We tried Booja-Booja’s new Easter Edition vegan chocolate truffles and reviewed all the five flavours. Here’s what we thought.
Booja-Booja has released an Easter Edition of its famous vegan chocolate truffles. The box has 16 truffles in five flavours and is designed by Norfolk-based artist Pippa Mulvany. The illustration depicts the more traditional wild hare, with a golden dove symbolising the hope of the Easter story.
The truffles are all made from vegan and organic ingredients at the company’s factory near Norwich. Apart from being dairy-free, they’re also gluten-, soy- and palm oil-free.
The 184g Easter Edition box by Booja-Booja features the award-winning truffle flavours of Hazelnut Crunch, Almond Salted Caramel (both among the brand’s most famous varieties), Around Midnight Espresso, Rhubarb and Vanilla Fool and Stem Ginger.
Here’s our review of the Booja-Booja Easter truffles.
Stem Ginger
There isn’t much to see in the cross-section of the truffle, but you can get a glimpse of the tiny, black stem ginger pieces in the ganache. On tasting, the ganache is creamy and smooth, and works very well with the outer dark chocolate coating.
But this is super gingery, on the nose with a good kick to it. If you’re not a massive ginger fan, this one isn’t really for you. But if you like the taste of ginger, you would absolutely love this.
3.5/5
Rhubarb and Vanilla Fool
Call me a fool (pun intended), but I really was expecting a deep reddish hue in the ganache after cutting the truffle in half. It wasn’t to be.
However, this was also incredibly smooth in texture. The raspberry flavour is very strong, and it lends acidity to the whole truffle, which complements and counterbalances the dark chocolate really well. But the vanilla is very muted. And while that’s understandable — as vanilla is used to balance and bring out other flavours — it would have been nice to see it shine more.
4/5
Around Midnight Espresso
This had the darkest-looking ganache, which was in line with what I expected, since this was an espresso truffle. Chocolate and coffee are a glorious combination, and the latter is sometimes used to amplify the former’s flavour notes. I was curious to see if it would serve that role in this truffle, or whether it would take on its own individual tasting note.
It screamed coffee, but almost a little too much. This is darkly roasted coffee (“deeply roasted Mexican beans”, as Booja-Booja describes it), reminiscent of an Italian espresso. It’s not far off from Ferrero’s Pocket Coffee, a treat dear to many Italians. Imagine that, but instead of a liquid centre, it’s a ganache. And it’s vegan. This would work so much better if the coffee’s flavour and roast were a little mellower.
3.5/5
Almond Salted Caramel
On to the famed flavours. Disappointingly, you can’t see the salted caramel in the cross-section, but there are minuscule black bits of almond present here.
This is fantastic. The almond flavour is delightful and pairs perfectly with the salted caramel. The salt does the crucial job of balancing all the deep flavours and prevents them from clashing with each other. This is crunchy and velvety at the same time. The only snag? The caramel sticks. And since it seems isolated to one section of the truffle, your teeth can be irritated.
4.5/5
Hazelnut Crunch
This was what I was looking forward to trying the most. The ganache itself was on the lighter side in terms of colour. You can clearly see the bits of crunchy hazelnut pieces in the truffle.
This starts off really well, the crunchiness of the hazelnuts working in tandem with the clarity of the ganache. The hazelnuts are perfectly roasted as well. But the aftertaste is lacking. Like in the Almond Salted Caramel, this Booja-Booja truffle needs a bit of salt to balance out the rich flavours out.
4/5
Final verdict
In each of the truffle, the outer chocolate layer is wafer-thin and breaks apart easily. That means it’s tempered to perfection, and it helps make the construct of each truffle consistent and precise.
Chocolate truffles are luxurious and can come at a hefty price. These 16 truffles retail at £9.99, which seems fair. There are five pieces of the Hazelnut Crunch and Almond Salted Caramel, and two each of for the rest of the vegan truffles.
These flavours pair really well with the chocolate, and we highly recommend getting hold of a box of these this Easter.
Booja-Booja’s Easter Edition of vegan chocolate truffles is available in select supermarkets and online.
