This Triple Valrhona Chocolate Cookie is the most delicious chocolate cookie that I've ever tasted. It is chewy. Every crumb was delicious. It was dry inside and out. Not a sign of gooeyness, yet, it was chewy!
I thought at first it was pricey at HK$55.00 a piece. That was until I found out Valrhona chocolate is way more expensive than Lindt chocolate. Lindt is usually the most expensive chocolate I will find in a supermarket here in Hong Kong.
According to spoonuniversity.com in 'WTF is Valrhona Chocolate and Why We're Obsessed With It', Valrhona makes "expensive-as-all-hell chocolate".
Valrhona chocolate is made in France. Valrhona is a leading manufacturer of premium chocolate. It takes chocolate making seriously. It even offers educational programs for pastry chefs and chocolatiers. Not only that, Valrhona even makes videos to show how molded chocolate bon bons are made.
If you want to watch the video that I just watched, go to YouTube and type "Valrhona - The Essentials - The Molded Bonbons".
Valrhona makes a variety of chocolates with different amounts of cocoa and cocoa butter. Some variety are more suitable for making chocolate cookies and some more suitable for tempering and molding bon bons.
A British guy with a passion for chocolate, Alex Rast is a member of the Grand Jury of the International Chocolate Awards. I came across what he wrote about chocolate in Quora.com and it opened my eyes to a lot of things about chocolate. He wrote that Valrhona, Callebaut, Lindt are used by a lot of chocolatiers, even if they are not high-end chocolates. There are other factors that makes a chocolatier decide on one brand. It can be the price or the ability to deliver consistency in the resulting chocolate bar. Rast also wrote that examples of high-end chocolates are Pacari and Bonnat; examples of elite chocolates are Soma and Friis-Holm. If you want to read Alex Rast's full comment google "How do chocolate experts rate Lindt chocolate?" and then scroll down to look for his name.
Some of Valrhona's chocolates are packed in 3kg bags. If you just want to try out a recipe using Valrhona chocolates, there's no need to buy Valrhona in big quantities. There is a store in Wanchai(HK) that I stumbled into that sells re-packed Valrhonna in smaller bags. Only some varieties are re-packed and the store doesn't specialize in selling Valrhona. The store name is TWINS and you can call them at 3188 1887.
