Snickers: Peanut Butter Squared

This is one of those cases where I have been woefully slow on the uptake getting to my review. I've been dying to try these since Cybele got the first scoop on them on Candy Blog back in July, and once I heard they could be found "in the wild" I proceeded to drive my mother insane scouring every store we went to for weeks until they showed up at CVS.

And I don't normally do this, but I love the commercial for them so much I have to share it:



I will grant you it is completely possible that some of my glee with that ad comes from the fact that I have a close family member named Steve, and it is safe to say there have been occasions when feeding each other to sharks sounded like a good idea.



Snickers Peanut Butter Squared comes in both the "fun size" bags and the bar version. I got my hand on a bar. In a departure from the normal single bar, the Peanut Butter Squared is broken up into two generously sized squares. I like it; it's cute, and if I feel like sharing or saving the second piece, this makes it super easy. I realize I could achieve the same thing by just getting the "fun size" bag to start with -- but admittedly if it is something that I end up really liking, I find it harder to control my personal portion because it makes it so easy to tell yourself "just one more..."

The bar is enrobed in the classic Snickers milk chocolate. Let's face it -- if you have ever had a single American Mars candy bar, you have had the smooth, slightly sweet milk chocolate that's on this bar. There's nothing even remotely noteworthy about it.



What makes this bar different is everything else. It has a much thinner layer of nougat. That's my favorite part of the classic bar, but then again, they had to make room for the peanut butter somewhere.

The peanut butter takes up the bulk of the filling. It's a smooth, creamy style peanut butter. There's not much to say about it except that it's on the salty side. I couldn't tell if that was from the peanut butter itself or the actual peanuts in the bar.

Speaking of the peanuts, while they were crunchy and fresh, there didn't seem to be as many of them as there are in a comparable portion of a normal Snickers. The caramel is also nothing to write home about. It's not bad; it's just the same stuff that's found on all the other Snickers.



In the end it's tasty, and I like it enough to scarf it down, but I really missed the nougat layer. It's certainly not my favorite variation of the Snickers bar. (I think that would be the Almond Snickers, although Snickers Dark is up there too).

Rod also reviewed it, so check out his opinion here.



PURCHASED FROM:
CVS

PRICE:
$1.69

CALORIES:
250 Calories per pack (2 squares)

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Contains peanuts and soy. May contain almonds.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
snickers.com

Too Haute Cowgirls: The Good, the Bad, and the Peanut Butter Popcorn

Edited on 11/13/10 to add:
This is actually a re-run review of sorts. My original photo's were what could best be described as "melty" looking thanks to the shipping company. The kindly little ladies of Too Haute Cowgirls were nice enough to send along new samples so thanks to them I was able to redo the photo's and give this popcorn the food porn justice it deserves!

The rootin' tootin' ladies of Too Haute Cowgirls have certainly been making quite the impression on me. They have a caramel popcorn base that is to die for, and they have many, many different versions and toppings that they have piled on.

Today's cluster is The Good, the Bad and the Peanut Butter. Which is caramel corn drizzled with white chocolate and peanut butter. Also tossed into the mix are peanuts, cashews, pretzels, and sea salt flakes.

Now, I go into this eager yet scared: I love everything on that list except for white chocolate. And sadly, white chocolate is going to play a major role here. With that admission of bias up front, let's give her a try:

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The peanut butter is the first thing you taste. It has that sweeter peanutty taste that seems more common in peanut butter flavored items than in actual peanut butter itself. Think less roasted nuts and more sugary. Kinda like peanut butter flavored cereal. I may not like that taste in a sandwich, but it works really well with the caramel corn.

The sea salt makes both the caramel and the peanut butter pop.

The white chocolate just adds a little extra vanilla-like sweetness. There's a lot of it, but to my delight it didn't make the popcorn oily or distract from the other ingredients. It also adds a little smooth melt.

The nuts are plentiful and very crisp.

I just wish there had been more pretzels! They tasted great along with the caramel corn and the peanut butter. And like the nuts, they were very crispy.


