ZOMG, Candy!

Chocolate and chili is a taste combination familiar to Latin America (think Mexican hot chocolate) that’s beginning to catch on in foodie circles here in the U.S. It’s a flavor combination that I love, and I even submitted it as my Dream Bean to Jelly Belly’s contest. If you live in New Haven, try something at Claire’s Corner Copia with their Mexican chocolate frosting (yes, I know their cream cheese is great, but the Mexican chocolate is much more exciting).  Viva Chocolato had a delectably tingly chipotle gelato the first time I went there. I haven’t seen it again in my repeat visits, but they do rotate through their flavors, so you may get lucky.

I discovered Lindt‘s Chili Chocolate bar while in the UK, and when it went on sale in Sainsbury’s (1 pound a bar, or about $2), I stocked up and bought a couple to add to the half already in my stash. Yes, that counts as stocking up for me. When you consider how much candy I keep around, it’s rare that I buy seconds of something, and even more rare that I buy two seconds.

Super hoity toity chocolate connossieurs sometimes look down on Lindt the way that I look down on Hershey’s milk chocolate. I think they find it too mass produced and commercial to be worth eating. While I agree that fine artisinal chocolate can be better tasting and more nuanced, I still find Lindt to be a great fine chocolate at an affordable price.

Lindt’s chili bar (I guess it’s chilli in British English?) is set in their Excellence dark chocolate, which I’m pretty sure is a 70%. The chocolate is lusciously dark and glossy with pretty little etchings for decoration. At first taste, all you get is cocoa. But after a few chews, as the chocolate creamily melts over your tongue, just the slightest hint of chili heat comes through. It starts slowly, then builds to a noticeable but not unpleasant tingle. I love it. A ZOMG! from me, with the caveat that I’m biased by my adoration of chili chocolate.

Riesen are one of those candies that I’d often seen on store shelves and in commercials but had never bothered to try. When I was in England on my toffee binge, I saw these under the counter and thought it was time I gave them a shot. It helped that they came in a small candy bar-sized portion rather than in the bigger peg bag version I was more used to seeing in the U.S. I should’ve known that a candy made by Storck (they also make Toffifay and Mambas but are probably most famous for Werther’s Originals) would be pretty good.

Riesens are chocolate-flavored caramels (or toffee, in Brit-speak; because I bought mine in Britain, I shall refer to them as toffees) covered in chocolate. The chocolate coating, which could have gone horribly wrong and been made of fake vegetable oil chocolate, was lovely, dark, and rich. The chocolate-flavored toffee inside was just the right blend of creamy and chewy and sticky. It managed to glue my teeth together a bit, but none of it got stuck in the nooks and crannies of my mouth, so no embarrassing post-candy teeth picking necessary. I have no idea how Riesen got their toffee texture teased to perfection, but it was wonderful.

The flavor of the toffee inside was quite nice – a round, mellow cocoa – but wasn’t anything revolutionary. What really sold me on the Riesen’s was the texture, which can be so crucial for creating a candy that constantly surprises the tongue and makes one want to reach for more. I polished off my pack super quickly; thus, Riesen get a ZOMG! from me, coupled with a tinge of regret for my not having discovering these sooner.

If you want a second and third opinion, check out reviews from Cybele at Candy Blog and Jamie at Candy Addict.

Sometimes, candy can come awfully close to being too cute to eat. Fortunately for you lot, dear readers, I am willing to sacrifice my cuteness sensibilities and chomp down on adorable candy, even if it happens to endearingly resemble frightened hippos.

Kinder’s Happy Hippos, like nearly everything made by Kinder/Ferrero, is tinged with hazelnut deliciousness. The Hippos come in two varieties, cacao cream (left) and biscuit (right). Both varieties consist of hippo shaped wafers (complete with eyes, nostrils, and eyebrows) filled with flavored cream and half dipped in chocolate and sprinkles. They differ in that the cacao cream has, well, a cacao (cocoa) flavored cream, and while the Cacao Hippo can be found submerged in a lake of chocolate, the Biscuit Hippo’s prefers a lake of white chocolate.

