Little Debbie Nutty Bar

This is the complete antithesis of the Hotel Chocolat collection that Simon reviewed yesterday, but it’s another sample sent to us from the manufacturer – this time, from Tennessee based McKee Foods.

I’ve never heard of McKee or the Little Debbie brand, but looking at their Wikiepedia page, they seem to be something of an American institution.

Having done my research, my hopes weren’t particularly high for this. While there are some fantastic small American chocolatiers, my experience of chocolate from larger manufacturers hasn’t been great so far.

But as it turns out, I quite enjoyed them.

As you can see, Nutty Bars are very simple wafer bars. The layers of wafer are separated by a sweet peanut butter, and the bar is coated in a very thin layer of milk chocolate. In fact, the chocolate is so thin that you can actually melt it just by looking at it. I had to put a few bars in the fridge for half an hour in order to get a decent photo, but even so, the chocolate melted again the moment I picked it up.

But for normal eating purposes (i.e. ones that don’t involve getting decent photos first), this probably won’t be an issue. Each of the 12 bars in a box comes individually wrapped and you can just hold it by the wrapper when eating it.

When you bite into a bar, the first thing you notice is just how light and crispy it is. I’m not surprised each bar only has 100 calories – it’s mostly air! But that’s a good thing, because the result is something that’s tasty and satisfying without being stodgy and filling.

Taste-wise, they’re quite sweet and have a pleasant, nutty taste. The chocolate is so thin that you can barely taste it, but that doesn’t really matter. This is definitely a “less is more” snack.

With all the fantastic chocolates I’ve tasted recently, I really shouldn’t have enjoyed these quite as much as I did. But at $1.59 a box (that works out at about 7p each), I would definitely be buying these for mid-morning snacks. They’re simple, sweet, light and tasty.

Luckily, they sent me three boxes. 🙂

Hotel Chocolat Collection of the Season

When I opened the package and saw this box of chocolates, I realised that Hotel Chocolat don’t just employ master chocolatiers – they also have some pretty talented packaging designers.

This box is a masterpiece of classic (and classy) design. From the subtle floral detailing on the box and the weight of the board used, to the beautifully illustrated menu and the intricacy of the packaging, this selection just oozes class. The Seasons Collection is created because “twice a year (Hotel Chocolat) challenge their chocolatiers to create new flavours to reflect the feel of that part of the year”.

I was tempted to shoot half a dozen photos of the box and leave it at that, but when I began tasting some of the fifteen chocolates offered here, I knew I had to write more.

As usual Hotel Chocolat’s cunning chocolatiers have managed to come up with some quite remarkable creations, including;

Pave de Montelimar

In which Pistachios, almonds and sour cherry pieces sit in a bed of white chocolate, each releasing their distinctive flavours onto the palate as the dark chocolate base joins in to give a superb bittersweet, mouthwatering finish.

Rhubarb Grenache

Somewhat thicker than it appears on the menu and a first for me. A soft rhubarb/white chocolate combination in which the tartness of the rhubarb cuts the sweetness of the white chocolate in a stunning partnership. Beautifully balanced tart/sweet flavours dance over the tongue as you allow it to melt away.

Baltic Truffle

This time redcurrants are used to balance the sweetness of a white chocolate shell, held in a milk chocolate ganache of unbelievable lightness.

Strawberries & Cream

More white chocolate, but enclosing a ganache bursting with natural strawberry. A real taste of summer.

Melon Martini

More chocolate alchemy. Melon with a slight alcoholic kick, swathed in delicious milk chocolate. Wonderful fruit flavours given an unusual and subtly blended alcohol twist.

Fruit & Nut

Cadbury never made anything like this combination of HC’s wonderfully plump sultanas, mixed with puffed rice and bound in a hazelnut praline. The final mouthful of juicy, fruity sultanas is a delight to the tastebuds.

.. and that’s less than half of what’s on offer in this truly remarkable box. There’s more blackcurrant truffles (something HC do so well) and a couple of mini slabs, one of which contains a warming dash of essential oil of ginger.

I loved the packaging before I tasted the chocolates, and it would have been a terrible disappointment to discover anything other than a fabulous selection of unusual flavours and ‘remakes’ of classic tastes, but of course this is Hotel Chocolat, and once again they have proven themselves to be innovative, daring and totally upmarket. This is a box that rocks, and if you love your chocs (or want to seriously impress someone) then I have no hesitation in recommending this to you. It is a triumph of both design and content.

