ZOMG, Candy!

As promised, today begins a series of reviews of the goodies I picked up on my recent trip to Europe. First up is four chocolates from Jadis et Gourmande in Paris.

Jadis et Gourmande seems to be best known for their molded chocolate bars in the shapes of letters or objects (like ties), but I wanted to try their chocolates and truffles. I picked out four that looked good and promptly forgot what they were. Oops.

First up is the milk chocolate square covered in bits. The bits turned out to be crunchy balls of rice praline. Not just plain old puffed rice; rice praline, meaning that it was bits of puffed rice coated in a sugar glaze, a wonderful touch! The smooth filling inside was fresh hazelnut, making it more peanutty in flavor than the more familiar Nutella. An OM.

The leaf was a lovely molded truffle. It turned out to be a dark chocolate coating around a lighter ganache filling, which, as you can see from the below photo, was neither smooth nor creamy. It had a fruity tinge to it, but was otherwise meh. An O.

The two squares were both pretty great. One was a chewy, non-sticky caramel coated with dark chocolate. The caramel filling had great, deep complexity that made me wish for more. An OMG.

Last, but certainly not least, the second square, also a caramel-filling covered in dark chocolate. The caramel in this one, however, was soft and smooth and more reminiscent of a ganache in texture. It sat atop a thin layer of nut brittle that was crisp, nutty, and delectable - a crunchy sweet surprise. The combination of flavors and texture in this truffle was just impeccable and thus earns this chocolate a ZOMG!

There you have it - a selection of chocolates that nearly runs the gamut of my ratings. If you ever visit Paris, or if you’re fortunate enough to live there, I highly recommend swinging by Jadis et Gourmande for a sampling of their chocolates. If only they had an outpost in the states!

The remaining 6 of my Nestle Quality Street reviews, continued from Friday. In case you don’t want to click back, “Nestle’s Quality Street is a variety pack of cheapo chocolates that’s pretty ubiquitous in the UK.” Onward!

Orange Chocolate Crunch (bottom left) is a flat disk of orange flavored chocolate with little crunchy bits throughout. A poor knockoff of a Terry’s Chocolate Orange Segsation, if you will. Orange chocolate can go well when it’s made with care and decent ingredients. This has neither.

The Purple One (first row, 3rd from left) is unlabeled to create a sense of mystery, though an asterisk does warn that it may contain nuts. It turned out to be a milk chocolate shell containing a flowing, nearly liquid caramel and a hazelnutty paste. Creative in composition, at least comparatively, but meh with Quality Street’s cost-cutting execution.

At first thought, Vanilla Fudge (top right corner) sounds oxymoronic, but a quick googling reminds me that fudge need not be chocolate flavored. This piece tasted neither of vanilla nor of chocolate fudge. No good.

The Toffee Finger (second row, far left) is the same sticky, jaw-achingly chewy toffee of the toffee penny, just in stick form and covered in a thin layer of milk chocolate. The finger shape does make eating it a bit more manageable, so points for that, but it loses all of those points because of the terrible, barely-even-qualifies-as-chocolate-ness of the coating.

Toffee Deluxe was highlighted on the box as being new. It’s slightly darker than the other toffees and a bit more buttery, more like the Brach’s Milk Maid style of caramels we’re used to in the states.

And finally, the Orange Creme. Oh the orange cream - a bitter dark chocoalte coating over a white, grainy paste that’s “orange” flavored - never again, the orange cream.

It’s laughable how this assortment has the word “quality” in its name, as it’s anything but. It’s not horrible, spit-it-out chocolate, but it is bad, take-one-bite-and-you’re-done chocolate. The chocolate base of everything is just blah and blech. Save your money and go elsewhere. Nestle’s Quality Street has the dubious distinction of earning my very first – rating. Congratulations!

Jim from The Chocolate Mission, on the other hand, rather enjoyed these. Maybe it’s a British thing, as there must be a reason why they’re practically in institution there?

