Laura Second Chocolates

Not the best chocolate in the world, but something that comes straight from my childhood and will remain close to my heart.  I’ll always have a french mint chocolate bar melted slowly in a hot drink and allowed to melt in my mouth slowly.  Utter bliss, as are the maple creams.

The name Laura Secord was used because she was a Canadian heroine and an icon of courage, devotion and loyalty.  While no longer Canadian owned, the shops remain a Canadian icon and a treat for many.

Laura Secord started as a single shop on Yonge Street in Toronto. O’Connor turned the flat above the shop into a kitchen and prepared his own products. The chocolate no longer reflects that hand-made flavour and its mass-market production has necessitated a low quality chocolate but it’ll always have a place on Canadian tables and in Canadian stockings.

My favourite bars are the french mint and fronted mint.  I find these taste best when warmed ever so slightly and then eaten slowly – allowed to melt in the mouth.  That oily aftertaste is regrettable but I can rarely bring myself to chew these lovely bars.  French mint is a dark milk chocolate flavoured with mint and fronted mind has a green-tinted white chocolate outer covering of the inner dark milk chocolate core.

The maple cream chocolates shaped like a maple leaf are the most Canadian of products and is a blissful combination of milk chocolate maple leaf shape and maple cream centre.  The flavour brings to everyone what is quintessentially Canadian.  I bring a lot (50+) of these back with me when I can.

The Secord egg at Easter is the one thing I’m sure most Canadians living abroad long for.  It is a different fondant centre than an Easter cream egg, with a more pronounced vanilla flavour.  The sizes vary from a small chocolate to a rather scarily large solid egg.

This is almost as Canadian as it gets, despite being owned by Americans.