Vere Chocolate: My Latest Cupcake Inspiration

No Vere Chocolate

In March, I wrote about my free gift from Chocolate.com. I talked about how I knew they were going to send me chocolate, but I wondered which chocolate they would send. One of the chocolates I'd hoped they would send was an organic single-origin bar by Vere. That is not what they sent.

Vere Chocolate Situation Rectified

In April, I got the following email:

"Stef . Vere is my baby and I'd love to send you some things to taste Where to?

Best Kathy Moskal founder/owner VERE"

Vere sent me 5 different samples! After the break, I've got comments on each one, plus which Vere product inspired my next cupcakes.



So Good It's Nuts

The biggest surprise in my package was So Good it's Nuts. It is dark chocolate infused with vanilla, ginger, and lime, with caramelized crispy rice and salted roasted peanuts. Jonathan thought it was amazing. However, the peanuts killed it for me. I don't like peanuts and once they enter a product, the taste completely takes over. I know some would love this in cupcakes - but too bad, no cupcake will be made by me based on this combination.

Vere Ultimo Organic Dark Chocolate Bar

Getting the Vere Ultimo Organic Dark Chocolate Bar (photo is from chocolate.com not J. Pollack Photography) was not surprising to me because it was what I had specifically asked for.

How was it?

Yummy! This was some tasty chocolate with the benefit of being organic and single-origin. It's worth a try.

Would I make my cupcake based on this chocolate?

I've done chocolate cupcakes before. My Vere-inspired cupcake was going to have to be a more interesting combination of flavors?

Vere Flavored Chocolate Bars

When I saw the three mini chocolate bars Vere sent, I at first thought they were sticks of gum. Gum is something else I don't like. It has never come up before because no one has asked me to make gum cupcakes. Thank goodness!

Anyway, I was glad they weren't gum.

The first bar was the Vere Raspberry Lemon Organic Dark Chocolate Bar. The chocolate quality was, as noted above, fantastic. However, I could barely taste any raspberry or lemon.

I'm sure Vere wanted the chocolate flavor to come through the most since they have every reason to be proud of their chocolate. Yet, why bother with a flavored bar when you can't taste the flavors.

Raspberry and lemon lovers would be disappointed.

The raspberry lemon chocolate combo would make for a great cupcake, but it's too Springy for a Fall wedding. Raspberries won't be in season.

Next up was the Vere Espresso Anise Organic Dark Chocolate Bar. Unlike the raspberry/lemon bar, both the espresso and anise flavors shined in this bar. The combination of flavors blew me away! I would definitely buy this bar again. I wish there were a store near me that sold it!

The problem: Bride and Groom 2.0 don't like coffee so I couldn't make this into a cupcake for them. Someday, though, I may try it. It would be great!

The last mini bar I tried was the Vere Banana Macadamia Organic Dark Chocolate Bar. I love bananas! Sometimes I feel that chocolate/candy with bananas ends up with a fake banana flavor and not a real one. What would this bar have?

It had no banana flavor. Jonathan and I (yes, I shared) couldn't taste any banana flavor or any macadamia nut flavor for that matter. It's a shame because the combo sounded so great. Again, I still enjoyed the bar because their chocolate is "vere" good (I had to use "vere" like that at least one time in this post, it's a wonder I made it this far). I just wished that as a flavored bar the other flavors would make more of an appearance.

Despite the fact that the bar wasn't all I'd hoped for, I still made a cupcake out of it! Groom 2.0 specifically requested banana, chocolate, peanut butter cupcakes. Since I don't do peanut butter, a banana, chocolate, macadamia nut butter cupcake was going to have to do.

Thanks to Vere for the samples!