Nestle’s Quality Street is a variety pack of cheapo chocolates that’s pretty ubiquitous in the UK. There are 12 different kinds. The back of the box lists them all and asks, “What’s your favourite?” I only have notes on 9 of them (shrug), so we’ll do 3 today and 6 on Monday.

The Toffee Penny (2nd row, furthest right) is a flat, round piece of toffee in a copper wrapper (hence the penny moniker). It’s super sticky, jaw-achingly chewy, and not that exciting, flavorwise. Good toffee, like Walkers, has flavor nuance and complexity. This guy, not so much.

The Caramel Swirl (bottom row, 3rd from left) is a gooey, flowy caramel covered in blah chocolate. I wonder if its nubby shape is meant to evoke a Rollo. I don’t like Rollos much, and I didn’t care for this guy either.

Strawberry Delight (bottom right corner) is a dark chocolate with a terribly artificial cherry flavor. Even though I’m pretty bad at distinguishing between artificial red fruit flavors, I get more cherry medicine bite from this.

So there’s a start. We’ll do the other 6 that I have notes on tomorrow: toffee finger, the purple one (that’s actually what it’s called), orange chocolate crunch, orange creme, toffee deluxe, and vanilla fudge. No rating yet, as I want to keep you in suspense until Monday, but I think you can guess where this is going.

When Amella Caramels contacted me about trying free samples of their caramels, I almost turned them down. I was out of town relaxing in Myrtle Beach, and it was a week and a half before my graduation day, just shy of two weeks when I was to move everything I owned (including my candy stash) to upstate New York (quite far from home in Texas). I thought I’d never have the time. Thank goodness I changed my mind. These guys were ridiculously good.

Amella Caramels are artisan caramels that come in three flavors, carrot cake, black forest, and passion fruit. Not only do they taste great (we’ll get to that in a bit) but also, they come in ingenious packaging. Each box looks artisinal, as if it’s made with handmade paper. Pop the lid open, and you can see the three caramels inside through a little plastic viewing window.

Carrot Cake: “Taste a medley of fresh carrots, roasted pecans, and cocoa butter with creamy caramel, hand dipped in the finest white chocolate.”

White chocolate? I could’ve sworn the topping tasted like cream cheese frosting. This guy blew me away. The chew was soft and non-sticky. It was like eating a bite of gooey carrot cake that just happened to have a light caramel-y finish. The flavor was quite genuine, and a few bits of pecans were dispersed throughout. The white chocolate overpowered the caramel flavor of the bite - I really only got the caramel-ness when I nibbled it sans white chocolate - but it was still quite good.

Black Forest: “Lose yourself in a blend of real Amarelle cherries, 70% dark chocolate, and Tahitian vanilla with buttery caramel, hand dipped in fine white chocolate and topped with dark chocolate sprinkles.”

This was far more caramel-like in texture than the Carrot Cake. It was soft and chewy with just the right amount of sticky, so that the chew didn’t last too long and so that your fillings are never in danger. The caramel has a deep, dark chocolate flavor that would be great as is - but it gets better! After a few chews, a strong and fruity cherry finish comes through, delighting the palate. The white chocolate top isn’t really noticeable because the caramel is so strongly flavored, and that’s just fine by me.

Passion Fruit (bottom right): “Discover pure bliss from real passion fruit, cocoa butter, and Tahitian vanilla with buttery caramel, hand dipped in the finest milk chocolate.”

This was the most caramel-y of the three. It starts out like a nice, buttery caramel (same texture as that of the Black Forest) before bursting into a sudden bright and vibrant fruity sweetness with citrusy high notes. The chocolate is there, but I didn’t care, as the caramel flavor with the transition to fruity sweetness is the selling point. I think I could eat these all day and never get bored by that sudden switch.

These all get ZOMG!s, though I like the Black Forest and Passion Fruit much better than the Carrot Cake. I tried the Carrot Cake first and gave it a ZOMG!, not realizing that the other two would get even better, and I decided that it wouldn’t be fair to downgrade it.

Sadly, they ain’t cheap - $4.99 per 3-pack, with free shipping on orders of $29.94 or more. You can order online for now. I do hope they wind their way into stores. I can see places like Williams Sonoma and Sur La Table keeping these by the register (they’re certainly better than the Mitchell Sweets that Sur La Table already sells), and I’d even enjoy these as dessert in a nice restaurant.