I can't say enough about the caramel corn. Even if they'd packaged plain caramel corn on its own, it would still be good. The caramel is milky and salty. The corn itself is plump and crunchy.

Even as a non-fan of white chocolate I really liked this flavor!



PURCHASED FROM:
Sample from company

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Contains nuts.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
toohautecowgirls.com

McVitie's Snickers Flapjacks

It's funny how even when it's still in English, some food names can be completely different in different places. Here in the U.S. when we hear "flapjacks," most of us immediately think about pancakes. Apparently in the U.K., Flapjacks can actually refer to a popular type of snack item.

My thanks once again to Cinabar of Foodstuff Finds for sending me this pack of McVitie's Snickers Flapjacks. I have been dying to try them since I read Jim's review back in October of last year (see it here).



Jim, to be fair, didn't like the Snicker's Flapjack all that much -- but he did say that it had a really good nutty smell. He also said they had an almost too moist, crumbly texture. But I happen to have a soft spot for that particular kind of texture (I am weird, I know).

Anyway, the package contains five individually wrapped bars.

Each bar is slightly longer and just a touch thinner than one of our "Fun Size" Snickers bars. The chocolate topping is much lighter in color than you'd guess from the packaging illustration -- in fact, it's almost a butterscotch color. And as Jim said it would, the bar does indeed have a very strong nutty smell. Looking at the bar I couldn't help but think that it looks like a hunk of chocolate (or butterscotch?) covered particle board. It's a taupe-colored mishmash of grainy looking bits, studded with peanuts. It is far from what one would call a pretty bar.



Looks aside, how did it taste?

Fortunately, it did not taste like something cheap furniture is built of. It is super moist -- moist to the point that it falls apart the moment you bite into it. The main flavors seem to be peanuts and oats. The chocolate, incidentally, may look like butterscotch, but it doesn't taste like it. It actually tastes just like any other commercial, mass market milk chocolate. It melts very easily, and while I have a feeling that on its own I would say it's too sweet, here it added a much needed kick. Without the sweetness of the chocolate, the oats would be too bland and the nuts would have nothing to jazz them up.



Also oddly missing from the Flapjack was any trace of caramel. Why is that? Caramel is such an important part of a classic Snickers bar that I don't get how they could possibly skip it here.

It's sort of hard to rate these. As a chocolate/peanut/oat flavored snack cake, they really aren't bad. I did like the texture, and I liked the fact that the cakes are just sweet enough without going overboard. On the other hand, as a Snickers flavored item, they are an epic fail. There's no caramel, and it just doesn't much seem like a Snickers bar at all.

In the end, I think I am going to just split the difference and go with:



PURCHASED FROM:
Gift from Cinabar of Foodstuff Finds

CALORIES:
167 Calories per Flapjack.

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Contains peanuts, milk, soy, gluten, and is processed on equipment that also handles eggs and nuts.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
unitedbiscuits.com

Snickers Pods

Once again I have to give a shout out of thanks to the amazing Cinabar of Foodstuff Finds for sending me gobs of goodies from the U.K.

Today's reviewed item has been quite the world traveler. Snickers Pods are not a U.K. item, but are actually a product of Mars Australia. So, before it was even opened, this package made the trip from Australia -- well, to be picky, they are actually made in New Zealand -- to an import shop in Cinabar's corner of the U.K. Then from the U.K. it flew all the way to Southern California. All of which means that these Pods went (using nearest major cities to give you a better geographic picture) from Auckland, New Zealand, to London, England, to Los Angeles, California. That's a grand total of 16,846 air miles -- or 27,111 air kilometers -- just so I can get my chance to get my nom-noms on. (Wait...did that sound unprofessional? I meant to phrase that as: So I can have my chance to try yet another hopefully amazing foreign delicacy. That sounded better, right?)



I could not resist, though. As soon as I read Cinabar's review of the Pods (here), I had to try them. First, because I am just an all-around a fan of Snickers. Secondly (and to be honest, this was my main reason), there is just something about them that screams Scooby Snack! I can't explain why that is, but something in my mind just thinks if there was ever a human version of a Scooby Snack, these Pods would be it.



