ZOMG, Candy!

While I spent my spring break in the chilly to frigid northeast, my roommate and other friends went south. I was jealous of their sunshine and tans, but at least my friends were thoughtful enough to bring me candy gifts from their warmer climes! Specifically, I got a box of assorted pralines from one of New Orleans’ candy institutions, Southern Candymakers.

I’d only known of praline as a truffle filling. Since I received this box, I’ve read more about them on Wikipedia. In America, a praline can also refer to candies made from nuts and sugar. In New Orleans, pralines are made with pecans and extra cream. My assorted box included regular, rum, and chocolate pralines made with pecans and a coconut praline with no additional nuts.

They came in a pretty box with nice seal. Unfortunately, either the box was poorly sealed on the bottom or got damaged a bit in transit - the bottom flaps didn’t fully close, and sugar scattered everywhere when I picked it up. That made me sad for two reasons: the resulting mess and the loss of candy!

The original praline featured brown sugar and pecans. Depending on the chunk you bite, it’s either a great sugar-coated pecan in which the nutty pecan flavor comes through wonderfully, or it’s pure brown sugar overload.

I originally identified the rum praline as maple. Visually, it looks just like the original, but the sugar has lovely maple notes to it. In fact, I’m not actually sure which praline is which. It could be that this is the original while the brown sugary one is rum. At any rate, I like this one better, as the maple lets the pecan flavor cut through better, and the praline is less cloying overall.

Coconut was basically just brown sugar and coconut. It was dried coconut rather than fresh, but it tasted genuine and was pretty good.

Finally, the chocolate one was my favorite. It doesn’t taste strongly of chocolate, exactly. Instead, it imparts a nice, deep cocoa flavor to the sugar, which really adds to the complexity and makes the praline quite enjoyable.

I give the chocolate an OM. The others get Os. My friends get ZOMG!s for being so thoughtful. And I’ve got a nice case of sugar shock from eating all these pralines.

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!

I’m sure I left y’all on the edge of your computer chairs last Friday when I promised weird Japanese Kit Kat reviews. Here are the remaining three in order of escalating weirdness.

Apple and chocolate aren’t an unheard of combination, but I’ve not enjoyed it in the past. In the Kit Kat iteration, it’s less bad, but it’s still not good.

Visually, it seems just like a normal Kit Kat. Though it smells strongly of Fuji apples, it initially tastes mostly of chocolate. Then the apple comes in. It’s weird and unpleasant and kind of earthy, more like an apple core than an apple. An O.

Next up, Muscat grape. Or, more specifically, Muscat of Alexandria. I don’t really know if a Muscat grape is any more special than the white seedless grapes you’d pick up at your local supermarket, and I also don’t know what makes Muscat of Alexandria special enough to warrant its own wikipedia entry. Or its own Kit Kat flavor.

I also don’t know why people thought grape flavored chocolate would be worth making. This bar is white chocolate with a pale green tinge, at once pretty and alien. I think it smells more like lychee than grape, but the taste is white grape all the way through. Would you want to eat grapes and white chocolate in the same bite? I wouldn’t, but I did try this bar, and I didn’t like it. An O.

Finally, the mystery flavored Kit Kat. I don’t know Japanese, but I know some Chinese, and there’s a lot of character overlap. I could make out the characters for “university” on here, which didn’t help at all. I guessed that it was candied sweet potato with black sesame seeds. Cassie had no clue, and my boyfriend thought it may be tofu. We consulted my friend Michael, who lives in Kobe. Turns out I was sort of right; it is sweet potato and sesame.

The “university” part was to signal that it was a limited edition bar, released for exam session when Japanese students test to get into universities. Just goes to show you how candy can teach you about other cultures. Can you imagine an SAT Kit Kat being sold in the U.S.?

This was another white chocolate bar, tinged pale yellow. It was slightly nutty with toastiness that may have come from the wafers. I don’t really get sweet potato, exactly. The white chocolate is the most prominent flavor. Another O.

Thanks for the flavor adventure, Cassie! I enjoyed tasting them, even if the flavors weren’t that enjoyable. Guess there’s a reason they’re not widely available outside of Japan. Now, if only I could find a soy sauce flavored Kit Kat…

When my friend Cassie went to Japan for a fun trip with her boyfriend (so jealous, by the way), she offered to bring me back candy. I eagerly requested Kit Kats. Why Kit Kats, a run-of-the-mill candy that’s all over the U.S.? Because the Japanese make about a zillion Kit Kats in strange flavors, and I wanted in. Cassie obliged, for which I am grateful. I’ll review the two normal ones today and make y’all wait until Monday for the weird ones.

Based on the packaging, this bar was either strawberry or strawberries and cream flavored, both pretty standard flavor combinations that go well with chocolate. I’m guessing that it’s strawberries and cream, based on the bar’s lovely, creamy shade of pink. All the boxed Kit Kats Cassie bought came in packs of four fingers separated into two individually sealed packs of pairs. Good for freshness; bad for the environment.

Like all Kit Kats, this was chocolate over crisp wafers. The strawberry was white chocolate that smelled lovely and floral. The strawberry flavor was sweet and genuine, which I appreciated, even though I found it overly sweet. An O from me, but I think others would like it more.

