ZOMG, Candy!

Back in 2009, I devoted a whole week to See’s Chocolates as I reviewed an assorted box that they sent me. This week will be another week of See’s Chocolates reviews, only this time, I’ll be reviewing a box that I bought and picked out myself in Seattle.

On Monday, I covered four of their truffles. Today, I’ll review four Dark Chocolate without Nuts pieces (categories per See’s flavor guide).

Dark Bordeaux (TM) was simply described as “brown sugar buttercream”. It was a round truffle that was covered in dark chocolate and chocolate sprinkles.

The center was soft and sweet with an almost whipped texture. It reminded me of the first stages of cookie making when you whip sugar and butter together into a fluffy mixture of delicious fat and sugar.

The brown sugar and butter center was deliciously sweet, but also so sweet that it burned my throat a bit. The dark chocolate coating was mild with a cocoa-flavored finish.

Though I found it too sweet to have more than a little bite or two at a time, it was deliciously addictive enough to warrant an OM.

Dark Molasses Chip was “molasses honeycomb crisp”. One paper flute of these contained four 2-inch long fingers.

The honeycomb was sweet, crunchy, brittle foam candy. It was golden colored and golden honey flavored with a touch of amber sweetness and just a hint of sour fruitiness.

It crunched up easily, but it also got a bit stuck in my molars. The dark chocolate complimented the center well and a brought a bit of dusky cocoa finish to the end. A tasty enough OM.

Dark Butterchew was a “vanilla brown sugar caramel” coated in dark chocolate. That caramel was chewy with a smooth texture. It tasted sweet and buttery with no scorched notes.

The dark chocolate coating was a great foil to the sweet caramel. It could have been elevated with a hint of salt or scorch to the caramel, but it was still pretty darn good. OM.

Finally for today, Dark Patties were two disks of chocolate covered “chocolate vanilla caramel” per paper flute. This was one of my favorite treats of the box, thanks to its intense chocolate flavors.

The chewy caramel center was lightly sweet with strong cocoa notes and a bit of plumminess, while the dark chocolate coating was intense and bittersweet. An OMG.

One more set of See’s reviews to come!

Cookies? Why am I reviewing cookies on my candy blog? Because these Laceys Cookies are more or less made out of almond brittle and chocolate, so they’re basically candy. Plus they’re freakin’ delicious.

The Laceys were two rounds of thin almond brittle cookies, about 2.5 inches in diameter, sandwiching a generous layer of bittersweet chocolate. Flour was near the end of the ingredients list, and I really couldn’t tell that there was any flour in these at all in terms of texture or flavor.

The cookie portions were sweet and crisp with a solid crunch. I’d guess that they were about 50% chopped almonds and 50% butter toffee/brittle.

The generous proportion of almonds brought a wonderfully roasted nuttiness, and the cookies finished with a toasted butteriness from the toffee. That toffee cleaved and crumbled without any hint of doughy cookieness.

The bittersweet chocolate center had a great duskiness to it and a light sweetness that didn’t overwhelm the cookies. Instead, it complimented the nutty butteriness of the toffee cookies.

A delicious, quickly disappearing treat – OMG.

Last year at Sweets and Snacks, the Dark Roca won a Most Innovative New Product award. I picked up some samples of the Dark Roca and other Rocas, and like the Albanese Rainforest Gummi Frogs, I just found my tasting notes in an old notepad.

The Dark Roca (second from the left) was a dark version of the classic Almond Roca: a piece of chocolate almond toffee coated in dark chocolate and decorated with a few chocolate squiggles.

The chocolate toffee center was lightly sweet with a buttery finish. It cleaved cleanly but then got a bit chewy and stuck in my molars.

The whole thing had a great cocoa flavor, while whole almonds hidden inside added a lovely nuttiness. The dark chocolate that covered the toffee had a great deep dark chocolate duskiness.

I loved the cocoa depth of this treat – from the dark chocolate coating to the chocolate in the toffee, the whole thing was infused with a great cocoa depth. An OMG.

I also picked up Peppermint Roca (dark chocolate decorated with white stripes; lightly minty against the buttery toffee; an O), a Mocha Rocha (toffee studded with bits of coffee beans that gave it a strong, roasted coffee flavor, also an O), and Roca with different types of nuts (I think cashew and macadamia? Each tasty in their own right). The Dark Roca was easily my favorite of the bunch.

