Tucked away in Wisconsin is a little chocolatier called Kohler Chocolates. It’s known mostly to the folks who vacation there at the Kohler golf & spa destinations north of Milwaukee near Sheboygan.

Recently Kohler Chocolates has started selling online and appearing at trade shows to promote their products nationwide. (Which often means an appearance in Oprah Magazine. I’ve never read Oprah’s publications and don’t know much about her taste in candy and don’t usually follow recommendations of talk show hosts.)

Last year I got a hold of one of their bars via All Candy Expo, but it was a cherry one, so I didn’t think that’d be a good introduction so I waited. This year, just a few days before Valentine’s Day I got a nice selection of their boxed chocolates: Garden Ganache Truffles and Dark Mountain Toffees. They also make Terrapins (like Chocolate Turtles), chocolate bars, trail mix and a variety of barks.

The Garden Ganache Truffles are stunning. The box is a large tray with huge dome-molded truffles in bright colors. It’s presented with a clear top for maximum impact. It’s one of the rare instances where the product looks exactly, if not better, than the photos on the website.

The website is a bit vague, however, on the array in their Garden Ganache. The ten piece set features flavors inspired by spices, tea, coffee, nuts and fruits.  The package is also maddeningly vague on the ingredients. It mentions the fillings, I believe, but none of them mention the actual chocolate ingredients. 

Asian Spice (Burnt Orange) - this was the first piece I tried because it smelled the strongest out of the box. The aroma of star anise was quite overwhelming, so I thought in order to preserve the flavors of the rest, it had to go.

It’s a wonderfully solid truffle, about 1.5” across and wonderfully tempered. The shell isn’t that thick, but has a nice snap and with all the truffles there was no sign of cracking or leaking.

Though this was the first truffle I tried, I didn’t realize at the time that the center was different from the rest. It was thick and almost fudgy or like a dense brownie. Not quite grainy, it was a bit crystalline when I bit into it, but it melted quickly. The five spice was very pronounced, with the licoricey anise and fennel elements at the forefront. There was only a slight hint of cinnamon and cloves to it, and of course the chocolate flavors of smoke, cedar and coffee.

Creme Fraiche (White) - this was a wonderfully light truffle that allowed the flavors of the chocolate to come through. The ganache was very creamy and had only the slightest dairy tang to it.

Rasbperry (Red) - though fashion right now seems to dictate lots of crazy flavors, I do love a classic raspberry truffle.

This was quite vivid. The center has a nice jammy raspberry component - no seeds but a good authentic berry profile with a slight tangy note and strong florals.

Passion Fruit (Light Orange) - this was one of the few white chocolate centers. It had a wonderful musky/herbal scent that reminded me of mango skins. The nice thing about passion fruit candies is that they always seem easier to eat than actual passion fruits.

This was a good mix of sweet and tangy with some strong zesty notes with just a touch of milk. I was really surprised by this, I’m not ordinarily a fan of tropical fruits mixed with chocolate.

Pear (Light Green) - this one seemed to be more themed like a pear liqueur than a pear puree. The center is a chocolate ganache with fragrant & fresh touch of pear flavor, it’s almost fresh fig meets banana.

Chai Tea (Green) - the spice flavors here were strong. It tasted mostly of gingerbread, the dark chocolate flavors subbed for the molasses notes and ginger with a touch of cinnamon & nutmeg dominated.

Earl Grey (Blue) - I’m definitely a bergamot fan. This didn’t disappoint. The chocolate is strong and the dark balsam zest notes blend well with it. The black tea flavors of Earl Grey are kind of missing, but I didn’t really expect them to make a strong showing (as they didn’t appear at all in the chai either).

Coconut (Yellow) - this was a true truffle, not some sort of upscale Mounds bar.

The coconut flavor was deep and round, though it still had some dark rum notes to it, but it didn’t verge into Pina Colada territory.

Macadamia (Tan) - this was the other white centered piece. It’s also the only one with actual nuts in it. Macadamias remind me a bit of coconut, with its strong oily flavor and crispy crunch, this was rather similar to the coconut in that respect. The nuts were fresh and had a bit of a green banana flavor to them as well. Not too sweet, it was a nice change from the darker and spicier varieties.

