ZOMG, Candy!

I received a bag of Surf Sweets Fruity Hearts as free samples from the manufacturer. The press release said that they were launched in time for Valentine’s Day, though it was never explicit about whether these were a limited holiday edition or not.

They were, however, explicit about touting all the benefits to the Surf Sweets line. These are organic, gluten-free, and vegan. No big surprise: they’re available at Whole Foods.

The Fruity Hearts were watermelon and cherry flavored. They were difficult to visually distinguish. Both were pink though my lighting made them look red in the photo; the watermelon was a slightly lighter shade.

The texture reminded me of fruit gems. They were soft enough for me to easily bite right through, exposing slick and shiny surfaces.

There was a slight sproinginess when I chewed them. The surface was covered with a crunchy granulated sugar that added a nice textural contrast.

Watermelon was sweet and floral with a brightly fruity finish. It reminded me of a mellow, more natural version of a watermelon Jolly Rancher.

Cherry was also brightly fruity but had a darker edge with plummy notes. It reminded me of cherry Popsicles.

I enjoyed the texture and flavor intensity of these. Watermelon and cherry aren’t my favorite candy flavors in general, but these are seasonally appropriate choices.

It’s nice that Surf Sweets takes extra care with their ingredients, but it’s even better that their organicness and wholesomeness doesn’t come at the expense of deliciousness. An OM.

Today I’m reviewing the rest of my free samples of sweetriot‘s new riotBar line: the pure 70% and pure 85% dark chocolate bars. I covered the 60% dark chocolate with crunchy cacao nibs on Wednesday.

Like the 60%, both of these bars were too lightly scored to be useful for clean snapping. The 70% (top) had a sharp initial snap but softened as it was chewed.

The melt was smooth and matte. It started off lightly sweet before developing a hint of bitterness, then finishing with a brighter, fruitier sweetness than the start.

There was a bit of astringency to the end that made me want a drink of water afterwards, but it was mild enough to not be off-putting. An OM.

The 85% was even snappier. The melt wasn’t much fun, as it was very dry and astringent.

The flavor profile began with a sharply bright fruitiness that was quite vibrant. The finish, however, was quite astringent and left a lingering bitterness that I didn’t care for. An O for the strong start, at least.

sweetriot recently sent me free samples of their new line of chocolate riotBars. Before the riotBar additions, they sold chocolate in unBars, which were in thick, unwieldy blocks. I have an unBar that’s been kicking around my stash for a while. I’ve yet to open it because it seemed so cumbersome to eat.

sweetriot is also known for their cacao nibs, which I reviewed ages ago. It’s nice to see that a chocolate company committed to using fair trade cacao has prospered over the years.

Today, I’m reviewing the pure 60% dark chocolate with crunchy cacao nibs. Friday I’ll review the pure 70% and pure 85% dark chocolate bars.

The 100g bar was lightly scored into a 10 x 3 grid. Each rectangle of chocolate had 20 calories, which is a nice nod to portion control, except the scoring was too shallow to be that helpful for clean breaking.

The chocolate had a thick, sharp snap. If you look closely, you can see a nib in the break line. Those nibs added a nice, dry crunch with minimal grittiness and astringency. The chocolate had a lovely, matte melt around the nibs.

The chocolate was sweet and fruity with middle cherry notes and a vibrant cocoa finish. I appreciated the distinct and assertive flavor complexity.

I really enjoyed the texture of the nibs mixed with the chocolate. It made from fun chomping and yielded great, varying chocolate flavors. An OM.

I’d never heard of The Tea Room brand of chocolate bars until I saw a bunch of them at Cost Plus World Market. Having already filled my basket with candies, I restricted myself to the one bar that sounded most appealing to me: Honeybush Caramel.

The bar is described on the box as, “exquisite milk chocolate infused with a honeybush tea of mildly sweet caramel and honey undertones.” The base of the bar was a 38% organic milk chocolate.

The chocolate was soft with no snap. It melted thickly, coating my tongue, and had just a hint of grain that marred its smoothness.

It had the promised caramel notes as well as a slightly tannic edge of tea. The chocolate was sweet, but not too sweet, with orange zest undertones to the finish.

I really enjoyed this bar. It was a well done basic milk chocolate bar with just enough of a twist to make it interesting. An OM.

On Monday, I covered the Angell Crisp bar. Today, I’ll review its darker (but still fair trade and organic) counterpart, the Dark Angell. It was comprised of “dark chocolate, rich cocoa, and [an] almond center.”

I’ll give it style points for the name, which conjures up an expectation of sinful deliciousness. Unfortunately, the bar fell short of my expectations.

My bar showed a hint of bloom, but it wasn’t enough to have a noticeable impact on the taste or texture. The thin dark chocolate shell was brighter and fruitier than the milk chocolate of the Angell Crisp, which actually made the dark chocolate seem sweeter. The dark also had diminished cocoa flavors compared the milk.

The filling was a mix of crushed almonds and a chocolate ganache that tasted like the same chocolate of the shell. The almonds were mostly smashed to gritty smithereens, though I did come across at least one slightly larger chunk (visible in the below photo) that managed to retain some toothiness.

The almonds lacked crunch. Instead, they were almost chewy, like they’d gone stale or simply taken on moisture. Perhaps the small bits had too high a surface area to volume ratio? They brought minimal nuttiness and instead served to dry out the bar and its mouthfeel.

