John & Kira’s Urban Garden Bars: guajillo chili pepper + almonds
April 5, 2013 - chocolate
For the uninitiated in the spicy pepper universe, guajillo peppers are pretty mild, usually reserved for preparing salsas and sauces. So before we pop a piece into our mouth, we are already anticipating some disappointment in the heat category.
However, the wonderful folks at John & Kira’s (from Philly, yo!) have partnered with a couple organizations to encourage urban gardening and agriculture, youth nutrition education and entrepreneurship. They make an absolutely brilliant mint chocolate, using mint grown in these urban gardens, tending by students from Philadelphia schools.
This bar then, is another result from this ongoing project – mixing dark chocolate, almonds and peppers. The chocolate, in true John & Kira style, is crisper and lighter than most chocolate, allowing the flavors to come through quicker, and melts in your mouth a little faster. The peppers, like the mint mentioned above, are grown in urban gardens in Philly, as well as in Washington, DC and Chicago, and provide a good amount of spiciness – like a spicy salsa spicy. The almond crunch coating on the bottom of the bar provide a crisp counterpoint to the chocolate creaminess.
To really seal the deal, so to speak, is where I tell you that a portion of the proceeds from the sales of these bars goes back to the educational programs supporting the urban gardens the peppers came from.