Ben & Jerry's Hannah Teter's Maple Blondie Limited Edition (Round Three!!!)

Update -- December 15 2010:

Yes, it's true! Hannah Teter's Maple Blondie is back yet again, for an unprecedented third production run! (Normally Ben & Jerry's limited editions are made in one single batch, and once they're gone, they're gone forever.) And it's available on supermarket shelves right now, so be sure to get some -- trust me, it is well worth hunting for. In fact, I have even heard a rumor that if you leave some of this for Santa Claus, he'll give you an iPad.

Anyway, since Maple Blondie is back -- and since it's totally, absolutely fantastic (Jerry himself has said it's his favorite flavor) -- I decided to do something I very rarely do: I am reposting the review I did of it way back when. So if you missed it the first time around, or even the second, here it is:

Ice Spiders. It's not just a movie, man! The giant spiders are coming, I know it! (If you have not surrendered over two hours of life to see this movie yet, it is awesomely, transcendentally bad and you are missing out.) Hannah Teter, by the way, is a famous snowboarder and a Vermont native, who has never been attacked by ice spiders, as best I can tell. Hannah -- besides snowboarding -- also has a nonprofit charity called Hannah's Gold that sells Vermont maple syrup to help the children of Kirindon, Kenya.

Conveniently, this is a maple ice cream base with a maple caramel swirl. So you see, people, I am eating ice cream to save the children! I thought of the children! There are also blonde brownie chunks. I don't know how the children feel about them, but I tend to be a fan.



So is it worth risking death by ice spider for?

The scent is heavenly. It's a sweet maple, yet it doesn't send you looking for the pancakes.

The maple base tastes like a creamy version of the best maple syrup you can imagine. It's deep, there's a brown sugar/molasses quality, but it manages never to overwhelm. If you are basing your like -- or more to the point, dislike -- of maple on pancake syrups found on supermarket shelves that are no longer maple syrup but merely maple flavored syrup...cease and desist! This is what you should be looking for.

The maple/caramel swirl is addictive. It's mostly caramel, but it's just good. It adds a slightly sticky texture that I liked.



The brownie pieces are super, super soft and I found myself hunting for the chunks. It's like little brown sugar cubes of happiness. Really, the only thing bad about this ice cream is what it might do to my ass if I am allowed to consume it in the quantities I'd like to.

Be sure to check out Marvo's review, because my butt might be completing with his moobs over the last pint!



PURCHASED FROM:
Vons Supermarket

PRICE:
$3.49

CALORIES:
240 calories per 1/2 cup

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
benjerry.com

Hotel Chocolat: Collection of Filled Chocolates

First, my thanks to Cinabar over at Foodstuff Finds. She and I have recently done a candy exchange, and this is the first in the plethora of great British candy she sent me. I started with this item because I simply do not get enough Hotel Chocolat in my day-to-day life...and Jim is always sending me into chocolate envy with his.



This four piece collection has some beautiful filled pieces.

I'll start with the Chocolate Brownie:



The outside of this cube is studded with little brownie crumbs. The center creme looks smooth -- except there are little tiny brownie crumbs mixed in. The smell is sweet and milky. Biting into the piece, it's surprisingly crunchy...that was a nice surprise. It didn't remind me much of brownie in any way, but it has a really nice and mellow milk chocolate flavor. And the crunchies mixed in with the super-smooth center is fabulous.



Next, the Amarena Cherry suspended in Amaretto Buttercream:



I had to Google "Amarena Cherry" to find out if it was something special. And as best I can tell, it is like a really upscale Maraschino cherry. Basically, if the two were different branches of the Griswold family tree, the Maraschinos might be like Cousin Eddie emptying his septic tank into your yard, while the Amarenas are more like Clark's uppity mother-in-law wondering what the hell Ellen ever saw in him (and possibly why her grandkids looked different every time we saw them).



The smell of this piece reminded me a lot of a cherry brandy. Rich, and just a little boozy. The dark chocolate outer shell is deep and biter. It's like coffee, only not a strong mocha. The bitterness of the chocolate is perfect because the buttercream center is very sweet. With a milder, milky chocolate it would have been too sweet overall, but the dark chocolate really adds to the appeal.

Sadly, I have a love/hate relationship with the buttercream filling. Texture-wise, it is the most incredibly smooth buttercream I have ever had. There is no sugary, graininess to it. It's silky smooth enough that The Zohan might give up hummus for it. The only issue is that the flavor -- though supposed to be Amaretto -- reminded me of cheap cherry cough syrup. And it's really hard to come back from cheap cherry cough syrup.

The inner cherry was quite small -- about the size of a plump blueberry -- and oddly, while the creme around it made me think of cold medicine, the cherry itself didn't. It was tart and juicy with just a tinge of sweetness. I could eat these by the handful.

Next, the Butterscotch Ganache with Shortbread Biscuit:



This was a cute candy. I loved how the tiny little biscuit sat atop the molded chocolate cup. I have noticed that "butterscotch" and "caramel" can sometimes be interchangeable in British candy. Here in the US, the flavor we expect of butterscotch is like that of butterscotch puddings or Werther's candy. But sometimes what is described on a UK product as butterscocth flavored is more like what we would call caramel flavored here. In the strictest sense, butterscotch is a basically caramel that's made with brown sugar and butter in place of "plain" white sugar and butter.



The butterscotch in this piece was the Werther's type -- only it was whipped into an almost fluid state. Again, high praise for the texture. The butterscotch has a very brown sugar taste to it. It's paired with dark chocolate. The shortbread wafer adds some crunch but no real flavor. The basic flavor is good -- it is just overwhelmingly, throat-burningly sweet. As much as I liked the taste, I couldn't finish the piece.

