Sublime Ruby

May 24, 2018 6:35 PM

What Does Ruby Chocolate Taste Like? Although the article says there are no recipes online, there is one now - from MasterChef Australia, a component of Nigella's Chocolate Feast.
posted by unliteral (39 comments total)

Touted as the 4th kind of chocolate, behind white, milk, and dark chocolates, ruby chocolate has also been dubbed Millenial Chocolate.

WHITE CHOCOLATE IS NOT CHOCOLATE AND MILK CHOCOLATE BARELY SCRAPES BY YOU MONSTERS
posted by Saxon Kane at 6:52 PM on May 24, 2018 [35 favorites]

At a guess, probably "distantly fruity ".
posted by turbid dahlia at 6:59 PM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

Having tried it (expensive ruby chocolate KitKats here in Japan) it's… pretty good? Pleasant? Kind of berry-ish, with a bit of tartness. I'd get it again sometime if it comes down in price from "something like five bucks for one biggish KitKat, counting the usual as two or four KitKats welded together" to something a bit more affordable.
posted by DoctorFedora at 7:28 PM on May 24, 2018

Not having to concern myself with this sort of thing is one of the benefits of having a tin palate...
posted by jim in austin at 7:30 PM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

I have no particular feelings about ruby chocolate but Masterchef Australia is one of the highlights of our (nefariously-obtained unless Ten has gotten over their restrictions) summers. It's SIXTY ONE-HOUR episodes, a very intense commitment, all of them full of love and HD gorgeousness and competitors crying over their friends getting eliminated and Matt's sweet sweet suits and pocket squares. I love it even more than Masterchef Junior (US) and that's saying a lot.
posted by Lyn Never at 7:54 PM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]

I strongly suspect it tastes like marketing hype.


With raspberry flavoring.
posted by darkstar at 7:58 PM on May 24, 2018 [10 favorites]

Please fill this thread with Masterchef Australia reactions. I'm always fascinated to see how it travels, and unfortunately it's rather difficult to find non-Australians watching Australian Masterchef and explaining them to their local audience. But I deeply enjoy it.
posted by Merus at 8:01 PM on May 24, 2018 [3 favorites]

Masterchef Australia is one of the highlights of our (nefariously-obtained unless Ten has gotten over their restrictions) summers
Have your hanky ready for the first episode because the nonna is going to slay you.
posted by unliteral at 8:15 PM on May 24, 2018

Does it taste like it's glorious but going to be supplanted by a more confusing JavaScript chocolate before I get the chance to have any?

I'm not bitter, I'm dark.
posted by Sequence at 8:16 PM on May 24, 2018 [15 favorites]

So. I love Sour patch worms and kids and etc...

And I thought what if someone made a "sour" chocolate, with a punch of acidic crystals or... something.

Is this like that, but... more refined? Maybe more... Sour cherry + dark chocolate? Feh, ok, I'll go read.
posted by symbioid at 8:30 PM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

if it's redder and fruity but also acidic, it makes me wonder if it's made with natural cocoa rather than dutch processed.
posted by jb at 9:06 PM on May 24, 2018 [1 favorite]

I have zero interest in this whatever.

No, wait, I mean, I have zero interest in ever tasting this whatever it is, "new chocolate" thing.

I obviously am interested in the topic. In fact, I have Vast Opinions About Chocolate Of Varying Types.

But above all else, I will refer you to the first comment in this thread. White chocolate is not chocolate. It contains nothing that makes chocolate be chocolate, it is merely everything BUT that part of the cocoa bean.
posted by hippybear at 9:15 PM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

Seems entirely possible! It definitely has a hint of berry-like tartness to it.
posted by DoctorFedora at 9:15 PM on May 24, 2018

Rubies are just fancy aluminum, so I’d assume “ruby chocolate” tastes like Reynolds Wrap and brown.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:28 PM on May 24, 2018 [13 favorites]

I live in South Korea, and the online store Coupang is offering those variety packs that each contains 2 pieces of ruby chocolate. I can't believe I'm about to spend $25 on kitkats, but I'm reallyyyy curious! (For that price, they had better not taste the same as raspberry kitkats.)
posted by Xere at 9:33 PM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

Honestly I'm sick of this ridiculous, pointless, hyperbolic hatred of white chocolate. It's fine. The name is fine. You don't have to eat it. Get over it.
posted by showbiz_liz at 10:40 PM on May 24, 2018 [25 favorites]

I didn't express hatred for white chocolate. As someone who hand-colored and painted molds and poured a zillion chocolates of varying illustration and type and sort a lifetime ago, I appreciate it for what it is.

