ZOMG, Candy!

As Chicago Week continues, yet another delicious confection courtesy of the Cobbs: the Bear Claw (and a similar looking product here) made by Georgia Nut (bottom right in a poorly lit shot; sadly the only photo I have of it).

The Georgia Nut Bear Claw is a serious candy. It’s ginormous, about the size of the palm of my hand. Since you probably have no idea how big my hands are, here’s another measure. The 1 pound box (they’re well priced at $10.50/lb, by the way) from Mama Cobb contained 6-7 bear claws. Also, it’s crammed full of caramel and pecans and smothered in milk chocolate. And finally, it’s good. Real good.

The pecan halves are fresh and crunchy, and their saltiness goes wonderfully with the smooth, well-tempered milk chocolate and sweet, gooey caramel. The caramel was possibly on the verge of being too sticky, but I was too busy licking it off my fingers to care. The Georgia Nut Bear Claw, like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, manages to wonderfully capture a perfect blend of sweet and salty. Even better, the Bear Claw one-ups a Reese’s on the texture front with its melting chocolate, oozing caramel, and crisp pecans. A would-be OMG that transcends the boundary to ZOMG! because they’re so ridiculously reasonably priced.

The little rectangular thing in the top left corner, by the way, is a milk chocolate English toffee square (I think; Mrs. Cobb bought these for me, and the Georgia Nut website doesn’t have a picture). It’s a dusky milk chocolate coating a sweet, buttery, cleanly cleaving toffee that I’d give an OM because the finish is too sweet. I write this lest you think I’m only giving rave reviews to my gifted chocolates to appease my chocolate giver. But I do love Chicago. See?

Back in March, over my spring break, I road-tripped to Chicago with my dear friends Katie, Chris, Rita, and Steve (who needs to get a blog or something. I’m not going to be creepy and link to his facebook page). Lemme tell ya, you’ve got to really love the people you’re road-tripping with, especially when you’ve decided to make a 17/18-hour drive in one day, and you’re driving a tiny little sedan that doesn’t comfortably fit 5. Chicago was our destination because that’s where Katie is from, and her parents were kind enough to take us in for a week. And they were kind enough to buy me candy, including a delicious box of Frango mints (I repaid the favor by buying them some chocolates at Haven’s… except Katie forgot to bring them with her when she flew home for Cubs opening day, so I still owe them one).

Frango mints have a storied Chicago history and are a sore subject for some Chicago natives who resent that Marshall Field’s was bought out by Macy’s. Chicagoans are quite proud of their city, and they should be if they are the home to these delicious chocolate mints.

I expected the Frangos to be like Andes mints or little peppermint patties or something. Instead, they’re chocolate all the way through. Rich, thick, creamy (like a thick, melt in your mouth ganache), dense, sinfully indulgent chocolate with a light smokiness and a great finish. The mint flavoring is just right; not too overpowering, but strong enough to assert its presence.

My 1/3 pound box had a generous 15 mints in it. I ate about a third of them and shared the rest, which were quickly gobbled up and praised by my friends. As I write this review and reminisce about the Frangos, I wish that I had kept them all to myself so that I could have another right now. Though, according to Cybele’s take on the dark version, they’re high in trans fat, so maybe it’s better that I spread the unhealthy deliciousness around. A solid ZOMG! Many thanks to the Cobb’s for introducing me to such a tastebud delight.

Every once in a while, you’re fortunate enough to experience something so eye-opening that it changes the way you frame your worldview. After falling in love for the first time, or tasting your first Jelly Bellies, schoolgirl crushes and plain old generic jelly beans will never be seen the same way again. Amano’s trio of single-origin bars have changed the way I look at tasting chocolate. In the interest of full disclosure, these bars were sent to me from Amano’s press office. I try my best to not favor samples. In fact, I’m probably more willing to give extra negative reviews of free samples than I am to shower them with praise to prove to myself that I’m not being bought out, so when I wax rhapsodic about a manufacturer’s sample, it has to really go above and beyond.

I tasted these bars in one sitting and without reading any tasting notes from the press releases or from the boxes. My chocolate tasting skills have definitely improved. Hooray! It helps to taste similar chocolates together, as you can really pick out the subtle differences then. All three of these bars were marked at a minimum of 70% cacao and will each run you about $7 for a 2 oz. bar, making them extremely not-cheap.

Cuyagua Premium Dark - “The remote valley of Cuyagua near Caracas is surrounded by cloud forest-covered mountains. It is home to some of Venezuela’s oldest cocoa plantations. The chocolate made from this valley’s beans have rich chocolate overtones with notes of spice that produce an incredibly complex flavor.”

