ZOMG, Candy!

Hershey’s Zero bar’s claim to fame is its white coating. Specifically, it’s “caramel, peanut and almond nougat covered with white fudge.”

Mine came free, courtesy of Munchies Sweets and Treats.  It was a bit too abundantly full of caramel, I guess, as my bar’s trademark white coating was streaked with it.

The bottom layer of nougat was faintly sweet chocolate with strong almond extract notes. Every once in a while, I hit an actual peanut, which introduced a bit more nuttiness, but the almond extract was the predominant player.

The nougat was covered with a stripe of sweet and serviceable caramel. The white fudge coating was milky and overly sweet.

Overall, I found this bar to be too sweet, and its flavors weren’t distinctive enough. I needed to eat it slowly and carefully to pick out the different flavors, as they got all mushed together and masked by the sweet. An O.

According to its entry on Hershey’s website, the Zagnut has been around for ~80 years now (I think Hershey’s needs to update their mathing). Wikipedia says that it used to be owned by the Clark Company, though how Hershey’s ended up with Zagnut and Necco ended up with the Clark Bar, I don’t know. Cybele didn’t know either.

I do know that I found it tasty, and like the Clark Bar, it made me wonder how I’d never had one before. Mine came in a gifted sample box from Munchies Sweets and Treats, but I do believe I’ve seem then in Wegmans, housed in the retro candy display.

The bar was described as “crunchy peanut butter - toasted coconut.” It had the flaky layered center of a Clark Bar, plus an outer layer of what looked like compressed nuts.

The golden bar was super crisp. As I bit into it, there was a lovely crunch, and flakes well, flaked off. I also noticed tiny bits of peanuts in the texture.

It tasted mostly of peanuts/peanut butter with a touch of coconut to the finish. Some of it got lodged in my molars a tad, like brittle, but it wasn’t nearly as bad a teeth situation as you get with Butterfingers.

I loved the texture, with its mix of flaky and crispy, and the nutty/coconutty flavors were nice as well. I’m definitely a newly converted Zagnut fan. An OM.

These Caramel Almond Sticks are the last of my free samples from Charles Chocolates. Sad, as I really enjoyed munching my way through their wares!

The sticks are their “Fleur de Sel Caramel, enrobed… in 65% bittersweet chocolate and coated… in toasted almonds.” I loved Charles Chocolates’s Fleur de Sel caramel chocolates, so I had high hopes for these - and they really delivered!

The pack of 9 sticks came packaged in a little cellophane bag with a pretty gold bow. Each stick was about pinky finger-sized, covered in dark chocolate, and rolled in chopped almonds.

The caramels were buttery soft but also chewy. They stuck around my molars a bit, but I can forgive them because they were so decadently buttery flavored as well.

As you can see, the almonds had a tendency to fall off. They brought a bit of grit to the texture of the sticks, and I wish they were even more roasty flavored. If the website hadn’t said so, I wouldn’t have guessed that they were toasted.

The chocolate flavor was pretty dominated by the buttery caramel and the nutty almonds. I was able to notice its nice cocoa notes.

The caramel is really the star here. It’s so decadent and delicious and addictive. I just wish the nuts were a tad toastier. Still, I chomped and chewed my way through these at a frightening pace. They get a hearty OMG.

Charles Chocolates contacted me when they launched a revamped website and a new flagship store in San Francisco. I got sent a bunch of free samples which I’ll be reviewing this week and into next, and I got an email interview with Charles Chocolates’s founder, Chuck Siegel, which y’all can read tomorrow!

Today, however, y’all get to read about their Triple Chocolate Almonds. They come in a beautiful cylindrical tin. Check out the top! Here’s the back-of-the-tin blurb: “Our premium California almonds are roasted darker, then coated in our exceptional blend of bittersweet and milk chocolates.”

The almonds themselves are beautiful as well. First of all, they’re ginormous, thanks to a generously thick chocolate coating. They’re also coated in cocoa powder and look like matte, brown zen stones (I was too busy eating them to try to balance them, and they weren’t really flat enough anyway).

The milk chocolate coating is thick with a flawlessly smooth and creamy melt. It’s got dusky caramel notes, and while it’s on the sweet side, that sweetness pairs perfectly with the nutty roasted almonds.

The flavors are wonderful, the textures are great, and the flavor and texture contrasts between the chocolate and the almonds make these triple chocolate almonds seriously addictive. They are dangerous to keep around; I emptied my tin all on my own and wish I had more. A ZOMG!

Cybele enjoyed them too; you can read her take on Candy Blog here.

I have awesome timing - I just recycled my empty box of Trader Joe’s “The Art of Chocolate” truffles last weekend, and I’m noticing now, as I write this review, that I forgot to photograph the box. Oops. Photos of the box can be found on other sites here and here.

