ZOMG, Candy!

I recently had the pleasure of getting a candy sneak preview. Crown Candies sent me two boxes of their Borrachitos (Spanish for a little drunk, and a traditional Mexican treat, apparently). I got one each of their two available flavors: Tequila and Licor de Cafe.

Crown Candies imports these handmade candies from Mexico. They call them “gourmet caramel candies,” but, as I explained to David of Crown Candies, I find that a bit of a misnomer, as they aren’t actually caramels. Instead, they’re a soft jelly-like candy flavored with caramel (or dulce du leche, if you prefer) and liquor. The Tequila flavor is laced with Tequila (duh), and the Licor de Cafe with coffee liqueur (less intuitive if you’re unfamiliar with romance languages).

The borrachitos come inside a resealable plastic tub with paper dividers separating them from each other. That tub is then shrink-wrapped and packaged inside a box. The texture of the candy is hard to describe. It’s super soft and immediately gives way when you bite into it, yet there’s a slight chew to it, The white center is creamy and also soft. They’re covered in granulated sugar, presumably to keep them from sticking to each other and to add an extra touch of sweetness.

The Licor de Cafe had a lovely strong coffee liqueur flavor to it in addition to its caramel notes. I noticed an initial, barely perceptible mustiness to it, probably from the paper liner, but it wasn’t present enough for friends to notice when I shared the borrachitos. My band director proclaimed them to be “very good,” and he’s got a doctorate in music education (sorry; inside YUB joke).

The Tequila borrachitos (left three in below photo) were lighter in color than the Licor de Cafe flavored ones (right three below) - more golden than brown - and their mustiness was a little stronger, probably because they had a double-layered paper liner. David from Crown Candies assures me that they’ve stopped using the double layer and that they’re looking into plastic separators, so that should resolve that issue. He was so confident that he sent me a third box of borrachitos with the new packaging to taste, but I haven’t had a chance to get them yet because I’ve been out of town and without access to my PO box.

The Tequila borrachitos were also strong! They immediately taste of caramel, and then whoosh comes the alcohol flavor. I’m not hardcore enough to enjoy the Tequila flavor, but I think tequila lovers/hard liquor connoisseurs would enjoy it. The Licor de Cafe flavor was just right for me, with it’s slight but innocuous alcohol tinge. An O for the tequila. The Licor de Cafe isn’t something I would reach for as a casual snack, but I would indulge in a piece now and then and would offer it to company. It gets an OM. I wonder if Crown Candies has considered a chocolate liqueur version.

Borrachitos are available online from the Crown Candies website, and they’ll also be at the All Candy Expo in Chicago that’s going on next week.

For some reason, this post disappeared after I wrote it the first time. It was originally supposed to publish after Russian Candies I and II but instead published as blank nothingness (much to the disappointment of Leslie, who gave me the candy in the first place). Fortunately, I still have my tasting notes, so I can recreate the review.

Dove Bitter Chocolate with Lemon Peel and Coffee

I think Dove really needs to rethink the packaging on this one, as I noticed neither the lemon nor the coffee on the box. The coffee bean blends right into the chocolate, and the lemon looks like it’s just an extension of the yellow satin. What if some poor little Russian child or Russian tourist who can’t read Russian mistakenly bought this? He or she would be in for a flavor surprise.

All that being said, the flavor combination of chocolate, lemon, and coffee worked better than I thought it would. The bar had a crisp snap to it (and a slight bloom, but hey, it flew from Russia to Ohio to Texas to Connecticut. Stuff happens), probably because it’s quite dark, and little bits of grit from the coffee beans and dried lemon bits.

Upon first bite, the lemon flavor really smacks you in the taste buds. It tastes like super sweet candied lemon zest at first, then gives way to a coffee finish with a slight bitterness to it. It’s an interesting flavor combination that some of my friends loved, but it wasn’t quite for me. An OM.

Spartak Elite Dark Bitter Aerated Chocolate (72% cacao).

