Chocolate with walnuts from Tiroler Edle, creamy filling
In the chocolate with walnuts from Tiroler Edle, the nut is processed into a cream filling, bound with fresh cream and brightened with a touch of lemon zest. On the outside is a milk chocolate with 39 percent cocoa that remains in the background.
Chocolate with walnuts is the filled nut bar from the Tiroler Edle manufactory in Landeck. The 100-gram bar contains a velvety cream made from walnuts and fresh cream from Tyrolean Grey cattle, seasoned with a little lemon zest. There are no whole nut pieces inside; the nut provides both the flavor and the melt.
Walnut as a cream, lemon as a bright accent
Under the thin coating awaits a soft nut cream, buttery and mild, without any sharpness.
The walnut sets the tone—round and slightly resinous, just as it tastes fresh from the shell. The fresh cream binds it into a cream that slowly yields in the mouth, while the lemon zest adds a bright point above it that cuts the sweetness and keeps the filling from feeling heavy.
This combination is older than any confectionery: nuts and citrus zest have always stood side-by-side in Tyrolean cuisine, in the nut filling of strudels as well as in Christmas pastries.
Why the walnut is the most difficult nut
Among all nuts, the walnut is considered the most sensitive, and its fat content is the primary reason for this.
It contains a high amount of unsaturated oil that spoils quickly when exposed to air and light, which is why just a few old kernels can make an entire batch bitter. Anyone processing them into a cream must use freshly cracked nuts and work quickly, otherwise the filling will taste like paper instead of nuts.
Then there is the thin brown skin around the kernel, which contains tannins and provides the fine bitterness known from the whole nut. In the cream, precisely this trace of bitterness is desired because it gives the milk chocolate structure. Without it, little would remain of the walnut but fat and sweetness, and the bar would become generic.
How the cream gets into the chocolate
A filled bar is created in two stages, and the second one determines the clean snap.
First, the tempered couverture is poured into the mold and poured out again, so that only a thin layer remains on the walls and hardens. The nut cream is placed into this shell, and finally, a lid of chocolate is placed on top to seal it all.
Because the shell remains so thin, you hear the snap instead of having to bite into it for a long time. For this, Tiroler Edle uses a milk chocolate that derives its soft melt from the milk of the Grey cattle and does not overpower the walnut.
With espresso, with port wine, in your coat pocket
Taken from the cool pantry, the bar needs a few minutes until the filling regains its melt.
An espresso lifts the buttery quality of the filling, a glass of port wine balances it with sweetness, and a mild whiskey extends the nut aroma into the warmth. Take the bar along for a walk; it snaps cleanly and doesn't crumble in your pocket. On a cheese board next to blue varieties, a piece also makes sense, as nut cream and salt go well together.
Also nut-filled is the chocolate with nougat. For those who wish to compare, more chocolate bars and the remaining varieties from Tiroler Edle can be found in the immediate vicinity.
