My love of chocolate and candy is well know throughout my family and friends, so I’m often presented with confections that they kindly pick up on trips for me. This bar is one of those gifts, brought back from a trip to Maine. 

This bar is described as “dark chocolate with Maine sea salt” and has a lovely illustration on the wrapper. It feels very rustic and captures the look of Maine very well.

I flip the bar over to look at the ingredients list, and I see that it’s a 54% chocolate, which is more of a bittersweet than a dark in book. There’s no official number that separates bittersweet from semisweet from dark chocolate, so it’s always interesting for me to see how others identify it.

The chocolate is nicely protected in a layer of foil. it has a lovely sheen to it and a rich, dark color. The aroma is lightly fruity and has nice roasted notes. 

On my first bite, all I can say is “wow” this is very rich chocolate. It’s awesome. The chocolate has nice roasted flavors of coffee, caramel, and wood. It has a nice sweetness and it’s very thick and slippery on the tongue. The chocolate is rich in texture and the overall effect is very chocolatey. The sea salt is there and in a nice way, you get it towards the end of the taste and it’s salty, but not overly so. The chocolate is very much the star, yet the salt heightens the overall flavor.

If you’re ever in Maine, or know someone who will be, see if you can get a hold of some of this chocolate. It’s amazing.

Rating: Hoard

Links Coastline Confections Website

I was extremely excited when Q.bel contacted me asking if I’d like free samples of their newest flavors in their line of all natural candy bars. My response was a very enthusiastic “yes!” as I love the varieties I reviewed for TCE before, and I still find myself picking a few of them up on my trips to Whole Foods. The two newcomers here are a Dark Chocolate Wafer Bar and a Dark Chocolate Mint Wafer Bar, to add to the line of the Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate Crisped Rice and Peanut Butter Wafer bars.

Let’s get to the tasting!

70% Dark Wafer Bars: The bars are a nice rich dark color and have a nice sheen to them. They smell chocolaty with a hint of coconut and cream. The flavor is very nice as the dark chocolate is rich and very fruity, yet still sweet and creamy like good dark chocolates are. The wafers have that nice “starchy” vanilla flavor to them. The texture is delightfully crisp and breaks beautifully when you chew it. Even though a good hunk of the bar is made up of the wafers, the chocolate between them and the coating really delivers a good chocolate punch and takes the main taste on your tongue. It’s really excellent, I can’t wait to try this with some coffee.

Dark Mint Wafer Bars: These smell minty and sweet as soon as I open the package. I’m reminded of an Andes mint. The flavor is really wonderful. It’s the perfect amount of mint, it’s not too strong, but it’s strong enough to be the main flavor of the bars. The minty flavor comes from the cream that sandwiched between the wafers, and the coolness of the mint really blends well with the nice starchy flavor of the wafers. The dark chocolate is mild and sweet and provides a nice undertone to the mint. I really enjoyed it, despite not being a big mint candy fan. I really recommend them as an after dinner treat or with a nice cup of tea.

These were delicious and met my expectations along with the other Q.bel candy bars. These make a great snack as they are flavorful enough to satisfy a craving, but light enough to not fill me up or give me a sugar rush. These are a delightful sweet if you want something more “natural” or less “guilty” feeling than most candy bars. The whole line of Q.bel’s offerings are great, and these two new bars are no exception. 

Rating: Will Buy Again

Links Q.bel Website

Chocolate is, in my opinion, a powerful creative medium. It’s a food that can be molded, shaped, flavored and textured in any way you like. We leave this job to skilled chocolatiers to work their magic on it for us, creating chocolate bars of all shapes, sizes and flavors, along with bonbons, truffles, and desserts that make our imaginations and taste buds soar. More and more people are aware of their eating habits nowadays, and there’s a desire for chocolate bars to fit this market. These Organic Nectars’ Raw Cacao Bars are just that. I was contacted by them asking if I’d like some free samples to try, and I gladly accepted their offer as I have yet to try some chocolate bars that fit into such a specific niche. 

