Meet Francisca! She is LAKRIDS BY BÜLOW's innovative taste developer and consultant. In other words, she is the one who comes up with ideas for new licorice tastes and textures. Francisca Listov-Saabye experiments with flavour combinations, ingredients, texture and appearance. A huge amount of thought, not to mention experimentation, goes into every new product. In our kitchen laboratory, we enjoyed a brief chat with Francisca about the latest addition to the Liquorice family – the new E.
What is the idea behind the new E?
The idea was to try something completely new. I’ve always thought it would be a good idea to create a salty licorice that does something that a sweet licorice can’t. Of course, taste-wise, it’s extremely intense, but salt liquorice is also softer than sweet licorice. It’s a bit chewier.
How do the different layers of the licorice ball work together?
Basically, we’ve kept the taste sensation pretty simple. The sweetness comes from the white chocolate, which in itself can be almost sickly sweet. Then comes the salt licorice, which provides a real contrast. But having just those two elements would be uninteresting, so I’ve used tiny amounts of raw licorice to provide small, intense explosions of taste. You get the totally soft chocolate that melts on the tongue, and you also have something crisp with an intense taste of raw licorice, which leaves a lasting impression. Actually, salt licorice and raw licorice also have a slight acidity, which is a great counterpoint to the sweet white chocolate.
E – crispy choc coated salty licorice a daring pairing of white chocolate and a salty licorice core. As the creamy white chocolate melts in your mouth, small pockets of intriguing raw licorice powder are revealed, making it a perfectly balanced sweet-salty experience.
What was your inspiration this time?
I love opposites. I studied Sensory Science, so I think a lot about what happens when we eat something. That’s why I also love something to be surprising. I think it’s fun to juxtapose elements from opposite ends of the taste spectrum: the crazily intense raw licorice, which has an almost smoky taste, acidity and burned notes, in contrast to the white chocolate, which is a bit rich, sweet and vanilla-like.
Does it matter which raw licorice you use?
Yes, it does. Raw licorice is really interesting. It’s the DNA of all licorice. Take cocoa beans, coffee beans or grapes for wine. The taste varies depending on where they come from. It’s the same with licorice. In the E ball, we’ve used organic raw licorice, which has been sifted, so the tiny pieces are about 1-1½ minimiters. If we’d used fine liquorice dust, the effect would have been completely different.
Would you like to try our new E - SALMIAK and see if you agree with us that it is the perfect combination?