Tuesday, December 14, 2004

Croatian chocolate


I was given a lovely gift box of these Kras Bajadera chocolates from Croatia. You can clearly see the almond and hazelnut on the package, but I had no idea what might be in these at first. On the back of the box they are described (in 11 languages, no less) as a "Hazelnut Almond Nougat product". How insightful, I thought to myself before popping one into my mouth.
I have never tasted a chocolate like this one before and I don't think that the word "nougat" would even have crossed my mind. It is a very firm candy, with top and bottom layers of very creamy milk chocolate. The interior portion is smooth but not soft and lightly flavored of almond and hazelnut.

On the Kras website, it describes them thusly:
Bajadera is a dessert of the highest quality, combining central European confectionery artistry and luxurious oriental flavor. Bajadera is a queen among desserts, with the distinctive flavor of fine nougat enriched with almonds. For generations of customers, Bajadera has been the symbol of the ultimate dessert. We are proud to say that Bajadera was the first sweet confection to receive the designation “Original Croatian” from the Croatian Chamber of Commerce. Its uniqueness is also recognized by numerous customers in many countries.
I also discovered that the Bajadera won the Monde Selection Gold Medal in 1998 as well as having recieved numerous quality awards before that.
Kras also produces many other candies, among them a brand called Dorina Chocolate, which may be more widely available.

So far, I have only found one business that carries Kras products. I plan on ordering the Dorina Chocolate Ice , which I hope is mint and not royal icing, the Runolist "Dorina" Milk Chocolate and the Dorina Super Milk . Rather amusingly, there is also a candy bar called "My first Chocolate" (or something similar) that appears to have a milk filling. They also carry Bosnian Filo dough, which I wanted to order in the interest of having something to post about despite my doubts as to how that will hold up during shipping, but are sold out at the moment. We'll see how everything is (hopefully) soon.