Special K Chocolatey Delight

Special K - the flagship of the Kellogg's "good for you" cereal brands - is now available in a heavily-sugared version which includes tiny little chocolate bars. 

For the record, even though they're almost as sweet as Cap'n Crunch, they're not all that bad - a good hearty whole grain flake with lots of crunch - but they're much more like Sugar Frosted Flakes with bits of Hershey Bar mixed in than traditional Special K. It's like Kellogg's just said, "Fuck it, just give 'em candy." 

Hebert Filled Chocolate Bars

Photo of the Candy Mansion by Hebert Candies

Just about everyone in central New England is familiar with Hebert Candies. The company got it's start in 1917 when Frederick Hebert cooked up his first batch of caramel. In 1946, the company moved to a big Tudor mansion on Route 20 in Shrewsbury Massachusetts where they've been ever since. Hebert's candies are outstanding, and their chocolate is really quite excellent - velvety smooth as it melts in your mouth.

Once upon a time, the only way to wrap a lip around a Hebert's confection was to travel to Shrewsbury, but these days they distribute their sweets over a much larger range. For the most part, this increased production and distribution has done nothing negative to the quality of their products - the chocolate is always great.

Recently we found four varieties of filled chocolate bars produced by Hebert at the local Ocean State Job Lot store. How could we resist their delicious allure?

We picked up one each of the four varieties: Banana Cream Pie, Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich, Peanut Butter Cup, and Peanut Butter and Fluff. All of them were good - they can't help but be good since they were enveloped in Hebert chocolate - but some were gooder than others.

First up:  Banana Cream Pie. An interesting simulation of pie, with banana ganache filling over a graham cracker-studded base. Our tasters were unanimous that the banana flavor was entirely overpowering, even knocking out the rich chocolate. The graham cracker crunch was really nice, though.

Next, Peanut Butter and Fluff. Fluff is a type of marshmallow creme made in Lynn, Massachusetts, and sold virtually everywhere in New England, but is almost unknown anywhere else in the country. That's a shame, because it's not at all like the standard marshmallow cremes available anywhere else - it's airier, and...well...fluffier.  

Hebert's confection doesn't quite pull off the peanut-butter-and-Fluff thing. The marshmallow flavor gets totally lost between the milk chocolate and the peanut butter. Perhaps if the marshmallow layer was

thinner, or if there was more marshmallow above the peanut butter layer? Also, I'm wondering whether that was really Fluff™ in those little pockets and not just some kind of marshmallow thing that Hebert is calling "Fluff" in a generic sense. (Given that this bar no longer appears on the Hebert website, I would guess that it was the latter. Fluff™ is, after all, a trademark.) Either way, this bar was rather underwhelming.

Peanut Butter and Jelly was a better combo; the jelly was a little bit of an overkill in the sweetness department, but the flavor was discernible along with the peanut butter and the chocolate, and I thought the flavors were pretty well balanced.

The unanimous favorite among the taster was Peanut Butter Cup, perhaps not surprising considering its classic and familiar combination. The peanut butter flavor was, like in the PB&J bar, just right and well-balanced with the chocolate. And the chocolate used for this bar was noticeably darker than with the others (although the label did say "Milk Chocolate" like the others.)

Hershey's Air Delight Chocolate

If I wanted to write a three-word review of Hershey's new Air Delight chocolate, I would just type "Feh. Skip it." But as it turns out, I actually have something to say about this stuff, so here goes.

1. It's a shitty trick designed to get consumers to buy air at chocolate prices. Hershey could have done this years ago if they really wanted to - Nestle has been selling the Aero Bar in Europe for years - but with the lousy economy putting the squeeze on profits, I guess a bigger-looking bar that actually contains less chocolate was irresistible to the cocoa bean counters.

2. The texture is weird. Air Delight chocolate shatters into a grainy lattice when it is bitten and chewed (although I admit it soon melts down to regular Hershey chocolate consistency.  It's just that initial chomp that kinda skeeves me out.)