The Pods consist of a crunchy hemispheric shell that is full of a caramelly Snickers-type filling, and topped with chocolate.

So what do they taste like?

The wafer reminded me slightly sweeter, sugar cone style ice cream cone.



The center has a very thin layer of yellowish creme. It looks like caramel shown on the package (though not nearly as thick as the picture would indicate). That layer is where the peanut flavor and the caramel flavor reside. It's interesting because there is no mistaking the nuttiness -- it's just as present as it is in an actual Snickers bar -- but the creme is perfectly smooth, and there are no actual nut pieces to be found.

The chocolate layer is thicker than I was expecting. It's as perfectly smooth and creamy as any Mars chocolate ever is. The only thing I can say is that it does have that sweeter taste that many mass-market chocolates made outside of the U.S. tend to have.

I actually really liked these Pods. The added crunchy texture to the classic Snickers taste was a good combination. I would definitely buy these if I could get them on a regular basis.



PURCHASED FROM:
Gift from Cinabar of Foodstuff Finds.

CALORIES:
545 kilojoules per 25 grams. (I have no idea how many calories that equals.)

ADDITIONAL INFO:
May contain tree nuts and barley.

Wonka Exceptionals: Scrumdiddlyumptious Chocolate Bar

What pulled me to this bar was the use of the word (well, I guess it's sort of a word) "Scrumdiddlyumptious." A co-worker and I have actually had conversations about how the word "scrumptious" is not being used enough, and...well this was pretty close.

The Wonka Scrumdiddlyumptious bar is part of the Wonka line, and is a milk chocolate bar with toffee pieces, crispy cookie, and peanut bits.



First, regardless of taste, I liked how they molded this bar. As you can see, it's got a really whimsical mold. The pieces come in a variety of sizes to break off, and there is the standout W in the center. It looks good -- but how does it taste?



The chocolate is very smooth and very sweet. There are strong dairy notes; you can definitely taste the milk in the bar. But the chocolate is still very, very sweet. My throat was burning after only a couple of squares.

While the mix-ins are plentiful, they're not uniform. So some squares have oodles of "crunches" and some have next to none. The toffee bits were my favorite because they added a little buttery, salty hint. The cookies in question just seemed plain and blah. There's nothing really wrong with them, but they're certainly nothing exciting. The peanuts were crunchy and added a nice nut flavor.



I gotta give Wonka points for the cool name, and for having an interesting ingredients list. Tastewise, it was decent but it didn't really rock my world. I won't be pulling on an Oompa Loompa suit and trying to sneak into the factory for free bars just yet, but it was a nice enough option.

Check out both Cybele's review here, and Jim's review here.



PURCHASED FROM:
WalMart

PRICE:
$2.18

CALORIES:
170 per 1/3 bar.

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Contains peanuts. Made on equipment shared with tree nuts and wheat.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
wonka.com

Sahale Snacks: Sing Buri Cashews

I love nut mixes. So it's always a treat when I find a mix that is a little out of the ordinary. Don't get me wrong -- I am a big fan of things as simple as "hot" style peanuts, but it is nice to get something special now and then.



Sahale Snacks actually offers several interesting mixes, and they were nice enough to send samples for me to opine on. I decided to start with the Sing Buri Cashews. In addition to the cashews, this mix also has pineapple, lemongrass, mild Chinese chili, sesame seeds, and peanuts. Sounds more exotic than simply "hot," doesn't it?

Each whole cashew is decently sized. Not the biggest cashews I have ever seen, but they are big enough. They are nicely coated in spices and sesame seeds. The smell is nutty and slightly sweet. As mentioned, there are also peanuts in the mix -- but surprisingly few of them. Not that I am complaining, because that means you're getting more cashews.



So how does it taste?

