A creamy milk chocolate, Valrhona's Caramelia 36% offers a luxurious experience with the flavour of salted butter caramel woven into the heart of milk chocolate, resulting in a beautifully indulgent and moreish chocolate couverture. 

Tasting notes for Caramelia 36% Chocolate

The flavour profile of Valrhona Caramelia offers a rich, milky profile with notes of salted caramel, perfect for an indulgent dessert!

Valrhona cook skimmed milk, whey, sugar and butter down to a caramel first, then build the chocolate around it, which is why Caramelia tastes of salted butter caramel all the way through a ganache or a shell.

At 36% cocoa it is a milk couverture in its own right, with cocoa butter and cocoa beans sitting alongside the caramel and the whole milk powder. That 36% is a minimum, and it counts the cocoa butter and the cocoa beans together, which is what gives Caramelia a chocolate backbone under the caramel. Valrhona's own tasting notes are indulgent, with salted caramel. It comes as feves in a single 3kg bag.

How to Use Caramelia 36%

Temper Caramelia as you would any milk chocolate, Valrhona recommend table top tempering for best results.

Valrhona mark moulding as what Caramelia does best, and also list bars, mousses, cream mixes and ganache, and ice creams and sorbets. It makes a good shell for the same reason it makes a good bar: the caramel comes through clearly even in a thin layer.

Sugar is 29.6% of the recipe, so acidity works well against it. Citrus and exotic fruit are both high on Valrhona's own pairing list, and a sharp fruit centre in a Caramelia shell gives you the salted caramel note with a clean finish. Feves weigh straight out of the bag, and you can melt what you need and reseal the rest.

Pairing notes 

The creamy, sweet and salty profile of Caramelia pairs perfectly with citrus fruits, exotic fruits, hazelnut, peanut and cardamom. A few ideas to try:

• Moulded bars, the use Valrhona rate highest
• Bonbon shells over a passion fruit or yuzu centre
• A salted caramel ganache for bonbons and tarts
• Caramel and hazelnut mousse
• Caramelia ice cream, or a ripple through a vanilla base
• A caramel glaze for eclairs and choux

Applications 

Caramelia chocolate opens up a world of application possibilities, but, if you’re unsure, it works especially well for moulding, mousses and ganaches.

What makes Valrhona chocolates special? 

Valrhona offers fine chocolates, covering multiple options so every professional can pick the perfect chocolate for their application.
They are also a certified B-Corp, meaning they are part of a group of ethically committed companies which meet the highest standards in terms of their social and environmental impact.
By buying from Valrhona, you are choosing a responsible chocolate that is traceable and sourced directly from our producers. 

Find out more on Caramelia in our Valrhona Cocoa Library profile, and plenty of flavour pairing ideas in Caramel Flavour Inspiration.