3.  When all is said and done, it's still made of Hershey chocolate. When I was a kid and the only kind of chocolate I'd ever tasted came from Hershey, I liked it well enough. But since then, I've tasted chocolate made all over the world, and there is really no comparison between a Hershey bar and chocolate made in Germany, Belgium, Italy, or Switzerland. Not only does the higher cocoa butter content in good chocolate make it melt in the mouth more smoothly than Hershey, but Hershey has a decidedly "sour" back taste that is almost cheesy.  Try a side-by-side comparison with a Hershey bar and some inexpensive German-made chocolate from ALDI. You'll be amazed.

Bosco Chocolate Bar

You've probably heard of Bosco chocolate syrup. It was hugely popular in the 1950's and early 1960's and pop culture has ensured it's place as a true bit of Americana.  Bosco Syrup was often referenced on the popular TV show Laverne & Shirley, for example, and black-and-white horror movies through the late 1960's used Bosco as a stand-in for blood.

I've tried Bosco Syrup a time or two and to be honest, I really didn't think it was anything special - as good as any other chocolate syrup I've used but certainly not anything to get wildly enthusiastic about.  When I was a kid, my mother never bought Bosco at all; we always had either Hershey or Fox's U-Bet. So when I found Bosco Milk Chocolate Bars at Big Lots! I bought one out of curiosity rather than nostalgia.

Just like the syrup, Bosco Milk Chocolate isn't really anything special.  It's plain, serviceable milk chocolate with a typical American chocolate flavor profile: sweet, mild chocolate with the faintest sour-milk or "cheesy" background flavor (next time you taste a Hershey bar, pay attention and that sour-milk flavor will be noticeable.) Props to whoever is making the Bosco Bars for using 100% real cocoa butter, making the bar silky-smooth as it melts in your mouth. There's no mockolate in this bar, and yet the best I can say about it is this: The Bosco Milk Chocolate Bar is decent but ordinary.

I suppose it will sell well to the nostalgia crowd - folks who remember the TV ads in the 1950's (not me, though, I'm not that old) or the ones whose Moms set down cookies and a glass of Bosco chocolate milk in front of them for an after-school snack. For the rest of us, well, there's nothing about it other than the name to make it stand out.

Rob's Really Good Chocolate With Brown Rice

It's called "Rob's Really Good Life Changing Milk Chocolate with Crisped Brown Rice," and I would say the product name is probably about 50% bullshit. 

The "Rob's" part is likely to be true.  And the "Milk Chocolate" part  is certainly a fact.  And the rather nasty crunchy things embedded in the back of the bar do resemble rice.  So that just leaves the "Really Good" and "Life Changing" parts.  Okay, so it might be more like 40% bullshit.

The thing is, while the "Italian" milk chocolate in the bar is smooth and dreamy, the attempt at making a crunchy chocolate bar is rather spoiled by the brown rice.  Because brown rice doesn't get all nicely light and airy and crispy when it's "crisped."  No, it apparently turns into small, brittle nubbins that do nothing to add to the chocolate eating  experience.

And as far as "life-changing" goes...well, that's just plain stupid.  Marriage is life-changing.  So is the birth of a child.  Or winning the lottery.  Or having a tornado crush a path through your town.  But a chocolate bar?  Sorry, Rob, but you're an asshole for even suggesting it.

A Basket Full of Chocolate

Easter Sunday for many children will be a time of celebratory gluttony centered around candy and chocolate treats ostensibly hidden around their houses by a sentient rabbit.  And gentlemen, if you are clever, you can use this custom to offer the Important Women in your life a fun  and delicious token of your affection that won't kick the hell out of your wallet.

I'm talking about chocolate, of course.  Everyone loves chocolate. If you were to take a small Easter basket and tastefully arrange in it an assortment of delicious choccies for your sweetie, it would be an enormously appreciated gesture.