I just don't consider it to be chocolate.
posted by hippybear at 10:48 PM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

It’s a waste of perfectly good moisturizer.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:48 PM on May 24, 2018 [9 favorites]

Coconut oil is much better, truly.
posted by hippybear at 11:00 PM on May 24, 2018

also, how are coconut and cocoa related, linguistically? Are they, at all? I mean, this is an odd convergence but they are entirely dissimilar as far as I know.
posted by hippybear at 11:02 PM on May 24, 2018

Why sell this exclusively as a Kit Kat bar and not as a high quality plain milk or dark bar? I can't imagine it was easy for the reviewer to properly taste this chocolate - it would get muddled with the wafer cookie.

Releasing this new chocolate (if that's what it is) in a confection rather than in a form that highlights its flavour makes no sense to me, unless it's not actually good on its own.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 11:35 PM on May 24, 2018 [4 favorites]

Looks like you can get a bar in the UK. Apparently it doesn't taste much like chocolate, and it is most likely made with regular but unfermented cocoa beans.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 11:46 PM on May 24, 2018 [2 favorites]

Coconut is derived from the Spanish word coco (a head?), whereas cocoa is a corruption of cacao, from the name of that tree in a bunch of mesoamerican languages. Most other languages — including Spanish — seem to stick with the original cacao; English is just stupid.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:48 PM on May 24, 2018 [5 favorites]

It's worth noting that, at least when I tried it, the ruby chocolate KitKat was literally the only ruby chocolate product on the market. If nothing else, it was the first ruby chocolate product that could actually be purchased by laypeople.
posted by DoctorFedora at 12:09 AM on May 25, 2018

Far as I'm concerned, anything that's made out of cacao beans is chocolate. White chocolate is made out of cocoa butter, which is extracted from cacao beans, therefore it's a kind of chocolate.

Releasing this new chocolate (if that's what it is) in a confection rather than in a form that highlights its flavour makes no sense to me, unless it's not actually good on its own.

The confection is a Kit-Kat, which in parts of the world has a truly excessive range. They've made a wasabi Kit-Kat. Of course they're going to pounce on the invention of a new kind of chocolate, even if the kinks aren't worked out yet. They did, as I mention, make a wasabi Kit-Kat.
posted by Merus at 12:25 AM on May 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

hippybear - the difference between white chocolate and ruby chocolate is that ruby chocolate is made from cocoa beans:

The chocolate is made from the "ruby cocoa bean".[4][5] "Ruby beans" are existing botanical cocoa bean varieties that have been identified as having the right attributes to be processed into ruby chocolate.[6]

The chocolate's taste is described as "sweet yet sour",[7] with "little to none" of the cocoa flavour traditionally associated with other varieties of chocolate.[8]

With the production methods being kept a trade secret and the use of genetic modification denied by Barry Callebaut, publications note industry speculation that ruby chocolate is made with unfermented cocoa beans, which can have a natural red-pinkish colour.[8][6][9] The company also registered a patent in 2009 for "cocoa-derived material" from unfermented cocoa beans (or beans fermented for no more than three days) that become red or purple after treating them with an acid and then defatting with petroleum ether.[10][6]

posted by awfurby at 12:44 AM on May 25, 2018

A previous discussion about ruby chocolate.
posted by misteraitch at 1:27 AM on May 25, 2018

The article says these bars are American. US Kit Kats are made by Hershey's, but under license from Nestle's, which is Swiss. (I think UK Kit Kats are made under license by Rowntree's, but that's something else. I think.) So, who manufactures the bars for sale in Asia? The article gives a bewildering list of different potential manufactuarys, but who is responsible for this marketing scheme?
posted by CCBC at 1:53 AM on May 25, 2018

(I guess this is a slight derail?) Anyway, there are over 300 different flavours of KitKat in Japan and this is a tumblr dedicated to documenting as many of them as possible. (I was going to link to an article about this but the tone was so "gee whiz aren't Japanese people crazy?!@?!" that I just couldn't.)