I liked the chocolate component to this bar, but it went all wrong with the almonds. Those nuts were broken into too small pieces and lost everything that’s great about nuts in chocolate: the added flavor and crunch factor were gone. A missed opportunity and an O.

I found this Angell Crisp bar in a food co-op in NYC. On Wednesday, I’ll review the Dark Angel version. The Angell Crisp wrapper promised, “milk chocolate; crispy creamy chocolate center”, all wrapped up in an organic and fair trade candy bar.

My first impression upon biting into this bar was, “Hmm… It tastes good for you.” It had this strange, almost vegetal edge to the flavor of the chocolate and a wholesome heaviness to the crisps. Neither was bad; just different.

It was impossible to tell where the chocolate shell ended and the creamy chocolate center began. The bar melted in my fingers, making for an annoying photo shoot.

The chocolate tasted almost throat-burningly sweet, despite its dark appearance. As I said before, it had a strange edge to it that reminded me of vegetables – beets maybe? – and a chocolate syrup finish.

The rice crisps had a stale mouthfeel and reminded me of puffed wheat cereal. They didn’t have a dry crisp that dissolved into airiness. Instead, they chewed up with a bit of texture to it, perhaps because they were made of brown rice.

It was an okay, if rather wholesome feeling treat. I finished off the whole bar, but I don’t think I’d buy it again, especially since the bars were $2 each. An O.

I got to try this Green and Black’s Peanut bar as a free sample from the company. They also sent along a Toffee and 70% Dark bar, but I’ve already reviewed those, so just the Peanut today.

The wrapper calls it “milk chocolate with caramelized peanuts and a hint of sea salt” and bills the cocoa content at 37%.

The milk chocolate base is thick and lightly nutty with caramel notes. The peanuts are slightly salty. The caramelization is quite nice and adds a sweet burnt sugar note to the peanuts’ flavor.

I wasn’t a big fan of the texture of the peanuts. They’re soft nuts with a relatively mushy texture, and here they blend right into the texture of the chocolate and makes it slightly drier.

All in all, a fine bar but not exactly my thing (I’m not a huge fan of peanuts). An O.

If you’d like to try them yourself, Green and Black’s is letting me give some bars away to one lucky reader in honor of Mother’s Day. That’s this Sunday for you U.S. readers! Leave a comment about how you celebrate Mother’s Day by 11:59 PM EST on Saturday, May 7th, and I’ll choose one random commenter to win. U.S. readers only please, and make sure to leave a valid email address in the e-mail field.

These miniature Green and Black’s bars came in my Chocolate Gift Pack, courtesy of the NCA. We’ll start with the Dark 70%.

Both bars were lightly scored into 12 rectangular segments, each prettily imprinted with Green and Black’s apostrophe/leaf logo.

The Dark 70% was simply described as “dark chocolate with 70% cocoa content.” It had incredibly deep burnt coffee notes and a strong earthy intensity.

I enjoyed the start, but the finish was rather chalky and lightly astringent. If it weren’t for that lingering unpleasantness, it would merit an OM. With the finish that it does have, an O.

The Toffee was described as “milk chocolate with toffee.” The milk chocolate on its own was only so-so. It was grainy and lacked any thickness to the melt.

The toffee was what really made this treat. It had a great crunch and a clean cleave. Strong notes of butterscotch candy (think Brach’s discs) were tempered with a slight sourness and saltiness that really brought out the toffee notes.

This was quite enjoyable. Not nearly as delicious as Vosges’s take on milk chocolate and toffee, but definitely far cheaper and decently delicious for the dinero. An OM.

I bought two Tom and Sally’s 100% Organic Skinny Bars at a little chocolate shop near the Berkshires in Massachusetts. I tried to look up more about them, but Google seems to think there’s something scary about their website.

First up, a Belgian 41% milk chocolate infused with cocoa nibs. The chocolate was dark for a milk bar and scored into 6 even sections.

It had a weird plasticky, moldy undertone that was rather off-putting. The melt was mostly smooth, except where it was broken up with the crunch of the cocoa nibs.

While I wanted to like this bar for its organic-label, the chocolate was far from scrumptious, thanks to that weird undertone. An O.

The other bar was a Belgian 41% milk chocolate infused with cinnamon and nutmeg.

It smelled amazing! Sweet with the undertone of cinnamon spice. I wanted to mix it into tea and drink it up.

Unfortunately, the heavy spice scent was the result of an overly spiced bar. The strong presence of spices made the chocolate extremely gritty and astringent.

I found it unpalatable and couldn’t manage a second bite. A –.

It’s not every day that you run into chocolate with mushrooms, so I just had to pick up this Vosges Organic Enchanted Mushroom. Even if it did cost a bit more than regular Vosges bars (already expensive) because of its organic-ness.

This bar was comprised of Reishi mushrooms, walnuts, and 66% dark chocolate. Its texture was lightly gritty, which I attributed to the Reishi mushroom powder. I didn’t notice any textural contribution from the walnuts, though they did add a light nuttiness.

The chocolate tasted dark and woodsy with a strong fruitiness and a lightly astringent finish. I got strong flavors of sweet, genuine, Ceylon cinnamon, though it wasn’t in the ingredients list.

It was unusual and interesting but not tasty enough for me to want to buy it again. An O.