This Cadbury Starbar’s been floating around in my tasting notebook since I had it last summer while I was in England. It was on my list of candy bars to try while there, thanks to a favorable Chocablog review.

The Starbar is “shot through with peanuts and caramel,” which made me think that it would be a Snickers-like bar. Well, not exactly.

The milk chocolate coating (14% of the bar) was greasy. Immediately under the chocolate was a circular layer of gooey, sweet, and sticky caramel. A few salty peanuts studded the nougat, but they were few and far between, not exactly “shot through” with peanuts.

I think there were also little wafer bits inside the sweet nougat center that weren’t advertised on the wrapper. I don’t know why not, as it’s a nice feature. It provides an enjoyable textural contrast that gives this bar an extra edge.

I was disappointed by the lack of peanuts but pleasantly surprised by the wafer bits. Not sublime, but pretty good for a mass-produced bar. An OM.

Dear readers, your regularly scheduled review of the rest of the Schocolat chocolates appears below the break. But first, a story. Just scroll down and click “Read the rest of this entry” if you want to skip straight to the review.

The box of chocolates came from Rita’s mom with a request that I pass the reviews onto the proprietors of Schocolat. About a week ago, I sent them the three links to the three reviews, with a note that each link would go live the day that it was scheduled to run. Here’s part I and part II.

Yesterday, I received the following email:

Rosa

Thanks? Maybe you will find chocolate covered fruit gushers more pleasurable.

Regards
Susie

I was initially offended and pretty hurt. Then I thought, maybe I’m jumping to conclusions and being overly sensitive. Maybe she was suggesting that I try another product of theirs, these “chocolate covered fruit gushers”? But I didn’t see those anywhere on their site, so I guess Susie was referring to actual Fruit Gushers after all.

So that’s my story. You can interpret it as you wish, and I’ll bet you can guess how I ended up taking it.

And do click through and read today’s review. It’s exactly what I wrote a week and a half ago - in other words, I didn’t change anything after Susie’s email. As I told Susie when I wrote back, “I don’t have to like anything or everything that I review. I do have to be honest with my readers.”
Read the rest of this entry »

A continuation of Monday’s review, the next five chocolates in my Schocolat box.

First up at the top, a salted caramel that wasn’t in their chocolate guide, I guess because they’re usually sold in boxes of all caramels. As with the bunny chew from Monday, it’s a stiff caramel that really gets in your teeth. The salt offsets the brown butter flavor nicely, though I wish the flavor developed a bit more as you chew it. Still, a lovely treat and OM-worthy.

Moving clockwise is what I think is a Gianduja, “layers of hazelnut flavored milk and dark chocolate dipped in milk chocolate finished with a candied hazelnut.” I say think because it tasted more like peanut butter than Nutella to me and my friends. Sadly, the nut topping was so candied that I couldn’t tell what kind of nut it was.

The dark and milk layers were visible in the super stiff ganache, and the whole thing had a roasty nuttiness with a creamy chocolate finish. An OM, regardless of my nut uncertainty.

Next is the round rolled-then-enrobed truffle, the only one in the box that wasn’t molded and another one that was off the guide. My friend Rita bit into it first and made a blech face. Surprise! It’s banana, which Rita is allergic to.

Specifically, it’s a white chocolate ganache. It has a strong banana flavor with a sweet, white chocolate finish. The dark chocolate coating was studded with bits of candied almonds. Nice, but not for me (or Rita), so an O.

The skinny gold ingot shaped chocolate is the Golden Cinnamon, “milk chocolate ganache flavored with gold-schlager cinnamon liquor surrounded in dark chocolate and gold flecks.”

The creamy ganache had a light, barely noticeable cinnamon spice and heat to it, with more cinnamon in the finish. A lovely, perfectly balanced blend that gets an OMG.

And last for today, the dark and milk domed truffle that’s also off guide. It’s definitely peanut butter with a super roasty finish. An O, not because it’s bad, but because I’m not that big on peanut butter.

