ZOMG, Candy!

I have awesome timing - I just recycled my empty box of Trader Joe’s “The Art of Chocolate” truffles last weekend, and I’m noticing now, as I write this review, that I forgot to photograph the box. Oops. Photos of the box can be found on other sites here and here.

At least I nabbed photos of all the truffles! They come 9 to a box, and though they’re small, the whole box is just $1.99.

Three of the nine were filled with “praline, nougat”. One was covered in all milk (above); the other two had shells that were part milk and part white. The praline was slightly dry and gritty and tasted of sweet chocolate with a light undertone of nuttiness. It worked well with the milk chocolate, which had a nice cocoa finish, but it was too sweet when paired with the white.

Another two had a mocha praline truffle filling. One was coated in dark chocolate while the other had a dark chocolate base and a white chocolate top (above). The mocha praline had a pleasantly bitter coffee undertone that was lovely with the dark chocolate but again, too sweet with the white.

A milk chocolate covered cream and vanilla truffle (above; looks far lighter in this shot) had a thick milk chocolate shell with an overly sweet vanilla cream filling. The cloying sweetness made my throat itch.

Crisp hazelnutpaste (sic) had my favorite molding, a pretty little triangle of a hazelnut, complete with veiny leaves. Its filling had a light, fine grit of ground up hazelnuts that I could hear against my teeth more than I could actually feel on my tongue. It was thick and nutty. It was also super sweet, but I could handle the sweetness here because it was tempered by the nuttiness.

Cream and pistachio was an interesting and unexpected flavor combination for such a generic box. The dark chocolate shell was nice, and its filling was a dry white ganache flecked with light green. Despite the pistachio colors, I didn’t get any pistachio nut flavors. It did at least have a nice dusky caramel finish.

And finally, the crisp chocolate truffle cream was a pyramid of deliciousness - a caramel colored upper layer topping a crisp chocolate truffle bottom that tasted like milk chocolate buttery toffee notes.

The Art of Chocolate was all about permutations: three types of chocolate (milk, dark, and white) and six different fillings, mixed and matched. Sounds like a candy math problem for Carl at Candy Dish Blog!

While not all of the combinations were stellar, this little box was a fantastic deal at just $1.99 (nice truffles can cost that much for just a single one!). The truffles are one bite indulgences that, at 3 truffles per 100 calories, are reasonable for the wallet and the waistline.

They get an OM, not because they were especially tasty in general but because they were especially tasty at the price point of 33 cents each. I’d buy them again to satisfy a sweet tooth craving or for just-because gifts.

These Espresso Pillows are yet another purchase from Trader Joe’s arsenal of candy, this time from the candy display near the checkout counter. I nearly missed them, despite their classy looking tins, and I’m glad I didn’t.

They’re billed as “crunchy toffeed espresso bits covered in dark chocolate”. I’m not sure where the pillow part fits in, exactly, as they’re neither pillow soft nor pillow shaped. Each “pillow” is somewhere between the size of a Tic Tac and a jelly bean.

The dark chocolate is sweet, though unremarkable. It does its job just fine, though, paring well with the toffee centers.

The espresso toffee has a great texture. It cleaves with a clean crunch, which gives way to a bitter coffee edge on buttery toffee sweetness.

These things are AWESOME to crunch on. They have the flavor profile of chocolate-covered espresso beans, but they lack the grit of actual beans. They’re addictively tasty, warranting a ZOMG! and a stop to pick up more next time I’m near a Trader Joe’s.

If you want a second opinion, check out Cybele’s Candy Blog take.

Since we don’t have Trader Joe’s in Rochester, I like to make it a point to shop there and check out their candy selection when I visit my boyfriend in Boston. I picked up a few things over Thanksgiving, including this box of their Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels.

They’re promoted as “buttery smooth caramels drenched in Belgian chocolate, then sprinkled with crunchy rock salt from the Dead Sea”. Each box contains 12 square chocolate-covered caramels, all generously sprinkled with sea salt (some more generously with others).

The dark chocolate shell is thick and snappy and is juxtaposed against a gooey, liquid caramel that has a barely noticeable grain.

The caramel is too sweet for my tastes, for me akin to eating brown sugar. Its strong flavors overwhelm much of the cocoa flavors of the chocolate shell, but the chocolate does have some fruitiness, before turning dusky at the end.

For me, the chocolate and caramel are too sweet. Normally, a sprinkle of salt can offset such sweetness, but I think these guys were overly salted and lent a sourness to the sweet. Each salt crystal was quite large, so it packed quite a wallop.

These aren’t something I’d buy for myself again, but when I shared the caramels with friends, the remainder of the box got quickly gobbled up. An O from me, with the caveat that my friends gave them rave reviews.

If you want another opinion, here’s Cybele of Candy Blog’s take on an earlier version with different packaging.

Trader Joe’s has yet to make it to Rochester, but my boyfriend’s Boston home happens to be just next to one. As Cybele from Candy Blog has shown, Trader Joe’s is a great candy source, so I made sure to pop in when I was Boston to visit my boyfriend.

While there, I picked up a tub of their chocolate-covered sunflower seeds (not as good as Sunbursts’s, but still good, and just right for snacking on the long drive home) and these, dark chocolate chipotle hazelnuts.

They’re advertised as “mild, smoky heat with a touch of cinnamon and cocoa”. There’s a lot going on there!

They smell of sweet cocoa. At first taste, it tastes like ground cinnamon - dry and spicy. Next comes the cocoa flavor, which is a tad sweet, along with a bit of nuttiness from the hazelnuts.

Finally, the chili burn emerges after the nut is gone. It emerges slowly, but once it comes, it lingers! It doesn’t hurt exactly; rather, it smolders. It’ll definitely keep you awake!

Texture-wise, the outer chocolate layer is soft, while the whole hazelnut inside is pleasantly crunchy.

I wish the hazelnut flavor had been stronger. More nuttiness and more roasty-ness would have helped. The chocolate and the chili and the hazelnut sort of works together, but the cinnamon throws it off. Somehow, the flavors just don’t quite mesh.

I wouldn’t buy them again, but I did eat a significant portion of the tub. I’d like to try them without the cinnamon. Maybe they’d work better that way? Until then, an O from me.