These chocolate bars are not only organic, but they’re also Kosher, Vegan, Raw and are dairy, soy, allergen, gluten, refined sugar free. Talk about a clean chocolate bar! The ingredients are simple, and the main difference I see is that no refined sugar. Which, changes how chocolate solidifies.

54% Cacao: The aroma is very fruity and sweet, with nice notes of blackberries, cream, caramel and a strong chocolatey note. The break is clean and the snap is crisp. The flavor is very mild and I taste coffee, cream, berries, forest, musk, mushrooms, caramel, vanilla and cocoa. The flavors mix and mingle as you chew, with a fruity crescendo at the end. The texture is gritty, probably because of the raw sugars, which has a different structural makeup than regular sugar does, so the chocolate forms differently. It’s a very tasty, rich, full chocolate for those of you who want another option.

Coconut Milk Chocolate: The chocolate smells creamy and earthy. The flavor is very caramel, creamy and earthy....I don’t get much chocolate or coconut flavor really. I was expecting flecks of coconut in here, but there isn’t. Very interesting. The texture is even more gritty than the 54%, and it gets dry and chalky at the finish. It stuck to my teeth and felt kinda icky, which is strange since milk chocolate is usually creamy and smooth. Which, made me curious and I looked at the ingredients of the bar, which read; ”organic raw cacao butter, organic raw cacao butter, organic palm nectar, organic coconut powder, organic Tahitian Mexican and Madagascar vanilla, non GMO sunflower lecithin”. Where’s the milk? Not even coconut milk? So how is this milk chocolate? So..confused.

Also note, I was informed that the batch of Coconut Milk Chocolate and Golden White Chocolate that I received used a less ground palm nectar sweetener, and the newer batches mimic the smoother texture that the 54% has.

Golden White Chocolate: Upon opening this one up I was very surprised: this is not quite golden, but more of caramel/tan color. Like natural deodorized white chocolate. I was told the color is due to the sweetener, as it’s a golden color. It smells sweet and lightly of cocoa. The flavor is sweet, just sweet, not really any notes of cacao powder. The texture is also strange like the coconut milk chocolate: it gets gritty and feels like I’m swallowing sand. Not a fan. I miss the creaminess of regular white chocolate.

These bars were interesting. I really enjoyed the 54%, as it had a “wild” vibe to it and the flavor and texture most resembled what I consider to be mainstream chocolate. The milk and the white chocolate? Not so much, but that doesn’t mean they’re bad, just not my thing. I’m sure if I was Vegan or a Celiac, these chocolate bars would be just the thing I’d want to satisfy a craving. Because, isn’t that the point of chocolate? It should exist so everyone can enjoy it, and I’m sure the Organic Nectars bars will bring delight to many.

Rating: 54%: Will Eat Again

Milk Chocolate Coconut and Golden White: Not Worth It

Links Organic Nectars Website

One of the gifts I received over the holidays were some treats from a chocolatier who had just opened up shop where my parents live in Upstate New York. My Mom discovered them at a Christmas open house and chatted with the chocolatier. Of course the fact that her daughter writes a candy blog (you know how Moms are!) was brought up, and I was immediately called to see which of the chocolates I’d like to try. I was more excited by the idea of trying anything that was offered, as it’s not often I get to try the work of a new chocolate business, but eventually settles on two things to try. 

Cashew Honey Discs: Dark chocolate discs with a topping of caramelized honey cashews. The chocolate has bloomed a little, which I’m not surprised by, as didn’t get these samples fresh and they contain no preservatives. Thankfully bloom doesn’t affect flavor! The chocolate has a nice snap to it when bitten into, and the flavor is very fruity and rich. The texture of the chocolate is more gritty than smooth. The nuts are wonderfully fresh and have a great sweet/salty/roasted flavor combination going which I felt went well with the dark chocolate base.