And now I'm going to let you in on a little secret that will help you get awesome European chocolates at an amazingly low price:  Go to ALDI.  I'm not kidding.  No matter what you think of the rest of their offerings, you should know that their specialty jelly beans (available right now as a seasonal Easter item) are made by Jelly Belly but will cost you half the price, and their chocolate is made in Germany, Belgium, and sometimes Italy and it is the equal of any European chocolate I've had at any price. Seriously.

There are several styles of milk chocolate bunnies to choose from, wrapped in colorfully lithoed foil, as well as foil wrapped chocolate chicks, and eggs of various kinds.  ALDI also has Easter-themed gummi bears, and they're made in Germany as well.  (By the way, there really is a difference between the flavor and texture of gummies made in Germany and those made anywhere else in the world.  The German ones are better.)

Most of the foil-wrapped chocolates are delightfully retro in design and will remind you of the stuff you used to get back when you were a kid. Some of them might remind your grandparents of stuff they enjoyed when they were little.  And, of course, the selection isn't limited to kid-targeted chocolate novelties - as fun as they might be to fill out a basket with.

Look for ALDI's Grandessa line of chocolates made with adults in mind - like these miniature egg-shaped truffles.  And keep an eye open for ALDI's Moser-Roth brand of awesome specialty chocolate bars.

So there you have it.  Today is Friday.  You have two days to put something together for your sweetheart and impress her with your thoughtfulness on Sunday morning. Get to it, guys.

Mannheim Steamroller Cinnamon Hot Chocolate

I was at Ocean State Job Lot and this brightly-colored canister of hot chocolate caught my eye. My whole family enjoys cinnamon-tinted hot chocolate (Nestles Abuelita Mexican chocolate for example,) and the price of this big 24-ounce container was quite attractive at just $2.00.

When I think "Mannheim Steamroller" (which is somewhat less than one time per decade) several things come to mind, none of them very complimentary. "Mediocre Christmas music," for example, or "Albums That Suck." I never think of "delicious hot chocolate." In fact, when I bought the stuff, I didn't even notice the "Mannheim Steamroller" banner at the top of the label.

As it turns out, this is really good hot chocolate. Really good. Unlike some mass-market just-add-water hot chocolates, this one isn't incredibly sweet. It has a rich chocolate flavor with a hint of cinnamon as a backnote - just the right amount. Two scoops in a mug with water just this side of boiling makes an amazingly awesome mug of hot chocolate. One heaping scoop in a mug of coffee makes fantastic mocha.

New Englanders can look for it at Ocean State Job Lot stores, where it is an astonishing bargain at two bucks. If you simply must have some and hang the cost, Mannheim Steamroller Cinnamon Hot Chocolate can also be purchased online from the Mannheim Steamroller Online Store (something else I had never heard of) for the astonishing non-bargain price of $7.98 plus $4.50 shipping, I kid you not.

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Chocolate Pop Rocks

What do you get when you combine Pop Rocks with chocolate? You get lumpy chocolate that explodes in your mouth when you try to eat it.

You'd think that a chocolate category so narrowly specialized wouldn't have room for more than one manufacturer. Alas, you'd be mistaken. In addition to a Pop Rock-studded milk chocolate bar produced by Zeta Espacial SA, the Spanish company that's been making Pop Rocks since 1979, Nestle's Willy Wonka Candy Company recently introduced it's own brand of fizzy chocolate, which they call Tinglerz. Tinglers are small nuggets of carbonated candy coated in milk chocolate. The presentation is different from the Pop Rocks bar, but the effect is very much the same.

The Pop Rocks bar is big and blocky, almost three-quarters of an inch thick, and made of rather average-quality chocolate thicky studded with Pop Rocks fragments. The Tinglerz, with their chocolate coated candy, is smoother and somewhat more attractive just because the pieces don't look like they've been filled with some kind of general debris. And the two confections behave differently when eaten, as well.

The Pop Rocks bar is aggressive. The quality of the chocolate is a little bit below that of the average Hershey bar, and it's grainy and kind of sticky. The Pop Rocks contained within are as sharp and crackly as the ones that used to sting my mouth and gums when I was a kid, though, and the powerful sensations almost make up for the lousy chocolate.