Leslie calls this one “exotic dictatorship chocolate” because it was made in Belarus. I really like aerated chocolate because it’s such a unique textural experience, and I was excited to try this one, as I’ve never had a dark aerated bar before.

The bar was quite glossy and dark. At first, it tasted quite dry, and unlike milk aerated chocolate, it doesn’t melt in your mouth very well. The chocolate itself was a bit on the sweet side for dark chocolate and had a slightly musty finish. Also an OM.

Last Wednesday, I gave an unenthusiastic review to many Fannie May chocolates but promised that I would review more of their candies today. At the Fannie May store I visited, they had bins of individually wrapped chocolates priced the same as the boxed assortments ($20/lb). I picked out a milk praline, a milk peppermint, a dark French mint, and a butterscotch caramel.

milk praline - Ooh! A thick and creamy milk chocolate coating sweet toffee bits and a praline center (hazelnut praline, I think?). I got lovely dusky notes on this one.

milk peppermint - a great combination of thick and creamy milk chocolate coating a mint center. It was like an Andes mint, but bigger and better.

dark French mint - unlike the milk peppermint, this looked like dark chocolate all the way through. A strong mint smell due to its strong mint flavor. The mintiness lingered in the finish, along with a slighty sugary note at the end. Though the mint was super strong, the chocolate was still noticeable.

butterscotch caramel - this caramel had a strong, buttery scent. It was sticky, creamy and quite butterscotchy, with a slight greasiness to the touch.

I liked these much better than the assorted chocolates I picked out myself. The two milk ones are worth an OMG, while the dark French mint and the butterscotch caramel get an OM.

As I’ve noted before, Choxie, Target’s house brand of chocolate, works hard to market itself. I adore their bright, retro wrappers, and I hate that they don’t capitalize anything. Check out the descriptions of these two bars that were a holiday gift from my suitemate Alisha:

Choxie milk chocolate roasted almond sea salt bar

solid milk chocolate. the perfect foil for whole roasted Mission almonds and a pinch of grey sea salt crystals. simply spectacular.

Doesn’t that sound delicious? They’re not just almonds; they’re Mission almonds. And it’s not just sea salt; it’s grey sea salt crystals.

The milk chocolate bar smelled sweet and looked nice and shiny. It had a great snap to it. The whole almonds tasted like they were actually roasted (ooh!) and were nicely distributed throughout. The sea salt was a nice sophisticated touch, but for me, it also brought out the sour finish of the chocolate with its salty hit. Not bad but could be better. An OM.

Choxie 62% Ghana cacao single origin chocolate bar

with an intense and earthy flavor that only could come from Ghana, this solid bar of deep dark chocolate is warmly accented with golden Madagascar vanilla.

There go those great adjectives (and adverbs) again. warmly accented with golden Madagascar vanilla. This bar is a nice example of Choxie jumping on the single origin marketing train without really appreciating the point of single origin (making chocolate with a superior crop of bean that deserves to stand alone). And the packaging for this one was on the bland side.

Visually, the bar is absolutely gorgeous, a great deep brown with a lovely sheen to it. And it’s very snappy, party due to the fact that Choxie bars are thicker than most. The melt to this was smooth but not creamy. Flavor-wise, it tasted quite sweet with a slight berry finish. I’d say it would be okay for mindless chomping or cooking, but by billing itself as single origin, it sets itself up for failure. I expected some great flavor nuance and got nothin’. An O on this one.

Edit: I wrote this review about a week before Cybele posted her take on all four of Choxie’s 3oz bars, these two included.

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a review of Lily O’Briens crispy heart and sticky toffee. It was about as scathing as I get:

“From the two I tasted, a crispy heart and a sticky toffee, either Ireland has poor chocolatiers or Lily O’Briens is quite overrated.”

The next day, I got the following email from one of their representatives:

“I work for Lily O’Brien’s Chocolates and have read your comments on our two signature recipes with great interest. Our chocolates, when fresh, taste truly fantasti and the two recipes critiqued are among our chocolate fans’ favourites (check out the testimonials on our website from across the globe). Unfortunately I would suspect that the chocolates tasted we were past their best and should not actually be on sale still… I would be happy to send you fresh chocolates if you would like to critique them fairly.”