Lindt Calvados

Further proof of two things:

1. Lindt are constantly adding to their range of flavours
2. European consumers have access to a much wider (and consequently more interesting) range of flavours than we are here in the UK.

One cannot help but wonder if Lindt are intent on producing a different bar of chocolate for every day of the year. As previously mentioned by Dom, those Swiss chocolate wizards seem to be constantly releasing new, unusual and interesting flavours, and this is no exception. The bad new is that this Lindt bar was purchased in Germany, and as far as I am aware is not available in the UK.

Now I’m quite partial to a shot of Calvados, so I was rather pleased to see this bar. It follows the same ‘blister’ format as the previously reviewed Raspberry and Pistachio bars, and is made of the same high quality milk chocolate. However, in order to accommodate the Calvados it has been necessary to line the inside of each chocolate ‘blister’ with sugar. Unfortunately this process makes the already sweet chocolate INCREDIBLY sweet, and the small amount of Calvados contained within has little chance of cutting it’s way through that amount of sweetness. It’s hard to get past the sugary overload from the combination of the milk chocolate and the light inner coating of crystal sugar which prevents the liqueur from escaping.

I’m no expert on liqueur making, but I’m willing to bet that if this is how Lindt have done it, it’s the way it has to be done, so essentially we have a very sweet chocolate with a small hit of alcohol – not enough to make it into a great taste experience in my opinion. It’s rather unusual to find myself writing this, but on this occasion I can’t help but think that this is fairly unremarkable chocolate making. I’m sure that in the Eu this bar isn’t terribly expensive, but I’m certain that were it to be imported into the UK it would be, and as such I wouldn’t recommend it unless you happen to be in Germany or France and snap it up for a few Euros.

The Chocsters 2008

Ladies and Gentlemen. It’s that time of year again. A time when we dubiously latch on to another well known award ceremony to present you with our picks of the best of the last year on Chocablog!

We may not have Jon Stewart to host our award ceremonies, but we were lucky enough not to have a 3 month chocolatiers strike either. So I guess that makes us even.

So, without further ado, the winners of this year’s Chocster Awards are:

	Readers’ Choice Award Cadbury Wispa Back in January, we asked you to vote on your favourite chocolate we’ve reviewed over the last 12 months. It was a close run thing, but the reincarnated Cadbury Wispa was your choice!
	Best Speciality Chocolate De Bondt ‘Aromatico’ Coriander Chocolate Yup, that’s coriander in chocolate. And we love it.
	Best Everyday Chocolate Milky Way Magic Stars Potentially a controversial choice, we know. But there is something about Magic Stars that demands that you eat them until you’re sick. And in our strange way, we like that.
	Best Filling Lindt Petit Desserts Tiramisu We simply adored the Petits Deserts range, but the judges have gone with this as the pick of the bunch. A definite must buy.
	Best Presentation Hotel Chocolat Secrets & Desires The chocolate in this Valentines Day box was wonderful, but the presentation made the simple act of opening the box an experience in itself.
	Best Chocolate In A Foreign Language Goplana Klasyczna Gorzka Karmelowa This deliciously dark caramel bar from Poland wasn’t around in my local shop for very long. Mostly because I ate it all, and now I want it back. Delicious.
	Best Antipodean Offering Swiss Glory Our Aussie reviewer Kath Lockett may have described Swiss Glory as ‘sensational’, but she’s also starting to feel a little left out, so this year we’re hoping some Australian chocolate companies will send her some samples to get her teeth into. Come on guys!
	Best Newcomer Emma Jackman Yes, we’re giving a virtual award to a real life person! Emma’s range of Conscious Chocolate is so unique, distinctive and unlike anything you will have tried before, that we had to recognize the effort and love that she puts into creating her wonderful raw, vegan, sugar free chocolate products. Well done, Emma!
	Chocolate Raspberry Award Montezuma’s Orange & Geranium Dark Chocolate Our coveted ‘Chocolate Razzie’ for the worst chocolate we’ve tasted this year goes to a bar of chocolate that tasted a little like dirty dish water and had the most pretentious blurb on the back of the packaging that we’ve ever read.

Unfortunately, none of our winners can be here to receive their awards in person. Because we ate every last one of them (with the exception of Ms Jackman, who simply has better things to do, we imagine).

Sorry.