ZOMG, Candy!

I bought this Ritter Sport Olympia bar when I was in Italy. It’s been fairly recently featured on Candy Blog and Jim’s Chocolate Mission, so I thought I’d throw my two cents.

The wrapper notes that it contains “joghurt, honig, nuss, and traubenzucker”.

What, that’s not immediately self-explanatory? Thankfully, Cybele has revealed that it’s yogurt, honey, hazelnut, and grape sugar. I’ll admit – the grape sugar component still leaves me confused.

The milk chocolate coating was sweet and thick with a slightly sour tang that was probably helped along by the yogurt.

The filling was chock full of tiny bits of hazelnuts and what I initially thought was toffee. After reading the translation of the components, I think the toffee was actually bits of honeycomb crisps.

The nuts and crisps were similarly sized and colored. They made the bar as a whole sweet and interesting.

The yogurt brought a seriously sour tang that added to the richness of the bar. I love yogurt in my chocolate, and I enjoyed this Olympia quite a bit.

One caveat: it was maybe a tad too busy. I could’ve been just as happy, if not happier, without the hazelnuts. Sometimes simpler can be better. Just ask Coco Chanel! Still, it was a uniquely fun and tasty mix. An OM.

I’ve never been shy about proclaiming my love for Trader Joe’s nor lamenting Rochester’s lack of one. These Trader Joe’s Black Cocoa Almonds only underscore those points.

They’re described as “fresh California almonds dipped in dark chocolate and rolled in black cocoa.” They’re beautifully dark and smooth and matte, like velvet pebbles.

They’re covered in a Dutched cocoa powder that’s so dark that it’s nearly black (hence the name). It’s also flavorless on its own.

The dark chocolate coating is nicely mellow – sweet with notes of raisin and a cool finish that really lets the nut come through. The melt is thick and smooth with a muted cocoa essence.

The nut inside was nice and crunchy. I would’ve preferred it with a tad more roastiness, but all in all, it served as a great foil of texture and flavor for the chocolate coating.

They reminded me of Charles Chocolates Triple Chocolate Almonds but far cheaper (though not as nicely packaged). Trader Joe’s version was also crazy addictive. A ZOMG!

My roommate brought home a pack of these Sugar and Spice-flavored version of Aunt Sally’s Creamy Pralines after her trip home to New Orleans. I nabbed one and filed it away in my candy stash, where it promptly got forgotten.

Thankfully, per Roddy’s urging on the ZOMG, Candy! Facebook discussion page, I dug it out and ate it up. And I sent Roddy a box of candy for his trouble (incentive for you to join the Facebook page!).

A praline, in the Southern sense, is a mixture of sugar, nuts, and cream. New Orleans pralines, like mine, feature pecans as the nut of choice.

This sugar & spice flavored praline was intriguing because of the bottle of Tabasco and the Tabasco logos that decorated the packaging. I think it’s the first Tabasco candy I’ve ever come across.

Alas, this praline had seen better days. I think it was a combination of elapsed time and summer heat wave that left it slightly melted, shiny, and droopy. Not exactly appetizing.

Pecans are a relatively soft nut to start; the ones in my praline had softened further, along with the praline itself. I wish I had eaten this while it was fresh. Based on the other pralines I’ve had before, I’m pretty sure it’s supposed to be crisp.

The praline initially tasted lightly spicy but was mostly sweet and savory. The pecans added their mild but distinct flavor.

The texture was grainy and soft (again, the disclaimer that mine may have softened with time/heat wave). As the sugar grains melted away, a powerfully tingly underlying heat came through.

I don’t think it’s fair of me to review this praline as is because the texture may have changed, so my O rating comes with a grain of salt. I found the spiciness to be unique and interesting enough that I’m glad I tried the praline, but the sweet and savory flavor threw me for a bit of a loop.

Today’s review is a continuation of Wednesday’s review of the second set of mini Ritter Sport bars that I bought in Italy.

To recap, the set of seven contained Marzipan, Knusperkeks (butter biscuit), Knusperflakes (cornflakes), Vollmilch 30% Kakao (milk chocolate, 30% cacao), Joghurt (yogurt), Haselnuss (hazelnut), and Nugat (nougat). I’ll be reviewing the final two today.

Haselnuss had tiny bits of hazelnuts sprinkled throughout the milk chocolate squares. They brought a pleasant crunch and nuttiness.

I think the milk chocolate base was the same as the plain 30% bar. It tasted thick and full of caramel notes.

I appreciated that it was nicely sweet without being cloying and was clearly made with good quality ingredients. Still, it wasn’t terribly exciting and not my favorite from the Ritter Sport line, so an O.

Nugat was a soft hazelnut praline. If you look carefully in the below photo, you can just make out the change in color as the praline filling shifts to milk chocolate coating.

Though the difference was visible, it was difficult to discern by mouthfeel. Everything just melted together in my mouth into one deliciously sweet, nutty, thick, and gooey blob. Believe me, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

An OM. I am so jealous of the Germans. Their default chocolate line ranges from pretty good to spectacular.

