Gluten free gourmet chocolates

I was recently asked what gourmet chocolates (that you can buy in the supermarket) are gluten free and I have to say I didn’t really know. Which got me thinking, there are probably a lot of people out there who want to know the same thing, especially when wanting to give their gluten free friends a little prezzie.After standing in the chocolates isle of Coles and reading the back of every box of chocolates (aren’t I nice doing this for you :P) I have put together a list of the safe (aka gluten free) options:While most of the Lindt chocolate range has barley malt in the chocolate, the Lindt Lindor white chocolate balls do not. However depending on how strict you are the following statement has been release by Lindt:“Our white and extra dark (70% cocoa and above) chocolate, by nature, does not contain barley malt. However, because they run on the same production lines as other products there is a chance of cross contamination. Lindt is aware of the growing prevalence of Coeliac Disease and is sensitive to the fact that many people are unable to enjoy our chocolate. We hope to be able to offer options to satisfy all types of dietary requirements in the future.”Photo courtesy of: http://swiatslodyczy.blox.pl/2008/04/Lindt-Lindor-biale-i-60-kakao.htmlAccording to Nestle their Scorched Almonds Original Milk have “no cereals containing gluten or ingredients derived from cereals containing gluten” (you can see the full list of gluten free products here).Nestle Scorched AlmondsCoco by Cadbury Truffles are smooth milk chocolate truffles encased in milk chocolate. They are available in milk truffle and assorted truffle bags. After contacting Cadbury I can confirm that these are gluten free, with no chance of cross contamination.Coco by Cadbury TrufflesI hadn’t seen these chocolates before now and also haven’t tried them so am not sure what they are like. They are chocolate filled with hazelnut, almond and cashew nut praline in the shape of an elephant! They come in four different flavours milk, white, noisettine (if anyone can help me with the English translation of this that would be great!) and truffle.The ingredients on the packet shows that the product does not contain gluten however I am not 100% sure about contamination as the only site of theirs that is in English (the Canadian site) does not list the Bouchees as a product.Cote d'Or BoucheesToblerone is an old favourite of mine. Every time my Dad used to go overseas he would bring us back from Toblerone (until it become too frequent and we got sick of it).Having a look on Toblerone’s website all flavours are ok except the HoneyComb crisp mentioning this flavour may contain wheat. I am not exactly sure why it says this as all the other products are fine and therefore you would assume there is no risk of cross contamination!The Toblerone Tinys pack contains three flavours – white, milk and dark.Photo courtesy of Gone ChoccoNote: Caramel colour from wheat and glucose syrup (wheat) are both gluten free. These ingredients are wheat derived but are considered gluten free because no gluten remains after processing.*Please note that this blog post only relates to those chocolates bought in Australia and New Zealand – since being in Canada and the USA I have found that there are a lot more gluten free options as they tend to use corn starch instead of wheat starch.