Hazelnut Coffee (Brown) - this has a pleasant hazelnut liqueur aroma. The center was just bit firmer than the others, but quite silky once it melted. There is more than a touch of espresso flavors giving this a much better profile than that sometimes artificial quality that hazelnut flavoring can do. I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get any real gianduia elements here (but that’ll be later with the toffees).

Kohler Chocolates also has a bright & unique take on the traditional toffee & chocolate combination.

Here they’ve taken tiny chunks of toffee (most look like little cubes) and molded them with a touch of dark chocolate at the base. They call them Dark Mountain Toffee and they come in six varieties. Like the Garden Ganache, they’re boxed with a clear top to highlight the actual candies. They were a little puzzle to figure out which was which (and I successfully avoided the walnut one).

The Orange Peel Dark Chocolate Mountain Toffee is an amazing combination.

Tiny little cubes of perfectly toasted sugar & butter toffee is mixed with chopped hazelnuts and candied orange peel and then drenched in dark chocolate with a teensy little snow cap of white chocolate.

While this sound like a riot of flavors, everyone has their part to play and it becomes more like a harmony. The dark and bass tones of the of the toffee and dark chocolate set the stage. Then the high citrus zest of the orange peel comes in followed by the spirited twinkle of the hazelnut crunch.

Cocoa Nibs was a very simple treat. The addition of the buttery crunch of cacao to the sweet toffee gave the whole thing a less-sweet taste, though I didn’t really get a lot of flavor from the nibs themselves because the chocolate is pretty strong as it is. If there was one that could be labeled the “plain” variety, this would be it ... not that there’s anything wrong with just having two elements: toffee & dark chocolate.

Mint - ordinarily I wouldn’t think that toffee and mint would go together. This has dried mint leaves though, which adds a more “tea-like” flavor to it and less like the potent mint-oil blast that many candies employ. While I liked the leafy tannins, the dark burnt sugar flavors and the rich buttery chocolate, the actual leaves in there bugged me a little bit. Not enough that I didn’t finish it, mind you.

Coconut had a very strong tropical taste to it, even though there didn’t seem to be more than a dusting of coconut flakes on the white chocolate drizzle there were more flakes inside. I would have preferred a more toasted coconut vibe to it, as I think that would go better with the darkness of all the other flavors, I wouldn’t kick this out of my cabana.

Hazelnut was radically different than all the rest. Mixed into the tumble of toffee cubes was some soft and buttery gianduia. The hazelnut & chocolate paste was nicely highlighted by the toasted butter flavors and then the extra cocoa buttery chocolate. The bite on this one was much softer, almost like a granola instead of a cluster. (Which makes me wonder if anyone has made a hazelnut paste granola before ... as if granola isn’t fatty enough.)

I’m really impressed with the presentation, the unique styling of the candy that highlights the combinations and the bright flavors.

For folks who are lamenting the loss of Joseph Schmidt (news here), these are definitely truffles that highlight the silky quality of chocolate without being overly sweet or flavored and are generous pieces. (Though they’re also more expensive and can only be ordered online or purchased in a scant few shops in Wisconsin.) The array of Garden Ganache I tried retails for $24.95 for 7 ounces (making them about $57 a pound) . The Dark Mountain Toffees are also quite impressive, though I’d prefer being able to just order the Orange Hazelnut one by the box. The pieces aren’t quite as weighty as the truffles (and probably require quite a bit of handwork) - the box of six retails for only $9.95.

Related Candies

1. Sterling Truffle Bars: Double Hazelnut Caramel Truffle & Cappuccino with a Twist
2. Michel Cluizel 99%
3. L’Artisan du Chocolat
4. Valerie Lemon Hazelnut Nougat
5. Joseph Schmidt
6. Valerie Toffees & Nougats
7. Vosges Truffles - Fall 2006
8. Enstrom’s Toffee

From time to time candy formulas change enough that I think the product deserves a re-evaluation.

Skittles Sour have shifted their flavor array. Originally Sour Skittles were just a sour dusted version of the Fruit Skittles in Strawberry, Orange, Lemon, Grape and Lime.

Somewhere along the way they dumped the Lime in favor of Blue Raspberry (which is a bit odd, considering that limes are the only other naturally super sour fruit besides lemon). I reviewed this version back in 2007.

The newest version of Skittles features two new flavors: Green Apple and Watermelon. They’re subbing in for Orange and Grape.

So the new version is: Lemon, Strawberry, Blue Raspberry, Watermelon and Green Apple.

