ZOMG, Candy!

My favorite part about Whole Foods is their bulk food bins. I can pick out as much or as little as I want! Instead of buying a whole jar of a spice when I only need a pinch, I can buy just a pinch. Instead of buying a whole tub full of chocolate-covered almonds when I have a craving, I can buy just a handful.

And instead of buying a whole box or bag or whatever these usually come in, I can pick out just the SunDome flavors that I want to try: Chip ‘N Mint, Cashew Coconut Crunch, Mocha Jolt, and Chocolate Almond Toffee.

I’m currently having a hard time finding out more about these, as the SunRidge Farms website is under construction as of the time I’m writing this post. Best I can tell, they fit into Whole Foods’ image of crunchy-granola (literally) save-the-earth ethos pretty well. I can’t tell you, unfortunately, how many different kinds of SunDomes there are. I do remember the bin having at least twice as many different kinds as I bought - I wanted to get one of each, but that got heavy and too expensive.

The SunDomes are, expectedly, dome-shaped blocks of chocolate flavored in accordance with their names. The chocolate blocks are solid and thick, so not that easy to bite through and also not that easy to share. Each dome is sizeable, about half the size of a hockey puck.

Chip ‘N Mint had a strong, pepperminty scent with little bits of cookie or rice crisp that gave it a hint of crunch. The peppermint was nicely balanced - noticeable, but not too strong.

Mocha Jolt had a strong, genuine coffee taste that was quite enjoyable. There was a slight grit to the texture, which I’m pretty sure was ground up bits of coffee beans. Both of these were solid and thick, with a hefty, dull snap.

Cashew Coconut Crunch turned out to be a surprise. Its chocolate was a bit softer and milkier. It smelled strongly of coconut and had a hint of toasted dry coconut flavor that mingled with the slight nuttiness imparted by tiny bits of cashews sprinkled throughout. The surprise? Raisins! They added a fruity-raisin taste that sort of worked and sort of didn’t. For me, at least, that’s also how I feel about raisins. They sort of work as a snack, but they sort of don’t.

Finally, the Chocolate Almond Toffee, which also had a bit more give when bitten into. It starts with a slight nuttiness, thanks to the tiny bits of almond embedded throughout, that’s more roasty than that of the Cashew Coconut Crunch. That nuttiness then gives way to a burnt sugar note from the toffee aspect. I appreciated its complexity and flavor development.

I wish these came in smaller portions. I ate them across several sessions because they were just so big, and one bite of each was plenty satisfying. If they came in little tasting disks or something, I’d buy all of them again. As is, I think the Mocha Jolt and the Chocolate Almond Toffee are worth buying again, so they get OMs, while the Cashew Coconut Crunch and the Chip ‘N Mint are too big for their own good and get Os.

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 we have the next batch of chocolates out of the free sample box of See’s Assorted Chocolates that I started reviewing on Monday.

First up, their vanilla nut cream, a vanilla buttercream with English walnuts. What makes English walnuts better than walnuts unaffiliated with a specific nation? I suppose that’s a moot point. Anyway, this is a nicely creamy buttercream with tiny bits of walnut sprinkled throughout. The milk chocolate coating is nice, but the filling is just too much sugary overload for me. An O.

See’s marzipan fared much better. I really enjoyed this one. Their guide just describes it as “honey almond paste,” which I suppose just makes it regular marzipan with a touch of honey. It’s enrobed in their bittersweet dark chocolate, which balances nicely with the nutty almond filling, and the whole thing has just a touch of fruity sweetness to the finish. I found it especially refreshing because it was barely sweet, in contrast to the rest of See’s filled chocolates. An OMG, and quite a coup from See’s, as it was far more enjoyable than Charles Chocolate’s much more expensive version, if not as pretty to look at.