The Cuyagua had a crisp snap that broke cleanly across the pre-segmented lines. It had a spicy, earthy smell that hinted at it’s complex flavor profile that was spicy with a slight fruitiness in the middle. The melt was smooth, but not creamy.

Madagascar Premium Dark - “Madagascar has long been known for producing fine cocoa beans. This chocolate has strong, fruity flavors with hints of citrus and berry.”

The Madagascar had a slightly softer snap than that of the Cuyagua. This bar was extremely fruity, with a sweetness that I decided matched those of ripe berries.

Ocumare Grand Cru Dark - “The cacao from the Ocumare Valley is considered some of Venezuela’s finest. The Ocumare bar has rich chocolate overtones and a well balanced, fruity component with hints of plum and other red fruit”

The Ocumare had a strong earthiness to its flavor that I think could be called tobacco (I don’t smoke and avoid those that do, so I’m hesitant to casually toss around that flavor description) that gave way to a sweet finish. Texturally, it was the softest of the bunch, and had a thicker and creamier melt than the other two.

I usually taste candies in the morning before I head out to class. I take good notes in a little notebook, which I then refer to when I’m writing up my reviews days and sometimes even weeks later. The Amano line was so good that I just had to write it immediately after tasting (my political psych reading can wait). These bars fall into that rare category of candy that’s so good I want to share it with others but can’t bring myself to because I want to eat it all myself. Amano will now be my go-to bar for savoring and indulging in pure dark chocolate deliciousness, and after reading My Last Supper (and meeting the author/photographer!), I think I want a trio of Amano bars for my last dessert. But it needs to be the trio, for most of the fun is in their contrasting flavor profiles. An unabashed ZOMG! for the lot.

My friend Leslie was kind enough to mail me a giant box full of Russian candy back in December, and I’ve since been slowly tasting my way through everything. Candy blogging, at least the way I do it, is a Sisyphean task, only I get to eat lots of sweets instead of pushing a boulder around. I know, I know. My life is so hard. Here’s the first of my long overdue, many-part series on Russian candies.

First up, a series of what Leslie calls “the heart and soul of Russian candy, with its fake chocolate glaze and weirdly-folded, artistic wrappers. There are several other varieties… Bizarrely, all of them come from different candy factories all over Russia. The wrappers are always the same color… and the artwork is always similar. Apparently there’s no trademarking going on.”

Red October’s Mishka Kosolapy/Pigeon-toed Mikey (the affectionate name for bear cub) - Dark “chocolate” covered crisp innards topped and bottomed with a stale wafer. I don’t know if they’re usually stale, as they’d been sitting around for a long time before I got to tasting them. The innards were made of a sugary, slightly chocolatey solidified paste of some sort that gave it a sweet finish.

Babaevskii’s Belochka/Squirrel - The same dark “chocolate” shell around a crumbly filling composed of chocolate and hazelnut (I think; it could have been pistachio) bits. Also a sweet finish.

Mikey in the North - The same dark “chocolate” shell and paste of Pigeon-toed Mikey. In this version, the wafers completely box in the filling, so the overall candy is both thicker (in crunch) and airier (in texture).

Overall, I ate one of each all at once, which was a bad idea. They’re super sweet, and the fillings don’t exactly melt away, so I felt ill afterwards. An O, but on the high side because they get bonus points for novelty.

Sunflower Kozinak

Excuse me a second as I try not to drool into my keyboard just reliving what it was like eating this stuff. It’s like peanut brittle but made with sunflower seeds. Lots and lots of sunflower seeds jammed in very little brittle made the thick bars hard to crunch through, but I still powered right through half the package. I wish it came in thin slabs like peanut brittle, if only to slow down my consumption of it. Simple, delicious, and ZOMG! worthy. I wish I had more and miss it so…

Nestle Nesquick Bar

Leslie calls this “a ubiquitous European candy bar marketed towards children.” It’s a sweet milk chocolate coating over a top layer of white, crunchy… something and sweet chocolate nougat. The mysterious top layer tastes like a wafer but doesn’t have the mouthfeel of one, while the nougat layer is like a more dense 3 Musketeers filling. It’s a little sweet for my taste, so I give it an OM.

I spent the latter week of my spring break in Maine and managed to nab a factory tour of Haven’s Candies, which was definitely one of highlights of my break. Though I’ve taken tours of the Jelly Belly and Scharffen Berger factories, I’d never gotten anything as up close and hands-on as my tour of Haven’s. Andy Charles, the president and owner, and Art, our tour guide, were both extremely friendly, kind, and eager to share their knowledge and love of candy with my friends and me.

