Well, DOTS went and did it again! To follow up with their limited edition Halloween DOTS and their Christmas DOTS, they now have a box of flavors for Valentine’s Day. I’m really pleased to see this holiday edition, as I’m a big fan of DOTS, so it’s fun to give the new ones a try. I really love the packaging design here, as with all of them, as it really captures the feeling of the season.

My delight was dimmed a little when I saw that the cherry vanilla made a return in this box. After tasting it in the Christmas box, it’s a flavor that I can go without. The pairing flavor is Passion fruit Vanilla, which is something I haven’t had in a candy before, so that certainly made up for any anticipation lost on the cherry flavor’s return. 

Cherry Vanilla: Just like the cherry DOT from the Christmas variety. Red with a white bottom. The flavor is the same as before: a bright, fruity, punchy cherry with a medicinal edge, matched with a creamy vanilla flavor. Second time around I liked it a bit better, but I still yearn for a strawberry or raspberry instead.

Passion Fruit Vanilla: Pink with a white bottom, the flavor is more raspberry and floral, with notes of perfume. Tasty! I don’t notice the vanilla as much here, which is fine with me since the flavor on it’s own is so nice.

I thought this mix of flavors was much more successful in terms of flavor, than the Christmas variety. I can see these as some adorable toppers for some Valentine’s Day cupcakes, or just arranged in a pretty bowl for your sweetheart.

Rating: Will Buy Again

Links DOTS Website

With Valentine’s Day only a few weeks away, I often get asked for chocolate and candy recommendations for gifts by friends and family. Being a candy enthusiast and all will lead to that, and over time I’ve acquired a few good ideas I’d like to share with you. So just in time for shopping, here’s a list of five sweet things to give to your sweetheart.

Please note that I have not received anything in payment from the companies mentioned here, I just think they’re great ideas.

1. Edible Chocolate Box from Charles Chocolates. Nothing says “I love You” like the traditional box of chocolates. Charles Chocolates takes it a step further by making the box edible as well. There’s many flavors and designs to choose from, so it’s easy to choose which the recipient will enjoy most. 

2. Good Quality Foreign Chocolate from Chocoshpere.com. Chocosphere carries all that great imported yet hard to find bars of chocolate. It’s easy to buy a few to make a gift set on your own. I highly recommend Amedai, Amano, El Rey, Michel Cluizel, Valrhona and Dolfin as personal favorites of mine.

3. Chocolate Silk Spa Gift Set from The Merry Chocoholic. ($34.50) A chocolate scented gift set that comes with body scrub, body butter and hand/body lotion. A good option for those who might not want to eat chocolate (gasp!) but still wants to indulge.

4. A Chocolatetelegram. For those out you in Europe, it’s a love letter and chocolate combined! Your sweetie will get a box with chocolates spelling out a message inside. A really cute idea.

5. Licorice Allsorts Earrings from ErikaPrice at Etsy.com. These cute earrings are a perfect option for the non chocolate eating lover in your life. The colorful licorice are nicely sculpted and a lot of fun.

The candy aisles for Valentine’s Day are always fun to explore. On one hand you get the traditional favorites: boxes of chocolates, NECCO’s Sweethearts candies, Russel Stover’s Cream Hearts, Cinnamon Hearts, and Gumm Lips just to name a few. Then there’s the seasonal limited editions that appear, some old favorites from last year and others the new kid on the block. These SweetTart Heart Gummies are one of those new kids, although I can’t say exactly if they’re rehash from last Valentine’s Day swag because I do not remember them. Sometimes candy just gets overlooked.

The hearts come in a bag whose design still reads “Wonka” to me still instead of “Valentine’s Day”. I blame it on the purple and blue being the dominant colors. There’s a little see through window so you can see the colorful hearts inside the bag.

Smell tart and artificially fruity like Jolly Ranchers The hearts are a little larger than a quarter, and have a dusting of sugar on them. The come in three colors: pink, purple, and a mix of both.