The mocha was easily identifiable, as it was covered in chocolate sprinkles, or jimmies, as some like to call them. This is a coffee milk chocolate buttercream, and it definitely packs a punch of coffee flavor. It also packs a punch of sugar sweetness, which was too much for me. I did enjoy the textural contrast provided by the jimmies, at least. An O.

The rum nougat is one of See’s stranger concoctions: English walnuts, rum, cherries, and raisins in nougat. That’s an awful lot to be going on in one piece of candy. The cherries and raisins aren’t really distinguishable in the mix, though they do give the whole thing a noticeable fruitiness. I can definitely taste the rum as an overarching hint of liquor. Between the chewy nougat, the gummy dried fruits, and the softly toothy walnuts, this chocolate was texturally… interesting. Another O.

I adored the caramel with almonds. This chocolate featured whole or sizeable chunks of almonds embedded in caramel, all covered in milk chocolate. The almonds had lovely roasted notes that nicely mitigated the sweetness of the creamy milk chocolate and the buttery caramel. The caramel with almonds had just the right amount of chew to get your jaw going without taking out fillings. An OMG.

The almond square has nearly identical ingredients to the caramel with almonds. Its description, “roasted almonds with caramel,” leaves out the dark chocolate base that the square is dipped into. In the almond square, however, the combination of roasted almonds, caramel, and chocolate doesn’t achieve the same levels of candy nirvana as the caramel with almonds because there’s much less chocolate. In the almond square, the nuts are the focus, and the whole thing gets a bit overly dry. It’s still good, but the caramel with almonds is better. An OM.

Last for today, the walnut square. It was like the almond square, only with English walnuts instead of roasted almonds. Walnuts rank pretty low in my hierarchy of nuts, definitely below almonds, so you can guess what I thought of this - similar to the almond square, but not as good. An O.

Phew. That’s a lot of chocolates for one day. Onward to Friday, where Rosa finishes the box, pretty much.

Here’s the review of the rest of the box of Charles Chocolates that was introduced on Wednesday. We did the top row then, so today we’re going over the bottom row.

First up, bottom right, the bittersweet chocolate fleur de sel caramel. It was goooood. You can buy a box of 10 or 20 of just these, and I can see why. It’s a “a fleur de sel caramel with bittersweet chocolate and enrobed in 65% bittersweet chocolate.” The caramel was chewy and just slightly sticky with wonderous burnt notes, making it dark and salty and delectable, with the whole thing mellowed a bit by the chocolate coating. I could eat a whole box of these.

Next are the two square ones, the blood orange Yankee (why Yankee? I have no idea), which contains a blood orange marmalade ganache in a dark shell, and the meyer lemon Yankee, with a Meyer lemon marmalade in a dark and milk shell. If it’s made with lemons, does it still count as marmalade?

Orange and chocolate are a pretty common combination, but lemon, and chocolate, not so much. The Meyer lemon Yankee was good - it had a slight citrus finish with just a hint of zest, so its lemon-y-ness was not at all overpowering. The blood orange was similarly lightly citrusy, but with a sweeter, rounder flavor profile. In both, the ganache was smooth, silky, and lightly greasy, but not unpleasantly so.

The scalloped oval one in the middle is the espresso caramel, “rich caramel with real espresso and Kahlua in a  65% bittersweet oval.” The filling inside was soft and creamy, which surprised me, as I expected a stickiness due to the caramel moniker. I got a slight hint of the Kahlua flavor but didn’t pick up any espresso notes in the filling.

And last, and in this case least, the bottom left lemon marzipan: “Marzipan made with fresh, organic Meyer lemons and organic California almonds are coated in our rich 65% bittersweet chocolate.” I think one should always become a bit suspicious when one is being sold to with so many enthusiastic adjectives. Why is the same chocolate enrobing “rich” here, and the Meyer lemons “fresh, organic”? I didn’t taste any lemon in my marzipan, and I was just not a fan of the taste or the texture. I didn’t even finish my first one, and the second one is still sitting alone in the box, the only one left (I didn’t eat the entire box myself, by the way; I did share some with friends).