It also makes me more sure that we correctly identified the Gianduja. I think the Gianduja didn’t taste hazelnutty enough because it was made with actual hazelnut butter, thus the more-subtle-than-Nutella flavor.

So - back on Friday for the rest of the box. It gets even better!

Earlier this month, my friend Rita received a package from her mother with the following note:

“Hi Rits, I’ve been meaning to send these for ages to Rosa for evaluation. They looked so good, maybe she’ll share some with you.”

Inside the package was a lovely box of chocolates from Schocolat. I love Rita, and I love her mother, and I loved these chocolates. And don’t worry - I shared them with Rita and a third friend, Katie. Let me tell you, an afternoon sipping wine and tasting fine chocolates is great for catching up and bonding with your girlfriends.

Schocolat is a chocolate boutique located in Leavenworth, Washington, and they make all of their beautiful chocolates by hand. The Easter box was jam packed with 14 chocolates. So jam packed, in fact, that I couldn’t figure out how to get them all back in after I took them out to photograph them. I’ll review them in chunks over the course of the week.

I know how chocolatiers make pretty molded truffles - they just use pretty molds - but I’m not sure how they painted the hearts and bunnies on. Impressive, and adorable.

The pink-hearted chocolate is the Harlequin: “dark chocolate enrobes a duo of milk chocolate and creamy white chocolate ganache infused with fresh lemon.” The orange flavor was light, with a slightly bitter, zesty finish that I attributed to the lemon infusion. I’m not a white chocolate fan, so this wasn’t really for me. An O.

The other white chocolate was painted with bunnies and wasn’t in the chocolate guide. It turned out to be a stiff piece of caramel coated in white chocolate. The caramel was super sticky and had a nice brown buttery flavor. An O, but only mostly they make a better salted version of this that you’ll hear about later.

The Raspberry Crown was “dark chocolate ganache folded in with raspberry puree and a splash of Chambord covered in a dark chocolate.” The bright fruity filling was a thin, creamy ganache. It had a lightly seedy, super genuine raspberry flavor that gave way to a dark chocolatey finish. Quite enjoyable and worthy of an OM.

Last for today is the Earl Grey, “double bergamot tea infused in fresh cream and milk chocolate finished in a milk chocolate coating.”  The ganache here was a bit thicker than that of the raspberry crown. It was still creamy; just thicker. It’s definitely Earl Grey all right - floral and perfumey with a light cocoa finish. Earl Grey isn’t my cup of tea (har har), so also an O.

Come back on Wednesday and Friday for the rest of Schocolat week!

Today brings us reviews of two more chocolates from Starbucks, their Caramel Macchiato and Caffe Mocha truffles. I gave the Chai Truffles a meh review last time, but I had coupons, so I went ahead and bought more to try.

The truffles are billed as “marvelous milk chocolate [enveloping] caramel centers infused with our Espresso Roast coffee.” Out of the box, they smelled overwhelmingly sweet and looked perfectly molded. A cross section reveals a fairly thick milk chocolate coating covering a smooth truffle center.

The smooth truffle center was cloyingly sweet, and I didn’t get any caramel notes because the sweetness was so overwhelming. The milk chocolate coating also overwhelmed the truffle filling. There was a slight bitterness to the finish - I guess that was the coffee part? An O.

I liked the Caffe Mocha truffles, “lucious milk chocolate [embracing] creamy mocha centers infused with our rich Espresso Roast coffee”, much more. The molding was prettier here, with two coffee beans stamped on the top. I thought they covered an actual espresso bean, but alas, they were made of chocolate. Boo. I guess it would’ve been too expensive to make the effort of putting real beans on the truffles.

The center, like that of the caramel macchiato truffle, was smooth and creamy. It had a strong, deep roasty coffee flavor that went well with the chocolate coating. The chocolate shell was thinner in this truffle, so it was far better balanced. It was like eating a smooth chocolate-covered espresso bean. Highly enjoyable and worth an OMG.

