In my Payerne post I dropped a comment that we were to visit a Swiss chocolate factory, but wrote nothing more. I thought that such a note-worthy, life-changing experience deserved its own post, of course...
I'd been looking forward to this for months, ever since I discovered the location of Payerne, and did lots of internet research. I wrote emails to our contact about how best we could fit in a visit on the way, and polled group members about who was interested in visiting, I even had an argument with the tour committee about whether we should go or not (amazingly there are people in this world who don't like chocolate, and don't think anyone should either. Geez, even if you don't want to eat the chocolate, it's part of the local history and culture!), which resulted in splinter faction group of aspiring chocolate factory visitors devising plans to sweet talk our bus driver into making an unscheduled detour!
In the end our hosts included a visit in our list of official activities. Those who didn't want to go could check out the Roman ruins. Ruins - bah! We saw ruins in Rome! ;-)
The Cailler chocolate factory is about 45 minutes from Payerne, in the town of Broc - very close to the town of Gruyeres, where the cheese is from. It's part of the Nestle stable of companies, based in nearby Vevey, and after we'd arrived, a few people saw the Nestle sign and complained "you mean, we travelled all this way just to eat Nestle chocolate??!" Nestle brand chocolates in Australia are really nothing special. Cailler has nothing to do with that. It has always been a smaller-scale manufacturer that was bought out by Nestle sometime in the past. Apparently only 40% of its production is exported, so it's not very well known outside Switzerland, adding to its allure for me. Unique presents for people back home!
We were running to a tight schedule without time to spare that afternoon, and I had read many accounts of the delights of the tasting room. I'd heard rumours of all-you-can-eat Swiss chocolate. I looked at my watch and tapped my foot at the laggers straggling off the bus. We were given a guide and taken on a tour, which I'm sure would have been more interesting if I hadn't been looking at my watch and tapping my feet. Tasting room, people! Get a move on. Stop asking stupid questions! Yes, yes, precision equipment, yes, yes, proud and noble history of chocolate making, yep, discovery of crushed hazelnuts, no, you don't want to watch the video of historical production techniques, c'mon people, MOVE IT, MOVE IT!!!
I was told later that each time my friends looked for me I was standing the near the exit door looked pained.
Here's a token photo I took before the tasting room. Yes, it's a giant lump of cocoa butter. It's FAT, people. Solid FAT. We could taste bits if we wanted (yes, I want!) and it was not nice. Like scraping your fingernail through lard. We were told that white chocolate is made entirely of this cocoa butter, therefore when you are eating white chocolate, you are essentially eating solid fat. This was imparted to us in a very dispassionate way, but the looks of horror on peoples' faces was priceless.
Here's a lump of solid fat cocoa butter floating in a bucket of cocoa beans. Not for any real purpose. We could also taste the cocoa beans, and they really didn't taste very nice! Turning those beans into the chocolate we eat was a huge process of discovery. Pity I didn't sit and reflect on this magnificence because I was standing by the exit door tapping my foot....
And here we are. It was like walking into dreamland. Into every childs' Willy Wonka dream. Row and rows of chocolate there for you to grab and stuff into your mouth. I was off and at it before the guide even got into the room to give us the low-down, standing in front of me. I tried to looked innocent and smile wihout opening my lips and revealing chocolate stained teeth, nodding my head in sympathy when she described bus loads of people who stuff chocolate into their pockets and run away. Oh! I'd never thought of doing that! (damn). Yes, we could eat as much as we wanted, and we could stay as long as we wanted; they would even set up a camp bed in the room if we wanted (ooh, really? Where do you keep it?), but we were not allowed to take any away with us. They also told us there was absolutely no expectation on us that we would buy anything, which of course made me decide I would.
We only had about 10 minutes, so we were OFF!
On these tables is an example of every type of chocolate Cailler makes, except for the blocks. Each tray carried examples of a certain product or line. Go for it, people!
This selection is known as Femina. They were soft pralines - more nougat than chocolate. I liked these, but I'm not so Femina. I like a bit more dark chocolate and more chunks. I was interested to learn that the Swiss prefer milk chocolate over the bitterness of dark, which is why Swiss milk chocolate is so good. Also, you can only be guaranteed of the chocolate using real milk and cream (no powdered stuff) when you buy Swiss or Belgian chocolate.