Haven’s has been making handcrafted candies in Maine since 1915, and even today much of their candy production process is still done by hand. As Andy put it, it gives their candy soul. On the day we visited, staff members were feeding salt water taffy into their decades old candy wrapping machine, running pretzels under one of their two enrobing machines, and making molded chocolates.

We got a lesson into how they make the cream centers of their chocolates: a mold is used to press shapes (hearts, ovals, circles, etc.) into a tray of starch, the cream in liquid form is poured into the indents by hand, and the creams are cooled to solid state before they’re removed from the starch, dusted off, and run through the enrober, where they go under a chocolate waterfall. The creams are made with inverted sugar, which causes the solid creams to turn to the proper cream consistency (or to a liquid in the case of cherry cordials) after they’ve been enrobed. Pretty nifty! Haven’s finishes each chocolate by hand with a little swirl or other decorative touch so that they can be distinguished from each other.

Art and Andy also showed us how their molded chocolates are made and colored (by painting the mold with dyed cocoa butter before the molds are filled) and then let us take turns making chocolate bars. We got to eat a bar that didn’t pass their quality control inspection (there was a tiny little indentation on the edge that I never would have noticed). Usually imperfect bars are remelted and reused, as is unsold holiday candy. After every Easter, they gather all the unsold bunnies and have a little memorial service before the bunnies get remelted.

I found their milk chocolate to be quite good. It’s somewhere around 25-30% cacao and is of what I call the “European” taste, meaning that it doesn’t have the sour tinge of Hershey’s. It was extremely creamy without feeling heavy and had a nice, not too sweet finish. In fact, I found the finish of their dark chocolate (60% with a pleasantly complex duskiness) to be sweeter than that of their milk.

The best part of the tour was the end, when we emerged behind the counter and were told we could try whatever we wanted. There had to be around a hundred different chocolates to choose from, not to mention the slices of fudge Andy cut us. I personally don’t really like eating fudge in general because it’s so sweet, but I could tell that theirs was good quality. It was smooth and not at all grainy, probably because Haven’s makes it from scratch. They also make their own marshmallow and caramel on site.

Art was patient enough to explain some of their more oddly named candies, like the checkermint cream (a wintergreen), Bangor taffy (a stiff caramel dusted in confectioners’ sugar that’s a Maine treat), and the Needham (I’ve since forgotten what it was, but it sounded tasty enough for me to buy one). And, best of all, he listened to me describe my search for dark chocolate-covered honeycomb that would resemble the Dark Sponge rather than the styrofoamy angelfood candy version before giving me one of their molasses chips to try. Success! It wasn’t quite the same as the Dark Sponge, as it was more like toffee than like honeycomb, but it had the little holes, and it was delicious! I bought a half-pound box of Haven’s chocolates to take with me: 7 different chocolates, the rest all molasses chips. I should have bought more, as I’ve already demolished most of them.

If you’re ever in the area, definitely stop by Haven’s. You can schedule a tour if you have a large enough group, or you can peer through windows and watch from all of two feet away if you don’t. Their chocolates are really reasonably priced at $14.95 to $16.95 a pound, making them the See’s of Maine, I think. If you won’t be in Maine anytime soon, they do have an online store and a monthly giveaway contest on their website. A ZOMG! for the generous tour, and a big thanks to Art and Andy for making our visit so pleasant and delicious.

Last Wednesday was further proof that my residential college, Calhoun, is the best residential college. After the success of my personal chocolate party, I asked my residential college Master if we could do one for the college. He said sure, if I was willing to plan it, and the gears were set in motion. A few weeks of planning with my Associate Master, dozens of bars, and hundreds of truffles later, I led about 15 of my lucky fellow Hounies in a chocolate tasting. Clearly a ZOMG!!!! with extra exclamation marks for the day.

We ordered Cocoa Bella’s World Select Assortment, Cocoa Bella’s Exotic Assortment (above photo), and L.A. Burdick’s Box Assortment. We also had a box of Knipschildt’s Heart Selection that we’d found at Whole Foods. Are you drooling into your keyboard yet? Because there’s more. 16 bars more, in fact.