The easiest way to describe it is to say that they taste like cashews that have been lightly glazed in sweetened Sriracha sauce (you know, the one with the rooster on the label), but not quite as hot as that would probably be. It also tastes like there's a little ginger, though that might actually be the lemongrass. The sesame seeds add some texture and hint of nutty flavor.

The pineapple bits actually convey the heat of the chili more than the nuts do. The pineapple is sweet; little dried diced chunks that are also covered in spices and sesame.

I was hoping that these were going to be some seriously hot little cashews. They are not. Even chili wimps can eat them without fear. But despite the fact that the chili is not the heat packer I was hoping for, the nuts are in fact quite tasty. I also found myself digging through for the pineapple bits... and before I knew it, the bag was almost empty.

That's how you know you have a good snack -- when you just keep nibbling until there is nothing left.



PURCHASED FROM:
Sample from company.

CALORIES:
130 calories per 1/4 cup.

ADDITIONAL INFO:
All natural, trans fat free. Contains peanuts, wheat and soy.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
sahalesnacks.com

Cadbury Picnic

Once again we are going to take a boat ride over to Merrie Olde England. Between Christmas gifts from my mother and my mega candy exchange with Cinabar of Foodstuff Finds, I have enough UK products to do a month's-plus of reviews. So here's just one of the many to come.

Cadbury's Picnic bar had special appeal to me because it contains my favorite underused candy additive: raisins! As popular as raisins seem to be the world over, I just don't get why they aren't used more often.

The picnic bar is a bumpy, log style bar made up of caramel, crispy cereal, raisins, and the whole thing is covered in milk chocolate.



Looking at the bar, it's rustic to the point it looks homemade. Kinda like candy hippie grandmothers might make. (I am guessing on that one, as my own grandmothers were decidedly not hippies -- although one was, I am at least 98% sure, a strega.) In any case, yeah, it's a homely bar.

Mine was oozing caramel, and that can only be a good thing. And in fact it was. The bar may not be pretty, but it has great texture. When you bite into there is both a satisfying crunch from the nuts and the crispy rice and some chew from the caramel. And the raisins are perfectly plump.

Between the peanuts and the caramel, there is a nice salty edge to the bar that works to the chocolate's advantage. I normally find Cadbury chocolate to be to sweet for my tastes, but the salt made it seem less so. It was smooth and a little grainy.



The peanuts tasted fresh and were crunchy. The puffed rice really didn't have a lot going for it in terms of flavor. If I really tried I guess, I could say it added a hint of malt -- but really it is mostly about the texture that the puffs bring. The caramel is thick and ribbony and has a very milky taste. My only complaint is that my beloved raisins are too sparse. You don't get a raisin in every bite, and that is a sad thing.

This is one of my favorite Cadbury bars yet!

Be sure to check out Jim's Chocolate Mission review here.



PURCHASED FROM:
Gift from my mother

CALORIES:
225 calories per bar.

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Contains peanuts and milk. May contain tree nuts. Bar marked as suitable for vegetarians.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
cadbury.co.uk

Q.bel Peanut Butter Wafer Rolls (Milk Chocolate)

I really liked the last of the Q.bel Wafer Rolls I tried (the Dark Chocolate rolls), and I was looking forward to trying the Peanut Butter Wafer Rolls.



Much like their sibling, the outer wafer layer is made up of a milk chocolate enrobed wafer, and the center is peanut butter filled.



The milk chocolate is a little on the greasy side but the flavor is good. It's sweet with a strong dairy flavor. It melted quickly and reasonable smoothly.

The inner wafer is crispy -- but any taste that it may have had is completely masked by the peanut butter.



The peanut butter is the roll's strongest point, and at the same time its biggest downfall. The flavor is very, very strong. It's a deep roasted peanut taste. And that's also how it smells. (That part I loved -- how can you not love the taste/smell of roasted peanuts?) The flavor is slightly salty and a little sweet. To use a lower brow comparison it reminded me of the high end cousin of Reese's Pieces. The peanut butter is thick and a little grainy.

