Lindt Creation: Fraîcheur acidulée (citron frappe)

Product name: Lindt Creation: Fraîcheur acidulée (citron frappe)
Purchase details: £0.99 for a 150g bar (99p Stores)
Calories: 394 per half bar
Country of origin: France

Traditionally, lemon isn’t my favourite flavour, but this Lindt Creation: Fraîcheur acidulée (citron frappe) caught my eye as something different and, since I trust the Lindt brand, I thought it would be worth giving a go.

The packaging of this Lindt & Sprüngli bar was in French so I couldn’t read most of it but there was a helpful English translation that told me it was ‘fine milk chocolate with ganache and concentrated lemon filling’ which included concentrated lemon juice (2%).

On getting the bar home, I had a quick look online for a couple of further translations and found that ‘Fraîcheur acidulée’ meant ‘tangy freshness’. This alarmed me slightly as I was hoping for something a bit more mellow, but I was still optimistic that I’d like what was described as a ‘new chocolate experience’. The wrapper also advised that this chocolate was best eaten fresh from the fridge. This went against all my instincts about not chilling the brown stuff so I decided to compromise and eat half at room temperature and half cold.

This bar had the same outer appearance as Lindt’s other Creation bars (such as the Coconut) but its very pale inside almost looked like Kendal mint cake. There was almost a hint of orange in the aroma but I could also smell a subtle lemon flavour – for me, its weakness was a good thing!

Starting with the room temperature half, I initially tried a couple of specks of the chocolate that had broken off and it definitely had a citrus element but, again, this was a bit like orange chocolate. On tasting it properly, though, I could tell that it was the usual Lindt milk chocolate, but a tang of lemon did remain on its surface when it was peeled away from the filling. This centre was a bit like fondant and very much had a lemon flavour but its strength was perfect and reminded me of what you get in a lemon meringue pie. It also balanced well with the creamy, sweet chocolate (although the lemon was the dominant flavour), and the quite thick, squidgy, gooey texture was very enjoyable. I can’t deny it was much nicer than I expected and a lot like a dessert. For some reason, it reminded me of Christmas, but I couldn’t quite work out why – I ended up concluding that I associated it with the kind of chocolates I find in gift boxes at that time of year! This was a lot nicer, though, and had enough of a tartness to the flavour that eating more than five squares at once would have been too much.

The chilled chocolate obviously didn’t melt easily (not helped by the large pieces meaning it had to be broken down a bit first!) but the lemon did seep out nicely when attempting this. The change in temperature made the lemon feel fresher, more concentrated and its acidity was a bit more ‘zippy’, but the main change was definitely the texture which had a much crunchier shell, and a slightly chewy centre.

Personal preference for unchilled chocolate meant that this was how I preferred to consume this bar of Lindt Creation but, either way, the variety was far nicer than I could have hoped and felt like such a treat.

Appearance: 8/10
Aroma: 7/10
Taste: 7.5/10
Texture: 7.5/10
Overall score: 7.5/10