Among my group of friends or between my husband and I, every now and then this topic pops out again: What is the most delicious cioccolatino? Cioccolatino is chocolate, praline. As you know I’m a glutton, and I love chocolate. In this post I thought to share the 5 most known and beloved Italian pralines you can find in supermarkets. It is in form of a list, but only according to my personal taste.
Italian pralines you can find in supermarkets
1 Baci Perugina
They are my favourite. Probably many of you already know them. Il bacio is not only scrumptious but it hides a note, usually a love related quote.
Backstory: Its story is absolutely interesting. Luisa Spagnoli, founder of Luisa Spagnoli fashion brand and of Perugina, invented them in 1922. She was worried about all the chocolate production leftovers and thought of creating a new chocolate out of them. But, since the shape was similar to a fist, the first name was Cazzotti (punches).
Only in 1924, the co-founder Giovanni Buitoni decided to change their name, cause the first one was too aggressive. While the art director Federico Seneca invented the new silver wrapper and the note. While the blue stars were added in 1968.
It is considered mostly the Italian chocolate for people in love par excellence. When Matteo wants to please me with a little gift, he buys two baci at the café near his work and brings them home for a tiny dessert. 🙂
The slogan: Diamoci un mondo di baci. Let’s give each other a world of kisses.
2 Gianduiotto
I adore i gianduiotti. They are quite different from the other chocolates of the list. The other in fact have different layers, textures or crunchy parts. Gianduiotto however is “plain”: cocoa, hazelnut paste and sugar.
Wrapped in a golden tinfoil cover, it is an “upturned boat” shaped chocolate, officially invented in 1865 in Turin by Pier Paul Caffarel. It was presented during Carnival by the local mask Gianduja, hence the name. At that time, there was a huge request of cocoa, but the price was exorbitant. So the producers decided to replace part of the cocoa with the paste of a local product, hazelnuts. Precisely, nocciola tonda gentile delle Langhe.
Due to the high quantity of hazelnuts, at the time it was not possible to produce it in forms. It was therefore cut by hand. In many chocolateries in and near Turin you can still find hand cut gianduiotti. The brand you will most likely find in supermarkets is Pernigotti.
3 Ferrero Rocher
My husband loves them. Among chocolates, they are the flagship product of the same company of the famous cream Nutella, the Ferrero. The term “rocher” refers to the Lourdes grotto. Launched in 1982, it is a wafer shell filled with Nutella and covered with milk chocolate and chopped hazelnuts.
At the Alba factory about 24 millions of Ferrero Rochers are produced… per day. If you line up the rochers produced in 6 days, they reach the length of the Chinese Wall.
In Italy it was very popular the 1992 commercial, where a yellow dressed lady informed her butler Ambrogio of her carving. At the time it was very parodied.
The most recent slogan? Assapora la bellezza, taste the beauty.
4 Pocket Coffee
They consist of a dose of espresso coffee in a shell of dark chocolate. I decided to include them, even if I do not consider them chocolates. 😀 I don’t know why, maybe for the very Ferrero company advertising message, promoting them as a snack to recharge your batteries while studying since I was a kid. Therefore, for me they are a sort of espresso to go.
Their slogan: La carica del caffè più l’energia del cioccolato (the charge of coffee plus the energy of chocolate).
5 Mon Chéri
Another of my hubby’s favourites, Mon Chèri, meaning my darling in French, is another Ferrero chocolate. It has a heart of cherry and liqueur covered in dark chocolate. The wrapping is pink, with a red cherry on top. Each year the Ferrero company buys about 150.000 tons of cherries from Portugal to make these chocolates.
Let yourself be surprised, lasciati stupire, is the motto.
So, now you know which Italian pralines to buy the next time you are at the supermarket and you feel like chocolate! 😉