I say this is both the high and low point, because while I like the peanut butter, it overpowers the wafer and the milk chocolate to the point that it's the only thing you really get much taste of. I think if it had been paired with Q.bel's dark chocolate -- and perhaps chocolate wafers -- the flavor would have been more balanced.

Check out Cybele's review of all the wafer rolls, including this one, here. She liked the rolls more than I did.



PURCHASED FROM:
Sample from company

CALORIES:
130 calories for 2 rolls

ADDITIONAL INFO:
Contains wheat, dairy, soy & peanuts.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:
qbelfoods.com

Redstones's Jalapeño Bar

I was walking through the Continental Terminal E at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport, and tucked in among all the little shops was a candy store called Coco Mako. (Which, it seems, is part of a chain of cafe/chocolate stores.) In any event, they had a pretty darn good assortment of interesting candy, and but for lack of carry-on space (I just didn't plan that one out at all), I could have done some damage.

Amidst all the bars was this one, sold by a local Texas company -- I would like to tell you it was my desire to support small business that inspired me to buy it -- but no, it was really only one word on the wrapper that it did it. And that word was "jalapeño." I didn't even bother to read the rest of the bar's info; the pepper alone did it for me. OK, yeah, it also has peanuts. (I need to start reading. I am one of those weird people who likes both chocolate and peanuts, but not together, other than in peanut butter form)

Without reading, I had been hoping that this bar would actually have bits of jalapeño embedded into the chocolate. When I actually read the ingredients, it turned out that the bar uses jalapeño pepper powder. Now, that could still make it good -- it's just that I'd wanted jalapeño chunks. The bar also has the aforementioned peanuts (salted, by the way), and it's milk chocolate.



The bar is the size and shape of the standard Hershey bar. As you can see from the pictures, my bar had started to bloom -- but I am a trooper, and I took one for the team.



The chocolate bar looks and smells a hell of a lot like the Astor Chocolate bar made for the gift shop in the Empire State Building. I have to wonder if Astor didn't make this bar as well, because damned if the chocolate didn't also taste the same.

The chocolate is a little too sweet. It's smooth enough and there are some nice deep cocoa notes, but the sugar is just too much. Fortunately, the salt from the nuts balances things a bit. The peanuts in the bar are in the form of small but plentiful chips. They are crunchy and salty -- and the salt is the best part of the bar.

As for the jalapeño powder: The bar does have a teeny-tiny bit of heat, but if I'd had to guess what it was without prior knowledge that it was jalapeño, I wouldn't have thought of it.

This bar had a lot of potential, and while it's not horrid, it doesn't even make it to the level of "average." I certainly wouldn't go out of my way to get another.


PURCHASED FROM:

Coco Mako (George Bush Intercontinental Airport: Houston, Texas)
Price: $3.99
Calories: 220 (serving size considered to be half a bar)

Chocolates Para Ti: Assorted Box

High end chocolates from Bolivia? You betcha!

First, a big thank you to the kind people at Chocolates Para Ti for sending me this assortment to try. Prior their contacting me I had not heard of this company, so I was excited to check it out. While they are new to the U.S. market, Chocolates Para Ti is no newcomer to the world of chocolate. They have been making all kinds of yummy sweet things in Sucre, Bolivia, for over twenty years.




This 8.8 ounce assortment came in a really cool handmade banana tree bark box. (No, it does not in fact smell like banana. This disappointed the evil monkey that lives in my closet, but it looked so nice he got over it.)



There were 12 different kinds of chocolates in my box. The inner lid of the box has a photo display of the assortment. These photos are quite helpful, because each piece is beautifully wrapped in gold foil -- and while some are shaped like what they are flavored with, other pieces whose flavors are quite different are identically shaped. In any case, we're going to work clockwise around the label.



Most of the pieces use milk chocolate. And since there is a plain milk chocolate piece included, to save time I will put most of the chocolate info into that piece's description unless something else really stands out.



1. PEACH: Hidden inside the center of this shell-shaped milk chocolate lies a little dimple of peach flavor. It's a strong peach, sort of like what you would expect to find in a flavored iced tea. It's artificially flavored, but it's good. The peach leaves a nice fruity aftertaste. The melt of the chocolate is very smooth and creamy.