Today marks the conclusion of Rosa eats her way through an entire box of See’s on her own because it’s delicious and free. I began my journey on Monday, continued on Wednesday, and today, the finish line is in sight.

I’m not sure what makes the California brittle Californian. It’s a hard toffee with almonds that’s covered in milk chocolate. Unlike some toffees, this brittle doesn’t really cleave. It kind of just breaks. I could almost feel the tiny air bubbles dissolving on my tongue as I chewed it. The salty almonds go well with the brittle, which was pretty throat-burningly sweet. An O, but a positive one that I can see others enjoying.

The Mayfair was probably the easiest to identify, at least once I bit into it, because it was shockingly pink. This is described as buttercream with cherries and English walnuts. I don’t care for buttercream chocolates in general because I find them too sweet, and this guy is both too sweet and unappetizingly bursting with artificial cherry flavor. An O.

Two of my favorite See’s chocolates were the most simple, the above milk peanuts and the dark almonds (photo here). Good quality roasted nuts plus good quality See’s chocolate makes for yum. Both were great combinations of salty/sweet and melty/creamy/crunchy with toasted nut overtones. I could eat these all day. OMGs for both.

The cocoanut (sic) was milk chocolate around a coconut buttercream. I actively dislike most coconut candies, so to say that I found this tasty is a significant compliment. It had a nice coconut flavor without too much of the shreddy textural issues I have with sugared, dried, and shredded coconut. It helped that the milk chocolate mostly overpowered much of the coconut flavor. An OM.

Last up in our pictorial component is the milk pattie, vanilla caramel in milk chocolate. The caramel is soft with a moderate level of chewiness and stickiness. It doesn’t have much flavor that stands up to the milk chocolate, but I did enjoy its dusky finish. I’d love to try the dark version, which may let the caramel assert itself more. An OM.

Finally, I’d like to note two See’s chocolates that I do not have photos for. First, the molasses chips that were in my box got damaged during shipping and ended up in bits and pieces all over the box. I greatly enjoyed picking those pieces out and devouring them. Molasses chips are one of my favorite See’s products. They’re a thin brittle sweetened with honey and molasses and covered in chocolate, and they are divine. They come in dark and milk, and while I prefer the dark, I still love the milk. A ZOMG! for either iteration. You can see them in the below photo of a box I bought myself over a year ago. They’re the four thin rectangles on the left. You can also buy them by themselves, in a mixed assorted box or in milk and dark boxes.

The other See’s chocolate that I do not have a photo of is their Scotchmallow. The Scotchmallow is  absolutely, hands-down my favorite See’s product, and I have no photo of it because I am saving mine for a special occasion. An ex-boyfriend of mine loves them (in fact, he’s the one who introduced me to them), and I knew he really liked me when he was willing to share his beloved Scotchmallows with me. See how seriously I take my Scotchmallows? They’re even at the top of my all time favorite candies list.

They also come in bar form, as in the photo above, in heart form for Valentine’s Day and in egg form for Easter, but the round chocolate form in their assorted chocolates selection is really the best, I think, as it gets the proportions just right: thick squishy honey marshmallow over a wonderfully butterscotchy caramel, all enrobed in dark chocolate… If you couldn’t see it coming, it gets a ZOMG! like whoa.

So after all this See’s reviewing, what would go in my ideal custom box? At least two sets of dark molasses chips, a set of milk molasses chips, a dark cocoanut, a dark pattie (which I didn’t get to try), a dark almond and a dark peanut, a milk almond and a milk peanut, a caramel with almonds, a couple of marzipans, a dark nougat, a butterscotch square, and fill the rest of the box to the brim with Scotchmallows. The next time I’m in a See’s store, that’ll be exactly what I’ll order (plus a few Scotch kisses, Almond Royals, and Toffee-ettes).

I can’t stress enough how great a value See’s is. They may not be as fancy or as dazzlingly pretty as some of the more expensive chocolates that I’ve tried, but you really can’t beat paying just under $20 a pound for great tasting chocolate. Even I can afford that. And as a bonus, at that price, you don’t feel so bad when you come across one that you don’t love.