La Maison du Chocolat – Summer Collection

I recently had the fabulous good fortune to be invited to La Maison du Chocolat on the Upper East Side to sample the launch of their Summer Collection. 

Notably, their Chiberta collection, with adorable artwork adorning the boxes.  Isn’t that cute?

And of course you can get big gift collections with the Chiberta as well! 

As soon as I walked in, on my left was this little table featuring the Salvador raspberry mousse cake.  What a welcome!

This mousse cake was light and airy, so chocolatey without being too heavy.  I could definitely eat the whole cake myself, though I don’t think I’ll try!  It comes in four different sizes – single serving for $8, 4-6 servings for $48, 6-8 servings for $65, and 10-12 servings for $110.  So good. 

Next up: chocolate macarons!

I’m really picky when it comes to macarons.  It’s undeniably true that the chocolate flavor is super pronounced and somewhat incredible in these macarons.  The chocolate is the focus, and it’s high quality, delicious.  But… these are not my favorite macarons.  They lack that crack of the crust that I love in macarons.  The intense, rich chocolate taste is nothing to pooh-pooh though!

The Chiberta collection was laid out for us to sample as we pleased.  I tried three of these: the Etzia (milk chocolate ganache with wildflower & chestnut honeys), Praline Macaron (praline made with almonds and silvers of dark chocolate macaron), and Espeletako Piperra (dark chocolate ganache with red Espelette peppers).  I loved the crunch of the Praline Macaron one, and the Etzia was good too.  The Espeletako Piperra didn’t taste spicy to me, though someone else said the spice came through sharply in her piece.  Perhaps I tried one that was a fluke?

The other item I was super excited to try?  The ice creams and sorbets! 

First up: caramel ice cream!  The caramel was slightly burnt tasting, rich, creamy, and delicious.  The burnt taste lent almost a smoky quality to it, a depth that I liked. 

Next I tried a chocolate sorbet.  My first reaction was, “Did she just say chocolate sorbet?  I thought sorbet was fruit based only?” but I didn’t want to say something stupid.  I looked it up later and no, though in the US they usually are fruit based.  In any case, this took the chocolate flavor to a whole new level.  You know how I said the macarons were intense?  This was even more so.  Like plunging my head into a chocolate bar of the highest quality.  So amazing.  It took every flavor of chocolate, concentrated it into this intense single spoonful.  Oh my.  It was excellent.  I still think about it.  And again – not overly sweet, because I don’t like that.  Mmm.  So good. 

Last but not least, I tried the wild strawberry sorbet.  After the chocolate sorbet, though, this had no chance of making much of an impression on me.  It was good, but I was already moving on mentally.  Ah well.  Slightly tart, not overly sweet, but icy refreshment.  Yum.

I recommend anyone who wants a cold treat to head over to La Maison du Chocolat (multiple locations!) to check out the sorbets and ice creams, and if you have a reason to pick up a cake, a box of chocolates, or macarons… this is the place!  Yum!!!

La Maison du Chocolat, multiple locations

Please note that though I attended this event courtesy of La Maison du Chocolat, I was under no obligation to post about this, positively or negatively, nor did I receive monetary compensation to do so.  This is my opinion, you are free to take from it as you will.  Oh, and I received two chocolate macarons and some rochers to take home, so freakin’ good… I shared them with the BF 🙂