I first came across Moonstruck Chocolate Co. via their truffles. When I saw a selection of their chocolate bars at my local independent theater going for $3.75 (a bit less than their usual price), I snatched up the Milk Chocolate Sea Salt Toffee and the Dark Chocolate Chile Variado to try. I’ll cover the former today and the latter on Wednesday.

The Milk Chocolate Sea Salt Toffee bar was actually milk chocolate with toffee and almond bits. The bar was gorgeously decorated: lightly scored into segments and stamped with stars and the Moonstruck logo in the center.

The bar was surprisingly snappy for a milk bar and broke easily along the scored lines, exposing bits of dark brown toffee and white almond bits. The milk chocolate was lovely, with a rich, creamy caramel flavor.

The crunchy bits of roasted almonds added a great nuttiness and a hint of salt that played off the sweet milk chocolate base. The toffee bits added a crunchy crumble and extra toasted sugar sweetness.

This was one of the best balanced milk chocolate bars that I’ve ever had. The milk chocolate was sweet but not overly so, without any of the throat searing burn that milk chocolate can have, and the inclusions added a contrast of flavor and texture.

I would keep this bar around for snacking purposes. A solid OM.

Just when I thought the “just add bacon” trend was running its course, I got these free samples of Marich Premium Chocolates‘ newest bacon treats: Double Chocolate Bacon Pretzels and Milk Chocolate Bacon Toffee.

The Double Chocolate Bacon Pretzels were little balls about a half inch in diameter that smelled strongly of smoky meat. Each candy’s center was a crunchy pretzel ball, covered with a thin layer of dark chocolate and a thicker layer of white chocolate.

The chocolate coatings were sweet and creamy with a smoky, meaty undertone. The pretzel center added a great salty, starchy crunch that balanced out the melting sweet chocolate.

I’m torn on how much I liked these. On the one hand, sweet and salty and melting and crunchy always makes for a great taste experience.

On the other hand, the bacon aspect added a meaty aftertaste that was sort of odd. I think I may have liked this better without the bacon aspect. An O.

The Milk Chocolate Bacon Toffee pieces were rounded, flattened cubes that were slightly larger than the Bacon Pretzels. The toffee centers were crunchy and cleaved cleanly

Tiny bits of bacon were distributed throughout the toffee and gave it a bacon-bitty flavor. Those bacon bits could be seen and tasted but didn’t change the texture of the toffee.

The milk chocolate layer was quite thick with a sweet flavor and a creamy melt. It contrasted nicely with the crunchy and salty toffee center.

In this case, I think the bacon gave the chocolate and toffee an extra dimension that elevated the overall experience. An OM.

This bar of Sirius Karamellu Nizza (say that last part carefully) came all the way from Iceland! My friends Jane and Nate went there on their honeymoon, and they were thoughtful enough to send me candy that they bought on their trip.

The Sirius Karamellu Nizza was translated on the underside of the wrapper to milk chocolate with toffee. The bar was scored into six segments, and each was imprinted with the Sirius logo.

The milk chocolate was full of little bits of crunchy toffee bits. The chocolate portion had a thick and creamy melt and tasted lightly sweet, with notes of caramel.

The toffee bits shattered cleanly between my teeth. They had a great buttery flavor that was a nice foil to the lightly sweet milk chocolate, and their crunchiness contrasted with the melting chocolate as well.

I wish this bar was available in the U.S. It was so well-balanced and delicious – an OM. There was also a licorice version that I probably won’t review since I don’t like black licorice.

Benita’s Peanut Brittle (warning: website annoyingly plays music upon opening) had their big debut at Sweets and Snacks this year, where they snagged a primo spot in Innovation Alley. My box was a free sample from the Expo.

Benita’s is still a small company, so their brittle was all handmade. The packaging was wonderfully thoughtful. The gold, beribboned box contained a plastic bag of brittle and a golden twist tie for resealing the bag once you opened it.

It was a softer brittle than others – some bits of it shattered as normal brittle does, but most of it was chewy. The mix of cracking and chewy brittle plus peanuts made for an interesting texture.

The flavors were great as well. The brittle portion tasted of gold caramel and butterscotch with a great, buttery sweetness to the finish, while the peanuts were flavorful and roasty.

Between the chewiness and the peanuts + caramel flavors, it reminded me of a Snickers bar without the chocolate. I thought it was great and especially liked the buttery complexity of the treat. An OM.