The marzipan alone gets an O, the espresso caramel and the Yankees get an OM, and the bittersweet fleur de sel gets a ZOMG! At around $2 a truffle, these are not exactly cheap indulgences. I wouldn’t buy the assorted box for myself (though I would happily accept one), but I would buy them by weight if I got to pick and choose which ones I wanted. I think that’s an option at their store/cafe. And I would buy these for gift-giving for special occasions.

Storck has had a pretty decent track record on my site. Their Toffifay got an OMG (and an awesomely addictive candy award from Candy Addict), and their Reisen got my highest honor of a ZOMG! So how would their Merci “finest assortment of European chocolates” fare?

I was impressed by the packaging of these chocolates. They’re pretty cheap, and they’re not lavishly packaged, but they still look nice. The outer box is kindly perforated to reveal two neat rows of Merci bars within.

The bars themselves are also not fancily wrapped - just cellophane with a light gold paper - but the half and half contrast and the color-coordinated bars and script identifying the bar flavors are a lovely touch that make the candies seem that much more upscale. I bought a box and split it up to put in goody bags for friends.

The bars come in seven different flavors. You can read the manufacturer’s description of each at Walgreen’s website. And/or you can read my review of six of those flavors (I somehow managed to not leave myself a milk chocolate one for tasting).

Hazelnut creme has a light hazelnut flavor that was unfortunately overpowered by a musty aftertaste. The aftertaste I blame on myself, however, as I tasted them a few months after their sell-by date. The praline tasted much like the hazelnut creme (mustiness and all), but with creamier chocolate.

Thankfully, the flavors of the remaining five were strong enough to resist being overtaken by any mustiness. Hazelnut-almond was chock full of tiny bits of almonds and hazelnuts that imparted not only a great nuttiness but also a nice crunch. The dark mousse was a dark layer of chocolate coating a softer, lighter truffled inside. The outer layer had a dry snap while the inner truffle had an almost greasy melt. Good cacao flavor throughout.

The dark cream was lighter in color than the dark mousse, and, as far as I could tell, was just a solid, mildly dark chocolate bar. There was nothing wrong with the dark cream, per se, but it lacked any interesting flavor profile.

Coffee and cream was my favorite of the bunch. It had a dry snap and melt with a strong coffee  flavor but no corresponding coffee bitterness. It tasted like fresh ground coffee smells. And it looked pretty, with a super dark top layer atop a white chocolate strip for the cream.

Overall, I give the assortment an OM. I highly recommend buying a box, giving away the less stellar ones, and hoarding the coffee and creams for yourself.

As I readied to write this post, I discovered that I’ve never formally reviewed any Ghirardelli chocolates on this blog, though I’ve eaten lots of Ghirardelli chocolates in my life. To remedy that, here’s a review of their Intense Dark Assortment.

First up, the Mint Bliss, a 60% cacao. It had a great snap and a creamy and smooth melt. There was just enough mint to make its presence known but not so much that it overwhelmed. And it was a nicely genuine mint flavor, not too toothpastey.  The mint did, however, mostly cover any nuance to the chocolate, but I was okay with that.

The other 60% in the collection was Espresso Escape, dark chocolate with finely ground espresso beans. So finely ground, in fact, that they didn’t affect the texture of the bar at all. I expected dark chocolate with a nice coffee finish. Instead, the chocolate was much more bitter than I thought it would be, and I loved it. It was like eating a dark chocolate espresso bean in smooth chocolate bar form.

Last but not least was a 72% pure chocolate billed as Twilight Delight. It had a dry but smooth melt without any creaminess with a lovely sweet finish.

Overall, I’d give this assortment an OMG, with the Mint and the Espresso as my favorites. Ghirardelli does a great job of making delicious chocolate at affordable prices. And Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco is fun if you ever have the chance to visit - their ice cream sundaes with Ghirardelli chocolate sauce are decadent and divine.