At least I nabbed photos of all the truffles! They come 9 to a box, and though they’re small, the whole box is just $1.99.

Three of the nine were filled with “praline, nougat”. One was covered in all milk (above); the other two had shells that were part milk and part white. The praline was slightly dry and gritty and tasted of sweet chocolate with a light undertone of nuttiness. It worked well with the milk chocolate, which had a nice cocoa finish, but it was too sweet when paired with the white.

Another two had a mocha praline truffle filling. One was coated in dark chocolate while the other had a dark chocolate base and a white chocolate top (above). The mocha praline had a pleasantly bitter coffee undertone that was lovely with the dark chocolate but again, too sweet with the white.

A milk chocolate covered cream and vanilla truffle (above; looks far lighter in this shot) had a thick milk chocolate shell with an overly sweet vanilla cream filling. The cloying sweetness made my throat itch.

Crisp hazelnutpaste (sic) had my favorite molding, a pretty little triangle of a hazelnut, complete with veiny leaves. Its filling had a light, fine grit of ground up hazelnuts that I could hear against my teeth more than I could actually feel on my tongue. It was thick and nutty. It was also super sweet, but I could handle the sweetness here because it was tempered by the nuttiness.

Cream and pistachio was an interesting and unexpected flavor combination for such a generic box. The dark chocolate shell was nice, and its filling was a dry white ganache flecked with light green. Despite the pistachio colors, I didn’t get any pistachio nut flavors. It did at least have a nice dusky caramel finish.

And finally, the crisp chocolate truffle cream was a pyramid of deliciousness - a caramel colored upper layer topping a crisp chocolate truffle bottom that tasted like milk chocolate buttery toffee notes.

The Art of Chocolate was all about permutations: three types of chocolate (milk, dark, and white) and six different fillings, mixed and matched. Sounds like a candy math problem for Carl at Candy Dish Blog!

While not all of the combinations were stellar, this little box was a fantastic deal at just $1.99 (nice truffles can cost that much for just a single one!). The truffles are one bite indulgences that, at 3 truffles per 100 calories, are reasonable for the wallet and the waistline.

They get an OM, not because they were especially tasty in general but because they were especially tasty at the price point of 33 cents each. I’d buy them again to satisfy a sweet tooth craving or for just-because gifts.

Around Thanksgiving-ish, I did a candy exchange with Saskia, a ZOMG, Candy! reader from New Zealand. Quick tip - if you ship internationally via USPS, hang onto the customs form that they give you. That way, if the package you shipped in November still hasn’t arrived by late January, USPS can try to look it up for you. If you threw out the customs form thinking you’d never need it again (like I did), you’re out of luck, even if you have a sales receipt.

Luckily, the package finally turned up at the end of January, right as I was planning to pack and mail another box. Candy exchanges are fun, but international shipping ain’t cheap!

Anywho, Saskia sent me a lovely assortment of locally made Kiwi goodies. Enough goodies, in fact, to make this week all New Zealand reviews! First up is a Peanut Chili (they spell it Chilli) Cluster from Schoc. Check out the firecrackery tag!

They’re straightforwardly described on the website as “peanuts gathered in a dark chili chocolate”. I love the use of the verb “gathered” there. That’s basically what they are, but the simple description belies the complexity of the treat.

The dark chocolate was high quality, with a thick-ish melt and pleasant cocoa flavors. There was a nice initial crunch and strong peanuttiness from, you guessed it, the peanuts. But where was the chili?

Wait for it… There! After the chocolate melted away, the chili punched through with a tingly back of the throat burn. As I took more bites, the burn built up and melded with the chocolate and peanut flavors, as I couldn’t wait for the heat to fully dissipate before chomping up more peanut chili cluster.

A fun twist on my favorite combination of chili and chocolate. An OM.

Quick tip number two: if any of you readers would like to do a candy swap of our own, I suggest y’all check out Cybele’s forum on candy swaps to find a buddy. As much as I’d love to trade candy with you all, it’s too expensive for me to do often.

Up until now, my food-related experience with Etsy has been with the myriad mini food jewelry pieces you can find there; I had no idea you could buy actual food - and more importantly, candy - there!

Word of warning: It looks like there’s a sidebar link for candies on the Etsy homepage. It’s actually candLes; disappointing. You want to click on the link for Plants and Edibles.

Kettle Confections is an Etsy maker of Almond Nougats that’s been featured on Martha Stewart Weddings’s website (as of writing time, they’re #47 in this list). I was fortunate enough to receive a free sample of their original and coffee flavored almond nougats.