I think the addition of Green Apple is a natural evolution. It’s not one of my ideal flavors but really lends itself to a super-tangy version like this. The flavor was completely artificial, like some sort of off-gassing of some fresh plastic product, but that’s not necessarily a turnoff when it comes to ultra-artificial candies like Skittles.

The Watermelon is one of those bees in my bonnet. Unripe watermelon isn’t even sour, it’s just a different texture and lacking in sweetness ... it’s not like an unripe apple or strawberry. In this instance is a fake watermelon with a super burning blast of sour powder. It reminded me, though, of salty watermelon because of the sharp shock to the tongue.

Sour Skittles have their fanatical following, so I think it’s important for Skittles to cater to them. In my ideal candy world, the Sour Skittles would be more like the Crazy Cores, with a non-powdery shell that has the super tart blast and then the nicely flavored chew center. They’re really messy and even sealed packages are dusty and leave a sour residue on my fingers before I’ve even opened it. For me, I really only love the lemon one, so it’s not worth it for me to buy them.

Rating: 6 out of 10

The other new tweak on the market is Wonka Runts which seems to change their flavors about every 18 months lately. (Here’s my last review from March 2008.)

When originally introduced in 1982 Runts were Banana, Orange, Lime, Cherry and Strawberry. Each candy was shaped in some way like the fruit they were flavored for. Bananas are banana shaped, Oranges were little spheres, Strawberries were hearts, Limes were footballs and so on.

Then in the 90s instead of just a single substitution, Lime was removed and two new flavors were added, Watermelon and Blue Raspberry. Sometime in late 2007 there was a shift again and Watermelon, Cherry and Blue Raspberry left in favor of the more tropical Mango (a large football) and Pineapple (actually pineapple shaped!). I really liked the pineapple but many folks complained not only about the loss of their favorite flavors over the years, but also that the color variation was very citrusy.

So early this year I spotted the newest change.

Runts are now: Green Apple, Grape, Strawberry, Orange and Banana.

I was pretty excited about the Grape. They’re a big ovoid, I think the same mold as the Mango was. They’re extremely purple, but have that great fake grape flavor of SweeTarts or Spree.

The Green Apple is okay, but the addition of this flavor to the mix along with Grape makes this very similar to SweeTarts (though Banana still keeps these closer to the long-gone Wacky Wafers).

After munching on these for several days (it was a big 7 ounce box) I’m left with only the Green Apple ones, which aren’t bad so much as they were just more prevalent in my mix. (I really could have used more Orange and Grape.)

Of the two candies, simply because I bought this theater box at the Dollar Tree, it’s a really good deal - 7 ounces of candy for a buck, versus the 80 cents or so for the Skittles.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Related Candies

1. Skittles Crazy Cores
2. Gobstopper Heart Breakers
3. Skittles Chocolate Mix
4. Skittles (Fruits, Wild Berry, Tropical, Smoothies & Sour)
5. Runts Freckled Eggs
6. HiCHEW Assortment
7. SweeTarts: Chicks, Ducks & Bunnies (2006)

Easter is all about eggs. It’s all about making classic candies available in the format of little ovoids.

Brach’s Robin Eggs are a beautiful version of this. They’re simply a solid milk chocolate egg covered in a crunchy candy shell. They’re light blue, about one inch long and speckled to look like a real robin egg.

I found mine on sale at Long’s for only $1.99 for the 7.5 ounce bag.

Upon opening the bag I found that they smelled a lot like most other sweet Easter candies - like sugar & milk, fake vanilla & cereal. Not much chocolate scent, but then again, a candy shell can do a good job of sealing in the chocolate goodness.

The ingredients didn’t really give me a lot of confidence though.

Milk Chocolate (Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Whole Milk Powder, Chocolate Liquor, Soy Lecithin, Vanillin), Sugar, Corn Syrup, Modified Food Starch, Artificial Colors, Artificial Flavor, Carnauba Wax, Confectioner’s Glaze, White Mineral Oil, Beeswax.

Mostly what I was disappointed about was how far down on the list of the chocolate ingredients the actual chocolate liquor was. But cocoa butter being ahead of milk (and whole milk at that) had me intrigued.

