ZOMG, Candy!

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 this Vosges Bapchi’s Caramel Toffee Bar along with the Organic Enchanted Mushroom that I reviewed on Monday. It’s made of 45% deep milk chocolate, sweet butter toffee, walnuts, and pecans.

The first, immediately noticeable thing about this bar was the toffee. Holy cow was it delicious!

The toffee cleaved cleanly with a great, satisfying crunch. It tasted deep and scorched with a light hint of saltiness that really highlighted the sweetness of the toffee and chocolate.

The chocolate was thick with caramel notes. There was a light nuttiness from the walnuts and pecans that was sparsely distributed. The nuts weren’t in every bite, but their presence, when it was there, was appreciated.

If my boyfriend hadn’t been sitting next to me while I tasted this bar, I would’ve polished off the whole thing on my own. Instead, I had to share it – and the two of us polished it off within minutes.

The combination of sweet and salty crunchy toffee and dusky, thick milk chocolate was irresistible. A ZOMG!

I recently had a couple of spare minutes around Grand Central in New York City and managed to find my way to a Neuhaus shop. I picked up 3 truffles, sold by weight, for just under $8.

I was so eager to try them that I photographed and tasted them on my shuttle bus to JFK instead of waiting until I could get them home.

First up is a Caramel Truffle, which was described as “caramel butter cream dusted with intense cocoa powder.” It had a slight chocolate shell with a dry and crumbly ganache inside.

I loved the cocoa powder that it was dusted in. It was dry and chocolatey while being totally devoid of bitterness.

The caramel ganache didn’t taste like much besides a general fruity sweetness that was a bit too heavy for my taste. I wish that there was more complexity to this. An O.

Next is the Tiramisu, “butter cream with tiramisu taste, covered with ‘Amaretti’ biscuits.” Its chocolate shell carried a nice crunch from the bits of almond amaretti cookies. I have no idea how they kept those cookies fresh and crunchy, but kudos to them for that!

The inner ganache had a thin, fatty melt. It had a strong, fruity booziness with a definite alcoholic finish that tasted of almond liqueur.

My only issue with this was that it lacked any coffee flavors. Espresso is an important part of any tiramisu recipe, so its absence was noticeable. But the truffle was pretty delicious, even without it. An OM.

Finally, what I call the Toffee Star (I couldn’t find its official name). Neuhaus has other Stars, which are described as such: “These handmade icon pralines with their very recognizable shape were created by Neuhaus in 1958 for the World Exhibition in Brussels.”

The shape was indeed distinctive, like a little dumpling or a squashed tri-corner hat. The center was a rich, buttery chocolate caramel surrounded by a thin layer of chewy toffee, all covered by a thin layer of chocolate.

The center had a bright, fruity sweetness that was tempered at the end with a dark, cocoa-y finish. Bits of toffee embedded throughout added a light crunch and a complex butterscotchiness.

The mix of flavors and textures was just divine. I found it a hair too sweet to eat all day, thus depriving it of that extra Z, but it still manages to earn an OMG!

On Wednesday, I reviewed 2 of the 3 confections that I got to try as free samples from DGZ Chocolates. Today, I’ll review the third, the Toffarazzi, which is their best seller. And for good reason!

My half-pound box contained 9 Toffarazzi, described on the website as, “a scrumptious almond butter crisp covered with fine Swiss recipe chocolate and fresh roasted almond bits.”

Each nearly 2-inch square was a solid chunk of hard toffee with bits of almond mixed in. That toffee was then enrobed in chocolate and covered with bits of almond.

The toffee was absolutely gorgeous – it was nicely crisp and cleaved cleanly and then crumbled upon being chewed. Unlike other toffees, this never built up in the molars; it just crumbled and melted on the tongue.

It tasted of the deep complexity of burnt sugar. There was just the perfect hint of an edge of bitter toastiness that I absolutely love in my toffee.

The almond and chocolate were supporting players here. The almonds added just a hint of light nuttiness, while the chocolate brought a touch of sweetness.

But to me, this was all about the toffee. And boy was it good toffee! An OMG for a fine treat that I would heartily recommend.

I have a soft spot for Vosges Chocolates and have reviewed them often in the past. They’re usually beyond my regular budget, but this Gingerbread Toffee bar was on sale after the holidays. Vosges at half off? I couldn’t resist!

The bar was described as gingerbread spiced toffee, dark chocolate, and 65% cacao. The box’s front had some nice glamor shots of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and ginger. All the spices that you need for gingerbread!

The bar smells deeply of cocoa with a light spiciness around the edges. The chocolate has nice spice notes, mostly of ginger with just a hint of nutmeg.

Bits of toffee are sprinkled throughout the bar. They are the best part of the whole thing! They’ve got a light, dry, brittle crunchiness with no stickiness that contrasts nicely with the smooth melt of the chocolate. And flavor-wise, they add awesome scorched flavors of toffee.

The chocolate itself has a light, coffee-scented burnt finish with a deep cocoa duskiness. I do believe there are sprinkles of sea salt in the bar as well, which add flashes of flavor intensity.

This bar was perfectly balanced in every way. It was a great mix of flavors and textures. An enthusiastic ZOMG!

This Cadbury Soft English Toffee bar caught my eye in the candy aisle at Wegman’s because of the soft English toffee part. In England, toffee is what we’d call caramel.

In the case of this bar, the soft English toffee refers to a smooth, flowing caramel. It’s sweet and sticky, with a gorgeous golden hue.

