Nothing else in the decoration cupboard stands out like a ruby Crispearl. The colour is a soft, dusky pink that comes from the cocoa bean itself rather than from any colouring, and it sits on a dark glaze or a white mousse in a way that no food colour quite manages. Each pearl is a toasted cereal centre in an 84% ruby Callebaut coating, around 4mm across.

Ruby tastes as distinctive as it looks. There is a berry sharpness through it, closer to raspberry than to strawberry, and our ruby coating carries the most milk powder and the least sugar of the range, which is why it tastes tangy and creamy rather than simply sweet.

What Is Ruby Chocolate?

Ruby is the fourth chocolate, alongside dark, milk and white, and it was introduced by Barry Callebaut in 2017. The colour and the fruity, slightly sour note come from particular cocoa beans and the way they are processed, with no berries, no fruit flavouring and no added colour anywhere in it. In law it is still declared as milk chocolate, so the ingredient panel on the bag reads "cereals coated with milk chocolate" and the composition is a conventional one, with citric acid as the only additional ingredient. Everything that makes it ruby happens to the bean, not to the recipe.

How to Use Ruby Chocolate Crispearls 

Treat them as you would white: fold in late, keep the mix below about 28C, and scatter them onto a glaze while it is still tacky so they set in place. The one thing to watch is the colour rather than the texture. Ruby fades with heat and with light, so do not hold a finished piece under a warm display lamp for hours and do not bake them. Allow 5 to 10g a portion as a garnish, or 30 to 40g a kilo folded through a mousse or a gelato.

Troubleshooting 

Thanks to the chocolate coating, these cereal balls maintain their crispiness and crunch even when used in chilled or creamy applications. High water content applications such as fruit purées will cause them to soften over time, so leave it until the last minute to add them.

If the pearls clump in storage they have been too warm. Keep the bag closed at 12 to 20C and away from anything strongly scented, since the cereal centre may pick up an aroma through the coating.

Pairings and Ideas 

Ruby suits raspberry, rhubarb, lychee, yuzu, pistachio and rose, and it is at its best against something white or very dark rather than against another pink.

• Around the rim of a ruby hot chocolate, as in our Ruby Hot Chocolate
• Scattered over a white chocolate mousse 
• Through a raspberry or rhubarb layer in an entremet
• On top of a dark chocolate tart for contrast
• Pressed into the shell of a pistachio bonbon before the ganache
• Folded into a vanilla or yoghurt gelato at the end of the batch