Chocolate with nougat from Tiroler Edle, nutty and creamy
Chocolate with nougat from Tiroler Edle is a milk chocolate containing a soft hazelnut nougat made from fresh cream, butter, and honey. The nuts are finely ground rather than chopped; the focus here is entirely on the melt-in-the-mouth texture and the warm roasted aroma.
Chocolate with nougat is the classic from Tiroler Edle: fifty grams of milk chocolate from Landeck in the Upper Inn Valley with at least 39 percent cocoa, covering a hazelnut nougat. Cream from Tyrolean Grey cattle makes the filling soft, while honey gives it a subtle depth.
Soft nougat under a light layer
The layer breaks gently, almost silently, revealing a filling that gives way immediately in the mouth. When cut, the nougat appears light and dense beneath a thin coating of chocolate.
First you taste the cream, then the roasted nut arrives and lingers, warm and well-rounded. The light chocolate coating remains subtle, allowing the nut to take center stage rather than overpowering it.
There is nothing loud about it, and that is precisely what makes this a bar that you finish off without even realizing it. If you like gianduja, you will find its alpine equivalent here.
Gianduja, the nut, and the cocoa
The combination of hazelnut and cocoa originates from Turin and is well over two hundred years old. The mixture is named gianduja after a Turin carnival character whose name it bears to this day.
When trade across the sea stalled and cocoa became scarce in Piedmont, local confectioners stirred roasted hazelnuts from their own hills into the mixture. Necessity gave rise to a recipe that everyone knows today.
For a nougat to become silky, the nuts and sugar must be ground so finely that the individual particles are smaller than what one can actually perceive. If ground too coarsely, the filling feels sandy and loses the very melt-in-the-mouth quality that matters.
Honey and butter in the filling
The fact that this nougat contains honey is unusual and noticeable. Most recipes get by with sugar alone.
Honey provides fructose, which binds water to keep the filling supple for longer, and it adds a floral note beneath the roasted aroma. The butter does its part, too, as its milk fat melts more slowly than cocoa butter, extending the melt.
The hazelnuts are roasted beforehand until their skins burst, because it is only in the heat that the aroma associated with nougat develops. The two are brought together by Tiroler Edle in Landeck, where the cream from the Grey cattle is also processed.
With café au lait, for the Sunday table
At room temperature, the filling is at its softest and the nut comes through most clearly; when chilled, it remains firm and reserved. A café au lait pairs well with it, as does a cappuccino, and on the afternoon coffee table, this bar is usually the first to disappear. At Tiroler Edle, it is one of the lighter varieties that goes particularly well with coffee.
Between an afternoon snack and dessert, it finds its place on almost any day. Store it in a cool, dry place so that the nut fat does not turn rancid over time.
In contrast, the chocolate with apricot features a fruit filling; you can also find other nougat chocolates and the entire range from Tiroler Edle here.
