Dandelion Chocolate's dulce de leche bar is a modern take on a candy bar created by pastry chef Lisa Vega, formerly of Gary Danko and the Mina Group. With a resume like that, you know you're in for a treat.
See also: Behind the Pastry: Blue Bottle's New Edith Heath Bars
Lisa wanted to create a dessert that highlights Dandelion's Camino Verde chocolate, a 70 percent cacao from Ecuador with fudgy and nutty notes. To do so, she makes the top layer of the bar a chocolate caramel ganache so smooth and creamy it literally melts in your mouth with the first bite. It's topped with flakes of Maldon sea salt to contrast the sweetness with a bit of saltiness -- not necessarily novel, but necessary.
Once the chocolate sort of disappears on your tongue, you're left with a dulce de leche, a caramel "milk candy" made from cream, butter, sweetened condensed milk, and sugar that's slowly simmered over stove-top until it becomes just so. It's a little too sticky to chew by itself, but the bottom layer -- a buttery, crumbly crust made with almond flour, hazelnut flour, and feuilletine sable -- provides the proper complementary component that mixes together with the dulce de leche to allow the dish to go down just right.
You should just have a bite or two, but you can't not devour its entirety; this dish is everything. Save the Snickers for the kids.
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