The nougats were cut into thumb-sized rectangles and wrapped in edible rice paper. The rice paper will dissolve in your mouth without affecting the flavor.

It sticks to the candy but not to the wrapper, making it a smart packaging choice by Kettle Confections (also smart that they noted that it was edible on the package; not everyone grew up eating White Rabbit candy as I did, so not everyone thinks nothing of popping “paper” right into my mouth along with the candy). Though one or two of my un-rice-papered ends stuck to the wrappers, I had no trouble unwrapping my nougats.

Maybe a little trouble would have been a good thing. These nougats were delicious and disappeared all too quickly!

Both flavors were generously packed with almonds. I’ve been on an almond kick lately - I baked three batches of macarons and Dorie Greenspan’s Chocolate Amaretti Torte when I was home for the holidays - so these arrived at a good time. The whole almonds were super fresh and nicely roasted and thus packed with delicious roasty-nutty flavors.

The nougat was just chewy enough to get my jaw going, but not so chewy that it stuck to my teeth. The textures of the crunchy nuts and chewy nougat played off each other well, creating a texturally varied and addictively interesting treat.

The original nougats were sweet and tasted of milk and vanilla, which balanced well with the stronger roasted almond nuttiness. The coffee nougats had a strong coffee flavor but not of strong coffee - it was more cafe au lait. There was a slightly bitter coffee bite, but the nougat still tasted strongly of milk.

I loved both flavors and managed to polish off half of my bag all on my own. I would’ve eaten the whole thing, but I put some out in the living room for my roommates, and they got snatched up pretty quickly.

I didn’t know that I was a white nougat person until I tried these OMG-worthy treats. I’m now inspired to try more white nougats. Kettle Confections has certainly set the bar high!

Today’s review is more from Hedonist’s constantly changing truffle line-up: their current Spice Collection. It consists of peanut butter cayenne, raspberry wasabi, orange chipotle, lemon pepper, and coconut curry - clearly a very spicy Spice Collection. I was fortunate enough to receive a free sample box to review from the kind ladies at Hedonist.

I actually reviewed the Peanut Butter Cayenne over 9 months ago when I first visited the shop, but I didn’t realize it until I sat down to write this review (apparently I’d also had some version of their Ginger Molasses from the Holiday Collection on my first visit). I’m glad to see that my peanut butter cayenne tasting notes held up (ginger molasses varied a bit).

Here’s the peanut butter cayenne description based on the notes I took this time around: This dark chocolate truffle smells strongly of peanut butter, and for good reason, as its filling is a dry and gritty peanut butter.

The cayenne is barely perceptible at first, just a hint of heat to the finish, but the burn builds and builds even after the chocolate is gone, which is a neat effect. The heat never gets overwhelming; a plus for me.

Rasberry Wasabi was a dark chocolate in a heart-shaped mold. It smells quite fruity. I can see actual raspberry seeds inside the filling, so it’s no wonder that the flavor is of genuine raspberry.

The wasabi component is barely there as a horseradish-y finish. I like its subtlety and novelty, as I’ve never seen this flavor combination before.

Orange Chipotle is identifiable by a little orange dot against its dark chocolate coating. It smells lightly of fruit, though I don’t quite get citrus from the scent.

It first tastes of chocolate and smokiness that gives way to a gentle hint of orange oil before the chipotle burn powers through and wallops your tastebuds. This one is not for the faint of tongue, and I found this truffle’s heat to be more painful than enjoyable.

Lemon Pepper is a square dark chocolate shell with a white chocolate ganache. It tastes strongly of cracked black pepper with lemon undertones. The lemon and pepper pair nicely - they are, after all, a classic savory combination - but I didn’t care for how the duo went with chocolate.

The Coconut Curry was a dark chocolate shell sprinkled with yellow curried and plain white shredded coconut, plus a dusting of yellow curry. Unsurprisingly enough, it smelled super strongly of curry/cumin. But SURPRISE! It looked like this inside:

The bright yellow ganache was a bit of a shock. Mixed in were more bits of shredded coconut. The flavor profile begins with curry before the coconut flavor comes in. It’s actually a tad savory, despite the fact one would expect a chocolate truffle to be sweet. The inventive combination worked well for me.

Hedonist’s Spice Collection is full of creative flavor combinations. Coconut curry is a standout for its unusual nature and strikingness. I enjoyed the raspberry wasabi and peanut butter cayenne, while orange chipotle and lemon pepper weren’t to my tastes.

This collection would be a great gift for those with adventurous palates. As a whole, an OM. As stand-alones, peanut butter cayenne would get an extra G for its deliciousness, and coconut curry would merit that same bonus for sheer wow factor.