The shell is nice and crunchy, with a good snap to it. The chocolate inside is immediately sweet and has a slight nutty flavor to it, like peanuts or sunflower seeds. The melt of the chocolate is a bit grainy, as milk chocolate can often have that fudgy grain and this obviously has a lot of milk in it.

But it lacked a chocolate punch. I’m not saying that I didn’t find them edible and interesting, certainly better than the fake chocolate in the Whoppers Robin Eggs (made by Hershey’s) that I’ve been chowing down on for the past week.

My guess immediately was that I was expecting something else. And part of that is that my ideal egg-shaped candy shelled chocolate candy is the Hershey’s Candy Coated Milk Chocolate Eggs (original review).

As harsh as I am on Hershey’s as a brand, part of it is because I love some of the products so much.

So I picked up some of the Hershey’s Eggs, not just for this comparison but also to give them a check since Hershey’s has been mucking around with so many of their formulas & packaging.

The package is redesigned from the previous shoot that I did. I can’t say that it’s better, but at least they’ve finally given the candy a name. (Before they were just Hershey’s Eggs, but so were the foil wrapped eggs.)

The Hershey’s Eggs are smaller than the Robin Eggs. According to the packages a single Hershey’s Egg weighs about 6.33 grams and a single Robin Egg weighs 8.60 grams.

The Hershey’s Eggs obviously come in an array of solid pastels and the Brach’s Robin Eggs are this blue with speckles.

In the package the Hershey’s Eggs smell like Kisses, a tangy, fudgy aroma. The Brach’s Robin Eggs don’t give away their chocolate insides.

Given a choice between the two, I’m going to have to go with the Hershey’s. The Brach’s just lack a distinct & pleasing flavor to them. I think they’re lovely, and the aesthetics of them certainly tips in their favor. The price is good, there are also certainly folks who would wish to purchase from someone other than Hershey’s at this time with the backlash over the Mexican move of some of the manufacturing. (The Eggs are still made in the US.) However the Brach’s Robin Eggs are made in the US and Canada.

I think it all goes to personal taste at this point. There are a few options for this type of candy (though Mars stopped making the Mega M&Ms which were rather close in size to the Hershey Eggs) so go with what you like.

Related Candies

1. Godiva Easter Eggs
2. Brach’s Fiesta Eggs
3. Runts Freckled Eggs
4. See’s Scotchmallow Eggs
5. Cadbury Royal Dark Mini Eggs
6. Brachs Bunny Basket Eggs
7. Cadbury Mini Eggs

I will start by saying that I’m a sucker.

I bought another molded Palmer Easter item. (A product which I generally consider a biodegradable decoration, not actually meant to be eaten.)

I have to hand it to R.M. Palmer. They do a great job of keeping their prices low and their designs contemporary.

Quax: The Yummy Ducky pretty much had me with the packaging. (It certainly wasn’t the description of Hollow Milk Flavored Candy Duck that sold me.) It looks just like a bathtub rubber ducky. But it was also on sale for only a dollar.

Quax is a bit smaller than the average toy duck. He’s about 3 inches from beak to tail and three inches high.

He’s well molded, with a seam through his head and down his sides. (I would have thought it would be constructed with mirror-image sides, but this way presents a flawless face.)

He sounds like plastic, looks like plastic but thankfully smells like an Easter basket. (Mmm, vanillin.)

The ingredients are what I’d expect from Palmer:

Sugar, Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (Palm Kernel and/or Palm Oil), Whey, Lactose, Skim Milk, Soy Lecithin, Colors (Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Blue 1, Blue 2, Red 40 & Red 3), Vanillin.

The packaging seems a bit excessive for such a tiny candy toy - it’s 4 inches wide and 6 inches tall. But it does have a little to and from tag area on the back for gifting.

After a certain point though, I just had to know ... would it float?

So I got out a bowl of water and plopped my Yummy Ducky friend into it.

Sure enough, he floats. He floats just fine. But he’s not balanced, so try as I might, I couldn’t get him to bob like a duck should, upright (or even tail up like a feeding duck might). Instead he did the duck equivalent of belly up and rested on his side. What this duck needs is a keel. Or feet. Then I think we might have something, an edible decoration for a punch bowl.

At this point I was pretty happy with my one buck purchase. It was cute, it smelled better than some vinyl toy and provided at least 800 words for my review without even cracking it open.

But I have to actually eat some, don’t I?

So I bit off the top of his skull.