2. AMARANTH: I actually had to check the Wikipedia entry for amaranth because I was not sure what it was. But I like it when ingredients stump me, because that means I'm going to taste something I have never tried before. Turns out that amaranth is a "cosmopolitan genus of herbs." There are 60 different species that are considered to be in the amaranth family. Among them is a grain version -- and that is what is used in this candy.

The little pieces of amaranth were each about the size of a small sesame seed. The flavor was really interesting. It was like a combination of toasted coconut, rice, and sesame. It's crunchy but not hard. I also noticed a strong vanilla taste with this piece. Mixed with the milk chocolate it made for a really fast nibble. There's not much snap to the piece, but the amaranth bits kept the texture interesting. The amaranth itself was so good I would really love to see it used more. The chocolate seems a little grainy, but I think that is because it is so densely packed with the amaranth; not because of the chocolate itself.



3. COCONUT: Aaah, my arch nemesis -- coconut! OK, to be fair, I don't mind coconut flavor, if used sparingly (or in the odd fruity drink), or even toasted coconut. It's "raw" or mushy coconut I just can't handle. I hate the texture, and the taste...blugh. Now, luckily for me the piece is merely coconut flavored. The neat little brick smells vaguely like coconut and sugar (and I happen to like that combo). It's milk chocolate. It had great snap to it, and is just thick enough that you feel like your teeth really sink in. The coconut flavor (which is artificial) just hovers in the background of the chocolate -- sort of like if you took a really big bite of German chocolate cake that was thinly frosted. The dairy notes really stand out in this piece. As much as I hate coconut generally, I have to admit I liked this piece because it was so subtle.



4. PEANUT: I really liked that this was molded into a cute little nut shape (OK, it looks more like a cashew than a peanut, but do we really need to be that picky?). This piece is also milk chocolate. Before biting into the piece, I wasn't sure if it was going to have whole nuts or large nut pieces. In fact it had neither. Instead, the piece is studded with very small bits of peanut.

Again, "interesting" is the word I am going to go with. Looking at the amount of peanuts in the piece -- which is a pretty small amount, all things considered -- it is amazing how much peanut flavor is actually in the piece. The Chocolates Para Ti website describes it as roasted peanut; and "roasted" is exactly the word I would use to describe the flavor. It's not like peanut butter in the least, but at the same time it doesn't have that plain generic nuttiness that some chocolate with peanuts can have. It's a little salty (which is always good), it's just like condensed peanut goodness. I have to wonder, given the amount of actual peanuts in the piece, how they packed all the flavor in there -- do they have some sort of Steve Austin Six Million Dollar Man project going on for peanuts down there? (They can make it bigger, stronger...)



5. BRAZIL NUTS: Again, props for the cute molding. This piece was also molded to look like a little nut half. This is another milk chocolate piece. I feel the need to admit I do not as a rule like Brazil nuts, so take my thoughts on this one with a grain of salt. In this piece the nuts are larger chunks, and and there is no mistaking that they are there.

The nuts themselves are quite crisp, and have that green, almost raw taste. It sort of reminds me of a cross between raw peanuts and sunflower seeds. If you like Brazil nuts, you will probably love this piece. (An interesting side bit of trivia is that while you might think that Brazil would be the chief exporter of the nuts based on the name, Bolivia is actually one of the biggest suppliers. Remember to thank me when that question comes up on Jeopardy and you look super smart for knowing the answer.)



6. MILK CHOCOLATE: This one is also a shell shape, just like the peach. About the only way to tell them apart is that the plain milk is just a tiny bit lighter in color. It is very creamy and has a smooth melt. On its own, it is a little too sweet for me -- but I liked it when paired with the different flavors and nuts. I think it works better as a base for other flavors than it does as a standalone.



7. RAISINS: I loooooove raisins in chocolate. There just aren't enough chocolates that feature raisins. Seriously, why isn't this more popular? Anyway...