By contrast, Tinglerz are coated in very smooth and rather good chocolate, in varying sizes according to how big a chunk of carbonated candy it covers. The reaction of the candy is somewhat milder and more reminiscent of a very strongly-carbonated soda pop - lots of fizzy noise and crackle, but nothing that borders on the painful the way Pop Rocks sometimes do.

Which one is better? That depends on your priorities. For fizziness, go with the Pop Rocks bar. For taste, go with the Tinglerz.

Links:

Pop Rocks Candy Dot Com - An interesting combination fan site / salesroom that covers a lot of the pop culture surrounding Pop Rocks. If all else fails and you just can't find Pop Rocks in your local stores, you can buy them there.

Willy Wonka Tinglerz - The official internet home of Will Wonka Tinglers. Flash powered.

Zeta Espacial SA - The Pop Rocks manufacturer.

Carl Brandt Liquor Chocolates

I found these delicious little treats at a local store over the weekend: Brandt Brandy Beans, and Brandt Whiskey Beans. Manufactured in Germany by Brandt Zwieback-Schokoladen GmbH, and imported by their US division Carl Brandt Inc. of Fairfield CT, these marvelous liquor-filled goodies are one of my favorite confections.

Each candy is an inch-long bean-shaped dark chocolate shell filled with a whiskey or brandy liqueur. Although not very strong (the label on the Whiskey Beans indicates "whiskey 13%" in the ingredients, or about 7 proof) the candies are immensely satisfying: The chocolate is silky and luxurient and the whiskey is ever so slightly warming and vaporous. Couple that decadence with the "naughtiness" of the whiskey and it is easy to see why these are so appealing.

According to Brandt's website, there are three flavors of Brandy Beans available - the original Brandy, and three newly-introduced varieties: Orange Liqueur, Whiskey, and Vodka. I look forward to trying them all.

Links:

Carl Brandt Inc. US website (includes contact information for US wholesalers and retailers)

Brandt Zwieback-Schokoladen GmbH (English language site)

Brandt Zwieback-Schokoladen GmbH (German language site)

Dagoba Organic Chocolate

I picked up a pair of Dagoba Organic Chocolate bars the other day at a local store. I'll be perfectly honest with you: it wasn't because I was shopping for an organic treat produced with fair trade practices and sustainability in mind. It was because I wanted to find out if Dagoba's product was really worth the price the store charges for it ($3.29 for a 2-ounce bar.)

I chose two somewhat exotic bars - one based on milk chocolate with a 37% cacao content, and the other based on dark chocolate with a 68% cacao content. All of Dagoba's products use certified organic ingredients and when sugar is needed they use organic evaporated cane juice. Choosing a couple of specialty bars would let me experience their chocolate and their idea of what would taste good in a combination. so it appeared to be win/win.

Indeed, the chocolate is superb. Smooth and effortlessly meltable in the mouth as only a truly fine chocolate can be, full-flavored but not overpowering in the combo bars I tried. Both bars were pleasant surprises.

The first one I tried was "Seeds," a delicious 68% dark chocolate studded with pumpkin, sunflower, and hemp seeds. It was good, and the seeds added a nice textural contrast to the smooth chocolate, but I find the hemp thing to be pretty silly. Dagoba claims there's oodles of omega-3 fatty acids in hemp seed, but if that were the real reason they could have just used flaxseed. I guess flax isn't as sexy or edgy as hemp, though, so it's harder to market to the sexy edgy hempsters who like to pretend that growing a rope fiber plant is somehow exciting and risky because it's just like marijuana!

Anyway: Good flavor, nice contrast in textures, kind of silly concept.

The other was "Chai," a 37% milk chocolate containing bits of crystallized ginger and chai spices. The milk chocolate is nearly perfect, and the chai spices (provided by using ginger oil, cinnamon oil, clove oil, anise oil, cardamom oil, anise oil, and black pepper oil) are well-balanced and delightful. Once again, no disappointment here - in fact, the flavor combination was fairly awesome.

