‘Tis the holiday season! That brings to mind many things about this special time of year. For many it means dinners, parties, gifts, overspending, travel, etc. One thing it means for me is sweets, specifically the ones my Mom makes. She has so many cookies, cakes, and pies she cooks for when the family all gets together. One of these special sweets she makes is homemade toffee, and let me tell you, it’s really wonderful stuff. So imagine my excitement when See’s sent me some Holiday samples in the mail and I saw this beautiful red box of their Victoria Toffee. It was as if Christmas came early!

The box weighs in at a pound and is decorated in a beautifully festive red box. Red is such a gorgeous, vibrant color, and I think it looks its best at Christmas. One the front you see a beautiful image of the toffee, a hint as to what’s inside. A nice presentation of the confection, bravo See’s.

I was greatly impressed when I opened the box, as the slab of toffee inside is just enormous. It’s one giant piece! I had to grab the block of it in my hand, using the protective plastic that keeps it nice and safe, and try to break a corner off it. This toffee is easily almost an inch thick, so that might sound easier than it was. I managed to get a small piece off to taste.

You can see big chunks of almonds in the toffee, which is very attractive. The toffee is buttery and sweet and crumbles beautifully when you chew it. The chocolate that covers it is very sweet and compliments the toffee with extremely rich, chocolately notes. The chopped almonds on the outside are fresh and crunchy, but at the same time makes it easy to chew when you take a bite. The flavors all together is a very rich and flavorful. The butteryness of the toffee mixed with the salty almonds and sweet chocolate is just a heavenly combination.

Overall I was very impressed with this toffee. I think if you don’t have time or know-how (when in fact it’s really easy) to make your own, this is an excellent substitute. A treat that will be appreciated by many!

Rating: Will Eat Again

Links See’s Candies Website

Today is the second Michel & Augustin Petits Carres bar that I bought at the Grove Farmer’s Market. I recall them having a few varieties. If I bought all they had I clearly don’t remember. My sister just chose a few for me and I went with them. I didn’t care enough to make sure if I was trying all the varieties or just some of them.

This is the Hazelnut Dark Chocolate flavor, which, I am hoping will be a bit more flavorful than the plain dark chocolate. Time will tell though.

The first thing that had me bummed about this bar was it has overcooked cookie base. Not just darker than the last, no. It has inconsistent coloring all over and in some parts it was a dark as the chocolate was. Not good. The flavor is not as strong or yummy as Nutella is, which I found disappointing. The filling is only slightly nutty and just comes across as bland. Sadly there’s no saltiness in the cookies base. Just a bland sweetness and a rock hard texture which made it even more difficult to separate and eat as the Dark Chocolate variety.

So this one was disappointing. I was hoping it’d improve my thoughts about this candy, but instead it just made me think worse of it. If I wanted to eat flavorless burnt cookies I’d make some myself, as it’s easy to leave a batch in the oven too long. I mean, it didn’t taste terrible but it wasn’t great either. Especially since I paid about $4 for this, imported from France no less. Fool me once….

Rating: Might Eat Again

Links Michel & Augustin Webpage (French)

Today is the second day of See’s Thanksgiving Truffle collection. I have another part of their “Seasonal Pie Truffles” collection: the Pecan Pie truffle. I was partiuclarly interested in this truffle because, in regard to pies, my family is 100% all about pumpkin. We love it and have no desire to have any other pie with our Thanksgiving spread. I can only think of two times in my life where I have had pecan pie. Once was while I was over at a friend’s house after Thanksgiving, and the other was brought by a different friend when my family did a potluck Thanksgiving one year. So my experiences with this beloved and classic pie is extremely limited. Which brings me to my review today, since it’s Pecan Pie!

The truffle is gorgeous. It’s a mountain of pristine, white chocolate crowned with a pecan half. It smells sweet and has an extremely rich, nutty flavor of the roasted pecans. The flavor is absolutely amazing, I daresay it trumps a real pecan pie (from what I remember!). The texture is smooth, as the pecan is blended so finely into the butter cream center that no pieces are left to get stuck in your teeth. The flavor stars off sweet and buttery of the white chocolate coating, then it gradually melts away to the flavor of the center which is fully of the flavors of rich brown sugar, molasses and pecans. The pecans certainly take center stage as the main flavor, as they sound, and it makes for an intensely nutty, rich, and flavor truffle.

I was impressed with these! They are very flavorful and delicious. I found I love having them paired with coffee or tea, in true dessert style. This truffle is one of the few in the “Seasonal Pie Collection” that you can buy separately in its own box. I can easily see these as a thoughtful hostess gift for Thanksgiving or for a treat for yourself if you don’t have the time or energy to make a pie yourself. Yum!

Rating: Will Buy Again

Links See’s Candies Website

New Tree has done a lot of evolving over the years as a chocolate company. I recall back a few years ago when their chocolate bars had emotions and specific flavors paired together. You can see an early candy review of mine from CandyAddict.com where I reviewed all the current New Tree flavors at the time. Since then they’ve really changed their flavors and chocolate philosophy now. They’ve gone “healthier”, which is the best way I can put it now. Let’s look at this Belgian Biscuit bar as an example.

To start, this bar is a 65% chocolate and is labeled as “dark chocolate with golden flax seeds” along “3x more fiber, omega 3 and -30% sugar”. Healthier that most chocolates on the market now, wouldn’t you say?

Taking a bite the chocolate immediately has a lot of crunch to it. You taste sweetness and the butteryness of the biscuits, the chocolate really takes a back seat here. The biscuit’s flavor is the main star here. You don’t really taste the flax at all, it’s more of a texture at the very end when you get the seeds separating from the chocolate on your tongue and then stuck in your teeth.

Tasty, but not the best bar if you’re looking for a chocolatey hit. I found the texture to be the dominant factor in this chocolate bar, and it makes the bar difficult to be eaten in any other manner other than chewing it.

To be fair, New Tress does carry a collection like the originals I expressed above in the 2007 review. Yes, there’s been some changes. but the idea remains on the whole. Their branching out into more unique, healthful and innovative chocolate bars are interesting. I can’t say that these are something I’d immediately go for, but I’m sure they do appeal to certain consumers. It’s a quality bar at the end of the day, so it’s a good thing to go for if it sounds interesting to you.

Rating: Might Eat Again

Links New Tree Webpage

I could start this review by gushing, yet again, about how much I love white chocolate. I’ll spare you the speech this time around. This Lindt bar has been around for some time, and it baffles me that I’ve waited this long to try it. I think perhaps because it took me a bit to find, and like many of my most recent candy finds, Target is where I finally located this bar.

The chocolate is beautiful. It has a white creamy color and it is well studded with almonds. You can see their shapes and colors poking through the ivory chocolate.

The sections of this chocolate bar are rather large, easily an inch and a half on each side. The chocolate is think too, it’s about 1.2 in thick, probably so the almonds fit into the chocolate. The chocolate smells buttery and sweet with a hint of amaretto.

The chocolate is lovely. It’s smooth and creamy, with a nice sweet subtle chocolate flavor with hints of vanilla. It’s an excellent white chocolate. The almonds are fresh and crunchy and deliver a wonderful smooth nutty flavor that compliments the white chocolate so well. It’s a very rich bar, but it’s very delightful in the flavors which are sweet, but not overpowering.

Love this bar. It’s a great example of how a simple white chocolate is very versatile with many ingredients. It’s hard for me to choose which I like better, this or the White Chocolate Coconut bar that Lindt also has. I very much recommend this bar for someone who loves white chocolate or is looking for a good bar to try it for the first time.

Rating: Will Buy Again

Links Lindt USA Website