The Kit Kat Cookies that Cassie brought me was just one long, slightly larger finger. After I tasted it, I wished that I had a four pack of them. It was my favorite of the bunch, basically a normal Kit Kat with an extra layer of chocolate cookie.

The milk chocolate was nice and dusky, making me think that Nestle treats the Japanese better by selling them nicer chocolate. While the cookie layer doesn’t add much to the texture, it really deepens the cocoa flavor of the bar. Highly enjoyable and OMG-worthy.

Have a nice weekend, and come back on Monday for the weird flavors!

I threw a chocolate tasting party ages ago and have been sitting on these tasting notes since then. Today, some quick hits for the last Friday (alas!) of my spring break. Part II will come Monday, when I’m back (boo!) in class.

Ghirardelli Duet, from their new line of Luxe Milk chocolates, pairs “creamy milk chocolate” with “rich dark chocolate”. It’s divided along it’s heighth axis so that it looks like a milk chocolate bar with a thin dark chocolate backing.

It had a woodsy smell with some tobacco notes to it. I found it surprisingly smoky. Its thick and creamy melt combined with its complex flavor earned it high praise at my party and from me. An OMG.

Lindt Madagascar is a single-origin 65% dark chocolate bar from their Excellence line. It has a cool melt with a fatty feel to it. The finish was quite enjoyably fruity. Another party favorite; another OMG.

The Cafe Tasse 77% was a holiday gift from my friend Steve. It’s a higher cacao percentage than the 60% noir bar I previously reviewed. It had a sharp snap and was unusually thick - in this case, a reference to its physical dimensions, not its melt - with an arid finish. An O.

More quick hits to come on Monday. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to eke out one last weekend of fun in Albany as our men’s hockey team takes on the ECAC championship playoffs.

I got a set of five Meiji Mini Candies from my friend Michael, who is originally from Japan. I’m still looking for a place where I can buy them in the states.

Let’s go left to right and top to bottom, starting with the chocolate sugar-shelled candies (possibly called Marble Chocolate?). These were slightly thicker than M&Ms. Either the chocolate had a slightly fruity finish, or the shells were flavored. They were agreeable enough and get an OM.

The next three were variation on a theme, lemon, yogurt (?), and strawberry. I love the little character thingies in the corner. Japan does ridiculously cute so well! These were all little spheroids with sugar shells around a sugary flavored centers.

Strawberry was lightly pastel pink. It tasted bright, with a slightly sour strawberry preserve taste. It was so genuine that I wouldn’t be surprised if I found seeds inside. OM.

Lemon was yellow and tasted bright, tart, and effervescent, like a candy version of lemon zest. OMG.

Yogurt (I think) was white and had a little blue alien instead of a lemon or strawberry head. It had a sour tinge to it and reminds me of those little yogurt jugs you can get in Asia. The Chinese name for them literally translates into “sour milk”. Not for me, but a pretty genuine representation of what they were going for. O.

I was all sad that I had lost my Poifull notes. Then I realized that I didn’t lose them; I’d just already reviewed them here. If you’re too lazy to click over, they got an OMG.

I would buy the whole assortment just for the lemon sugar thingies and the Poifull. Of course, ideally I could just buy the lemon sugar thingies and the Poifull on their own, but hey, variety is the spice of life.

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.

In addition to a bag of Crunch Ball Crispy Candy, Nana and Justin also mailed me a nice assortment of Hi-Chew candies in strawberry, grape, and green apple. They were so good that when Asian Food Grocer, an online retailer of Asian food, snacks, and candies contacted me with an offer to send me my choice of their products to review, I asked for a pack of pineapple flavored Hi-Chew. In hindsight, I should’ve asked for Hi-Chew in every flavor they sold; they’re good, and Asian Food Grocer sells Hi-Chew in flavors that I haven’t seen at my local Asian grocery store. Missed opportunity, I guess. But I’m not too sad, as I got other Asian candy goodies, the reviews for which will post later.

Let’s start with the three Hi-Chew from Nana and Justin.  If you’ve never had them before, Hi-Chew are small rectangular chewy candies with wonderfully bright fruit flavors. They come in a stick of individually wrapped candies, and their chew is fairy non-sticky and almost bouncy. I think they’re like the Starburst of Asia, but better because their fruit flavors actually taste like fruit. For example, I usually don’t especially like strawberry flavored candy, but I enjoyed the strawberry Hi-Chew because it tasted so genuine - you could almost taste a tinge of strawberry seeds.

Similarly, grape Hi-Chews actually taste like grapes, without any whiff of cough syrup artificial grape flavor. They taste like sweet black grapes. The apple didn’t taste at all like an apple Jolly Rancher. Its flavor was more subtle, more Fuji/Braeburn sweet than Granny Smith tart.

My favorite of the Hi-Chews I had was the pineapple. I can’t express often enough how Hi-Chew taste so vibrantly of actual fruit. The pineapple Hi-Chews were bright, sweet, slighty tart, and carried just a hint of the slight bitter astringency of a real pineapple’s core. Pineapple flavored candies aren’t too common in the U.S. I wish they were more ubiquitous, and I wish they all tasted like a pineapple Hi-Chew.

The pineapple Hi-Chew gets an OMG; the other flavors get an OM. Hi-Chew in general are pretty easy to find near the checkout counters of Asian grocery stores, though flavor selection does vary.