On Monday and Wednesday, I reviewed bars of my own design. For my third and final bar, I decided to let Chocri take the lead and made one of their recommended bars, the Magical Forest.

The Magical Forest is dark chocolate (64%) with blueberries, flower mix, and pine nuts. To jazz mine up a bit, and because I had more space for toppings, I added marzipan carrots and a marzipan rose, reasoning that since the marzipan sat on top of the chocolate, it wouldn’t disturb the essence of the Magical Forest.

I was quite excited about this one, as it sounded exotic. Real flowers! Pine nuts! Carrots! And it promised that “alone the scent of pine nuts forbodes which arcane taste experiences are hidden here.” I think Chocri has a bit more translation tweaking to do, but I kind of like their babelfishy description - it’s more mysterious!

The Magical Forest, unfortunately, turned out to be more like a potted plant. That is, less arcane and more pretty straightforward. The flower mix wasn’t noticeable to me in flavor or texture. At one point, I maybe got a barely perceptible hint of floral essence at the start, but it was so faint that it could have just been the power of suggestion.

The pine nuts were lackluster as well. By the time the bars made it to me (remember, they were shipped all the way from Germany!), the pine nuts had lost their distinctive flavor. They added some textural contrast, but not really anything in terms of taste. Maybe if they had been toasted first?

I did like the blueberries - they added a bit of chew and a bright fruitiness. And while the marzipan decorations were a bit dry at their outermost layer (especially the rose, which had more exposed surface area), they were delicious! Gritty/grainy as marzipan should be, with lots of almond (or almond extract) flavor that was good on its own or chomped up with the chocolate.

Speaking of the chocolate, it really shines in this bar. While Wednesday’s dark bar had more domineering toppings, the ones on today’s bar mostly took a back seat to the lovely dark chocolate base. Again, it has deep, strong cocoa notes with a lovely duskiness and a wonderfully smooth mouthfeel.

I wouldn’t recommend the Magical Forest combination (though my guess is that it fares better in Germany, where it would be fresher upon delivery), but Chocri the company gets a ZOMG for a great concept that’s nicely executed. They give you high quality ingredients to work with, and if the flavor combinations don’t work out, it’s pretty much your fault. It’s so much fun to make the different bars - and so hard to choose from the plethora of toppings!

The only downside is the price. As you can see, the Magical Forest sans marzipan adornments is already nearly $13. With the extra decorations, it costs over $16, and that’s before shipping. Though the bars are fairly hefty (3.5 oz, and I think that’s before the toppings),  that’s still a lot to pay for a single bar.

Chocri bars would make good gifts - I think gifts should be things that the recipient wants/would like but would never buy for him/herself - but half the fun is choosing your own toppings. In a smart business move, it looks like Chocri will be offering gift certificates.

And for those of you with deeper pockets, or those more willing to splurge on chocolate, this would be a fun and tasty buy.

Ever buy a chocolate bar and think, “This would be so much better with X instead of Y”, or “if only they added Z to this bar”? Well, soon you’ll be able to, once Chocri launches their US website (it’s currently still in preview mode).

From their blog: “chocri is a German startup, founded a little more than a year ago. What we do is we allow you to customize your own chocolate bar on our website. You get to choose a base chocolate white, dark or milk chocolate, and then your favorites out of more than 90 toppings… We hand-make the bars in Germany, and ship them to you.”

I got to create three free sample bars, which I’ll review today and Wednesday and Friday. Today’s bar is the “Rosa purposefully picked out weird toppings and ended up with something gnarly” bar.

The above bar is a 32% milk chocolate with chives, sea salt, caraway, spicy volcano cashews, and cheese-curry cashews. Doesn’t it sound just scrumptious?

The milk chocolate base is pretty nice. It’s super thick and really coats the tongue and mouth. And it pairs decently well with the spicy volcano cashews, which are super spicy! They really set my tongue a-tingle and cut right through the sweetness of the chocolate.

But man-oh-man the chives really ruin the thing.

Ladies and gentlemen, there’s a reason why you don’t normally see chocolate paired with onion (if you didn’t know, chives are in the onion family). The two do NOT mix well. It’s pretty awful and blech-inducing.

The cheese curry cashews are savory and also don’t match the milk chocolate well, but they’re mostly just weird as opposed to nastily off-putting. Caraway is basically like fennel, which, as Hedonist has shown, can go well with chocolate. But the chives pretty much ruined the bar for me.

So that bar was a fun experiment, at least. Officially, it gets a –, but it’s totally my fault. Don’t worry too much, though; my other two creations were better. Stay tuned!

And check out other candy bloggers’ Chocri experiences below. The best part of Chocri’s customization means that all our reviews are different!

Candy Addict

Candy Gurus

Candy Yum Yum