Peppermint Bark: The base pf the bark is an even slab of a white and dark chocolate mix. The pieces are 1/2 inch think, with the white on top and the dark on the bottom. Nice, large chunks of Starbrights peppermint candy is crushed and sprinkled on top. It’s pretty to look at, for sure. The dark chocolate suffers from the same as the cashew honey slabs, there texture at the snap is very gritty and uneven, a sign it might have not been properly tempered. The flavor is balanced between the peppermint and the chocolate and one ingredient doesn’t overpower the other. This chocolate is creamier on the tongue and is a real delight to eat, as it just tastes of pure Christmas with the wonderful balance of flavors. Yummy!

Despite my nit-pickiness, these chocolates were tasty and a good start for a beginning business. The uneven texture is easily corrected with practice and experimentation, and I look forward to picking up some more of Glimmerglass Chocolates’ work when I next visit my parents.

Rating: Will Eat Again

The idea of custom chocolate bars isn’t one that’s particularly new. Ever since I’ve learned that I could melt chocolate as a kid I’ve experimented with such things in the kitchen when my mom wasn’t looking. Nowadays, I see “custom chocolate bars” in candy stores that you find in cheesy tourist areas like boardwalks. Still, just because this concept has been around, that doesn’t mean that it’s been done well. Chocri, a chocolate company from Germany that specializes in custom bars, does exactly that.

I was given a free press release to try these chocolate bars that Chocri makes, or should I say, lets me make based on my flavor whims. They plan to launch an US page come January, so if this is the sort of thing that appeals to you, you don’t have very long to wait. 

Now, first things first, let me mention the prices of these bars right away, because they aren’t exactly cheap. You pay for your creative license here as so to speak. Each bar I made here averaged at about $10, which isn’t really something to sniff at. Still, I feel you do get what you pay for, in quality and size of the product. 

The bars are large and very well packaged. The front of the boxed has an cellophane window so you can clearly see your chocolate work of art. I also forgot to name the bars. I was so excited to try and make them, that I completely overlooked the fact that I could name my chocolate creations. Oops, I will try again next time.

The construction of the bars are really nice, they’re molded on one side so you can see the chocolate sections. The additions are topped on the back side, so it look like the method of the chocolate making is they pour a mold and drop you addition on top. Depending on what you add to the chocolate this could make breaking sections off difficult you ave. had items that are on the large side.

To test the chocolate, I wanted to try one of each base: white, milk and dark. I brought my boyfriend over t the computer where I was building each of these bars, and encouraged hi to help me. As he has really good idea on flavor infusions and I wanted his imput.

White Chocolate with licorice pieces and nougat: This bar was a totally brainchild of mine. I’ve always been curious on what licorice and white chocolate tastes like together. The nougat was a totally shot in the dark, because it was the one item I chose to add that didn’t have a photo depicting exactly what it was. I was expecting Torrone, but instead the nougat is more like the center of a 3 Musketeers bar. No complaining here, I was just expecting something else. I was super excited to try this one. It smells sweet, and my first bite of the white chocolate was just heavenly. This is really ,really excellent white chocolate, and I’m super picky about what I call a good one. It’s super buttery and flavorful of the cocoa butter, and isn’t too sweet.  Te nougat melts really quickly, and add a chocolatey flavor to it. The licorice was a surprise, because it’s salted licorice. I was expecting sweet! The pieces of licorice aren’t too hard, as they soften as you chew the bar. Despite the fact that it’s salted, the licorice works really well with the white chocolate. I have to say, I’m a big fan of this.

Milk Chocolate with blueberries, cinnamon and rice crisps: The bar smells sweet and strongly of cinnamon. the break is extremely clean, and you can see they didn’t rush the cooling of the chocolate. The milk chocolate is really lovely on it’s own, it’s creamy, and sweet, with a nice chocolate flavor and hints of caramel. The cinnamon adds a nice warmth to the chocolate without being too overpowering, and the crisps are a wonderful texture addition. The blueberries add a nice fruitiness, they taste like raisins to me, and a dense chew. I am a big fan of this, and now I’m sad I can’t find a bar like this on the market. The boyfriend was really happy with how this one turned out, and I agree with him.