The milk flavored candy has a very strong vanilla flavor with a little bit of dairy/dried milk going on. It’s incredibly sweet, actually throat searing.

It’s not that bad! Since it’s not trying to be actual chocolate, it succeeds at being better than plastic. I don’t plan on finishing it, but it was a fun little novelty item. It might even be amusing if they made them in a few sizes. You know, because they’re really not for eating, just decoration.

For those of you who for some reason now want to watch Ernie sing Rubber Duckie, here it is on YouTube.

Related Candies

1. Guylian Twists
2. Peeps inside a Milk Chocolate Egg
3. See’s Hollow Eggs with Novelty
4. Upscale Hollow Chocolate: Michel Cluizel & Hotel Chocolat
5. Russell Stover Hollow Milk Chocolate Bunny
6. Lindt Chocolate Bunnies (Dark & Milk)

Malley’s Chocolates is a Northeast Ohio favorite. They started in 1935 and currently produce their candy locally in Brookpark and distribute to 17 of their stores, plus many other shops that carry their products. In addition, they make a variety of bars that are sold by groups & schools for fundraising. Not as well known as the World’s Finest line, these bars have an additional local flair to them.

Last October I visited the factory with my mother while we were in the Cleveland area. There is a tour, which amounts to walking up and down a hallway with huge plate glass windows that show the factory in action along with little displays about the history of chocolate and the company. While it is unguided, the factory workers are quite aware that there are people watching and even made a few little signs and held them up to tell us what was being made on each line.

The factory has several enrobing lines, production lines, kettles, mixers and even sorts & roasts their own nuts. That is coupled with their packaging & assembly. It’s all free to watch, so if you’re in the area, especially on a rainy day, it’s a fun diversion especially with kids.

The store features the entire array of their production from the fine boxed chocolates, their marshmallow favorites, foil wrapped novelties, chocolate dipped pretzels & cookies (called Malley Ohs!), nut & caramel clusters (Billy Bobs), Buckeyes (peanut butter balls covered in chocolate), mint meltaways and their line of candy bars. The general prices of their candy is $16 to $30 per pound for their fine chocolates and $10 to $15 per pound for their enrobed snacks.

I bought a box of chocolates for myself & to share with family while I was traveling, but brought home an array of their chocolate candy bars for review. (Though, sadly, they don’t sell them on their website.)

The wrappers are bold and actually pretty thick. They’re mostly an advertisement on the back for their fundraising programs. The company’s colors are mint green and pink, which features heavily in their packaging.

The bars are big, 2.25 ounces each and only $1.00 each, so it’s a great value for a quality product. The chocolate is real (and may be Guittard, I saw some Guittard boxes on the factory floor and no other company’s chocolate there, but some companies use from multiple suppliers). The ingredients are pretty straight forward, their chocolate is made sugar, milk, cocoa butter, chocolate liquor, soy lecithin & vanillin. Their dark chocolate is similar and does use milkfat in it.

I picked up their Milk Chocolate Crunch Bar (crisped rice), Peanut Butter Cups, Milk Chocolate Pretzel Crunch Bar and Dark Chocolate Pretzel Crunch Bar.

The Peanut Butter Cups are made with milk chocolate. The package is a little misleading, it looks like the size of a Reese’s package, but clocks in a lot lighter at only one ounce.

Once I opened the package it became clear why. Inside is a tray to protect the little cups. Instead of the fluted paper lining this tray is the mold for the cups.

They’re only 1.5” across and a half an ounce each.

They may be small, but they are darn cute and practically flawless.

Since I saw for myself that Malley’s roasts their own nuts fresh, I can only guess that they make the peanut butter for this cup themselves. It’s nothing like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.

The center is so smooth it feels like it’s whipped. It’s not just peanuts though, it has a (un)healthy tippling of additional oils in it like palm kernel and rapeseed, more peanut oil and some non fat dry milk, sugar and the requisite salt.

The chocolate cup is also silky smooth, a little sweet and sticky but it has a good chocolatey punch to balance with the roasted flavor of the peanut butter. The peanuts have a slightly bitter toasted flavor to them.

The presentation of them is really appealing and even though I bought these in October and ate them in February, they were absolutely fresh tasting.

Rating: 8 out of 10

My main interest in Malley’s, truth be told, was that I heard they made a line of pretzel bars. I love a chocolate covered pretzel and have been lamenting that Hershey’s has cheapened their once-stellar Take 5. I was so sure I’d love theirs that I picked up two of each of their pretzel bars.

