Just look at that. Have you ever seen so much ‘stuff’ crowded onto a single chocolate bar? I think the closest I’ve seen was Cocoa Tree’s Organic Ginger bar I reviewed last year. No ginger here though. This is big chunks of orange and whole toasted almonds embedded into a 46% milk chocolate.
I purchased this particular bar from Holly’s stand at the Taste of Christmas show and I was amazed at the variety of products she had on offer. This particular bar caught my eye simply because of the amount of stuff plastered on top though.
As you can see, the underside looks quite normal, although breaking the bar along those chunks is nigh on impossible, thanks to all the fruit and nuts on the top. The chocolate is here is a beautifully rich 46% cocoa solids milk chocolate, and frankly, it’s divine. Smooth and creamy and ever so chocolatey.
Then you get to the almonds and oranges. Aside from being huge, they’re rather tasty in themselves. The orange pieces are sweet and chewy and – most importantly – very orangey. The almonds add a nice crunch and subtle nutty flavour. So despite the fact that there’s so much stuff packed in here, you can still taste everything. As with everything of Holly’s that I’ve tasted, the quality of ingredients used really shines through. It’s over the top, but completely delicious.
I can’t see this on Holly’s online shop, so you might have to catch her at one of the local events she attends regularly in order to pick up a bar. Or just email her and pester her until she sells you one. Either way, if you can get hold of one, I highly recommend giving it a go.
From Australia, courtesy of lucky traveling friends (when do I get to go to somewhere warm and exotic?) this bag purports to contain “A luscious combination of whole Natural Blueberries wrapped in the world’s finest award winning Premium Dark Chocolate”. Typical Aussie modesty then eh?
Sadly, both packaging and website are somewhat bereft of any evidence to support these claims. In fact the website is a bit of a waste of time full stop. It needs a sortout, if you’re reading this Mr (or Mrs ) Noosa.
The contents are a different matter. Plump, juicy dried blueberries (some of them fairly hefty) encased in a good quality, rich, dark chocolate. It’s a fairly simple product. No messing about, no frills, no fancy packaging. Very Australian. Pop one in your mouth and start to roll it around, and Oonce the glaze gives way you’re treated to a slightly bittersweet dark chocolate which isn’t too sugary and holds it’s flavour well as the blueberry begins to release it’s tanginess.
Just as the chocolate is high quality and full of flavour, the same goes for the blueberries. Plump, slightly tart fruit which bursts with flavours, cleaning your mouth of the last vestiges of chocolate and making you reach for another one almost immediately. The combination is dreadfully moreish, I’m afraid to say.
Despite my best efforts the bag didn’t last more than a few days once opened, and I didn’t share these at all. This is one of those classic ‘deadly’ combinations, presented in a form that just lends itself to that whole “ooh, just a couple more.” thing that is the downfall of us all at one time or another.
Obviously, I’d like proof of these awards and a little more information from Noosa via their web site, but when it came to the vital taste test, they came through with flying colours. If anyone’s headed that way, I’d love another bag. Or two.
I don’t know exactly what the people at Mars were thinking when they came up with these M&M’s. Strawberried peanut butter. And chocolate. In just some little M&M’s, all those flavors? They were probably cautious about the idea, as well, since it’s only a special edition. Maybe if it goes over well, it’ll stick around.
The M&M’s are a bit bigger than usual to accommodate both the peanut butter and chocolate inside the candy shell. I thought they might be using whole peanuts, but instead, the filling has the same texture (and taste) of, well, peanut butter. There are three colors: brown, red, and a golden yellow specked in red that reminds me of an Easter egg. Which reminds me, is there a special occasion for this special edition? Maybe I only ask that because it’s the holiday season, but a strawberry candy in winter seems random. Unless it’s been on the shelves for a while without me seeing it? Still, the red stripes on the wrapper do remind me of a candy cane, even if strawberry peanut butter sounds nothing like Christmas. Coincidence, or am I just reading into it too much?
With all this in mind, I went on to the tasting. True to the “strawberried” name, the most focus goes to the strawberry flavor. Unfortunately, it is an artificial strawberry taste. Next is the peanut butter, which is as far from a real peanut taste as most peanut butters are. Not any worse than all of them. I think you can taste the chocolate. Maybe. Just barely; it’s even further than the sidelines. The extra size of the M&M’s makes the crunch of their shells even better as your teeth sink down through the filling layers.
It’s all a sort of peanut butter and jelly feel. Since I can make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich anytime, I wouldn’t mourn these M&M’s if they left the shelves forever. Neither would I wish them good riddance. I like them, I’d get them again, I’d recommend them to M&M lovers, but I wouldn’t call them a must try.
The small town of St. Stephen in Southern New Brunswick is chocolate obsessed. It has a Chocolate Museum, runs an annual Chocolate Festival and has been the home of Ganong Chocolates, Canada’s oldest candy company, since 1873.
Ganong might not be the best known name outside Canada, but they can make a pretty credible case for inventing the chocolate bar back in the late 1800s, and were also the first company to sell heart-shaped boxes of chocolates for Valentine’s Day in North America. These days, Ganong’s focus might be boxed chocolates, but they are thankfully still selling what must be their signature product – Chicken Bones.
For the uninitiated, Chicken Bones are pink cinnamon candies filled with dark, bittersweet chocolate and they are really quite unique and very addictive. The name comes from their long, thin shape which is reminiscent of their namesakes, especially because of that darker core.
They have a healthy kick of cinnamon too. They aren’t quite up there with those little Cinnamon Hearts that appear every Valentine’s Day, but there’s enough of it to leave a satisfying post-eating tingle in your mouth afterwards. The sweetness of the candy is nicely balanced out by the bitterness of the chocolate, which has a grainier texture than most people might be used to but it works really well in this context.
They stand up to a variety of eating styles too. They can quite happily be crunched into a nice simultaneous mixture of chocolate and cinnamon, or sucked more slowly so that the chocolate is gradually released from its spicy shell. Either way, you’ll end up with a bright pink tongue as your badge of honour and isn’t that the important thing?
They are available all year round, but tend to be easier to find at Christmas when they appear in the gift boxes shown in the photos. In addition to the bag of Chicken Bones, Ganong also include a couple of pieces of their milk chocolate which is kind of forgettable after the feature presentation. I usually pick up the smaller bags instead because otherwise I’ll keep eating until they are all gone…
