Chocolate with apricot from Tiroler Edle, fruity and mild
Chocolate with apricot from Tiroler Edle is a milk chocolate bar over a filling of apricot purée, fresh cream, and butter. The fruit remains bright and slightly tart, and the cream from Grey cattle catches it before it can become too sharp.
Chocolate with apricot is the summery choice among the filled varieties from Tiroler Edle, fifty grams of milk chocolate from Landeck with at least 39 percent cocoa over a cream of apricot purée, cream, butter, and honey, and it tastes like late summer in the valley.
Light shell over sunny fruit
The bar breaks softly, revealing the cream underneath, which yields slowly in the mouth and has a cooling effect. It sits as a light-colored strip in the cross-section.
The fruit arrives immediately and remains bright, with the slight acidity that distinguishes ripe apricots from cooked ones. The cream rounds it off, the honey lays a warm sweetness beneath it, and only at the end does the cocoa make itself known.
Together, this creates a flavor profile somewhere between jam on toast and a dessert, without either one predominating. Those who usually find preserved fruits too sharp will find the softer version here.
Marille is the Austrian word for apricot
What is called "Aprikose" in Germany has always been known as "Marille" east of the Inn River, and the name sounds milder than the fruit itself.
The apricots of the Wachau are famous, but they also grow in the Tyrolean valleys, high up on the slopes and much more slowly than in the lowlands. Cool nights delay ripening, and what ripens slowly accumulates more acidity and more aroma. The tree blossoms early and freezes back in some years, which is why the harvest in the mountains is never certain.
It is processed as purée—that is, fruit passed through a sieve without skin or stone—which allows the flavor to go into the cream in a concentrated form. The stone and skin are left out because both would contribute bitter notes.
Why the fruit needs a light shell
Apricot and dark chocolate easily clash because both bring their own acidity and bitterness to the table.
A light mass with plenty of milk powder works against this: its fat and protein coat the fruit acid and take the edge off it without obscuring the taste. That is why a mild shell sits here over a cream in which the apricot sets the tone. You notice the difference immediately if you place a dark bar next to it.
The purée is only stirred into the cooled cream so that the fresh aromas are not lost in the heat. At Tiroler Edle in Landeck, the chocolate is hand-scooped and filled using cream from the Grey cattle of the Tyrolean alpine pastures.
With coffee, with cake, in the summer
At room temperature, the filling becomes softest and the fruit most distinct; when chilled, the acidity stands out more. It goes well with a latte, even better next to a piece of apricot cake, and in the summer, it tastes twice as good with fresh apricots. Even after a light meal, a piece makes for a bright conclusion.
As a gift to bring to or back from Austria, it explains itself anyway. Store it in a cool, dry place so that the filling remains smooth and the shell shiny.
Also filled and alpine is the chocolate with alpine rose honey; alongside it are other chocolate bars and the entire range from Tiroler Edle.