Dark Chocolate with sour cherries, cinnamon cornflakes (cinnamon toast crunch for us Americans) and mini banana sprinkles: A word of note here, I got the sprinkles to see how a “decorative” element in the chocolate worked. I have to say, pretty darn cute. Again, the break with this is clean, so you know they didn’t rush the molding process. The dark chocolate is smooth and fruity, with nice notes of red berries and a good undertone of coffee and chocolate. I was surprised to find that the banana sprinkles have a subtle banana flavor, and a very crunchy. The cinnamon cornflakes add a softer crunch and a subtle cinnamon flavor, but the dark chocolate still shines as the main event. This one was tasty, but I didn’t feel my choice of additions didn’t enhance the flavor, but were fun texture additions.

To sum things up, we both loved the bars, but if we ad t optic favorites, I’d go with the white chocolate and the boyfriends loves the milk. I was really pleased with how great the chocolate base of these bars tasted, and even if I had to order plain chocolate bars form them, I’d gladly do so.

Also check out what Candy Yum Yum, The Chocolate Review, and Candy Addict had to say.

Rating: Will Buy Again

Links Chocri Website (German for now)

This is the Lee’s Jaffa bar, the second bar of my purchase from a recent trip to Wegman’s grocery store. I tried the sister bar, the Lee’s Mint bar, the other day and while I liked the texture and construction, I couldn’t get past the bold flavor. I looked forward to trying this bar so much more. This bar is a spin off of a popular cookie in the UK called Jaffa Cakes, and they’re an cookie with an orange jam filling. I imagined that this bar took that popular Jaffa orange flavor and made it into a candy bar. Yum!

Like the Minty bar, this bar feels heavy and thick in my hand. Unwrapped, it has the same beautiful dark chocolate coating. Again, the ingredients are simple and they even list “jaffa orange oil” there. Ha ha.

The bar immediately smells intensely of orange. It’s really enticing. 

The fondant is very, very dense. The bar broke easily with no crumbling. The center reminds me, texture wise, of a thick, hardened frosting and the inside of a Cadbury Creme Egg. It’s dense, creamy and sweet. It really coats the tongue with a layer of sugar. The flavor is mainly of the fondant which is extremely sweet with a strong flavor of fresh, zesty, juicy orange oil. The chocolate is deep and takes an edge of the sweetness but is not the star of the show by any means. Everything about this bar is thick, smooth, sweet and very, very bold. It’s not for the faint of heart.

I found the best way to eat this bar is nice and slowly, one nibble at a time. That way it decreases the intense sugar burn you may get at the back of your throat.

I liked this bar much better than it’s minty relative, and next time I see them I’m getting more.

Rating: Will Buy Again

I found this, along with the Lee’s Jaffa Orange bar, in my local Wegman’s international aisle. I love browsing this section of the store, as they’re always bringing in new and different things for me to look at every time I visit. On this specific occasion I found these bars by the Scottish manufacturer Lee’s. I was first drawn to the Jaffa bar, but noticed this sister bar next to it, so I decided to bring both home.

This bar is described as a “A delicious mint creme fondant covered in real dark chocolate”. The packaging design is classic and very reminiscent of UK design with it’s tartan patterned stripes and bold background. The bar itself feels heavy in the hand and has a heft to it. Turning it over, I see the ingredients are so simple and straightforward. No funny business going on here.

As soon as I open the wrapper I immediately get a powerful scent of mint and peppermint. Wowza.

The bar itself is gorgeous. The dark chocolate coating is beautifully dark and rippled like sand when wind blows on it. The break is dense and clean and the mint fondant center is fresh and fragrant. The texture of the fondant is dense, and well, reminds me of hardened frosting, much like the Blue Monday bar I reviewed before.