So... Is Dagoba Organic Chocolate worth the premium price? Considering the high quality of the product as well as the company's efforts to carefully source their materials and "play fair" with the small suppliers it buys from, I'd say probably "yes."

Link:

Dagoba's website.

Bacon-Chocolate Truffles

We were going to a party last weekend and wanted to bring along a batch of munchies that everyone could enjoy. My daughter, an experienced hand at making candy, suggested chocolate truffles, so that's what we did...with a twist: we added crispy bacon bits to the truffle filling. Not only did the smoky, salty bacon and smooth creamy chocolate flavors compliment one another, but the contrast in textures added another layer of interest. The other partygoers were delighted by our creation - a 24-inch platter filled with truffles was empty in no time.

Bacon-Chocolate Truffles

1 3/4 to 2 pounds slab bacon
1 1/2 pounds milk or dark chocolate
1/4 cup butter
2/3 cup evaporated milk
dipping chocolate

Try to get unsliced slab bacon if you can and cut it into 1/4-inch dice. Brown the bacon very crispy in a skillet and watch it carefully! Tiny dice can go from "brown" to "burnt" in a heartbeat, and they do get tiny as they cook. When the bacon is done, remove it from the skillet with a slotted spoon to absorbent paper and allow it to cool. It will get crispy and crunchy as it cools.

Meanwhile, prepare the truffle mixture. In a double boiler, melt the chocolate, butter, and evaporated milk together, stirring until the warm mixture is completely combined. Use as good a chocolate as you can afford, because the quality of the truffle is directly related to the quality of the chocolate you use.

When the truffle mixture is smoothly blended, fold in the bacon bits until they are evenly distributed in the chocolate.

Spread the bacony truffle mixture on a heavy ceramic plate and refrigerate for a few hours until well-chilled. The mixture is soft even when cold, but at room temperature it will be almost unworkable. When completely chilled remove the plate from the fridge and use a small melon baller to scoop out small amounts of truffle mixture and roll them quickly into balls. Set the balls aside on a lined baking sheet as you go. Work quickly - the mixture can only be rolled when it is very cold, and heavy ceramic plate will help keep it cold while you work. After all the mixture is rolled, put the baking sheet full of truffle balls back into the fridge and chill thoroughly again.

Melt the dipping chocolate, then allow it to cool until blood warm - too hot, and the truffle centers will melt as you try to coat them. Dip the chilled truffle centers into the chocolate to coat, and set them aside in paper candy cups to cool and harden. Keep refrigerated until an hour or so before serving. At room temp, the coating will be hard but when bitten into will release the luxuriously creamy centers filled with crunchy bacon bits.

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Hebert Gourmet Chocolate

I recently had the opportunity to try two of Hebert Gourmet Chocolates' "Fully Loaded" varieties of chocolate confections.

Hebert, located in Shewsbury MA, has been making fine chocolates since 1917. They've always been extremely high-quality products with chocolate rivaling Lindt and other European makers in rich, silky-smooth flavor.

The two varieties we tried were Blueberry Bites and Cookies & Creme MiniBars. Both were small, individually-wrapped bite-sized versions of products that Hebert also makes in full-sized chocolate bars. Fans of Hebert chocolate will not be surprised that theses bite-sized treats are every bit as delicious as the large bars. Of course, deliciousness and convenience have their price; Hebert chocolates are a premium brand that sell for a bit more than the standard Hershey bars, and these bite-sized morsels are more expensive than their full-sized cousins.

Cookies & Creme bars are part candy, part cookie, made by adding crumbled bits of chocolate sandwich cookies and chocolate chips to a milk chocolate base. The heavenly smooth Hebert milk chocolate offers a silky textural contrast to the crunchy cookie fragments, making the candy even more delightful. These were a particular favorite of my daughter.

The Blueberry Bites were equally mouthwatering. A traditional filled-chocolate candy, each 55% dark chocolate bite encapsulates a marvelous liquid center made from real blueberries.

