Kingdom Dark Chocolate Lemon & Lime Centre

Product name: Kingdom Dark Chocolate Lemon & Lime Centre
Calories: 162 per 30g serving (541 per 100g bar)
Country of origin: England

I can’t remember when or how I first heard of the Kingdom brand but I do remember it was their peanut butter-filled chocolate that I found out about at the time. Up until now, I’d never been lucky enough to have tried any of their chocolate, but I have been keeping a close eye on them on social media and was delighted to win three bars from their Facebook page – thanks, Kingdom!

My first impressions of the brand were excellent. Kingdom pride themselves on making ‘modern British chocolate’ which they describe as being ‘new and uniquely flavoured bars’ that are ‘delicately decadent’ and the product of ‘British creativity’. They are also keen to combine fun with high quality produce.

The first bar I’m reviewing  is the Dark Chocolate Lemon & Lime Centre which contained no artificial ingredients and contained ‘Ethical Ugandan cocoa’ as part of the Cocoa Development Project.

As excited as I was by this brand, I wasn’t really expecting to like this particular variant as I’m not a huge fan of dark chocolate, lemon or lime! They’re all ingredients I can eat, just not ones I’d necessarily choose. My interest was raised, however, when I saw that it was described as ‘dark chocolate with a white chocolate lemon and lime centre’. Regular readers will know that I’m a little bit obsessed with white chocolate so this was a massive plus for me. There was also something about the combination of the main three ingredients that I thought would actually work, even if they weren’t my favourites.

Kingdom’s branding is royal-themed, with their logo being a crown that is featured on their wrappers, as well as each of the 12 squares that this bar was divided into. I absolutely loved the striking colours used as well. The vibrant green and pink shades were very different, and there was a little image of a lemon and lime too, to represent the flavour. Unfortunately, this bar was already partly open at the top when I received it, but I assumed that this happened in transit as the chocolate itself was fine. It had still been sealed in a jiffy bag for delivery and, once I received it, I transferred it to an airtight bag to keep it as fresh as possible.

The dark chocolate contributed to 80% of the bar and contained a minimum of 61% cocoa solids. Another 38% was sugar! The white chocolate accounted for 13% of the product and I was also interested to see that 4% of the bar was coconut oil. As for the flavours, these came from lemon, lime and lime oil.

The chocolate was properly chunky and actually pretty hard to snap. I was also a bit alarmed when breaking off a row didn’t reveal the ‘delightfully delicate centres in every chunk’ but it turned out that these fillings were entirely contained within each piece. Once I cut a square in two, I could see the lovely contrast between the very dark brown shell and the white centre.

 

The bar had a pretty strong dark chocolate scent but there wasn’t a hint of lemon or lime within this. The chocolate’s strength was just as prominent in its flavour and it was certainly the dominant element of the bar. It was bitter, with strong cocoa tones, and it also had a smooth melt which eventually led to the slightly softer, but still smooth, white chocolate. As you can probably imagine by the bar’s appearance, the chocolate was also enjoyably chunky to chew too.

 

The filling didn’t taste of white chocolate but the citrus flavour managed to make an impact against the powerful dark chocolate. It had the subtlety of the lemon mousse centres that can often be found in selection boxes but it still did enough to lessen the chocolate’s bitterness. I was pleased that the citrus taste wasn’t sharp and imagined that it was the white chocolate’s sweetness that achieved this.

Due to personal taste, this product’s flavours still weren’t my favourite, but I did think the combination worked well together and I liked how the dark chocolate’s bitterness was lessened by the lighter filling. I actually thought these ingredients would work well together in a cake as, in a solid chocolate, I found it a bit too intense and sickly. However, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would, and I can’t wait to try my other bars!

Appearance: 7.5/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 6.5/10
Texture: 7.5/10
Overall score: 7.13/10