The Milk Chocolate Pretzel Crunch Bar comes in a hard to miss hot pink wrapper with mint green and chocolate brown accents.

The bar is long with four segments alternating with a molding of the Malley’s logo and “Quality since 1935” then some little pinstripes. Each little block segment is about a half an ounce, a nice little portion.

With a bar with inclusions, thickness is important so that the chocolate and crunchies can mingle properly.

The milk chocolate is wonderfully sweet and smooth, there’s a dairy component to it, but it’s not too strong. There are lots of little salted pretzel bits that provide a light crunch and slight malty/cereal flavor.

It’s a really satisfying combination. Nothing fancy about it, just good old fashioned comfort.

Rating: 8 out of 10

The Malleys Dark Chocolate Pretzel Crunch has a reversed package design featuring the mint green with pink and brown accents. If I wasn’t looking for the bar, I probably would have mistaken it for a mint product.

This bar is much bumpier on the bottom, which pleased me, since that indicated lots of pretzels.

It smells like cocoa, on the sugary side.

The shiny tempering means that it has a satisfying snap to it, which goes really well with the crispy and light pretzel bits. The chocolate is semi-sweet, not deep or complex. It’s like eating pudding with pretzels. A little bitter bite to it, but for the most part it’s typical mass-produced dark.

Rating: 8 out of 10

The final bar (but didn’t photograph for some strange reason) is the Chocolate Crunch Bar which is milk chocolate with crisped rice.

By the time I got to this bar, I realized that I really liked the milk chocolate that Malley’s uses. Sure it’s sweet and sure it lacks some of the complexity that fine artisan milk chocolates can have. But it’s addictively eatable.

The thick bar has loads of big crisped rice. Crisped rice is great, it’s like nature’s malted milk balls. This bar had the perfect ratio of crisps and chocolate. Still a bit sweeter than I’d like but for the price I don’t think you can find a better chocolate and crisped rice bar.

Rating: 9 out of 10

If a kid comes knocking on your door to do a little fundraising, you might think you’re doing them a favor by supporting their cause, but you really can’t go wrong for a buck with this purchase.

Malley’s also has seasonal celebrations, I’ve never been but I’ve heard that they have a huge Bunnyland extravaganza before Easter at the Brookpark location. (More about Malley’s here, too.)

Related Candies

1. Wilbur Milk Chocolate Crisp
2. Ghirardelli Luxe Milk Crisp
3. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Covered Pretzel Bites
4. World’s Finest W.F. Crisp
5. Hershey’s Miniatures
6. Asher’s Milk Chocolate Covered Things
7. Choxies in Boxies

Sterling Confections truly thinks outside the chocolate box with their Truffle Bars.

They’re a long bar of ganache encased in a hand painted chocolate shell that’s meant to be sliced instead of popped in the mouth whole.

The bars come in two sizes, a four inch long/six ounce bar and an eight inch long/twelve ounce bar. Though $14 for the small one sounded like a lot at first, when I thought about it, that’s a little over $37 per pound, which is pretty good for a box of fine chocolates. The small version makes 10 servings.

I got a hold of two bars from a media event called Food Fete (great writeup here): Double Hazelnut Caramel Truffle and Cappuccino with a Twist.

The Double Hazelnut Caramel Bar is A striking, hand-painted truffle with contrasting tiers of milk chocolate flavored with rich hazelnut puree, white chocolate infused with caramel, dark chocolate and a hint of ground hazelnut.

The bar has a simple construction. It’s a rounded prism shape, as described on the package, it’s about four inches long and 2 inches wide/high.

The shell is banded with colored white chocolate and milk chocolate. Inside are three layers of ganache.

First, I have to say, it’s an amazing construction and it looks just like it’s supposed to. I liked the banded coloring, it was appetizing and made an excellent presentation. Slicing the product was pretty easy, I had no trouble at all with the above knife, which I wiped after each slice (they suggest warming it in hot water and then wiping it dry). The bar was at room temp, which may have been a little colder than normal (about 62 F).

I made my initial slices rather thin, about a quarter of an inch is pictured. After a little math later on I realized they should have been over a third of an inch. You can gauge it yourself for the number of guests & how much they want to eat. thicker provides both a good portion and makes it easier to pick up, even if you cut them in half, especially if it gets a little warmer upon serving.