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Did you know that Hebert Candies gives tours of their Shrewsbury facilities? If you're day tripping in Southern New England, you might want to stop in. The tours are free and you get chocolate samples as you go through. No reservations are needed unless you have 10 or more people in your group. The tour takes about 45 minutes, and you might want to budget enough time to go to the candy store while you're there.

Hebert Candies
575 Hartford Turnpike
Shrewsbury MA 01545
(508) 845-8051

Directions: Take the Mass Pike (I-90) to Exit 11 (Millbury/Worcester) Turn left onto Grafton Road for half a mile until you reach US20. Take a right onto US20. Hebert's will be a little more than three miles ahead on your right.

Lindt Cherry & Chili Chocolate

Swiss chocolatier Lindt has yet another winner in their line of high-quality chocolate bars: Creation 70% Cherry & Chili. Chile pepper-infused cherry filling is sandwiched into a bar of Lindt's gorgeous velvety dark chocolate, and the result is a confection with a surprisingly complex cascade of flavors.

The experience starts, of course, with the dark chocolate. Unlike some other 70% darks, Lindt's is as smooth as butter, without a hint of graniness. Subtle backnotes of coffee, cashew, and burnt toast gradually fade as the cherry flavor comes forward and blends with the intricacies of the chocolate.

Most chile peppers have some degree of "pepper flavor" that is completely separate from the element of heat. To me, it usually tastes like toasted paprika, a fruity and smoky essence that is almost experienced as an aroma rather than a flavor. This smokiness is also evident as the cherry flavor builds. Curiously, though, there is very little heat...

...until just at the end, when the chocolate has melted and the cherry has faded away, the chile's warmth builds up in a gentle and very subtle way to leave your palate with a faint glow.

Chile and chocolate is a winning combination, but chileheads shouldn't buy this Lindt bar looking for a firey burn. Lindt has taken a great deal of care to balance the flavors and "mouth effects" of this chocolate in a way that choreographs the chile, chocolate, and cherry notes almost perfectly. It's the ideal chocolate if you want to introduce the wonderful chile/chocolate combination to someone with little interest in peppers, but if you're the kind of person who turns to capsaicin strictly for your "endorphine rush" fire, skip it.

Links:

Lindt's website.

Lindt Creation 70% chili-cherry-chocolate on the Chocablog.

Vosges Chocolate - Mo's Bacon Bar

There are certain flavors that elicit such a primal response in humans that a predisposition towards them seems genetically programmed into our blood and our bones. Take chocolate, for example. The taste of chocolate is almost universally beloved. Since its earliest cultivation by pre-Columbian Mesoamericans it was valued for its medicinal and aphrodisiac qualities; its popularity has never waned over the course of the world's 600-year-long infatuation with it. Today chocolate flavoring is found everywhere, and it's the world's most popular confection.

Another good example is bacon. Bacon is so adored that "beef bacon" and pastrami were invented in imitation of it so that those whose religions forbid them the ecstasy of pork may have some faint glimmer of culinary paradise.

It was only a matter of time before it occurred to someone that the mysteriously subtle deliciousness of chocolate and the bold smoky saltiness of bacon should be combined - and thus we have Vosges Haut Chocolat brand Mo's Bacon Bar.

Made with milk chocolate, applewood smoked bacon, and alder wood smoked salt, the Bacon Bar fulfills its promise beautifully. The sliky-smooth sweet milk chocolate balances perfectly with the bacon and the smoked salt, and allowing the chocolate to gently melt in one's mouth exposes the bits of delicious (though somewhat too lean) bacon concealed within. Fans of milk chocolate will enjoy the flavor of the chocolate as well as the novelty of the bacon, but I would like to see this in a version with darker chocolate (at least a 65%, but 70% would be even better) and a tad less salt. And as long as I'm making a wish list, perhaps Vosges could use fattier bacon.

Link:
Vosges website - Use their dealer locator to find a retailer near you, or order online.