The bite is very soft and chewy, but thankfully not sticky. The flavor is tart and I’m reminded of the sour bunnies I had a few years ago at Easter. The pink is a cherry flavor with lots of artificial tartness, and the purple is grape. Both remind me of cough syrup. They leave a sourness in the mouth long after you’ve eaten them.

If you’re a SweetTarts lover, I think you’d really enjoy these. The flavor of the candy is on par with the originals, and the texture and the size of these gummies are really fun. A sweet way to enjoy a candy you’d love. But for me, they’re really not my thing. 

Rating: Might Eat Again

Links Wonka Website

This Japanese Kit Kat is special, as it’s not only a new flavor (lemon) but also a novelty because the packaging is different. It’s a “Share with a Friend” box, that opens like a love letter, and it’s decorated with hears just in time for Valentines Day (yes, I know, way late on the pickup). It’s pretty to look at and I appreciate how unique it looks. It’s certainly catch my eye at the convenience store, that’s for sure.

The box opens so it’s like a letter and the two packets of the Kit Kat pop out perfectly inviting to give to a friend or lover. I can’t read the text, as my Japanese isn’t fluent enough, but I’m sure it’s something sappy. The color of the fingers is a nice creamy pastel yellow. It’s very spring-like aura to it. The bar smells less like lemon but more strong and sweet like a pudding or custard. Now that I think about it, it’s exactly like lemon pudding pie. It’s just a heavenly smell. 

The flavor is out of this world! It tastes just like lemon curd. It’s tart, so terribly authentically tart. There’s a little hint of something in there that tastes of creamy cheesecake, and overall it’s terribly creamy, smooth and a little sweet. So awesome. Yum.

What could I say? After my first bite or two to taste I couldn’t gobble this Kit Kat down fast enough. I don’t understand why I’d want to share this one. It’s too good I need to keep it for myself. (I’m guess I’m bad to think like that, but in all honesty, I did share this with the boy.)

Rating: Hoard

Links Kit Kat Japan (Breaktown) Website

When I heard that Hershey’s would be closing down two of it’s subsidiary artisanal chocolatiers, I knew I had to make the effort to try them before it was too late. The two companies facing extinction are Scharffen Berger and Joseph Schmidt Confections, both of whom were independent until Hershey’s bought them out in 2005. The whole thing is quite sad really.

I could go on a rant on my extreme distaste of this situation, but I’ll save my breath and your time.  You can read the history of the company here at Wikipedia, who does it more succinctly than I could here.

I was lucky to find this collection of Joseph Schmidt’s truffles at Wegman’s during their big post Valentines Day sales. Since they were on sale, I figured it was a good of a time as any to give this dying breed of chocolate a taste test. I would have been tow lazy to put an order in on the website as it is, so it works out better this way.

The truffles (I’d prefer to call them bonbons, but the website refers to them as truffles, so I digress) are gorgeous to look at. The box protects each one beautifully, with each having it’s own well to sit in to keep the pieces of shuffling around. They are all unique, no two look alike. The only similarities they share are the shape: a large sound dome with a flat bottom. The tag lists the flavor, but no key saying which was which.

All Dark: Plain looking with dark cross-crossed lines on them. It’s just a dark creamy bittersweet chocolate with nice notes of cream, caramel, raspberries and coconut.

All Milk: Milk chocolate with white lines and dots on top. The milk chocolate is awesome: sweet, creamy, with nice notes of caramel, coffee. The ganache echoes the flavors to the shell, but is much milder and creamier. Loved this one, so delicious in its simplicity.

Champagne: Milk chocolate with a creamy colored spot on the very top. It immediately has an sweet, alcoholic flavor to it: tasting lightly of grapes and strawberries that mixes in with the smooth milk chocolate ganache. Something about the flavor reminds me of chocolate ice cream.

Sea Salt Caramel: Dark chocolate with a little hollow in the very top filled with salt crystals. The inside tastes more fruity than of caramel. It’s very rich and interestingly has plum notes to it.

Wild Strawberry: Milk chocolate with a pink dot on top. The flavor is immediately fruity and jam-like. It’s very sweet yet has a nice tart edge to it.