The flavor is fresh, very minty and sweet. Like an intense, gourmet Andes mint. It’s good, but not quite my cup of tea. Afterward I felt like I ate some chocolate and chased it down with some Scope or toothpaste.

An awesome bar for those of you really into mint flavors. I appreciated it, but I can’t see myself getting it again out of personal preference.

Rating: Might Eat Again

Links Lee’s Website

This is another one of the mystery candies I got from a candy trade with a friend in Bavaria. Again, I had no way of knowing or reading what the names says or means. I just have to go by the picture on the box.

The packaging on this is awesome though. The long box is well put together and had gorgeous flame-red background with golden lettering on it. Inside the box sits a plastic tray holding the six chocolates in a well protected little well.

I bit one in half to see the construction of these candies. It’s a dome of dark chocolate, then a thin crispy wafer layer. A sweet white filling sits in this dome and is topped with an almond.

All I can say is though, it makes one beautiful photograph:

The texture is wonderful. You get the smoothness of the chocolate, the creaminess of the white chocolate center, the crunch of the almond, and the crisp of the wafer shell. The flavor is lacking though. I get sweetness, but it was overall pretty bland. I didn’t taste much chocolate and the center was just buttery and didn’t add much to the mix. The almonds were already fresh and flavorful, but with just one the flavor dissipated quickly.

It was a delightful piece of candy and has a interesting texture. It just didn’t wow me and didn’t make me crave more after eating a piece. Good, but not something I feel I need to have again.

Rating: Might Eat Again

This bar came from one of my best friends who recently went on a trip to Napa Valley in California. This bar is made by Anette’s Chocolate Factory, and takes chocolate and wine and marries them in this bar. I’ve only recently begun to take my tasting skills into the realm of wine, so this bar was a nice way to dip my toe into the hot bathwater.

The bar is a nice size, and is well protected in this box with a heavy foil wrapper underneath. The chocolate was flawless, despite how far it had traveled to get to me. It had a nice gloss, and a rich red-brown color.

The chocolate has a good snap to it, and the bar is light segmented. It has a rich, ganache center where the Cabernet is mixed in with the chocolate. The texture is wonderful, as the mold is a good thickness and it meshes well, texture wise, with the smooth ganache center. It rolls beautifully over the tongue, and neither part feels greasy, just smooth and luxurious.

The flavor is out of this world. Normally, I am a bit wary of when alcohol is added to confections because it has such a powerful flavor to begin with, I worry that it’ll overpower the flavor. Thankfully this is not the case here. The chocolate is a nice dark, I’d say anywhere from the 65-75% range, and it is given this extra richness from the Cabernet. It’s hard for me to explain really, as the Cabernet isn’t easily distinguished from the dark chocolate, but you can get that richness from it if you really focus on the flavor notes. The overall effect is extremely rich and chocolately. I’m quite smitten with this.

All I can say is that I want to get my hands on more of this bar. It was awesome. I definitely recommend it, even to those of you who aren’t fans of wine, as it enhances the chocolate experience. Love it.

Rating: Hoard

Links Anette’s Chocolate By Brent Website

I saw these Attune Probiotic Chocolate bars in the store one day next to the greek yogurt I like to buy. “Chocolate in the refrigerated section?” I asked myself. I picked up one of the two different kinds I saw and examined the packages. Ah, these have probiotics in them, no wonder they need to be kept cool. I bought two of them for too much money (somewhere between $1.40 to $1.99 for each small bar, I forget exactly how much they were). I kept them in the fridge at home meaning to try them right away, but since they were away from my tasting pile, I kept forgetting about them.

There’s two kinds, a dark chocolate and a white chocolate variety. The package design is clean and attractive, and each bar is about 100 calories. Which is similar to a cup of yogurt, depending on the type you like to buy.

Dark Chocolate: I opened it up and it’s an attractive little bar of chocolate. It has a nice gloss and deep color. It has extremely hard snap and break, which I think is partly due to the fact it needs to be kept cold. The chocolate melts easily and smoothly in the mouth. It’s very chocolatey with notes of berries, caramel and coffee. It’s mild dark chocolate and not very acidic. It has a pleasant flavor and buttery texture.