Finally, the Praline with Crispy Pancake:



This is the one I was most looking forward to. I love pralines (Trader Joe's sells rather large tubs of them, and they are addictive) and was intrigued by the "crispy pancake." When we here in the U.S. think of pancakes, we think about breakfast items -- large, fluffy round things, (hopefully) buttered and drizzled with syrup. However, in Hotel's world, "pancake" seems to refer to thin layers of biscuits (or sometimes wafers). I think I like Hotel's version better.



They really nailed this one. It is like the best sugared pecan you will ever have in your life, coupled with milk chocolate. As best I can tell, the pancake is represented by little crunchy bits. I had been expecting more of a wafer, but this worked really well. There are no actual nuts bits in the piece, which I liked.

Overall, even the pieces I didn't like as much as the praline were pretty good (Well, minus the cough syrup part). Hotel's chocolate -- both the dark and the milk -- is rich and has a fantastic melt. It's just really good all the way around.

Yeah, these were good. Really, really good.



PURCHASED FROM:
Gift from Cinabar of Foodstuff Finds.

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Contains: Soy, nuts, gluten, sulphites, eggs. Suitable for vegetarians (but not vegans).

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
hotelchocolat.com

Morinaga Black Sugar Choco Balls

A big thank you to my friends over at J-List for sending out this candy for me to try. In case you don't know, in a nutshell (or a choco ball in this case), black sugar is the Japanese equivalent of brown sugar.

And, as I have written about 493795 gillion times, I am a huge fan of brown sugar.



I loved the packaging. Japanese candy in general tends to be presented in fun ways, and this was no exception.



The candies themselves are little orbs that are slightly smaller then a Whopper. There is chocolate biscuit inside and a smooth, glossy chocolate shell. The outer chocolate is very waxy. (To be fair, because the label is entirely in Japanese, which I do not read, it is very possible that it is a "chocolaty" coating rather than real chocolate.) The coating layer is fairly thin and the chocolate doesn't so much melt as seize up in your mouth.

I think the black sugar flavor was meant to appear here -- there is a rather distinct taste, but it's not black sugar. To me it tasted sorta like rum extract...fake rum extract, at that. As you get to the end of the outer layer, there is a faint ending flavor that is sorta, kinda like brown sugar. Kinda. But not really.

Having never had Japanese black sugar, I am unsure if that is actually the normal flavor of black sugar or if this is just Morinaga's interpetion.



What I did like was the biscuit centers. The biscuit tastes like a cross between the chocolate flavored Pocky or Fran sticks and the 100 calorie Oreos. It has more of a cocoa flavor then a true chocolate flavor. It's malty and there's a hint of salt.

This biscuit with a Pocky or Fran covering would really rock.



PURCHASED FROM:
Provided by Jlist.com

Haagen-Dazs Five- Brown Sugar

Five is a new line of Haagen-Dazs. The five refers to the fact that there are only five ingredients per pint!
Who doesn't love the idea of ice cream (or any food for that matter) with a list of ingredients you can not only pronounce but identify?!

I tried the Brown Sugar flavor first- and yes, you guessed it there were only five ingredients. There are no chunks or bits this is just a smooth ice cream (no complainants). The first thing that struck me is how incredibly smooth this ice cream is (kinda like I imagine Hugh Jackman's butt to be). There just seems to be a really high fat content (although the pint does say it has 30% less fat- less then what I am not sure. Regular Haagen-Dazs is my guess)

Flavor, this is like the ice cream version of Panda Licorice- and that is such a good thing (almost as good as Hugh Jackman's butt) there is a seriously deep molasses flavor. As you eat more of it (uh... I might have done that) it almost pick ups a coffee like taste.

Look, I could go on, and on about this flavor but really just go get some right now and then send me fan mail. You will thank me and then I can finish the pint without having to go through the motions of "writing" when all I really want to do is look at this:

and be eating. GO!- NOW!

PURCHASED FROM:
Albertsons Supermarket

See's Milk Bordeaux Bar

See's Candies are one of those things about California that I didn't realize I would miss until after I had been gone.
While sadly for the those of you not on the West Coast or the couple of Mid-West states that have full blown See's stores to get your fix you either have to order online or wait until around the holidays when most malls get a kiosk location. The Kiosks sadly do not carry the full range of See's products but they do feature some of the best sellers and thanks to that I had been able to get my fix for one of my most beloved See's candy; the Bordeaux bar.

Both the Bordeaux bar and it's smaller individual single bite piece is a brown sugar buttercream that is enrobed in a thick coating of milk chocolate and covered in chocolate sprinkles. Really how hard would this have to try to not be good?

From the moment it's in your mouth it starts melting in a warm river of milky goodness. There is a really strong dairy component to the chocolate. The Brown Sugar buttercream is smooth and sweet- almost like a eating a pinch of soft brown sugar. But at the same time it is not so sweet that it causes your teeth to ache.

I am noit a huge fan of buttercream filled candy but I love these.

PURCHASED FROM:
See's Candy

Sticky Toffee Pudding Haagen Daz

This was the winning flavor from the "Scoop" FN/Haagen Dazs contest. Admittedly I didn't know that when I bought it. I remember hearing something about it but when I saw the name of the flavor alone on the shelf I had to buy it.

And here is the rest of it. It's a vanilla ice cream base that has a slight hint of cinnamon and it is filled with a toffee sauce and bits of a moist sugar cake. I hope this ends up becoming part of the normal line. This flavor is actually BETTER then the Mayan Chocolate that was launched earlier in the year- and that is saying something because that is a damn good one.

Worth every calorie!