Every once in a while I am asked to try and review a product. I know some bloggers are very anti-product review, but over the years (yes, it has been years) I have come to the agreement that I will try a product but if I dont like it, or have nice things to say about it- i will refrain from reviewing it.
I am happy to say that this New Tree Review is a good one!
In light of the recent drama with regards to my blog and my identity, when I received the initial email from New Tree, i was VERY skeptical. So I read up on the company and exchanged a few emails with their representative and was delighted to receive a very generous sample:
New Tree is a line of Belgian chocolates that are made of elements that are not only tasty but beneficial to your health. Normally, with a product such as this, i would simple taste and review. However, since the arrival of my mixer last month, I take these products, taste them, and then incorporate them in some way with something tasty…to make it even more tasty.
If you remember correctly, when the Dude and I were making our macarons, we needed a ganache and it was his bright idea to open up the chocolates. Me thinks it was because he just wanted to taste all the chocolate but he claims it would be awesome to incorporate something new into a new recipe.
He was particularly taken by the ginger. I should note that we are both big fans of dark chocolate… so MOST of these bars are dark chocolate (yay!). With the ginger being the “sexy” chocolate, I was hoping this would be a winner for me. Because how awesome would “Vanilla Macarons with Sexy Ginger Ganache” sound??? right? The dude was a big fan but the flavor was really really bold and I am not a huge ginger lover. (i love me some ginger bread tho) I decided to take this bar, chop it up and bake it into a sexy loaf of Amish bread. I will have to ask the recipient of the Amish bread how it tastes ( i hope SEXY) 
The lavender, which is dubbed Tranquility, was my least favorite. It could mostly be due to the fact that its milk chocolate, and the other component that I am not really a fan of lavender. This is a very floral chocolate. I couldn’t use this in my macaron but I am still looking for an idea for it. I was thinking of taking a small portion of the chocolate and adding it to a hot cocoa for a little kick in flavor and a some good ol relaxation.
The next two you might recognize from a previous post. When I tasted the cherry flavor, i immediately fell in love. It reminded me the gold wrapped bon bon shaped chocolate covered cherry cordials that I used to buy at the corner bodega when i was little. I had declared this one a winner and was hard to convince any other chocolate was worth tasting. The recipe for the ganache called for a little more than a chocolate bar’s worth of chocolate so the next bar that we tasted, the Superfruit, was similar and complimentary and completed our ganache. The superfruit was also really good. Better than I had expected and with the added antioxidants from cranberries, Goji berries, pomegranates, grapes and papaya. 
Yummy ganache. Yummy Macaron. Not a Sexy Macaron, but still yummy.
The last bar was particularly yummy and I was going to use this one in my macarons but Dude pointed out what makes this chocolate so yummy is the flax and the awesome texture it gives the chocolate. So true. But this one is really tasty. the flax adds to the depth of flavor each time you bite into a flax seed. I actually decided to melt this one down yesterday to make an awesome holiday cookie with my leftover butter cookies:
Butter cookies with a belgian bicuit ganache topped with peppermint candy canes. The peppermint overpowered the nuttiness of the chocolate but it still made for a great addition to a cookie that would have been plain.
Overall, I really enjoyed these products. If i could pick a top three flavors, it would be Cherry, Superfruit, and the biscuit; in that order. New Tree is a great company and I enjoyed the opportunity to work with them!
BTW, Happy Belated 2nd Birthday to my blog! LOL
Happy Belated Birthday indeed!! How adorable are those cute little candy canes?! I've never seen them before. Very cute! All the chocolates sounded good but I like dark chocolate much better than milk chocolate too.
I really like doing product reviews. Free food is good for me! I think the macaron is sexy. YUM.