Chocomize Custom Candy Bar: Currying Flavor

Once again, guys, I am going to indulge my love of creating custom candy concoctions (say that five times fast) by reviewing another bar that the nice folks over at Chocomize let me create.

I love Indian food. This was not always the case. In fact, as I have said in previous reviews, it really took the chef/owner of a sadly now-closed Indian restaurant in northern Georgia to bring me around -- but once he did, I was hooked. (Ken, wherever you may be, I would kill for an Indian crabcake). In addition to loving not only traditional Indian (and Indian fusion) dishes, I also just like the spices and ingredients that go into them.



"Currying Flavor" was inspired by my love of all things Indian. (And I'm hard core here. I even have my own copy of the Bollywood musical version of Fight Club.) As I do with all my custom bars, I am only rating the bar based on the individual ingredients and NOT the overall taste of the bar. Because I put the combination together myself, the ingredients could be top-notch on their own, but maybe never should have been put together -- and if that's the case, the fault is mine and not Chocomize's, so I won't ding them for it.



Anyway, Currying Flavor contains:

A milk chocolate base
Crystallized rose petals
Hot curry powder
Roasted pistachios
Diced mango

I liked the milk chocolate base more in this bar than I did in the first review I tried it with (the "Sugar High" bar). It's still very milky and a little sweeter than I prefer -- but in this case, the sweetness balances the heat and spice from the curry and the mango perfectly, and it just works really well.

The mango chunks are exactly what you'd expect of dried mango. They are generously sized and are a little chewy. The flavor is fresh and it has that nice, light warmth that mango has. The mango pieces are good enough to snack on by themselves!

The pistachios are on the small side, but they whole and very fresh. They were still nice and crunchy, though I would have liked for them to have been salted a bit more. But they were good either way.



The curry powder is liberally sprinkled on the top of the chocolate. There is enough so that you see it and you definitely taste it...but not so much that you feel like it's flocked like a cheap Christmas tree. I like it because it adds just enough curry to wake you up and let you know it's there, but not so much that you wonder what demon ever possessed you to put curry in with chocolate.

The rose petals were a pleasant surprise. Honestly, I was expecting them to simply taste like sugar. And while they certainly do have a sugary edge and crunch to them, you can actually taste the rose! I love that!

All in all, every single one of the ingredients on its own was pretty good. Yes, the milk chocolate is still sweeter than I liked, but when paired with everything else it just worked.

While I will not be rating the bar on the overall taste, I wish I could -- everything just paired up much better than I could have hoped for.

If you would like to try this bar (or create your own), the nice folks over at Chocomize have given my readers a generous 10% off coupon. If you use coupon code "Gigi" at checkout, you get 10% off your order! How can ya say no to that?

This bar was just really, incredibly good!



PURCHASED FROM:
Sample from company

CALORIES:
133 Calories per 1/5th bar.

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Contains nuts. May contain traces of milk, nuts and gluten.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
chocomize.com

Chocomize Custom Chocolate Bar: Sugar High

Once again, my thanks to the good folks at Chocomize for letting me run wild through their vast candy forest and create a bar that I am fairly certain could make even the most diehard four-year-old jealous.



One of the highlights of my young life was when I was deemed old enough by my parents to start spending the night at my friends' houses. One such friend was a girl named Jennifer. Jennifer was the only child of fun yuppie parents. (Seriously, there were very few 80's stereotypes they did not live up to.) And her mom would take us to the mall where we would spend a few hours pooling together our money and making joint purchases of such need-to-own items as Madonna cassettes (yes, I said cassettes...gawd, I am old) and earrings. (Back in the day, Claire's had some insane deal where you could get something like 15 pairs of earrings for $5.00.) Sometimes we went on sugar sprees, often at the mall candy store --- you know, the kind that has giant bulk bins, which as a kid I thought was the greatest thing ever, and as an adult think of as Petri dishes of kid germs. Or we would go to the FroYo joint and toss in as much candy as we were allowed to. Good times...good times...

Anyway, it was that larval version of Gigi that I allowed to pick out the ingredients for this bar. If my actual 12-year-old self had been given the option, I think she would have gotten pretty much the same results.



The "Sugar High" bar is a milk chocolate bar that is studded with Oreo pieces, Pop Rocks, mini marshmallows, and caramel pieces.

As with any custom bar I review, I am rating the bar only on its individual ingredients and not the bar as a whole. I chose ingredients myself, and it's always possible that they could be great on their own but not in combination. Conversely,they could be great together, but because it's a custom-made bar, we are just rating by ingredients.

Why? Because I said so. So there.



Anyway...