I was impressed that Lily O’Briens was so willing to stand behind their chocolates, and I was eager to take them up on their offer of a re-review. After all, I had bought the original chocolates from an Italian coffee shop in tourist trap Las Vegas, not exactly a place that would be worried about quality control and customer loyalty. When a generous package arrived from Ireland, and I happily ate my words, along with the chocolates they sent: one pouch each of their Chocolate Collection, their Sticky Toffee, their Crispy Hearts, and their Trufflicious (that name needs a noun, I thin), a two sets of their luxury bar assortments. This review is of the Chocolate Collection, which includes a sticky toffee and a honeycomb crisp (just like the crispy hearts, but not honeycomb shaped).

The Chocolate Collection, starting from the white chocolate cup going clockwise and finishing in the center, includes crème brûlée, hazelnut torte, honeycomb crisp, farmhouse ice cream, sticky toffee, lemon meringue pie, chocolat noir, and cookies ‘n’ cream. There was one of each and two of a few (the sticky toffee, the honeycomb crisp, and the chocolat noir, if I remember correctly), and I’m ashamed to say that over the course of a few days, I ate the entire pouch. What can I say; it’s that time of year when final papers are due and final exams are coming up.

crème brûlée - White chocolate shell with granulated sugar sprinkled over a white cap; white chocolate ganache filling and a touch of caramel sitting in the bottom of the shell. I don’t particularly like white chocolate. Still, the cup is a cute design.

hazelnut torte - one of my favorites of the bunch, this one was quite nutty. Like most hazelnut/chocolate combinations, it was sweet, but this one managed to be just shy of overly so. The ganache almost had a slight grain to it from the hazelnuts. I liked the textural difference.

honeycomb crisp - honeycomb and crispies in milk chocolate that was soooo much better than the stale crispy heart I bought in Vegas. The chocolate was creamy and yogurty rather than brittle, and though it was still on the sweet side, the sweetness was more bearable when the chocolate melted heavily on the tongue.

farmhouse ice cream - I also enjoyed this one, a dark chocolate shell around a white ganache. The ganache wasn’t white chocolate (I think). Instead, it tasted like fresh cream.

sticky toffee - the other one that I had originally panned. This time around in a fresh version, the “toffee” caramel was smooth and flowing with a slight butterscotch tinge. No grain and grit here. And again, the sweetness was helped by the proper melt of chocolate (whereas my Vegas ones were pretty brittle).

lemon meringue pie - milk chocolate shell, white chocolate button, bright lemony ganache. Didn’t make too much of an impression on me.

chocolat noir - dark chocolate shell and a lighter, sweeter, and fluffier dark chocolate ganache. I liked the dark chocolate the shell was made of, as it had a nice fruitiness to it. For those who are easing their way into enjoying dark chocolate, this dark chocolate was on the sweet side.

cookies ‘n’ cream - somehow, Lily O’Briens managed to get the a nice bit of cookie crumb grain into this one, a milk chocolate shell surrounding a white chocolate ganache studded with tiny chocolate chips. I was amused that there were actually more chocolate chips in the actual chocolate than in the photo of the chocolate on the box. Usually, it’s the other way around. This tastes overwhelmingly of white chocolate. I think I would have liked it better if it tasted more like the cream of the farm house ice cream.

So, Lily O’Briens, I owe you an apology. Your chocolates are tasty. They’re a little overly sweet for my palate, and the ganache fillings are almost on the greasy side, but I liked them enough to eat them all. Irish people do have good taste in chocolate. Hooray! An OM for the lot as a whole, with an OMG for the hazelnut torte and farmhouse ice cream.

Before your regularly scheduled candy review, a plug for my personal life. Tomorrow (Tuesday), I will be conducting the Yale Precision Marching Band LIVE! on ESPN’s First Talk. We’re scheduled to go on at 10 AM EST (note time change from original posting) for a quick performance of our fight song.  First Talk airs on ESPN2 and ESPNHD Live from 10AM-Noon, EST, and the day’s episode is then rerun from Noon-2PM EST. We’re also shooting a bit of a “This is Sportscenter” commercial that day, which should air sometime in the future. Hope you get the chance to tune in! And now back to candy.