These were the Ambassador range. I bought a box of these to bring home, which I posted from London 10 weeks ago, and still haven't received. I hate to think of the condition they'll be in when I get them. This selection had the most amazing flavour I tried - a dark chocolate filled with burnt caramel. Really burnt. It was incredible - I kept going back for more. I recommended it to a friend who immediately spat it into the bin. Evidently strong flavours like that aren't to everybody's taste!
Plain chocolate square which got rather overlooked in the shadow of everything else.
In 10-15 minutes we all ate FAR TOO MUCH chocolate. I can't say I was surprised. We all walked out of the room feeling a bit green and queasy, but what an amazing experience it was! Let loose in the shop, we all stocked up - and found some really interesting blocks with flavourings of green tea, black pepper, orange and cocoa nibs etc. I'd report on those but they're sitting on a ship somewhere in the Indian ocean!!
The view walking out of the factory back to the bus. Picture perfect, n'est-ce-pas?
You lucky, lucky person.
ReplyDeleteFrank
Oh my. Who would pass this up?
ReplyDeleteAnd I can't believe that giant block of cocoa butter - I thought it was white chocolate. Which it almost was in a way!
I've heard the story about white chocolate being mostly fat years ago and it turned me off from really enjoying white chocolate ever since.
ReplyDeleteAnd how sad that people didn't want to go to a chocolate facotry. Sad Sad Sad.
I LOVE Cailler!! I used to live in Valais and my favorite was the Cailler Milk Chocolate with extra cocoa....it's exactly inbetween milk chocolate and dark. Absolutely amazing! I drool.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great pics!
Wooohooo! Look at all those chocolates and it was a free for all, you say! I would definitely have been with you, waiting to get into tasting room. I probably would
ReplyDeletesneaked off from the tour guide in fact.
You can get cailler choc squares at Essential Ingredient but not the filled chocolates. This was definitely a brand that we stocked up on from the supermarket when we were passing through Switzerland after a friend at work here let me try a square that his rellos had brought over from Italy.
Btw, Nestle have picked up their game a little and the quality has improved...
This is an entertaining story!
ReplyDeleteBut regarding the idea that only Swiss and Belgian chocolates are made "using real milk and cream (no powdered stuff)" ... well, I'm not sure precisely what your definition of "real milk" is, but it's simply not possible to use liquid milk or cream to make chocolate. You've made ganache, right? And you know that ganache doesn't set hard and brittle like chocolate, right? Well, a ganache is what you would get if you tried to make chocolate with fresh milk. One way or another, the water content must be removed from the milk before you can get solid chocolate. Now, while powdered milk may not be fresh, I think you'd be hard-pushed to prove that it's not real (but that's a discussion best left for Philosophy 101).
As for white chocolate being "essentially solid fat" ... well, that's absolutely true ... except for the 50% (or so) of white chocolate that happens to be sugar ... and the 25% (or so) of white chocolate that happens to be milk solids. So, white chocolate is actually about 75% not fat ... but I agree that your way of describing it is much more entertaining, and I guess that's what counts.
Incidentally, have you ever done the cocoa butter calculation on a milk chocolate? Many milk chocolates contain just as much cocoa butter (i.e. "solid fat") as the average white chocolate. For example, Lindt's "Swiss Classic" milk chocolate (which, funnily enough, is made in Switzerland, and happens to contain both "whole milk powder" and "skim milk powder") is 31% fat. Lindt's "Excellence - Extra Creamy" milk chocolate is a whopping 37% fat. By comparison, Cadbury's "Dream" white chocolate is 34.5% fat.
Now, I'm not much of a sweet tooth, but even I can see the attraction of this little escapade! I can only imagine the fun of finding interesting flavours tucked into the corner of trays... ;-) Great write-up and you got the frustration of following guided factory tours down to a T!
ReplyDeleteI was recently doing a course in Fribourg, Switzerland, not too far from Bulle, and of course, Broc! We visited that chocolate factory once a week and, yes, we managed to make away with a few bags' worth... It fed us during class.
ReplyDeleteMy personal favorite was the Frigor noir.
It is in fact true that Cailler Chocolate is made with fresh milk and cream, this is what sets it aside from most other chocolates. I was lucky enough to take a tour of this chocotate heaven while I was in Switzerland last year. Because of the fresh milk in this chocolate, you can't handle it for more then a few moments or the whole piece will melt into liquid gold. yum.
ReplyDelete