A few hours from my place in central Pennsylvania is the Wilbur Chocolate Company. They make all sorts of confections, with their most famous is the Wilbur Buds. They come in two varieties, semisweet and milk, and can be purchased from their factory store in Lititz, PA or online on their website. I bought a mixed bag in their store, and took photos as soon as I got home. I was very excited to try them.

The buds are squatter, smaller Hershey’s Kisses. They have the form of a dollop of chocolate being plopped into a mold, with the cute signature chocolate curl on top. The bottom of the buds have a molded pattern to them, a swirl with “Wilbur” spelled out. I find they much more attractive than Hershey’s Kisses, and they fit better in your mouth because of their more squat, rounded shape.

Milk Chocolate: The buds are a nice creamy brown color which is a nice look for milk chocolate. The flavor begins very sweetly, with notes of cream and butter. The chocolate flavor eases in to become the full flavor by the middle and end of the bud. It’s very chocolatey, but rounded out by the milky flavors. It melts smoothly and creamy on the tongue.

Semisweet: Much darker in color than the milk chocolate. It’s got a subtle sheen and a nice, middle brown hue to it. The flavor starts out sweet, then the flavors of caramel, cream and coffee come forward, then a bloom of chocolate flavor with it’s nutty, and strong cocoa notes. It’s not as sweet as the milk, yet it’s as creamy in texture. Wonderful chocolate flavor that isn’t too sweet or too overpowering.

Be sure to check out Cybele’s post on Wilbur Buds over at Candylobg.net. She gives a wonderful review of them!

Rating: Will Buy Again

Links Wilbur Chocolate Company Website

The new limited edition See’s flavor has arrived! Yay! I am super excited about this month’s free sample of the See’s Black Forest Truffle. Who doesn’t love chocolate delivered to your doorstep? I digress. I get excited about all candy, but when I heard these were headed my way it made me happy because I love sampling See’s Candies’ products.

The bonbons arrived halfway melted, by no fault of the company, simply because the heat where I am was oppressive that day. I popped them right in the fridge to cool some, which made it hard for me to wait to sample my first one. Also, because of the melting, the bonbons in the photo may not be the most attractive, but I did my best. I’m sure if you got them in store they’d look as impeccable as ever.

Once they were cool and solid enough to handle, I went in for my first taste!

The dark chocolate is rich and smooth with notes of berries and coffee.The richness of the chocolate with it’s full flavors blend into an intense fudgey sweetness that’s crowned with the fresh flavor of black cherries. The cherry flavor is very complex, as it’s tart, sweet, has a wonderful depth to it. It its a nice mix of jam and cordial. It’s lovely. The chocolate’s “red” notes allow for it to blend beautifully with the cherry flavors. The texture is soft and fudgey and incredible luxurious. This is an incredible pieces of chocolate art.

I know I enjoyed the past two Limited Edition flavors, but this one they’re really outdone themselves. I hope they bring one one back as a regular addition to the See’s lines of incredible candies.

CONTEST: I have another a gift certificate from See’s to give away! It’s for one pound of these chocolate, and can be used in their stores or by phone at (800-895-7337). So how do you enter? Please comment on this post by Friday at noon, EST and share your favorite See’s flavor if you have one. I’ll choose a winner randomly from those who enter. Best of luck!

Rating:

Links See’s Candies Website

These chocolate bars were a surprise gift from my boyfriend. He knows all too well my love of sweets, and presented these to me one day after work. Apparently one of his co-workers was selling them as a fundraiser, and since he knew these would be blog fodder for me, he bought me some. What a sweetheart, right?

Wolfgang is a candy company over in York, PA which, unlike many other small candy companies, have been bought out by the larger corporations. It started out as a family business and has stayed that way for almost a century now. Pretty impressive.

Well, all I can say is: on with the tasting!

Milk Chocolate Roasted Almonds: The bar is about a 1/3 inch thick, which is a good thickness in my mind. It smells very sweet, salty and nutty, almost like peanuts because of all the saltiness I detect. I can see hints of the almonds pieces in the back of the bar. The flavor is very sweet and nutty at first. The chocolate is sweet, and a little milky. The almonds deliver a wonderful fresh crunch and a great nutty flavor. It’s yummy, but after one piece I felt like that was enough, as it was very sweet.

