Delices & Gourmandises’ Belgian chocolates: a great time!

Symbols of Belgian quality all around the world, Belgian chocolates have a key place in Delices & Gourmandises catalog.

Tasty moments with Delices & Gourmandises

The history of Belgian chocolate dates back to the seventeenth century. At that time, cocoa was landed in the port of Antwerp from Curaçao Island in the Caribbean. Offered by the monks of the Abbey of Baudeloo near Ghent in 1635, this gift was one of the first tracks of the bean in Belgium, which was then only enjoyed as a luxurious drink by the royal family and aristocrats.

Over the following centuries, it becames very popular and was introduced in desserts. In 1857, Jean Neuhaus, pharmacist, had the idea to coat its medicinal preparations of chocolate to hide their bad taste: the first chocolate factory was born. A few years later, he even invented the praline, a real trademark of the Belgian confectionery, which justifies its selection by Delices & Gourmandises.

In addition to the skills of its chocolate-makers, Belgian chocolate’s fame first is built on the quality of the selected cocoa beans and their roasting. Moreover, their grinding is finely realized, another specificity of this chocolate, as well as a high cocoa content (often 43% instead of 35% generally).

Among the great names of Belgian chocolate, apart from Neuhaus, there is Côte d'Or, created in 1883, Leonidas (1913) or Godiva (1926).

The famous Belgian pralines proposed by Delices & Gourmandises

Pralines are mainly handmade with caramelized sugar coated with chocolate. These melting-in-the mouth chocolate-filled sweets are then decorated in a personal way by each master chocolatier.

Delices & Gourmandises offers you a unique assortment of 10 varieties of pralines, among which are the mendiants made with chocolate, hazelnut, almond and orange slices.