Lindt chocolates have been melting in Swiss mouths since the 1800s, eventually spreading across the globe. It’s hard to find a U.S. supermarket without a collection of Lindt lovelies in various incarnations, from chocolate bars to sticks, spreads, pralines, chocolatier boxes, and even formed into gold bunnies, little chicks, and golfballs. Then, there’s arguably the best of them all: the chocolate truffles. These crinkly foil-wrapped spheres fall under a separate brand name, Lindt Lindor — and there’s a whole lot of them.
Lindt Lindor truffles come in about 45 flavors, some seasonal and many permanent, leading to a constant whirl of chocolate-making activity — so much, in fact, that the Lindor team can wrap 1000 truffles in a mere minute. The basic red-wrapped Lindor Milk chocolate is the company’s most popular truffle offering, but it certainly has good company. With all that goodness out there, we decided to host a taste test, ranking 25 Lindt Lindor truffles from worst to best. That’s a lot truffle contenders, and some pretty tough competition. But ultimately, one ball rolled past all others in the tasting parade, taking its place in the number one spot: the Lindt Lindor Fudge Swirl truffle.
The friendly competition amongst Lindor siblings involved a lot of distinctions between flavor, balance, creaminess, mouthfeel, sweetness, aesthetic, and more — including the ever-present line-cross between dark, milk, and white chocolate filling. In the end, it’s the Fudge Swirl’s twirling bullseye pattern of creamy white and dark chocolates nestled inside the outer milk chocolate shell that hits the spot.
The Lindor method and flavor madness
Whether you buy them in bags, boxes, gift baskets, or customized 25-piece gold bowls, Lindor truffles are considered a work of art. Lindt, which is a bean to bar chocolate company, has its chocolatiers create a round, hollow shell of tempered chocolate, using spinning molds to ensure generous milk-chocolate coatings inside and out, which then become vessels for cradling various truffle fillings. Of the 25 varieties in Tasting Table’s ranking, the top five truffles are worth mentioning for comparison sake.
The gold-wrapped Fudge Swirl truffle firmly tops the list, but Lindor’s quintessential plain Dark Chocolate truffle isn’t far behind, taking the number two spot. Our Tasting Table reviewer noted that its creamy texture compared more favorably than other powdery Lindor dark chocolate truffles. That makes it a potential crossover for those otherwise preferring milk chocolates over dark ones.
Surprisingly to chocolate purists, a very deeply flavored truffle rounds out the top three: the Lindor Mint Milk Chocolate. That flavor comes from peppermint oil, though it’s different from the holiday peppermint truffles. The Mint Milk “isn’t too sweet or too menthol-like” according to our taster, instead bringing milder mint notes suitable for year-round enjoyment. Fourth on the list is the Lindor Hazlenut truffle, standing out for a decidedly milk chocolate-forward presence and a delightfully crunchy shell studded with nuts. Finally, rounding out the top five is a nod to salty and sweet combinations, otherwise known as the “swalty” trend. In this case, it manifests as the Lindor Sea Salt truffle with a milk-chocolate filling and shell enhanced and balanced by a salty twist.