I warmed up the group with the truffles, as the heavily flavored ganaches are easy to taste, and despite my admonitions for them to pace themselves, most of them were unable to resist overindulging in the gorgeous bonbons. I restrained myself because I knew it would take chocolate stamina to taste my way through (in order):

• Chocolove Milk Chocolate (33%)
• Nirvana Belgian Chocolates’ Papua single origin (35%)
• Scharffen Berger Extra Rich Milk (41%)
• Endangered Species Smooth Milk (52%)
• Vosges Naga Bar (41%)
• Vosges Mo’s Bacon Bar (41%)
• Vosges Red Fire or Oaxaca Bars (55%)
• Chocolove Ginger Crystallized in Dark Chocolate (65%)
• Chocolove Strong Dark (70%)
• Lake Champlain Single Origin Sao Thome (70%)
• Vosges Creole Bar (70%)
• Scharffen Berger Antilles (75%)
• Lake Champlain Single Origin Tanzania (75%)
• Scharffen Berger Extra Dark (82%)
• La Maison Du Chocolat Coro (100%)
• Valrhona Gianduja Noisette (no %, but super, super light milk)

Too much chocolate for one sitting? Probably. But so what? I had a fantastic time, and the feedback I got from the tasting party guests was immensely positive. We have enough bars for at least one, probably two, more tastings, and I know people are already eagerly awaiting the chance to get in on the next one.

News for the next couple of weeks will contain my brief tasting notes, what I learned from the experience, what I liked, etc. as well as  instructions for planning and conducting your own tasting party. Yum!

I saw a box of Michel Cluizel’s Champignon truffles at Cafe Moka in the Houston airport but didn’t buy them because they were so pricey. It was a choice I regretted. Thankfully, Viva Chocolato opened in Austin, and they carry lots of truffles by Michael Cluizel, including Les Champignons. Hooray! I bought one of the Champignons and a 99 Cacaoforte (the first and fourth in the lineup).

Les Champignons (French for The Mushrooms, by the way) are gorgeous and adorable. The cap is made of chocolate and filled with a crunchy toffee-like almond nougatine. It’s sweet and delicious. The stem is made of a soft, sticky, and super chewy caramel surrounded by white and dark chocolate. The caramel itself is not terribly sweet and instead tastes strongly of butter. They get an enthusiastic OMG, with a letter off for being so pricey.

I was nervous about trying the 99 Cacaoforte because they are made of 99% cacao. I’ve tasted a 100% cacao bar from La Maison du Chocolat (it was bitter, creamy, and good, but I could only handle a tiny bit at a time), and I’ve eaten raw cacao nibs before. Neither were entirely pleasant tasting adventures, so I was afraid the 99 Cacaoforte would be too much for my palate to handle.

The truffle was super dark, of course, but surprisingly enough, I didn’t find it bitter at all. It certainly wasn’t sweet, but it was far more palatable than the pure cacao I’ve tasted. The ganache was super smooth, thick, and almost paste-like. It had no grain, but it wasn’t exactly creamy, probably because there should be no milk or cream added to the ganache. It tasted of smooth, pure cacao, and it was splendid. I found it sophisticated, intense, and ZOMG!-worthy. Next time I come across one of these, I’m definitely splurging again, as it’s worth every penny.

Edit: According to Sera, I was misinformed about the nature of the Cacaoforte. The enrobing is 99% Cacao, but the filling is a ganache made with the 99%, meaning that there is cream in there.

The last bar of 3400 Phinney (BUY!) Week is Chai Tea Milk Chocolate with a 40% cacao content. Theo’s website describes this one as “milk chocolate with a warming blend of chai spices and black tea.”

I love, love, loved this bar. I don’t drink chai tea because I usually find it too sweet, but this bar was just right. Because I don’t drink chai tea, I had a hard time naming the spice flavor I got from this bar in my blind tasting. My notes say “great cinnamon-y(?) notes. Not sugary cinnamon; genuine, real cinnamon spice,” which is the best way I could describe that chai spice essence. Another friend mused that the flavor was like cinnamon but not quite and wondered if the bar had cloves. A little research revealed that chai spices can include cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, and star anise. So we were close-ish.

Many of my friends didn’t really like this bar, and several of them felt the “weird” spice flavor overwhelmed the chocolate. I found the flavor intriguing, and it kept me reaching for more pieces. Like all the 3400 Phinney bars, this too was smooth and creamy. A ZOMG! from me because I couldn’t stop eating it. It was my favorite of the 3400 Phinney bars and probably the only one that I would regularly buy for snacking (if I could afford it; at $3.25 a bar, these don’t come cheap). Amongst my friends, this came in 11th out of 13 (just one spot above the Dagoba Chai) with a score of 2.67/5, so it’s not for everyone.

I was quite impressed with Theo’s 3400 Phinney line, and it doesn’t hurt that they’re all made with organic and fair trade ingredients, though that does drive up the price. I’d love to taste the other 3 varieties. Cybele from Candy Blog reviewed all 6.