I have been sitting on these tasting notes for ages. Like most of my notes I guess. I bought these four Joseph Schmidt truffles last winter when I was in California. Joseph Schmidt used to be an independent truffle maker; now they, along with Dagoba and Scharffen Berger, are owned by Hershey’s Artisan Confections subsidiary. I was able to buy these at the Scharffen Berger factory.

Joseph Schmidt truffles are of the molded variety, as their smooth, glossy, perfectly formed dome/cone shapes indicate. The outside shell of chocolate is thicker than I expected, with a great snap that shows that the chocolate is well-tempered. The creamy ganache inside is extremely smooth on the tongue and fairly flowy. They come in regular and mini sizes. The mini truffles are pretty standard-sized, while the regular ones are ginormous and are too big to be eaten lightly.

Pomegranate mini truffle (right)

The first hit of flavor was lightly sweet and fruity. It then suddenly takes on a very intense pomegranate sweetness that pretty much tastes generically like berries. Nicely flavored and gorgeous to look at. Way to jump on the pomegranate bandwagon! An OM.

Mexican chocolate mini truffle (left)

Upon biting into this chocolate and broaching the shell, I can smell the chili before I can get around to tasting it in the ganache. Once you get to the ganache, the chili adds a slight burn and tingle. It’s a nice amount of heat that makes itself present but isn’t painfully strong. I looooove well-done chili and chocolate. An OMG.

Vanilla cognac (left) and lemon meyer (right) truffles

Sooo… I didn’t eat these myself. They were just too big and daunting to take on, and I ended up giving them away.

These truffles would make an impressive gift, and they’re not too expensive for fancy well-made and well-flavored chocolates. I personally prefer truffles with thinner hard chocolate shells that are easier to eat, but I did enjoy the flavors of the ones I tasted. But they weren’t so delicious that I just had to taste the other two I ended up giving away. So, good for gift giving, meh for personal splurging.

I’ve seen Mambas on the candy racks at Walgreen’s for ages and finally picked up a pack when they were on sale. They’re made by Storck, the same company that makes Werther’s Originals, Riesens, and Toffifee.

They come in four flavors: orange, lemon, raspberry, and strawberry. For some kooky reason, Storck has decided to package their Mambas so that you get 3 six-packs per package. So instead of getting a few of all of the flavors, you get six each of three of the four flavors. Weird, right? Maybe it’s some manipulative ploy to get you to buy more Mambas in search of your missing fourth flavor or something. I just got annoyed.

My package contained lemon, orange, and raspberry. I got lucky, as citrus flavors are my favorite.

Mambas are similar to Starbursts, only they’re smaller and have a slightly firmer chew. I’d place the give of a Mamba somewhere between a Starburst and a Now and Later.

The lemon was bright with a little bit of an effervescent citrus tang. There was no acidity to this lemon flavor, yet it managed to avoid the trap of tasting like lemon floor cleaner.

Orange tasted like an orange creamsicle, which was a bit more mellow than what I expected. I personally didn’t care for the raspberry, as it carried with it a weird, seedy flavor. I can see others enjoying it, but it’s not for me.

Mamba gets an OM from me. I finished the entire pack over the course of a few days - they’re rather addictive - but I don’t think I would by them again.

Part II of many of my series of Russian candies courtesy of my friend Leslie. This week will be Russian candy week, but the series will extend beyond that.

Red October’s Iris Kis-Kis

On these Leslie writes, “My dictionary calls iris ‘taffy,’ but I’m not sure that’s quite accurate… Kis-Kis means ‘Here, Kitty Kitty.’”

I called these candies cat caramels in my notes, so Leslie has a point when she says they’re not quite taffy. They do have the texture of taffy, as it cleaves but is also sticky and chewy. In fact, the more you chew it, the stickier and chewier (and more stuck in your molars) it gets. It tastes like molasses, with dusky sugar flavors without any overt bitterness. An OM for this tasty treat that Leslie likes to buy at the open air market and eat on the way home.