The ganache center was smooth and soft, a little fudgy. The flavors were light but pleasant. The center layer definitely had the caramel notes and the toasted hazelnut flavors while the top and bottom layers were more of the straight chocolate variety.

Personally I might have preferred more hazelnut to it or at least more of a punch of flavors, but it was definitely a decadent little treat.

The second bar was Cappuccino with a Twist. The little tag described it like this: An artfully hand-painted truffle filled with the mingling flavors of milk chocolate, coffee-infused white chocolate, dark chocolate, coffee liqueur and a subtle finish of lemon.

I didn’t care much for the design on the outside of this one, though once cut up it didn’t matter much. But then again, with less design on the outside I wasn’t eating as much food coloring.

The three layers here worked excellently. The bottom was a dark chocolate that had just a hint of strong coffee. The middle layer was softer, sweeter and less intense. The top was a white chocolate with a strong note of lemon zest. Towards the end of it all there’s a slight alcoholic punch.

I liked the layering on all of them, they were distinct and made eating them a bit of an adventure.

The interesting part of all of this is that the ganache is the star here. Once sliced, there’s very little chocolate shell, far less than most truffles, so it’s all about the cream and chocolate concoction.

They make a really nice presentation piece, the only drawback when serving to a small number of people is the lack of variety. So if you’re serving 20 people, two or three of the small bars would mean only two or three choices instead of the wide variety you could do with regular truffles.

However, the ability to control the portion size and the sheer novelty of seeing a huge log of chocolate that you can have a slice of is pretty spectacular.

I took this to an Oscar viewing party and it was part of a buffet of desserts. In the future though I think it would be an interesting bar of a dessert cheese plate, served along with some cheeses, nuts, dried fruits, honey and crackers.

The drawback is mostly that this is a bar for sharing. I can’t see popping this out of the sleeve and chomping into it, well, maybe in some sort of 30 Rock scene with Liz Lemon on a crazed depression-fueled-chocolate-binge. So it’s a special occasion sort of purchase. I’ve only seen them in specialty stores (it might have been Bloomingdales), so web-ordering is probably a necessity. However, it would make an incredible hostess gift or finish to a meal. With economic pressures, this sort of splurge might actually be good - it feels decadent but isn’t as expensive as some artisan chocolates or even upscale bakery products and brings people together, which is part of the magical quality of food.

Watch them being made on this segment from Unwrapped (the company is under new ownership since that was shot). Here’s another review too, before you take the plunge with your bucks from Food Gal.

Related Candies

1. Bouquet of Fruits Vinyeard - Wine Filled Chocolates
2. Mitchell’s Candies
3. Lillie Belle Farms Assortment
4. BonBonBars: Malt Ganache & Scotch
5. The Alien Forehead Chocolate Collection
6. CocoaBella “World’s Best Box”
7. MarieBelle Chocolates

Years ago I toured the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield, CA. At the end I was given a taste of their not-yet-introduced Pomegranate Jelly Belly, which boasts an infusion of antioxidants in addition to pomegranate flavor.

At the time I told them that I was hoping that someday they’d introduce a tangy citrus mix of Jelly Bellys with vitamins. (And then when I was done with the tour, I went and made my own custom mix in their store that consisted of all the citrus flavors.)

Three and a half years later, it’s here! I have no idea if they took my suggestion or realized it was simply something that had to be done.

At the Fancy Food Show Jelly Belly displayed this package (shown here in a rather dim photo taken by Emanuel Treeson). Over the weekend I got my first taste via a sample from Jelly Belly.

Though I like Jelly Belly, I rarely buy the pre-made mixes because there are just too many flavors that I don’t like and at the price of the product, it’s far too expensive to toss a third of them.

Jelly Belly’s Sunkist Citrus Mix is a blend of five jelly bean flavors all fortified with Vitamin C. Each 40 gram portion (1.41 ounces) provides 25% of the daily US RDA of Vitamin C. (Sorry, no other antioxidants - it would have been nice to sneak some beta carotene in there.)

The flavors are Sunkist Lime, Sunkist Pink Grapefruit, Sunkist Orange, Sunkist Lemon and Sunkist Tangerine.

The assortment of colors is fresh and inviting. (Though I had so much trouble telling orange and tangerine apart, I only stuck one in this photo.)

