El Lobo: Spanish Torrone
I’ve always been a fan of Torrone even though I haven’t been able to eat it with great frequency. It was a frequent treat that was in my household during Christmas, and only because my Dad is crazy for the stuff. He’s receive a few bars as a gift and it would be gone by the end of the day. I’d always be offered some, and as the years went by, I grew to appreciate it more and more.
Now the kind I’m referring to here is the Italian style torrone that’s made up of honey, sugar, eggs whites and nuts and is similar to a nougat. It can be fluffy or on the harder side, depending on what the maker had in mind. It really didn’t matter to me in the end, they all tasted good.
When I saw this bar I was immediately taken aback, because it’s labeled as a torrone, but it didn’t look like what I typically was familiar with. It looked more like a nut brittle than a torrone, so I was immensely interested. It’s also from Spain, so I was eager to see how the recipe changed when from a different country. I nabbed the bar and did some researching once I was back home. I found a retailer for the El Lobo company, and this is the description on the website:
“El Lobo is a delicious almond and honey turrón candy by the makers of 1880. These candies are 50% smaller than the premium 1880 brand, and have a simpler recipe, which means you can enjoy real D.O. certified Spanish turrón at a less premium price.”
“Incomparable Marcona almonds make up over 65% of this ’suprema’ quality gourmet bar - the most that can be added before the bars start to fall apart! This ’suprema’ quality gourmet bar is similar to traditional turrón except that it is made from caramelized sugar and whole fresh (unroasted) almonds, rather than honey and egg white of the traditional turrón. The almonds are bound together with delicious dark caramel and sandwiched with super thin wafer. Truly the finest in the world. Made by hand in Alicante, Spain.”
What I bought was the almond brittle variety. The candy is gorgeous! The supermodel of candies. It has beautiful whole almonds, perfectly round and well shaped. They’re covered in a thick, slightly sticky hard sugar syrup, which gives them a dark roasted color, much like oil on well-tanned skin. On the bottom there’s a light wafer to keep it from sticking to anything.
It feels heavy and well formed. The first bite took some working to break off, as I was trying to cleave off a bite without breaking the whole thing and hurting my teeth.
Oh, YUM! You get the wonderful, roasted nutty flavors of the whole almonds, a sweet, rich honey like flavor from the syrup, and a good wafer-like blandness that keeps it from being overly sweet. This is good. On top of that, the texture is great as the syrup is chewy and crispy at the same time. The almonds have a good meaty chew and it’s just stellar. My only complaint is that it sticks to your teeth a little too much and it’s not fun having to try and pick the pieces out.
Just goes to show that natural and simple can be very, very, very good.