I’ve now tasted my way through a wide array of Ritter Sport bars, and I’ve yet to find a dud. Guess that means I’ll have to keep trying by eating more Ritter Sports!

My May trip to Italy meant a layover in Frankfurt, which in turn meant that I got to buy lots of Duty Free Ritter Sport. In fact, I managed to leave Europe with not one but two sets of mini Ritter Sport assortments.

The below Schokowurfel set had 6 varieties (Sorten?): Creme Coco, Mandel Split, Caramel Crisp, Crocant, Cappuccino, and Edelnougat. I’ll cover the first three today and hit the next three on Wednesday.

These tiny Ritter Sports were individually wrapped and each just one square big. They’re slightly larger than the square segments of a regular Ritter Sport bar. The size difference is especially noticeable in their height.

It wasn’t until after I’d eaten them all that I realized that I photographed one upside down. Oops.

Creme Coco came in a white wrapper. It was milk chocolate with a white coconut cream filling. The filling contained dried flakes of coconut that were crisp and just shy of crunchy.

The chocolate was soft and sweet and nutty. The two flavors played off each other beautifully, with the dusky sweet balancing out the crispy nutty coconut. I thought it was a lovely mix of flavor and texture. An OM.

It was pretty easy to guess at a translation for Creme Coco. Mandel Split left me lost with no clue what to expect.

It turned out to be milk chocolate on the outside with a white chocolate filling with a few peanut bits mixed in. The peanuts were quite flavorful, but I’ve never been a big fan of peanuts.

I respected the high quality of the ingredients that went into the Mandel Split, but I didn’t find it very exciting or special. To me, it just tasted like nice chocolate and peanuts. An O.

Finally for today, Caramel Crisp was easily comprehensible. It was milk chocolate with golden brown caramel-flavored filling.

At first I thought the filling contained rice crisps, but careful excavation revealed them to be thin flakes of unidentified crispiness. They had a nice complexity that made me think they could be honeycomb, or at least honeycomb flavored.

I really enjoyed the filling to this chocolate. It had nice caramelized/burnt sugar notes that I love in real caramel, but it had the solid texture of a grainy ganache. That plus the intriguingly delicious crisps earned this an OM.

Cybele reviewed this set several years ago on Candy Blog. Looks like the assortment has changed a little since then. Come back on Wednesday for the other half!

I got these Simply Lite Sugar Free and No Sugar Added chocolates as free samples. I generally try to eat healthily, but that usually doesn’t extend to my candy selections, so these aren’t something that I’d buy for myself.

The tagline on these bars is “fine chocolates for the health and calorie conscious.” I find the accuracy of that assertion to be debatable.

A quick comparison to some regular chocolate bars shows that they’re no less fattening and save only a few calories per serving. They are, however, lower in carbs and sugar. But is that worth the warning on the back, “Excessive consumption may cause a laxative effect”?

The milk chocolate bar smelled sweet with a hint of caramel. The melt was thick with a slight graininess, but it didn’t manage to coat the mouth the way that some milk chocolates do.

It tasted sweet and fruity, but lacked the dusky, thick caramel notes that I love in my fine milk chocolate. It reminded me of a less sweet and not at all tangy regular Hershey’s bar.

I was surprised at how unartificial it tasted. It was far better than Hershey’s or Nestle’s plain milk chocolates.

The sugar free dark chocolate also smelled sweet. It snapped when broken by my fingers but not when chewed. It’s texture was a bit weird, with a finely grainy melt.

The dark bar tasted fruity with light hints of spice and an impressively lasting finish. It reminded me of Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate or a generic semisweet chocolate chip.

The dark chocolate with almonds bar featured whole almonds that were impressively nutty. The dark chocolate was similar to the plain dark chocolate bar, but it carried a pronounced cinnamon flavor and less fruitiness.

I appreciated the quality of the almonds but was thrown by the stinginess. There were only almonds in half of the bar – half of the pre-segmented squares were plain! I hope I just got a wonkily made aberration.

I was pretty impressed at Simply Lite’s line-up. In a blind testing, I would never guess that these are low carb/low sugar. As a regular chocolate treat, I give them an O. Were I to actually need to restrict my diet, they’d warrant a higher rating.

The Candygurus also reviewed these bars. I concur with Matty – that laxative effect is fo’ real, but not in an unpleasant way (at least after the amount that I sampled). These could be a nicer-tasting twist on the laxative brownie prank.

I have to admit, I had a beef with this bar even before I tasted it. Its name is too darn long – it’s annoying to type out “scrumdiddlyumptious!” So I’m shortening it to WESCB, for Wonka Exceptionals Scrumbdiddlyumptious Chocolate Bar.

Wonka Exceptionals is Nestle/Wonka’s new line of higher quality – and higher priced – candy bars. I got mine in my free 16 lb bag of Sweets and Snack Expo preview goodies, courtesy of the NCA.

The WESCB has “bits of scrumptious toffee pieces, crispy cookies and crunchy peanuts wrapped in milk chocolate.” It sounds pretty amazing but busy, which is also how I’d describe the crazy shiny purple packaging.