Dark Raspberry: Plain with multiple white lines crossing at the top. The ganache has a wonderfully tart, strawberry jam flavor to it. It’s really more tart than sweet and it really overpowers the chocolate. I’m surprised at the tartness of it. It’s very flavorful ad juicy and pairs well with the chocolate shell.

Hazelnut: The easiest of them all to distinguish: milk chocolate with a raw hazelnut plopped on top and drizzled with lines of chocolate. The milk chocolate is smooth, creamy and sweet. The ganache has a nutty, almost alcoholic flavor. I expected something more like Nutella, but it’s so far from it. It’s more roasted nut flavors and cream, like a hazelnut coffee.

Grand Marnier(r): The shell is dark chocolate with the design of a white chocolate X on top. The dark chocolate is deep, rich and sweet. The ganache center is smooth and creamy, and I get a nice, mellow orange flavor to it. No hint of alcohol of all.

Irish Cream: Mottled with white chocolate and darker chocolate flecks on top, so it reminded me of a bird’s egg. Quite pretty. The ganache inside is perfectly smooth and carried the Irish Cream flavor slightly. It doesn’t has a slight alcoholic burn to it, and that nice, lightly coffee boozy flavor I associate with Bailey’s. Lovely, really nicely balanced with the flavors of the smooth chocolate.

Tiramisu: Milk chocolate with white chocolate and dark chocolate lines and dots. This one I couldn’t tell if it was meant to be tiramisu or champagne, but this had a tinge more coffee flavor to it, so I decided it must be the former. You taste the alcohol with this fruity bitterness and a hint of coffee. It pairs beautifully with the dark chocolate ganache and the milk chocolate shell.

Double Latte: Beautiful white chocolate shell with a large milk chocolate spot on top. Smells extremely milky. The flavor is strong of coffee with the ganache tasting of a smooth, creamy, medium-bodied roast. So fresh and terribly flavorful.

Pomegranate: This one is creamy and milky looking on top, like cream just poured into coffee. The milk chocolate shell is hard with a nice creamy, sweet flavor. The ganache is smooth and chocolatey, and has a nice, lightly tart red fruity flavor to it. It’s hard to really identify pomegranate as an iconic flavor, but this does read a fruity and exotic, so I think the essence here is nicely captured.

Even though this is a Valentines Day box, you can find the same flavors in the Easter assortments. The 30th of June will be the last day of sales, with Easter being their last season. If my descriptions enticed you in the least, I recommend giving them a try before they disappear forever.

Rating: Will Buy Again

Links Joseph Schmidt Website

Happy Valentines Day!

I hope you’re having a good one whether you celebrate it or choose not to. Regardless, I hope you’re taking a moment to indulge in something sweet, you deserve it! 

Everyone has their preferences when it comes to the candy they choose, and I am always interested in talking to people to see what their preferences are. One of the things I enjoy about having a candy blog is that it sometimes makes me eat “outside the candy box” and try something that I wouldn’t normally buy. Wonka’s Gobstoppers are one of these candies. I enjoy hard candies, yes, and I am impartial on tart/sour candies, so I have tended to just gloss over these in stores in favor of something I know I really enjoy. Then last year Cybele reviewed these at Candyblog.net reviewed these. Her photographs of them were so tempting, I knew I had to pick some up if I ever saw them. As far as I was concerned, even if they didn’t taste good, I’d get some pretty photos out of them at least.

So on the same trip to Wal-Mart where I found the Strawberry Creme Hershey’s Kisses I saw these on the shelf. What a productive shopping trip, huh?

I have to admit the name makes me think of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. One of my favorite bands.

The hearts are so pretty. They sit beautifully on my photography table; glossy, colorful and smooth. The colors, even though I would not call them traditional Valentine’s Day colors, still feel very festive.