White Chocolate Blueberry Vanilla: Unwrapped, the bar looks like it has tiny pieces of blueberries all chopped up in it. It’s flicked with blue and purple spots. It smells of plastic.

The snap is hard, and I was surprised to find tiny rice crisps in here when I looked at the cross-section. They add a nice crunch though.

The flavor is sweet. Really, really sweet. I’m reminded of that mockolate coating you find on those yogurt raisins people eat. I don’t get much blueberry or vanilla flavor, but instead more of a subtle berry flavor akin to mixed berry yogurt.

I’d recommend these if you’re trying to find a tasty way to get more probiotics in your diet. For me, I’m perfectly happy just eating yogurt or keifer, but if that’s not your thing I’d look for these. I thought they’re a good effort, but I prefer to keep my probiotics and chocolate separate.

Rating: Might Eat Again

Links Attune Website

Clark bar, made by NECCO, is a classic/retro candy bar that has a pretty wide distribution that I feel is very overlooked. I see it in many places and it makes me happy to see such a bar still on the shelves. Many of you I am sure are not even aware of what a Clark bar is, am I right? Well, don’t feel bad, I’ll rectify that by the end of this review. It’s a pretty easy bar to spot, with it’s bright, attractive red wrapper. I stumbled across this Halloween “Wicked Mix” meant for trick or treaters in my local Wegmans and promptly snatched it up.

Clark Bar: classic red wrapper: Clark bar is like a Butterfinger, except it uses real chocolate. Butterfinger uses that nasty mockolate stuff. The bar smells chocolatey and peanut buttery. The center is very crispy and you feel it flake apart, but it’s not messy at all. The center is a nice peanut butter brown color, and crumbles nicely and cleanly. The flavor is mainly the peanut butter, but the chocolate adds a nice sweetness to it.

Clark Bar Dark: dark brown wrapper: Smells darker and more of chocolate and a hit of coconut. The center here is much harder, it didn’t crisp like the classic one did. It was more difficult to eat because of it. The chocolate is more bittersweet and adds a nice richness to the peanut butter that I liked a lot.

Clark Bar Coconut: (brown wrapper): I was very surprised to find this one is not chocolate covered at all! Instead it’s covered in flakes of toasted coconut, like a Zagnut bar. Smells coconutty and sweet. The flavor, oh, it is awesome! It’s rich in the sweet, toasty flavors of the coconut, then the nutty, salty flavors of the peanut butter. The center here is crisp like the classic, so it’s easy to eat. Love it.

This is a delightful (er, should I go Boston on everyone and call it “wicked”, ha ha) mix. It’s nice to see such a classic bar in the Halloween aisle and I’m sure any trick or treaters would love to get something unique like this in their swag. Who knows, you might even influence a new generation of Clark bar lovers.

Rating: Will Buy Again

Links Clark Bar Website

Cafe Tasse is a Belgium chocolate company whose work I see around a lot. You see it mingling around the higher end chocolate like Valrhona, El Rey, Dolfin, Michel Cluizel, etc. Hanging around a crowd like that gives me high expectations. I finally caved one day and picked up this Noir Cafe bar since I was craving something with a good coffee flavor.

I’ve seen Cafe Tasse chocolate sold in many different formats. I’ve seen small 5g tasting squares, larger “mini” bars, 45g finger bars, then the large sized bar pictures above. I like how they offer lots of different sizes to cater to how gluttonous you feel.

The design is lovely. A brown paper wrapper with vintage styled black lettering adorns the outside. The different flavors of the chocolates are color coded, so it’s easy to pick out your favorite amongst a vast selection on a high shelf.

The bar is beautiful to look at with a gorgeous, deep coloring that’s very inviting. The snap was promising too: crisp and robust.

