Gina's Chocolate Truffles from Trinidad

By way of one of my mother's students from Trinidad, a box of Gina's Chocolate Truffles occasionally makes its way into my parents' home. Not only is it so kind of this student to bring this chocolate all the way from the West Indies to Victoria, it is extremely generous of her family to gift us what I'm sure are some of the most beautiful artisan chocolates in all of Trinidad.

The chocolates themselves are a work of art, crafted perfectly into hearts, ingots, and swirly spheres, and painted in a lustrous gold. The box that my mother received last Easter was moulded into cute rabbits, chicks, and flowers.

Gina's Chocolate Truffles are hand-made in Trinidad. The artisan chocolatier behind them, Gina Hardy, is a Singaporean who spent ten years working as an accountant in London, before moving to the West Indies with her Trinidadian partner and embracing her passion of crafting fine chocolate. Her creations blend traditional chocolate flavours with those of her local Trinidad, resulting in gems such as Trini truffle (rum and coconut), limin' (lime and black pepper), and madras (mango and curry). She uses Cocobel dark chocolate, made with 100% Trinitario cocoa from Rancho Quemado in South Trinidad, in combination with high quality local ingredients.

Gina Hardy
(https://sta.uwi.edu/uwitoday/archive/september_2012/article16.asp)

After I got over admiring how perfectly beautiful the chocolates looked, I read over the key to match them up with their flavours. From banoffee (bananas and toffee) to taj (pistachios and cardamom), there were some fascinating combinations!

Memories of Vietnamese passion fruits from my summertime travels led me to select passion (Trinidad passion fruit in a white chocolate ganache, with a dark chocolate shell). I was curious to see how the passion fruit would pair with the chocolate -- as it turns out, very well! The creamy filling was flavourfully infused with passionfruit (real fruit too, judging by the couple of crunchy seed pieces that enhanced the texture). The tartness of the passionfruit was complemented perfectly with the sweet white chocolate ganache, which was balanced by the bitterness of the dark chocolate shell. It was a delightful one-of-a-kind chocolate and I'm sure the others will be just as unique!

It's clear looking at Gina's chocolates how much love and thought have gone into preparing each and every one of them -- from coming up with fantastic flavours, to sourcing local ingredients, to decorating them so carefully. It really is a treat to get to enjoy them!