RotFront’s “Slavyanskii Prostor” (Slavic Lands)

I’m guessing that RotFront in Russian doesn’t have the same meaning as it does in English. Apparently, no one Leslie knows could tell her what this is made out of, but they all love it.

It looks like a Tootsie Roll, but it’s completely different. Instead of being chewy, it’s grainy and breaks apart in the mouth. The flavor is pleasantly nutty and reminds of the Chinese crumbly peanut candy from my youth. Leslie thinks the nuttiness may come from sunflower seeds, but she’s not sure. I can’t figure it out either, but I still liked it. An OM.

Ryskie Optima

These are actually Polish, so Leslie doesn’t know what the name translation would be. The candy is basically just sesame seeds in a sugar glaze. It looks like it would be brittle but is actually chewy and did a fine job of sticking in my teeth. I enjoyed the toasted sesame flavor, which is quite strong, and gave it an OM. I think there’s a Chinese candy that’s similar to this.

I’ve still yet to meet a Ferrero product I didn’t like (though to be fair, I should note that I’ve never had a Rafaello, and coconut candies tend to be hit or miss with me), and the Ferrero Duplo was no exception. If you look closely at the wrapper, you can see that my Duplo is special - yes, that’s Hebrew on the wrapper. My friend Monica brought this back for me from Israel along with this thing and a Nestle Lion that I made her keep because she’d never tried one before. If she can be a great friend and bring me foreign candy, I can be a good friend and not deny her the deliciousness that is the Nestle Lion.

The Duplo is composed of two crisp, crunchy wafers: a flat one to serve as the base and one with three spherical humps to serve as the top. I’m going to guess that the wafers are the duo that the name insinuates. Each hump is filled with a smooth and creamy chocolate paste with a whole hazelnut inside. I found the whole hazelnut to be surprisingly bland, and the filling itself didn’t have much of a hazelnut flavor. Overall, the Duplo was super sweet, but the sweetness didn’t linger or burn the throat.

The Duplo is extremely similar to the Rocher, minus the chopped hazelnuts on the Rocher and with a less hazelnutty paste. The wafers, as far as I can tell without having a Rocher handy for comparative purposes, are the same in both. It also reminded me of the Kinder Bueno, but not as good, as the Bueno had a thicker paste and more hazelnuttiness.

Despite the fact that I wished for more hazelnut flavor, the Duplo was still a wonderful treat. OM for its indulgent, creamy richness.

I’m a little late to the game on reviewing the Wildly Cherry M&M’s, as I am on many Limited Edition candies. That’s what happens when you’re a college student on a meal plan who doesn’t go grocery shopping. I found these at one of the many gas stations we stopped at on my spring break roadtrips. The cashier saw me buy two bags (one to eat in the car, as I couldn’t wait to taste them, and the other to photograph and review later) and remarked that she liked the Razzberry ones better (my review of the Razzberry M&M’s). I agree.

I love the cute little bag design that makes Red look like a cherry. As you can see, the Wildly Cherry M&M’s come in two colors, red and a darker maroon. They’re slightly larger than regular M&M’s, like the Razzberry ones, and also like the Razzberry ones, the larger size makes the sugar shell feel a little thicker and a little crunchier. I found the flavor to be reminiscent of artificial black cherry rather than of fresh cherries. It was quite faithful to the slightly medicinal flavor of a cherry cordial. They’re not as intoxicating as the Razzberry M&M’s, possibly because the slightly medicinal cherry flavor is far more common and therefore less interesting than it’s slightly medicinal raspberry counterpart. An OM from me. I passed the first bag around the car, where it was favorably received by my road tripping companions. I popped a couple of the second bag to take tasting notes but have since had no desire to pop more.

Check out Sera on Candy Addict and Heather on Chocolate Bytes for other takes. I wonder if they’re the same as the Cherry Cordial M&Ms from last Christmas the Sugarhog.net reviewed.