This is yet another milk chocolate piece. Whole raisins stud the chocolate. It's like eating a giant Raisinet. The raisins are plump and juicy and the chocolate is cool and smooth. This was one of my favorites. I could eat a full bar of this piece!



8. DARK CHOCOLATE: This is a 57% dark chocolate -- not the darkest on the block by any stretch, but not exactly a deep milk either. I am sure the Chocolates Para Ti people aren't going to like me for saying this, but the first thing that struck me when smelling the chocolate wasn't the expected woodsy notes, or coffee notes, maybe even cherry -- no, but this was indeed a familiar smell. In fact, it's an aroma I rather like under different circumstances. So what was that aroma?

It smells exactly like Play-Doh! Yeah, DOH indeed! Smell aside, though, it does have a really clean snap and it is quite rich. (No Play-Doh taste, thank goodness.) It tasted to me at first like a chocolate covered cherry minus the cherry. Once the sweetness wanes a bit (about 5 or 6 seconds in) the flavor becomes very earthy. Kind of like...well, like lush, fertile tropical dirt. I know that doesn't sound like it would be good, but it is honestly addicting. It doesn't remind me of a traditional dark chocolate at all. But it is so good that I don't care.

EDITED AFTER ORIGINAL POST TO ADD: My thanks to the nice folks at Chocolates Para Ti for letting me know that I goofed up the original cacao content. (Doofy me wrote 54%, whereas the actual amount -- now posted -- is really 57%. So, DOH! once again. I stand corrected!)

9. PISTACHIO: I love pistachio. And this is a piece flavored (artificially) with pistachio. True to every artificial pistachio flavored item I have ever had, it tastes more like cherry-almond than pistachio -- but it's still a good taste. Now I want marzipan...




10. WHITE CHOCOLATE FLAVORED WITH BRAZIL NUTS: This is the lone white chocolate in the box. Again, I feel the need to voice my own biases against both white chocolate and Brazil nuts...so you have been fairly warned. The white chocolate is very soft and smooth. The single strongest taste is Brazil nuts. I am not sure why they went with simply Brazil nut flavor rather than actual Brazil nuts. Errrm...what else...did I mention it was white chocolate? Honestly guys, I don't want to be unfair to this piece because it was made up of two flavors I don't like. If you are a fan of either flavor, I am willing to bet you would like it a lot. Dammit, where's Jim when I need his input?

EDITED AFTER ORIGINAL POST TO ADD: Again, my thanks to the folks at Chocolates Para Ti for passing on a little more information about this particular piece: The Brazil nut flavoring that you taste in this piece is real Brazil nut that has been crushed up into a fine powder/paste that is then mixed in with the white chocolate. So for you white chocolate/Brazil nut fans, this sounds like it is a really spiffy piece!

11. ORANGE: Must I once again proclaim from the mountaintops my love of orange and chocolate?! This piece is no exception. The flavors reminded me of an orange jelly roll with no jelly. You know that zesty, sweet orange taste? It's just like that. (The chocolate, again, is milk.) I really liked this one!



12. DARK MILK: Last but not least is the 46% dark milk brick. Interestingly enough, the dark milk tastes darker than the actual dark chocolate. It made me think of what the the love child of a Hershey's Special Bar and raw Devil's Food Cake cake batter would taste like. Clearly, 11 different shades of awesome! It's a little woodsy, but there are some deep cocoa notes. The cherryish flavor is still there. It does have a nice milky finish.

In the end, I loved some of the pieces -- the amaranth, the deep milk and the dark chocolate in particular. The assortment as a whole was good mix. And even with the pieces I didn't like as much, I have to admit it was because they contained flavors I don't care for in any circumstances, rather than because of anything that Chocolates Para Ti did or didn't do. Yep, this box made me very happy.

If you want to try something different, or you want a gift for a foodie that's way off the beaten path, this could be just what you are looking for.


PURCHASED FROM:

Sample From Company

Be sure to visit the Chocolates Para Ti website to see their full selection of products, and for ordering/shipping information.