Speaking of the the colors, there’s five total: purple, pink, red, orange, and yellow. They all taste the same aside with subtle variations. The yellow tasted a tad lemony, pink a little strawberry, purple like grape and orange, well, orange.  Overall, they had a lightly sweet fruity flavor to them, and the tartness appears only when you crunch down through the shell to release the grainy, powdery center. Speaking of the center, it’s a chalky dextrose which has a nice tartness to it ad dissolves quickly on the tongue. The texture of the shell combined with the softer center is a wonderful contrast of hard and soft, smooth and grainy.

After tasting the few I had to do for the review, I admit I haven’t touched them. I’ve been eating the Hershey’s Kisses instead. Preferences die hard I guess.

You have to admit though. They are terribly festive and just adorable to look at.

Rating: Might Eat Again

Links Wonka Website

Hershey’s has been pretty reliable with its flavored Kisses in time for Valentines Day. In the past couple of years, they’ve released Dark Chocolate Strawberry and a White Chocolate Strawberry Creme varieties, both of which I reviewed at my time over a CandyAddict.com. So I was a bit disappointed when I roamed my local grocery store’s and Target’s holiday candy aisles. No new Hershey’s Kisses. Nada. Zilch.

Then last weekend I found myself in Wal-Mart (shudder) and lo and behold, I see these Hershey’s Strawberry Creme Kisses staring at me from the large cardboard box holding them on the shelf. I snatched up a few bags and took the home for immediate tasting. What I was pleased to find about these, and it is illustrated on the package, that these Kisses have a strawberry filled center. Very unlike past years where the strawberry flavoring was infused into a solid Kiss. I was curious to see how this difference would affect texture and flavor.

The flavor is immediately sweet and you can taste the strawberry through the flat milk chocolate. It’s very floral, perfumey, and a bit jammy too. It reminded me a tad of the strawberry flavor you get in Japanese chocolates, yet this tastes more artificial and medicinal. It’s still pleasant to eat and I like it much better than the other strawberry Kisses released to date. Texture wise, the center feels greasy and smooth like the inside of the truffle and coconut Kisses. The aftertaste is similar to berry jam and it compels you to pop another in your mouth despite your best efforts.

A successful limited edition released in time for Valentines Day I think. The only reason I don’t give these a hoard rating is I still have a stash of Pumpkin Spice Kisses I’m enjoying. I’d much rather eat those over these.

Rating: Will Buy Again

Links Hershey’s Kisses Website

Aren’t these so cute? Just perfect for Valentines Day! Not only are the shapes cute and simple, but they’re nicely colored with an appealing flavor for the season. I am pretty sure these are a new release this year, as I don’t remember seeing them last Valentines Day. Does anyone else recall?

The hearts come in a nicely protected pack of 9, each set of 3 in a tray. The package is very fitting for the holiday too. Pink with little “XOXO” patterns all over it. You can smell the Peep hearts immediately once you open them. The aroma is strawberry with it’s bright berry flavor and “red” essence. There’s a tart edge to these too and I can’t help but compare it to how the red SweetTarts smell.

The inside of these Peeps are pink too! How precious is that! I tried my first row fresh, so the texture was beautifully pillowy soft. The flavor is awesome, as it’s in the sugar coating as well as in the marshmallow. It’s a great strawberry taste for sure. It’s a light flavor, nothing overpowering here, but then again, when were Peeps ever overpowering? There’s a light sweetness and a good berry/perfume flavor that really give it that nice strawberry essence. In a way I’m reminded of that pink goopy medicine I was given as a kid when I had strep throat, but that’s a good thing here. I loved eating that stuff.

I bet these, along with all other flavored marshmallows, will be fun to experiment with. In hot cocoa? In Valentines Day s’mores? Fondue? Such possibilities!

Rating: Will Buy Again

Links
Marshmallow Peeps Website

I first heard of Sucre back when I was still writing for CandyAddict. I was given a sampler of their bonbons to review for the site. Needless to say, I was impressed with their work. Now, fast forward to just a few days ago when I came home from work to find a box of Sucre’s newest offerings waiting for me on my doorstep. Valentine’s Day came early for me this year.