I received this box of Uncle Zeke’s Old Fashioned Cracked Butterscotch, or Zeke’s Butterscotch, for short, as a free sample from the manufacturer. My only experience with butterscotch has been with the little gold Brach’s discs, and I didn’t know what to expect from the Old Fashioned moniker.

The butterscotch came in shards of various sizes dusted in powdered sugar to keep it from sticking to itself. It smelled liked buttery caramel with scorchy notes that were almost sour in their intensity.

The texture was really interesting – there was both a button and a sticker on the packaging with the instructions, “Suck, don’t chew!” I’m still deciding what I can do with my button for maximum humor impact.

The pieces were hard and, if broken sharply, would cleave with a smooth break. Once it warmed up in my mouth, however, it took on a stiffly pliable texture that increasingly softened as it warmed and melted.

It was just like a Now and Later in texture. If I had tried to chew it, it definitely would’ve gotten cemented in my teeth.

It had a round, buttery sweetness to it, with scorchy undertones in the finish. The flavor is reminiscent of Werther’s Originals but with a bit more complexity thanks to the high quality of the ingredients (real butter, pure cane sugar, and molasses) that went in it. It was definitely a far cry above the disc version.

This was an unusual and tasty treat to be slowly enjoyed in small doses. I sprinkled some in a recent batch of brownies that I made – SO GOOD! An OM.

If you’d like to try these for yourself, Zeke’s is letting me give away a box to one lucky reader. Leave a comment on this post about what I should do with my “Suck, don’t chew” button by June 13, 11:59 PM EST (let’s keep it PG-13, please). Make sure you put a working email address in the email field. Only I’ll be able to see it, and I’ll only use it to contact the randomly select a winner. U.S. readers only please.

And if you don’t win this giveaway, keep an eye on their Facebook page. It looks like they do giveaways through different blogs on a fairly regular basis.

Today I’m reviewing a second Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Bar on the heels of Wednesday’s review (that I briefly accidentally posted on Tuesday; oops!). This time, it’s toffee with walnuts and pecans. Here’s its epic description from the back of the box:

“The beauty of caramelized sugar reveals itself in flying colors when mixed with butter and artisinal sea salt to create rich toffee. Add walnuts and pecans to that toffee, then pair it all with our sophisticated deep, dark chocolate…”

This solid bar was scored into 8 rectangles. Mine had slightly bloomed, but I didn’t notice any detriment to its flavor or texture.

It had a sharp snap that revealed bits of toffee and nuts along the break. The roasted nuts and cleanly cleaving toffee added a pleasant, dry crunch that made me want to chomp this bar rather than let it melt.

The nuttiness of this bar was immediately noticeable. Walnut’s mild, acrid nuttiness and pecan’s darker nutty tinge were both present, and the whole thing finished on a strongly salty note.

The toffee added a light sweetness. Though I didn’t get any caramel complexity, the sweetness played off the salty and nutty quite well. It would’ve been nice to get more scorchiness, but it served its role just fine as is.

I’ll call this bar a win for Trader Joe’s. Though I thought it was a tad too salty at the finish, I enjoyed the toffee and loved the strength of flavor of the nuts. An OM.

Endangered Species is a brand that I’ve had a few times but only properly reviewed once. A sale at Whole Foods prompted me to pick up a couple of bars for review.

Their gimmick is that they give 10% of their profits for animal conservation. As an added plus, their cacao is “100% ethically traded”, which I think is in the spirit of Fair Trade without the full certification.

Each flavor is branded with an endangered animal, and the inside of the wrapper describes the animal and their plight. The Dark Chocolate with Hazelnut Toffee was the black rhino.

The beautifully tempered bar was scored into 12 squares, each imprinted with their tree logo. The 72% dark chocolate had a sharp snap and broke pretty cleanly along the breaks.

That chocolate was dry with a smooth, non-creamy melt with no astringency. Its flavor was that of dusky cocoa powder with a light sweetness.

The toffee bits were sprinkled throughout the bar. They were pretty tiny and added a light crunch and little flashes of sweetness.

I didn’t get any buttery toffee notes, but there was a light but noticeable nuttiness from the hazelnuts. I wish the toffee made more of a noticeable impact.

An OM, mostly carried by the great flavor of the chocolate, with a lament about the missed toffee opportunity.