The bar is segmented into square pillows, each stamped with the Cadbury logo. I think each pillow is supposed to completely contain the English toffee filling, but some of my breaks oozed.

The milk chocolate is thick and cloying, with a slight grain as it melts. It tastes dusky, with buttery notes and a throat-burning sweetness.

The caramel filling tasted strongly of butterscotch. Together with the sweet milk chocolate, this bar was a total sugar bomb.

Cadbury’s Soft English Toffee bar was crazy sweet and intensely decadent. It was too sweet for my taste, but some friends of mine enjoyed it and quickly gobbled it up. An O.

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.

When I was a kid, I always associated Tolberone with glamor. I think it’s because they used to be mainly available in Duty Free stores, and I therefore associated them with glamorous international travel.

They’re quite widely available these days – I picked up this dark chocolate Tolberone at Wegmans, when I was grocery shopping – probably because they’re now distributed by Kraft.

The box describes it as “Swiss dark chocolate with honey and almond nougat” (regular Toblerones are Swiss milk chocolate). It’s got a unique triangular shape broken into little mountain segments.

The segments are stamped with the Toblerone name and wrapped in a flimsy silver foil. I had a really hard time breaking them up.

When I used my hands, I got chocolate smeared all over them because I had to grip the chocolate so hard. When I tried to bite off a segment, the peaks just hurt the roof of my mouth.

Taste-wise, though, I have no complaints. The dark chocolate was deep, with strong cocoa notes and a dark fruitiness. The finish was just shy of bitter – and that’s a good thing! It pushes the deepness of the cocoa but stops just shy of becoming unpleasant.

The bar was chock full of chunks of almond and bits of sweet, honey-flavored toffee. The almonds were crunchy and the toffee was crisp, and their texture contrasted nicely with the smooth, thick melt of the chocolate.

There’s a reason why Toblerone is a classic – they know what they’re doing, and they do it well! If only the mountains were a tad easier to cleave… An OM.

P.S. Did you know that there’s a bear hiding in the Toblerone mountain? Give it another look!

These Espresso Pillows are yet another purchase from Trader Joe’s arsenal of candy, this time from the candy display near the checkout counter. I nearly missed them, despite their classy looking tins, and I’m glad I didn’t.

They’re billed as “crunchy toffeed espresso bits covered in dark chocolate”. I’m not sure where the pillow part fits in, exactly, as they’re neither pillow soft nor pillow shaped. Each “pillow” is somewhere between the size of a Tic Tac and a jelly bean.

The dark chocolate is sweet, though unremarkable. It does its job just fine, though, paring well with the toffee centers.

The espresso toffee has a great texture. It cleaves with a clean crunch, which gives way to a bitter coffee edge on buttery toffee sweetness.

These things are AWESOME to crunch on. They have the flavor profile of chocolate-covered espresso beans, but they lack the grit of actual beans. They’re addictively tasty, warranting a ZOMG! and a stop to pick up more next time I’m near a Trader Joe’s.

If you want a second opinion, check out Cybele’s Candy Blog take.

Chef Eric Clayton, the executive pastry chef and chocolatier for Derry Church Artisan Chocolates, emailed me about sending me some free samples of his chocolates. After checking out the gorgeous photos and sumptuous descriptions on their website, how could I resist? [Note: All text in quotes is taken from the website descriptions]

Their chocolates are named after different cities. I got an all dark assortment: the Cairo, London, New Orleans, Paris, Plymouth, Savannah, Tangier, and Veracruz. I’ll do the first four today, and the next four will be reviewed tomorrow.

The Cairo contained “a sweet date paste made from plump, succulent Medjool dates and a touch of expensive, thick, syruppy, aged balsamic vinegar.” That circle on top was “a small disk of jaggery cake (brown sugar & molasses) [that] adorns the triangle.”

I found the jaggery cake to bring a brown sugar overload. The chocolate ganache itself has a sour tinge to it from the balsamic vinegar. The date paste was throat-burningly sweet. I respected the creative and interesting flavor combo, but it was too sweet for me.

The London was a butter toffee sandwiched between “a deep, dark, brooding 70% European bittersweet chocolate” and then coated in “roasted crushed almond.” I had saved a piece of this to photograph for a cross section, but someone at work ate it before I could. I still haven’t tracked down the candy thief…

The toffee layer cleaved cleanly. It was lovely and smooth, but sadly, there was not much toffee/burnt sugar/butter flavor to it. Instead, the piece mostly tasted of the roasted almonds that it was coated in.

The New Orleans was a bananas foster flavored truffle. Bananas foster is traditionally “made with sliced ripe bananas and a brown sugar/rum sauce.” In the truffle, “this entire delicious concoction is pureed smooth and blended into a smooth, creamy fine European milk chocolate ganache and then enrobed in a 70% bittersweet couverture.”

It seemed sweet and tasted strongly of toffee and rum notes. The flavor of bitter cocoa ran throughout, but it also carried a sweet finish. I didn’t get any banana notes, but that’s probably for the better, as I’m not a huge fan of banana-flavored candy.

Paris was a lovely, large, round, and bumpy dark chocolate rose-looking truffle. It was comprised of homemade strawberry jam and a French white buttercream.

The center was a sticky soft cream that was super fruity. The strawberry jam was extremely sweet, but it was tasty and genuine! It was a great flavor that went well with the caramel note to the chocolate’s finish.

Derry Church’s chocolates were well made and lovely, with interesting flavor combinations. So far, the Cairo, London, and New Orleans get Os, while the Paris gets an OM. Stay tuned for Wednesday – I liked the latter half of the alphabet even more!