The wrapper of the Biscuit Happy Hippo shows milk and hazelnuts, and that’s what you get in lovely combination in this chap. The light wafer crunch of the Hippo stands in sharp contrast to the thick hazelnut and milk cream that fills its three pods – bum, head, and nose. The fillings are so thick and creamy that they’re moisture-suckingly good, even if the finish is rather cloying.

The wrapper of the Cacao Hippo calls the filling fat-reduced. Clearly I should take that to mean that I can eat a bloat of Happy Hippos (yes, a group of hippos is called a bloat) and not have to worry about personally bloating from Hippo-related weight gain, right? There are two layers of cream inside, one brown that tasted of cocoa and one white that tasted of milk and vanilla. Online ingredients lists for the cacao cream Hippo lists hazelnuts in the ingredients, so the milk layer may have been the same as the filling of the Biscuit Hippo, but I didn’t taste any hazelnut in the filling of the one I got. The filling of the Cacao Hippo was thinner, which meant that it didn’t coat the mouth or cloy.

An ZOMG! for both because I am a sucker for chocolate and hazelnut things and cute things.

I’ve been sitting on these reviews for ages. The chocolate truffles were leftovers from the first Calhoun College chocolate tasting I hosted. That’s right – leftovers. We had that much chocolate overload. From Cocoa Bella’s Exotic Assortment comes a Van Coillie Kastanjes, a Christopher Elbow Rosemary Caramel, and a Lillie Belle Farms Cayenne Caramel. Another Lillie Belle Farms chocolate, a Jamaican Spice Caramel, came from the World Select Assortment (photo below).

Accoring to the guide, Van Coillie Kastanjes (top left) is from a Belgian chocolatier that consists of “Whole Walnut & Coffee Caramel.” The thin chocolate shell was made of sweet, well-tempered chocolate with fruity notes and a lovely, creamy finish. The center contained a whole walnut swimming in sweet caramel that had no butter or burnt sugar notes. As for the coffee part, I didn’t notice it. And I didn’t miss it. The truffle was lovely.

The Lillie Belle Farms Jamaican Spice Caramel (top right) was a pretty molded dark truffle filled with a smooth, creamy caramel that was slick rather than sticky. The guide didn’t give much hint as to what it was beyond “Jamaican Jerk Spiced Caramel.” I’ve never had proper Jerk Spiced anything (this fairly recent NY Times Dining article lists some places I’d love to try to track down, if I ever get a chance to), so I didn’t know what to expect. What I got from the truffle was a flavor reminiscent of chai tea and cloves with just a hint of heat.

The other offering from Lillie Belle Farms was a Cayenne Caramel (bottom circle) was billed as “Spicy Hot Caramel,” and boy was it! The caramel within the prettily decorated shell was smooth, creamy, and buttery before it turned WHOA spicy. The spiciness was throat burning and lasted for at least 30 seconds. It was one of the more adventurous truffles.

And last, but not least, a Christopher Elbow Rosemary Caramel, “Fresh Rosemary Steeped in Caramel.” And it was just that – rosemary-flavored caramel inside a chocolate truffle shell, a unique flavor combination that really worked. By the way, my photo of the truffle doesn’t do it justice. It was a beautiful, luminescent green.

Cocoa Bella does a great job of bringing together well-made and interesting chocolates from all over the world. A ZOMG! for the boxes. I only tasted a fraction of them, and not every one was ZOMG!-worthy alone, but taken as a whole, they’re an indulgent chocolate adventure. Like many fine things in life, they don’t come cheap, especially with shipping. I wish I had had the chance to drop by their brick and mortar shop while I was in San Francisco. But I can look for the truffles at other specialty chocolate shops (I still have the guides), and I can ask to host more chocolate tasting parties next year…

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 its complex flavor profile: 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!