The milk chocolate base: Very milky and creamy with a smooth melt. It also is a very sweet, sugary milk chocolate -- in fact, it almost reminded me of Cadbury milk chocolate. I am not going to lie; there is throat burn -- and while I know that this doesn't bother some people, it does bother me. It's not bad enough to keep me from eating the bars with all their custom additions, but I would never eat just the plain chocolate all by itself.

The Pop Rocks: I feel the need to apologize for the fact that the Pop Rocks look all melty (although it does look kind of cool in and of itself). They did arrive looking perfect, as the shiny little shreds you expect Pop Rocks to be, but thanks to my AC going out, along with some humidity, they became more goopy and opaque. Regardless, they still fizzed and had the cherry taste I expected. The fizzing was a lot of fun with the smoothness of the chocolate and the soft marshmallows. And the red added some nice color.

The marshmallows: perfectly soft and smooshy! A hint of vanilla flavor. Yeah, marshmallows are just plain good.

The caramel drops: The little pea-sized drops are chewy and...well, they are chewy. There's a tiny hint of buttery flavor, but mostly it's about the texture. And they look kinda like chick peas or hazelnuts. Which is cool, I guess.

The Oreo pieces: chocolaty, crunchy, exactly what you expect Oreo Pieces to be. No surprises here.



As a whole, I liked the ingredients enough to use them in other bars -- with the exception of the caramel drops. And even then it's not that it was all that bad...it just wasn't all that good. But marshmallows and Pop Rocks should definitely be used together more often.

If you want to find out how good Pop Rocks and marshmallows can be together for yourself -- or make your own dream bar -- the people at Chocomize have put together a coupon for you! If you use the coupon code "Gigi" at checkout, it will save you 10% off of your order



PURCHASED FROM:
Sample from company

CALORIES:
130 calories per 1/5 of bar.

ADDITIONAL INFO:
May contain traces of milk, nuts, and gluten.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
chocomize.com

Chocomize Custom Chocolate Bar: Ahhh

I really love the idea of custom created chocolate bars. And I could literally spend hours coming up with different bars (and I have!), so when the folks at Chocomize contacted me and asked if I would like to give their bars a try, I could not resist.

I did several bars. Some of them are pretty interesting in terms of ingredients -- at least I think so -- but I also wanted to try something simple, because sometimes simple is really best.

The "Ahhh" bar is made up of a dark chocolate base, with dried cranberries and crystallized mint leaves.



The bar itself looks beautiful. The colors of the cranberries and the mint leaves are really vivid and allow the smooth and dark-looking chocolate to show through in little patches. The bars were well molded and arrived in perfect shape.

The ingredients are embedded in what is technically the bottom (or underside) of the bar. The top is simply molded and very, very, glossy.



I am going to rate this based on the individual ingredients rather than the bar as a whole -- because, after all, I chose how I paired the ingredients. The ingredients could be great but if I put them together in a less then stellar combination, it wouldn't be fair to hold that against Chocomize. (And if it's a brilliant combo, then I get all the credit! (Kidding...kidding...no, kinda not)



The dark chocolate: It's a 56% dark chocolate. Not the deepest, darkest chocolate by any stretch, but it does have a good flavor. It's got strong coffee notes, and a sweetness that I wasn't expecting -- but it's not so sweet that there isn't a slightly bitter edge. Honestly, it reminded me more of a deep milk chocolate than a true dark. The melt is very smooth and it feel silky and cool on the tongue. I tend to like my dark chocolates, well, darker -- but this was pleasant and it would be a good gateway dark for newbies who want to expand beyond milk chocolate.

The cranberries: These were great! Very plump and sweet and also very fresh. They were even still soft!

The crystallized mint leaves: They look quite pretty and they were not overly sugared. You could still see the details of the veins in the leaves. The flavor is mostly sugar (well, duh), but towards the end you do get a tiny hint of mint. Don't expect a full-on peppermint rush like you would get from, say, a classic candy cane -- think more of what's muddled into your mojito. But that's exactly what I was expecting, so I was pretty happy with being right. (I just happen to like being right a lot.)



Not to toot my own horn (and not basing the rating on this either), but I have to say that cranberries, mint, and dark chocolate is a pretty damn good combination.

This bar has definitely got me looking forward to my other Chocomize bars.

The folks at Chocomize also want you to give you a chance to make your own bar (or try my combination). So visit them at chocomize.com and use coupon code "Gigi" at checkout to get 10% off your order!



PURCHASED FROM:
Sample from company

CALORIES:
118 calories per 1/5 of a bar.

ADDITIONAL INFO:
May contain traces of milk, nuts and gluten.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
chocomize.com