It’s sadly in the flavor where this chocolate goes south. The chocolate is indeed dark, with a flat flavor that’s extremely dry. The coffee is overpowering, adding more unnecessary tannic flavor to an already sour chocolate. Also, the coffee flavor is not just a flavor really. There’s coffee grounds in here. Lots of them. So yes, I do taste coffee, but I feel like I’m eating sand there’s so much grit in here. Isn’t the point of chocolate is to taste it and feel it’s wonderful smooth texture? It is for me at least.

This bar is a great example of how a chocolate bar can be misleading. Everything about it suggests it’s an excellent treat except for the flavor. Where, sadly, where the mark of a good chocolate bar really lies.

Rating: Not Worth It

Links Cafe Tasse Website

One thing I was always interested in was this idea of Belgium chocolate and the stereotype that it’s especially “fancy” or “gourmet”. The misconception is that Belgium chocolate is a style of making chocolate as opposed to the fact that the country is naturally filled with talented chocolatiers (which, is true, but you get what I mean). There’s many chocolates that come with this Belgium-styled claim; Godiva, CafeTasse, Leonidas come right to mind. Galler is another one, and it wasn’t until I stumbled across these tins of “Cat Tongues” in Marshalls, one of their signature offerings, did I get a chance to finally try them.

I had no idea what a “Cat Tongue” was, but the interesting tin and the fact I hadn’t had any Galler before was reason enough for me to make the purchase. I bought a tin of each flavor: dark, milk, white. I saved the milk one as a gift and took the dark and the white for official blog tastings.

The The packaging is nice, as I was greeted with a long chain of individually wrapped Cat Tongues on the inside. All nicely folded up one another so nothing got squished. The illustration of the very European-styled Cat (I’m reminded of the art by Albert Uderzo in the Asterix comics and Peyo’s work on the Smurfs.)

Unwrapping a piece, you can see each are molded into the face of the Cat giving us the raspberry, as so to speak. The chocolate looks flawless and the praline center is barely visible though the white chocolate shell.

These did not have as much flavor as I hoped. Just picking up a piece to eat, the chocolate feels overly sweet and greasy. The praline center has a good hazelnut flavor but it’s not as strong as Nutella. The dark chocolate Cat Tongue had a nice snap to it and a nice dark gloss. The mild dark chocolate did mask some of the praline’s sweetness, but it was still on the bland side. The white chocolate was creamier and milkier, and had a more pronounced hazelnut flavor as there wasn’t much chocolate for the praline to compete with (or should I say sugar?). Both of them just didn’t do it for me and didn’t deliver an indulgent chocolate experience I was hoping for.

These didn’t really do it for me, but I did share them with friends and family with positive results. My Mom especially liked taking the white and dark ones and placing them back to back to nibble on with coffee. She was also gifted the milk chocolate ones (which means I didn’t get to taste them) and said they were quite enjoyable. I look forward to trying Galler’s other products, namely those adorable colored chocolate bars I see sometimes.

Rating: Not Worth It

Links Galler USA Website

“Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t” is the extremely catchy tag line for Peter Paul’s Almond Joy and Mounds candy bars. Peter Paul was it’s own candy company back in the day, but as time passed it was acquired by Hershey’s, so now even though Almond Joy and Mounds are members of the Hershey’s candy family, they still carry the name of their creator.

Mounds is really such a classic candy bar, and it really is a good example of a how simple ingredients can make something really stellar. Let’s hear it for dark chocolate and coconut! I really can’t say when the last time I had a Mounds bar was. Perhaps college? High school? It’s a bar that I’m a fan of, but something tat gets pushed aside for more specific cravings and newer candy conquests. Which is a shame, really.

One thing I want to mention that I really like about Mounds bars is that, well, when you open the wrapper and you find two little pieces of candy bar as opposed to one big long one. It feels like a present in a way. My head goes: “Oooo! I get two? Awesome!” Who cares of they’re smaller, twp pieces are two pieces. I have to give props to Almond Joy and 100 Grand for also doing the same thing.