I have no idea if these are actually the same flavor as the non-Sunkist varieties. I tried a one-for-one taste test with the pink grapefruit and found that the Sunkist one was definitely zestier, maybe a little tangier. But that could have been a freshness issue.

Of the five flavors, I preferred the ones that had a tangy bite: lemon, tangerine and pink grapefruit. All had a lot more zesty notes than most jelly beans but the orange was just too plain old sweet. The great thing is that I loved the combination of flavors, I liked picking through them but none of them was a “shunned” flavor that was left over.

Since I’ve been battling a cold, this was one candy that I’ve been indulging in. Even without a decent sense of smell on Saturday, the tangy notes were still welcome. While I don’t necessarily think that they’re the reason that I’ve gotten over the cold, they really brightened my day.

Jelly Belly are now listing their products as gluten free, dairy free and this one in particular is gelatin free. They would be vegan except for the beeswax used in the glaze.

They should be in store by Easter, they haven’t appeared on the Jelly Belly website yet.

Related Candies

1. Dr. Doolittle’s Pastilles (Lemon, Grapefruit & Wild Berry)
2. Mentos Plus Citrus Mix
3. Jelly Belly Deluxe Easter Mix
4. Jelly Belly: Lollibeans
5. Big Candy Buyouts - Hershey & Jelly Belly
6. Pink Grapefruit Mentos
7. Jelly Belly - Full Line

One of the new items that’s getting a bit of buzz this year is the Cholive which is called the chic drink accessory.

It’s simply an olive shaped chocolate truffle, packaged with a cocktail pick so that it can be served in a drink.

I think I’d probably be floored if I ordered a cocktail and ended up with a fancy 55% dark chocolate truffle with a real Vermont cream ganache. (Of course there are some restaurants where I order coffee just because it comes with a little dish of chocolate chips, so I’m easily enchanted.)

I acquired my sample packages (that contain two Cholives with picks - the regular package is a little tin or jar) at Food Fete, which is a media event for food, beverage and lifestyle writers. It was held on one evening during the Fancy Food Show, and provided an opportunity to really connect with the food makers (and they weren’t concerned with missing a sale because they were talking to a reporter or blogger).

They olive styling is so complete, there’s even a little dimple where a pitted olive would have a hole. This is the recommended spot for inserting the cocktail skewer (and don’t go all the way through to the other side, a half an inch will do).

The truffle has a pleasant fruity & woodsy chocolate aroma. The bite of shell is crisp (I didn’t dip mine in alcohol). The ganache center is light and buttery, like a supercream frosting - a little bit sweeter than the shell, but still quite rich.

As a decadent little accompaniment for a drink, they’re nice. A great size and a fun method for serving. I appreciate that they’re good quality as well. Their info says that each one is about 35 calories (which I didn’t think was bad for a real chocolate treat).

At first I thought these were just skinny Lindt Lindor truffles, but they were much better than that. Though it made me wonder if folks skewer those & serve them with drinks, too. (The Lindt Lindor Truffle Eggs would probably be perfect for that! So consider squirreling some of those away after Easter this year for that purpose.)

I can’t see using these for ordinary drinks. They’re suited for more cream-based cocktails or at least sweet ones. At 50 cents to a dollar per Cholive, they sound a bit steep. But if you’ve got a mind to economize but still want to indulge, perhaps inviting a few friends over for some upscale cocktails instead of dinner & dessert, you can splurge on a tin of these. (The really clever thing is that they sell in bulk, so you can buy a tin or jar, and if you love them you can buy a bulk bag &  keep refilling it so it looks nice on your bar - and of course feel free to pop one every once in a while.) Their website also features some tantalizing drink recipes to get you started.

Don’t be surprised either if these start turning up at bars and events like weddings.

Here are some other reviews: Denise from On Motivation & Chocolate, Drinkhacker and Rachel of Chocolate Snob.

Note that they do not hold up in hot drinks ... not that they’re bad that way, but it’s just a different experience to fish a melted truffle out of the bottom of cup of hot coffee.

Related Candies

1. Trader Joe’s French Truffles
2. Starbucks Truffles
3. Soubeyran Array
4. Lindt: 60% Extra Dark Truffles
5. MarieBelle Chocolates
6. Choxie Champagne Truffles
7. Candy Cocktails for a Sweet New Year