent through the years. Upon arrival, guests are presented with a cocktail based on a Koko Black truffle. A senior Koko Black staff member opens the event, and then hands over to the head pastry chef, Adam Tippins, to talk about his creations (side note, Adam is one of the smiliest people I’ve ever seen. You can tell that he loves his job, and his joy is contagious. My friend and I always look forward to seeing him at these events).

This year’s cocktail was a Mocha Truffle Martini, based on, you guessed it, a mocha truffle. It was an espresso martini made with vodka, Crème de Cacao, Kahlua and chilled St Ali Espresso, topped with a swizzle stick WITH A TRUFFLE ON IT!

[pe2-image src=”http://lh4.ggpht.com/-fhHdKUvkMfw/U9EYR-1n88I/AAAAAAAAGcQ/Z02SZ6q01nk/s144-c-o/2014-07-23%25252020.31.01.jpg” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/108454826374315674707/KokoBlackSWinterEveningOfChocolate#6039635272485303234″ caption=”Mocha Truffle Martini” type=”image” alt=”2014-07-23 20.31.01.jpg” pe2_img_align=”center” pe2_caption=”1″ pe2_single_image_size=”w614″ ]

There were mixed reactions to the cocktail in our group of six. One friend said if you could buy it in a bottle she’d buy it on the spot, another wasn’t a huge fan because she doesn’t like coffee, and others quite enjoyed theirs, although it was quite strong. As I don’t usually like the taste of coffee or alcohol, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I actually liked it. It reminded me of Kopiko lollies, which are Indonesian lollies made with coffee, caramel and chocolate.

As everyone was sipping on their cocktails, Adam introduced the first dessert, the Honeycomb Inclusion, based on the leatherwood honey truffle. It consisted of a leatherwood honey marshmallow sandwiched between Madagascar chocolate mousse, honeycomb shard and milk chocolate.

[pe2-image src=”http://lh6.ggpht.com/-dsWagupN3ro/U9EYUwBh-8I/AAAAAAAAGcY/EBtrT0Mn-Bg/s144-c-o/IMG_4105.JPG” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/108454826374315674707/KokoBlackSWinterEveningOfChocolate#6039635320048319426″ caption=”Honeycomb Inclusion” type=”image” alt=”IMG_4105.JPG” pe2_img_align=”center” pe2_caption=”1″ pe2_single_image_size=”w614″ ]

One of the best parts of the evening is seeing the desserts come out, because they’re always a surprise and always beautifully presented. This one was no exception. Unfortunately I’m a bit clumsy, so as I was trying to get into mine I tipped it over and smashed part of the honeycomb so skilfully that I’m pretty sure some of it jumped onto someone else’s plate! We all liked the taste of this one, though we had a bit of trouble cutting into the marshmallow.

Next up was the Sesame Truffle dessert, based on its namesake. If we thought the first dessert was pretty, then this was absolutely incredible. It looked like a little alien spaceship made of chocolate! This dessert was a milk chocolate tahini mousse with a liquid sesame caramel centre on a base of spiced almond dukkah.

[pe2-image src=”http://lh5.ggpht.com/-55Kb5zmmZz8/U9EYd868cTI/AAAAAAAAGck/-S3uit1q05E/s144-c-o/IMG_4106.JPG” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/108454826374315674707/KokoBlackSWinterEveningOfChocolate#6039635478129176882″ caption=”Sesame Truffle (or as I like to call it, chocolate alien spaceship!)” type=”image” alt=”IMG_4106.JPG” pe2_img_align=”center” pe2_caption=”1″ pe2_single_image_size=”w614″ ]

I would never have thought that sesame, chocolate and dukkah would go together, but this combination was a winner. And really, really fun to eat. I love hidden ‘surprises’ in desserts, and it was really enjoyable scooping into the mousse to find the liquid centre. Thinking about it now, I can’t even begin to imagine how they made it. Really impressive stuff.

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Given our awe at the Sesame Truffle, we thought it would be hard to top, but the next dessert was also beautifully presented and equally, if not more, delicious—the Chocolate Cherry Royale, which was also based on its namesake.

[pe2-image src=”http://lh3.ggpht.com/-xOB_jpgddmM/U9EYl9JWbmI/AAAAAAAAGc4/rKz56QGpjM8/s144-c-o/IMG_4114.JPG” href=”https://picasaweb.google.com/108454826374315674707/KokoBlackSWinterEveningOfChocolate#6039635615628553826″ caption=”Chocolate Cherry Royale” type=”image” alt=”IMG_4114.JPG” pe2_img_align=”center” pe2_caption=”1″ pe2_single_image_size=”w614″ ]

The Chocolate Cherry Royale consisted of a sour cherry souffle, with a ‘jigsaw’ piece of butter shortbread, a strip of milk chocolate overlaid with a layer of morello cherry jelly sprinkled with chocolate-covered popping candy, with a teaspoon of milk chocolate ice cream topped with freeze dried raspberries. And a chocolate covered marshmallow hemisphere. If you think that description sounds good, the actual dessert tasted even better. The warm souffle was a perfect dessert for a winter’s evening.

Some of us, myself included, were starting to struggle at this point. So we were a little relieved to see that the final dessert, a Caramel Walnut Escargot, didn’t look too heavy. This dessert was made up of a caramel milk chocolate semi-freddo, cinnamon panna cotta, walnut crumble, caramelised walnuts and a laminated pastry crisp. In the shape of a rather cute snail.

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Everything was so delicately balanced and arranged so nicely I felt a bit guilty digging into it, but it was there to be eaten, so of course I had to oblige. The semi-freddo was lovely and smooth, the pastry was just the right kind of flaky and it all just made me happy.

Now, I mentioned before that while my friend and I learnt our lesson and now order tea at the end of these degustations, we were a bit cheeky and convinced one of the first-timers to order a hot chocolate. We actually thought she might have been able to finish it, as not all of the desserts were chocolate-heavy and the hot chocolates on the night were the light version, but given we were all a bit sugar over-loaded it was not to be. We did, however, observe some others valiantly making their way through iced chocolates (which contain two scoops of ice cream, so they’re like another dessert in themselves), though we didn’t see anyone finish theirs.

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On top of all the dessert, everyone also got a gift bag to take home, which contained a bag of milk chocolate roasted hazelnuts and six truffles. I thought I would have to recover a bit before being able to eat any of it, but it seems chocolate cravings don’t need recovery time!

All in all, it was a wonderful way to spend an evening and I’m just sad I have to wait a whole year for the next one!

the essentials

What: Koko Black’s Winter Evenings of Chocolate
When: Held every July – sign up for their newsletter to be the first to know!
Where: In Koko Black stores around the country
Web: www.kokoblack.com