Onto the tasting! The first piece I took smells dark and sweet, with a whiff of coconut. My first bite is extremely moist and dense, and you can make out the texture of the individual coconut flakes as you chew. The flavor is very sweet, with the coconut as the main, strong flavor. The chocolate compliments it nicely with it’s more subtle, smokey chocolate flavor that cuts into the coconut’s sweetness. It’s extremely balanced and so satisfying. If chocolate and coconut is what gets you goin’, there’s nothing better than the sweet simplicity as executed here.

Like most candy bars today, Mounds had a few limited editions show up on the market. The most notable was the Island Orange that Cybele reviewed and that I was able to find only in mini form. I remembered liking them. 

Rating: Will Eat Again

Links Mounds Webpage

I first heard of the new gourmet line offered by Whitman’s back at the All Candy Expo in 2005. It was at a time when everyday candy companies were starting to jump onto the gourmet and upscale chocolate bandwagon. Whitman’s, a branch of Russell Stover, was unveiling their new box of artisan gourmet chocolate bonbons, called Soho after the trendy, artsy, designer neighborhood in New York City. I admit, at first I didn’t pay much attention to them. I like Russell Stover chocolate as much as anyone, as I’d have them every now and again growing up. It wasn’t until my boyfriend showed up with these Soho chocolates in their bright red box, knowing full well that they were something I hadn’t tried yet. He figured it’d be an interesting thing to try, and boy, he didn’t know how right he was.

Firstly, I want to touch upon the fact that how a food looks can really be a treat. I have to give it to Whitman’s because, the design and look of these chocolate is quite attractive. The bright red box, the golden interior tray that holds and protects the bonbons, and the look of the bonbons themselves is really a treat to look at. Ah, eye candy. 

Sadly, that’s where the good things about these chocolates end.

There is no guide saying which flavor is which. There’s a brief blurb on the back of the box stating what the flavors are, but no indication otherwise.

To add to the frustration, there’s this overpowering fake perfume smell upon opening the box which permeates into all the chocolates, making it nearly impossible to distinguish by aroma alone.

Cacao Truffle: round with yellow, red and brown swirls: I figured staring off with the plainest of the bunch was the best idea. Wrong. The ganance center was dry, almost to the point where it was more like a crumbly nougat. It tasted mostly sweet, with that tainted perfume flavor from the whole box. 

Madagascar Vanilla Brulee: dark chocolate rectangle with ridges: I could only guess it was the vanilla as it, well, because it didn’t taste like anything else in the flavor line. Process of elimination. It was just sweet and didn’t really carry flavors that make me think vanilla...or dark chocolate. Unlike the Cacao truffle, the center here was more liquid, but not anything custardy like a brulee should be.

Raspberry Ganache: round dark chocolate with yellow swirls: Oh, this was the offender that made everything in the box smells like one generic thing. The flavor and aroma is so fake and powerful. It’s like a bad perfume. Ew.

Pear Praline: white dome with yellow streaks: It took me a moment to figure this one out, as it tasted of citrus at first, then turned so horribly bitter that I had to spit it out. It had to be the pear one as, again, process of taste of elimination tells me it couldn’t be anything else.

Sea Salt Caramel: milk chocolate square with red lines: Just by the look at this one I thought it would be the raspberry. Instead it’s a bland caramel that has no depth or intensity of flavor. As vacant as a California Valley Girl.

Pistachio Noughat: rectangle with red and yellow splashes: This one was confusing because it wasn’t a nougat, just a strange this-could0be-a-ganache-or-a-nougat-but-isn’t center with only little bits of pistachio mixed in. Again, no flavor and just sweet.

I had cut each piece in half so I could share them with the boy. Not only did I not finish my halves, but I also chucked the rest as to spare him the chocolate trauma. Sometimes I think some candy is meant just to look at. These are a good example.

Also check out Rosa at ZOMG Candy!’s impressions and CandyAddict’s review.

Rating: Inedible

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