Inside, the bar was strangely segmented into different-sized pieces (mine came broken along one of the lines), each imprinted with the Wonka W. I actually like the lack of uniformity. Theoretically, you could break off an appetite-appropriate chunk.

The WESCB was packed full of bits and pieces. Peanuts were the most predominant flavor and scent contributor, almost tricking me into thinking that the bar had peanut butter in it. They brought a deep, roasty nuttiness and a lot of crunch.

The crunchy toffee bits cleaved cleanly and added some nice dark caramel notes, while the cookie bits added further crunch.

The milk chocolate bar had a thick melt, but it was so full of stuff that the melt was barely noticeable. On its own, the chocolate was a tad too sweet for my taste, though it was definitely a cut above plain Nestle chocolate.

While I liked the idea of the WESCB, I think it failed me in execution. There was way too much peanut flavor that totally overwhelmed everything else, losing the potential of the other flavor components. An O.

This brick of Cote d’Or Lait Noisettes (that’s milk hazelnuts) was part of my friend Neil’s Dutch candy haul. It really stood out because it was ginormous. Its size plus its pretty paper wrapper made it look like a fancy bar of soap.

The bar was so thick, in fact, that it was a bit intimidating. I couldn’t imagine how I would gnaw through the thing.

Fortunately, removing the paper wrapper revealed that the bar was actually divided height-wise into two thinner slabs, each foil wrapped and reasonably proportioned.

The underside of the bar was quite pebbly with all the hazelnut bits. The smell of the bar, however, diverged from its nutty appearance.

I found it a bit odd and hard to place – yogurt? or petrol? It wasn’t off-putting, exactly; just strange.

The individual slabs were further broken down into demarcated fingers, each beautifully stamped with the Cote d’Or name and elephant logo. I was impressed at how well the chocolate held its shape, especially since its milk chocolate-ness meant it had a super soft break.

The milk chocolate was absolutely lovely – thick and creamy, as milk chocolate should be. The hazelnut flavors came through loud and clear and provided a wonderful contrasting nuttiness.

I was greatly impressed at how fresh and flavorful this bar was. If only American mass produced milk chocolate could taste so good! An OM.

I thought I nabbed a candy scoop with these Almond Joy Pieces. A quick Google revealed that, they’ve been out for nearly a year now, and Candy Addict and Candy Blog’s already covered them! Guess it just took me a while to come across them in stores.

Hershey’s basically extrapolated their Reese’s Pieces concept to other candy bars (there are also Special Dark and York Pieces). The Almond Joy Pieces were described on the bag as “milk chocolate, coconut, and almond candy in a crunchy shell.”

While most of them were generally oblate spheroids, quite a few of them were wonkily shaped, and even the nicer ones were a little bumpy around the edges. I think this may be due to the bits of almond and coconut in the chocolate.

The shells were super crispy and loudly crunched in my mouth. They came in blue, brown, and cream.

The Pieces tasted of super sweet chocolate with coconut and an underlying nuttiness. The coconut had a nice floral finish. Every once in a while, I hit an almond-heavy Piece in which the almond overpowered the coconut.

There was a definite grittiness when the Pieces were nearly gone, due to the bits of almond and flakes of coconut. But the grittiness wasn’t unpleasant by any means, and there was never a risk of stuff getting lodged in my teeth.

I wish they were a tad less sweet, but otherwise, it’s a great mix of flavors, and I loved the crunchiness of the Pieces. They were poppable and tasty, and they crunched beautifully. An OM.

Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews used to be a mostly regional treat. When Just Born (most famous for their Peeps) bought them in 2003, they greatly expanded where it was sold. I found my bags at a dollar store here in Rochester.

Peanut Chews are peanuts in caramel and coated in a thin layer of dark or milk “chocolate”. Not much chocolate is actually in those layers – the ingredients list for both types have cocoa powder but also hydrogenated palm kernel oil.

Still, both chews were pleasant enough. The Milk Chocolatey bar’s “chocolate” flavor was barely noticeable and mostly imparted a light sweetness.

The caramel inside came across as rather dry because it was so chock full of peanuts, but it also had a pleasant, lasting chewiness. The caramel took a few chews to dissolve, but it didn’t get annoyingly stuck in my teeth.

In addition to being sweet and peanutty, the milk’s filling was also very salty. Too salty, in my opinion. Still, the bar wasn’t bad, like a Snickers without the nougat.

The dark version had the same chewy caramel and peanut filling, but it wasn’t as salty, and the “chocolate” coating wasn’t as sweet. I initially thought the sweeter milk coating just made the filling seem saltier by comparison, but then I checked the nutrition panel.

The milk version had 90 mg/sodium per 3 mini-bar serving, while the dark version had only 55 mg/sodium for the same serving size. I’m not sure why they made the milk version so much saltier, but I much preferred the better balanced dark chews.

Considering the fact that I’m not a big fan of peanutty sweets, I rather enjoyed these, and my friends did as well. They’re not a fine gourmet good, but they make for a nice treat. An O.