Milk Chocolate Caramel: The caramel pieces are thinner and taller than the others. I snapped one off and I saw the caramel start to ooze out of the cavity. Try to think of it as a more watery Caramello. The caramel is extremely buttery and sweet, and combined with the milk chocolate it’s almost too much. something about it tastes metallic, and almost rummy. It’s strange.

Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter: The peanut butter tastes center stage as the flavor here, and as I take my first bite I can’t help but notice that I can hardly taste the chocolate at all. The peanut butter has a nice strong nutty flavor to it, which is balanced with a nice sweet/salty aspect to it. The texture is creamy and a little dry, but it melts beautifully on my tongue and it feels lovely. Peanut butter lovers would adore this one I think.

White Chocolate Peanut Butter: This is real white chocolate, and oddly, I can taste more of this white chocolate with the peanut butter than I could the milk chocolate. Very strange. The peanut butter here is much milder in flavor that the milk chocolate version, but it’s still the same in all other regards. The white chocolate delivers a nice creamy sweet flavors that balances out the nutty flavors and it makes for a very nice balanced taste. I really liked this one.

Dark Chocolate Peppermint: I could immediately smell the peppermint as I opened the wrapper. It’s the same shape and size as the caramel bar, yet I got no oozing when I took a piece off.  The peppermint is fresh, and intense, and the sweet dark chocolate really cuts the strength of the peppermint. It’s like an Andes mint, except bigger and in a bar form.

These were pretty tasty! Not all of them appealed to me, but I ate more of them than not. Worth a try if you find someone selling them.

Rating: Might Eat Again

Links Wolfgang Website

I barely noticed this version of the MilkyWay bar when it first came out. I didn’t see any in store displays for it, nor did the packaging catch my eye. Which is odd really, since it looks very different from the dark brown wrapper of the original bar. It’s called the “Simply Caramel” bar, which confused me at first because I didn’t know what it meant. It was so straightforward that I didn’t know what to make of it.

So what is exactly the “Simply Caramel” bar? Well, there’s a giant band of caramel in the middle, enrobed in chocolate. It’s that simple.

One thing’s for sure. I had a blast photographing this bar. The caramel is not liquidy like a Caramello. Instead, it’s wonderfully stringy and smooth.

It smells sweet and of caramel and cream with notes of chocolate, exactly what I was expecting once I had this bar out of the wrapper.

The caramel is smooth and sweet, with nice notes of cream and burnt caramel. It’s a nice thick texture and isn’t too sticky. The chocolate is nice and sweet with good milk notes and a good chocolatey overtone. What can I say, I’m impressed!

If what I’ve said hasn’t convinced you to try one yet, consider this: my Mom hates limited edition candy bars with a passion. She thinks that the original candy bars are fine the way they are and all these variations are unnecessary and a shame to the originals. Yet, when I got her to try this one, she adored it. Just goes to show you don’t know until you try it!

Rating: Will Eat Again

Links MilkyWay Website

I find candies that are “store originals”, as so to speak, are quite interesting. We all recognize candies that are knock-offs of their mainstream counterparts. But ones that are ideas and styles all their own? I like the unpredictability of them. These Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Powerberries are just that. I saw them on the shelf, knew they were candy, but didn’t know exactly what they were. So I had to find out.

The package shows them to be little round chocolate covered nuggets. They reminded me right away of Raisinets, so in a way, that’s what I was expecting. The bag has a resealable top, which I really appreciate, since the package is way too much to eat in one sitting. The bag smells sweet and very much like blueberries.

Pouring some of these Powerberries into my hand, I find that the size varies. Some are small others much larger. They’re irregular, but that’s part of what makes them fun.

I take a bite and am surprised to not find an actual berry in the center. Instead, there’s a thick, jelly like texture. Almost like those fruit pate candies I adore so much. After a few experiments to see what made these up, I find that the center is two of these semi domed jelly discs smooshed together, and then covered in chocolate.

The flavor is very complex, as you really taste the rich dark chocolate at first. Soon follows the intense flavor of the berries, which is very blackberry/blueberry/strawberry. The two flavors compliment each other beautifully: the sweetness of the chocolate balances out the tartness of the berries, and the fruitiness of the berries calms the earthiness of the chocolate. It’s really excellent.

The bag got finished off pretty quickly, as they were really yummy. Funny thing is, these aren’t something I’d crave, for reasons I can’t explain. Still, they’re something I appreciate since there’s nothing else like it that I know of, and they’re fun to try and eat when I do have some around. 

Rating: Will Eat Again

Links Trader Joe’s Website