/derail
posted by awfurby at 1:59 AM on May 25, 2018

Yeah, Nestlé makes KitKats in Japan, like every other non-US country. And yes, there are like 300 flavors that have ever been sold, but it’s not like everyone just goes down to the local Lawson and picks up wasabi KitKats once a day. Many of those flavors are meant as the gimmickiest of gimmick souvenirs.
posted by DoctorFedora at 2:41 AM on May 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

that become red or purple after treating them with an acid and then defatting with petroleum ether.


Oh, well, as long as it’s not genetically modified...
. .
~
posted by darkstar at 2:41 AM on May 25, 2018 [4 favorites]

Looks like you can get a bar in the UK.

There's been a poster up in my local railway station for a couple of weeks now, advertising the ruby chocolate KitKat and claiming that they're available only in Tesco. Every time I see it I think I should pop into the local branch to find out whether, since they're advertising it here, they actually stock it here - or whether by "in Tesco" they mean "in really big branches of Tesco, plus some little ones in upmarket areas of London". Unfortunately, when I notice the poster I'm generally on my way to get on a train to somewhere else, and then by the time I get home again I've forgotten. Maybe I'll remember today!
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 3:11 AM on May 25, 2018

The MasterChef recipe isn't really a recipe for Ruby Chocolate, but is a recipe with Ruby Chocolate, unless I'm missing something?
posted by jferg at 4:18 AM on May 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

I bet that design-your-own KitKat Place in Melbourne has it.
posted by harriet vane at 5:01 AM on May 25, 2018

If only I could wash down my Ruby Chocolate with some refreshing Pepsi Blue!
posted by briank at 5:22 AM on May 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

Touted as the 4th kind of chocolate, behind white, milk, and dark chocolates, ruby chocolate has also been dubbed Millenial Chocolate.

I'm pretty sure Millennial Chocolate will end up being be dirt mixed with contaminated water because that is all the people who put "Millennial " in front of things will leave unconsumed.
posted by srboisvert at 5:37 AM on May 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

I was ready to go with "sounds like someone put Strawberry Quik in bar form" and then I realized that that might be a US-only product, so I looked up Strawberry Quik to find some linkable info, and the very first hit is this Snopes page announcing that the rumor that there was a new brand of meth that was strawberry-flavored and allegedly marketed toward kids (a la the Disney-stamped LSD tabs) was, quote, "mostly false." I don't know where I'm going with this except that, well, if someone tells you that they're hooked on ruby chocolate...
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:25 AM on May 25, 2018 [1 favorite]

And I thought what if someone made a "sour" chocolate, with a punch of acidic crystals or... something.

An outfit local to me used to make a passionfruit tangerine bar, white-and-dark swirl with the fruit flavors in the white part. It was a little tart and extremely delicious and I miss it terribly.
posted by clavicle at 9:52 AM on May 25, 2018 [2 favorites]

This whole Ruby Choclate thing seems like a hodgepodge of tangentially related confectionery topics. I like chocolate and would love to try this new stuff, but I’m not interested enough to put forth a lot of effort to find it. If it is supposed to be a premium product, it seems odd to launch it via Japanese Kit-Kats. Don’t get me wrong, I like Kit-Kats (although their 1980s themed commercials here in the US are annoying, and given a choice I prefer Twix), but they are just a mass-produced inexpensive candy, without the cachet of say, Ferrero Rocher. On the other hand, the thought of 300 different flavors of Kit-Kat is intriguing and I would love to try all of them.
posted by TedW at 11:42 AM on May 25, 2018