I have a new candy find for when I’m home in Austin! Viva Chocolato, founded by Mark Adams and Nino DeFalcis, is a locally owned high-end chocolate shop that recently opened in The Domain shopping center. In addition to truffles, chocolate bars, and boxed chocolates from all over the world, they also serve gelato, chocolate-covered waffles and crepes, fine wines for truffle pairings, single-origin fondue, and more. I popped in to check out their truffle selection and chatted with Melissa Adams, one of the owners, about Viva Chocolato and its chocolate philosophy. I ended up buying a cup of their gelato, which arrived generously overflowing with creamy chipotle chocolate deliciousness, and the following truffles:

From left to right, they are a Michel Cluizel Renne Champignon (caramel and nougatine), a TexCru Jack Daniels, a Grand Sumatra (dark hazelnut), a Michel Cluizel 99% Marseille Cacaoforte, and what I believe is some sort of Italian tri-layered mocha truffle. I don’t know exactly what the last one is because my fifth truffle was originally a Grand Champagne until my dear friend Cassie accidentally dropped my bag of truffles, broke the champagne one, and slipped one of her own into my bag as a replacement when I wasn’t looking. Wasn’t that sweet of her? As Melissa told me, the only thing better than a good friend is a good friend with chocolate. Truffle reviews will come later.

Believe me, it was hard limiting myself to just five truffles from Viva Chocolato’s huge selection (at $2-3 apiece, they’re a bit of a decadent splurge). On the domestic end, they carry handmade truffles made by a local Austin chocolatier, a Texan chocolatier, and a truffle maker in New York. On the international end, there are handmade truffles from Italy, France, Belgium, Switzerland, and probably more countries that I missed. All of the truffles were carefully selected by the Adams and DeFalcis couples over the course of over a year through weekly taste tests that often lasted until the wee hours of the morning. I could think of worse ways to spend a Saturday night. If you’re not lucky enough to live in or visit Austin, Melissa tells me that they plan to add a mail-order component to the business, so just be patient.

My favorite part of Viva Chocolato was their wholehearted promotion of connecting and bonding over chocolate. The seating in the shop is cute and cozy, and there’s even a semi-private Chocolate Party Pod for, you guessed it, chocolate parties that include a guided chocolate tasting, chocolate pairings with wine or champagne, the aforementioned single-origin fondue, and dessert in the form of a handmade European chocolate truffle torte with coffee and tea. I think my girlfriends and I need to treat ourselves to a chocolate party next year to celebrate our college graduations.

Melissa was incredibly gracious in taking the time to chat with me and show me around Viva Chocolato. Her love of chocolate and the shop that she helped develop was easily apparent in the little details she pointed out (like the cacao pods on the gorgeous glass light fixtures and the custom made clock below) and in the way she spoke of Viva Chocolato’s development from idea to reality. As far as I’m concerned, Viva Chocolato will handily replace the coffeehouses, the cafes, and the gelato place where my friends and I used to gather for our Thanksgiving, winter, and summer break reunions. Clearly, this place deserves a ZOMG!, and I’ll definitely be back every time I’m back in Austin.

(I’m so mad that this picture turned out so fuzzy. I want a clock like that. Except mine would say ZOMG, Candy!, of course.)

It’s been a while since I posted a chocolate party review. I’m going to finish up the chocolate party posts next week so I can move on to covering my winter break candy tour. Consider these part of cleaning out my candy backlog.

Endangered Species Chocolate (BUY!) donates 10% of their profits”to help support species, habitat and humanity,” and they use their chocolate bar wrappers to raise awareness about endangered species. Some bars are organic, and I think all are fair trade. My bar was all about the wolf, and it was delicious.

Even though this dark bar boasts a high cacao content of 70 percent, it wasn’t bitter at all. If anything, I’d deem it bittersweet, and I found it surprisingly sweet for dark chocolate. The bar had an exceptional, heavy snap and a great dark finish. The almonds (in tiny pieces) added another smoky component to the bar, which worked nicely. Finally, the bar was visually gorgeous, with a deep, dark, rich color and a lovely gloss.

The bits of cranberry inside the bar were quite noticeable. You can see a piece of one poking out in the photo. They were dried pieces of cranberry, like raisins (or craisins, I guess). Usually the cranberry pieces melded nicely with the dark finish, but every once in a while a chunk of cranberry would be too big, too sweet, and too distracting.

At first I didn’t find this bar to be too exceptional. Sure, it was great dark chocolate, but so what? Yet I found myself reaching for more… and more… and more… It turned out to be quite addictive, enough so to earn a ZOMG! rating from me. Many thanks to my friend Katie for buying it for me. My friends’ ratings placed it 7th with a score of 3.5/5. I should note that the people who liked it really liked it.

My bar was just one of 15 varieties. I can’t wait to taste my way through more.