Bite-sized filled balls from treatfuls, with a hazelnut butter centre — the brand's answer to a certain famous round hazelnut chocolate, rebuilt on dates instead of sugar and without any dairy.
Why hazelnut and chocolate is the oldest pairing in European confectionery. It began, oddly, with a shortage. During the Napoleonic blockade of the early nineteenth century, cocoa became scarce and expensive in Piedmont — so chocolate makers in Turin extended what they had with the one thing the region produced in abundance: hazelnuts from the Langhe hills. The result was gianduja, and it turned out to be better than the problem it solved. Two centuries later, hazelnut and chocolate is still the combination the whole industry returns to.
The chemistry behind why it works. Roasting hazelnuts drives the Maillard reaction and produces filbertone and a family of pyrazines — and roasting cocoa produces closely related compounds. They occupy the same aromatic territory, so the two do not compete: they compound. It is the reason hazelnut extends chocolate rather than sitting beside it.
How treatfuls build it. A date-paste shell with nuts, and a creamy hazelnut butter centre — no added sugar, syrup or sweetener, and no dairy. The sweetness comes entirely from the fruit, which is worth stating clearly: that makes it a no-added-sugar product, not a low-sugar one. Dates are roughly two-thirds sugar by weight. What you gain is fibre, potassium and whole-fruit structure rather than refined sucrose.
They are softer than the bars, because a filled ball has more nut butter and less structure. They are excellent at home from a tin and slightly fragile loose in a bag in August — a small rigid container helps.
Contains hazelnuts, and is produced alongside other nuts. Vegan, organic, no palm oil, no soy, no lactose.
Available at Só Verde, an organic concept store in Foz, Porto.
treatfuls
treatfuls
treatfuls
treatfuls
