Enjoy Life’s Mega Awesome Mega Chunks!

Enjoy Life’s Baking Chocolate

Tested: Semi-Sweet Mega Chunks

Enjoy Life is a company that has impressed me with their chocolate products before, and with the fresh, unique appearance of the adorable packaging for this new product as it is marketed in the U.S., I knew these chunky chocolate pieces would also live up to the high standards I have come to expect Enjoy Life to deliver. This particular product bag promises “Premium Quality”; they fulfill the promise.

Enjoy Life’s semi-sweet chocolate mega chunks product is available at natural food stores and conventional grocery stores throughout the U.S. and Canada, and at over 15 online retailers. They come in a 10 oz. (283g) bag for approximately $5.00.

The bag that they come in really is cute, by the way! Something about portraying the yummy product, looking so delicious against the bright white bag…well, I don’t know, I just like it a lot. I’m a sucker for the modern design of it, plus the big ol’ blondie studded with the aforementioned chocolate chunks on the front of the bag doesn’t hurt either. The bag is so diverse from the previous Enjoy Life Canadian market chocolate pieces packaging that it took me by surprise. I can’t help hoping that they will make our bags as cute for the Canadian market.

As it is, the white bag shows the chunks as glossy, deep brown rectangles of choco-goodness. It also is worth noting, that it gloriously boasts a very pleasing and short ingredients list (a mere three ingredients: evaporated cane juice, natural chocolate liquor (non-alcoholic), and non-dairy cocoa butter) – so cheerful in their brevity. It’s refreshing to see!

My only complaint upon looking at the product (and this is before I tasted it, mind you) is that the chunks all appear “dusty; the whitish-chocolate bloom appearance usually associated with lower quality chocolate-flavour pieces. So, the chunks ON the bag definitely do not look just like the ones IN the bag. However, once I tried them, any notion that these were at all like a false-chocolate-type, chocolatey flavored confection product disappeared.

Their taste and texture are of the caliber of any gourmet chocolate out there, truly appreciable by anyone looking to seek some unadulterated chocolate bliss. They are highly sweet, with a meltingly soft texture on the tongue, thanks to the cocoa butter in them, I think. Oh, and that initial dull and powdery appearance I mentioned? I find if you apply a little heat (enough to soften them slightly, but low enough that they retain their shape and not melt away) they will then “glaze over” and look smooth-surfaced and as shiny as in the picture! I used a cupful in a no-bake cashew-oats brittle recipe for granola bars which uses a boiled sugar syrup base as a binder. I added the chunks in while the sugar syrup was hot and these babies bled their sweet, dark cocoa-ey magic – which lent a subtley blended element into that favorite recipe of mine while heightening the appeal even more.

I also think that the chunk shape for vegan chocolate has been underrepresented until now, and it would be very good, and properly highlighted, in any chocolate recipe you know does a good job of keeping everything simple to let the chocolate be the star; the cool texture of the chunk shapes were really notable. Perhaps as an addition to a trail mix blend (do people still eat trail mix anymore, these days?! Well, I do!) these would be best served in their “dry” (i.e., un-heated) form. The package I received had printed on the back a recipe for xgfx blondies where they have stirred the chunks into the batter and they are still intact – studding the tops of the blondie bars in a most darling way. That would be likeable, for sure!

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