More reviews from the ginormous box of Russian candy sent by my friend Leslie nearly a year ago. Don’t worry; the tasting was done back when they were more fresh out of the box (though I still have a few remnants of her box left).

Candy “Korovka”(Little Cow)

What I called “Cow Caramel,” this was caramel-flavored candy that tastes of mildly sweet caramel but has the texture of something completely different. It was grainy and broke up in my mouth, almost like a fudge, but not as creamy. The taste/texture disparity threw me a bit, and I found it overly sweet. An O.

“Ptich’ya slast” (Bird’s Enjoyment) and “Raiskaya Penka” (Heavenly Song)

This candy was WEIRD! It had a spongy marshmallow center surrounded by chocolate shell. The texture of marshmallow is terrible! The red version (left) had a weird aftertaste - definitely not of vanilla - that made me feel ill. Like nauseated ill. There were these weird sugar granules between chocolate and marshmallow that didn’t help matters. I don’t know if those were supposed to be there or if they were a product of the various temperature changes this candy went through.

The brown-checked version (right) was slightly better. The texture of the marshmallow was less spongy, but it still fell short of being pillowy. Thankfully, this had no weird aftertaste and no sugar grains, but I still didn’t enjoy it. Another O.

Mocha Hard Candies

These individually wrapped lovely hard candies had gorgeous light and dark brown swirls, like a Cream Saver. The coffee taste was strong and definitely present, but it wasn’t at all bitter. Also like a Cream Saver, the candy had a light, creamy finish. It cleaved cleanly, which of course meant I was chomping it to death. I’m not a big fan of coffee flavored candy, but my mother is, and she’d love this. An OM.

I thought I’d follow up Wednesday’s review of Mars Planets with a review of Mars Revels, a similar UK offering. Revels are like the Planets in that they’re chocolate covered spheres (more or less) with various fillings. While Planets had nougat, fake malt, and caramel, the Revels are filled with caramel, raisin, orange, coffee, chocolate, and real malt. The malt ones are billed as Malteasers, so I knew I wouldn’t get duped with plain cookie again.

So how do the Revels fare in comparison to the Planets? As disappointing as I found the Planets, at least they weren’t as off-putting as Revels are. The Malteasers in the Revels are delightful - crisp, airy, and malty - but everything else gets a big thumbs down.

The chocolate Revels are fat little disks made of cloying chocolate. For some reason I can no longer remember, I also wrote “coal” down in my tasting notes. I don’t know why that’s there, but I can’t thing of any way the note “coal” can be taken positively.

The caramel Revels are worse than the caramel Planets. At least the latter had a passable texture. The caramel Revels are hard and nasty. It’s hard to tell, but in the photo below, it’s the third one from the left on the top row. See the total lack of caramel stickiness? Blech.

The orange and coffee ones were the same size and impossible to tell apart before tasting. They’re also hard to tell apart on sight from a cross section. I believe orange is the one in the bottom right corner, while coffee is immediately to its northwest. The inside of the orange Revel is unnaturally neon, while the coffee is strangely pale. The insides of both are powdery and grainy, and their tastes reflect their appearance. The orange is unnaturally artificial, and coffee is bland and fake.

Raisin, the smallest Revel, doesn’t taste of raisin at all. The poor quality chocolate overwhelms any fruitiness the raisin may have once had, and you can only tell it used to be a raisin based on its slightly pruny texture.

Chocablog gave Revels a positive review, though Dom is from the UK and grew up eating them. Terry from Chocolate Review writes about Revels latest Big Brother-related promotion to evict a flavor. I vote to keep the Malteaser, to replace the caramel with a chewy Planet, and overhaul the rest. An O plus a blech face from me. Like the Planets, a neat concept that was totally botched in the execution.

PS: Happy 08/08/08! My people, apparently, find the date to be auspicious. I’ll be trying to track down a television to watch the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics tonight.

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.