The exquisitely designed turquoise box holds a sampler of their new ”For the Love of Chocolate” Valentines Day collection. A set of three different heart bonbons, each easily distinguishable from one another in milk, dark and white chocolate. They’re beautiful to look at; colorful and iridescent. They smell of chocolate, and I was able to find the flavors by looking online: Chic Raspberry, Grand Coeur and Rose.

Red Raspberry (dark chocolate heart filled with raspberry ganache) : A beautiful, deep, sparky maroon color. Gorgeous to look at! It smells deep of dark chocolate with notes of red fruits and coffee. There’s no raspberry scent at all. The first bite is so smooth and rich, with only the top shell, which is very thin, having a bit of a crunch to it. The flavor is luxurious with a subtle, authentic raspberry flavor that’s very jammy. The chocolate is beautifully mild and sweet, complimenting the raspberry favor so well. It’s a delicate, graceful bonbon. The texture is silky, smooth, and it’s lovely.

Heart of Rose (white chocolate heart filled with rose water and island vanilla scented white chocolate ganache) : Smells sweet and of plants; part of it reminds me of vanilla and other like leaves. It’s not perfumey like rose, but I do get “vegetation” in there. The first bite tastes very cheesy, like a sweet brie. I don’t get much in terms of vanilla or rose, but the smooth cheesy flavor is nice. It’s interesting how my taste buds read this combination of flavors. I want to eat this with a baguette.

Grand Coeur (milk chocolate ganache infused with orange and triple sec coated in a dark chocolate) : This one has a beautiful copper/bronze color to it. It smells earthy and rich, with a subtle citrus zest to it which immediately gives it awesome points in my book. The flavor is heavenly. This is the purest, most beautiful pairing of chocolate and orange I’ve had to date. The orange is fresh and zesty, and the triple sec adds that authentic citrus bite and bitterness on the tongue. The chocolate is sweet, creamy and compliments the more tart and bitter qualities of the flavorings. Again the texture is silky smooth and the overall effect is just out of this world. I can’t gush enough about how lovely this is.

These hearts are so wonderful I can’t decide how to eat them: savor their rich flavors slowly or shove hand fulls into my mouth. I feel the instinct to do both as they’re just that delicious. But, in the spirit of the season, I’ve saved 3/4 of the box to share with my sweetheart.

Rating: Hoard

Links Sucre’s Website

I grew up in a household devoid of marshmallow peeps. It wasn’t until college that I finally became familiar with this popular marshmallow confection. My roommate bought them by the dozen around Easter (they were still an Easter exclusive item back then) and set them out to get stale. She then nuked them in the microwave, froze them, and finally consume them. I had never witnessed such an elaborate candy eating ritual, and I was both confused and intrigued by it. 

Since then I have tasted my way though the different types of Peeps. Their light, marshmallow texture is delightful but the flavor leaves a lot to be desired in my book. They come across as flat and cardboard-tasting, and they remind me a little of Communion wafers. They’re terribly cute though, and I can’t help but eating a row of Chicks in the spring and some Pumpkin ones in the fall. Perhaps my love form them would grow if I experimented with my eating techniques a little. As of now I enjoy them fresh.

Enter the newest Marshmallow Peeps, Chocolate Mousse Bears for St. Valentines Day.

These look the same: puffy marshmallow with a colored sugar coating in an standard animal shape. They smell noticeable different, though. It’s a very sweet, cocoa aroma, like a good hot chocolate mix.

The flavor is much sweeter than a normal Peep to me. I’m also surprised to find they’re actually really flavorful, and I’ve tried all the varieties to date. They taste like I just took a spoonful of Nestle’s Quick, except in that wonderful puffy Marshmallow Peep form (you know, soft inside, slightly crunchy sugary outside). Immediately I finished off a row, promising to save the rest out in the open to get stale. They didn’t last a week.

Finally there’s a Peep I can say that I’m hooked on. I can’t help but recommend them whether you’re a Peep lover or not. You may just become a convert like myself.

Rating: Will Buy Again

Links
Marshmallow Peeps Website