Ok, I'm taking a new tack on things. The mini-reviews that I have done in the past are now being sort of formalized into a regular sort of thing. It's not necessarily that I feel a product isn't worth a full review. Sometimes it might be, but sometimes I might just not have a lot to say about something. Or I might just be feeling lazy (most likely). Anyway, the idea is this: don't read too much into me giving something a Quick Hit as opposed to a full-blown review.

First of the quick hits is the first piece of the Starbucks Chocolate collection that I've sampled, their Vanilla Bean Truffles. The description from the label reads as follows:

Sweet and dreamy vanilla from Madagascar meets exquisite dark chocolate in a lovely pairing

Posted by William at 7:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Posted to Chocolate | Fun | Reviews | chocolate obsession

Well, I thought I had my computer working right again. I was wrong. I overestimated the manufacturer of the hard drive thinking that they had improved their game since the last time I bothered trying one of their drives. The track record now stands at four faulty drives - two of which were completely DOA. The longest any of the lasted before acting up was two days. The only drives from them that I haven't had problems with were the replacements for the ones I did have problems with. Way to go <insert name here>. And now you can't return your faulty hard drive to the store anymore. Oh no, you have to RMA it. What a pain. Well, I finally got frustrated and resurrected one of the old hard drives I had slagged and made it my system drive and when the new drive at last arrived I just set it up as a massive data store. I'm going to run full diagnostics on it before I put a lot of faith in it. And trust me when I say I'm done with this company. Sick to death of fighting to get my computer back together and sick of a company with such an amazing failure rate.

While it was working, before the drive went away again, I had worked on some stuff for the blog. Yeah, those things are gone now. I'll try and get things back to normal this week. In the meantime....

So this weekend has been one of those "don't leave the couch for anything" sort of weekends with a geek twist to it (watching a large chunk of a "drama" which isn't really a drama and will not be named here) and munching on tasty stuff. But for this to work right I needed something to eat for dinner and I needed dessert. So I made a brief run out for supplies for my little geek holiday. And I realized on the way home that what the little holiday really needed was brownies. So I swung by Sugardaddy's for to pick me up some treats. And the signage in the window confused me. There was a cheesecake in one picture. And truffles in another. Seems that they have some new products in Sugardaddy land. The cheesecake tastes quite nice and the truffles, based on their brownie flavors, sound quite good. Haven't tried them yet, but trust me I will (got one of each of their eight varieties - I'm weak like that). I didn't take home a cheesecake, though. I had some Graeter's Black Raspberry Chip ice cream in the car and wasn't ready to commit myself to that much overload in one weekend. It's chocolate obsession, not chocolate overdose.

*EDIT*They're BROWNIE truffles. Sort of a magical hybrid of brownies and truffles. Hrm. Truffownies? Brownuffles? Yeah, I suppose brownie truffles works.*EDIT*

Chocolate Overdose. That would be a good domain. Hmm... I've been thinking about picking up a few new domains lately. It all sort of started out of an idea for a April Fools thing. I didn't want to simply rickroll everybody, I wanted to do something fun. Next year, oh yes, next year I have some fun planned.

And I tried this wine today. It's red wine with "the flavor of dutch cocoa" or something similar. It's got a mouthfeel like Bailey's, but the taste is a little different. Kind of a slightly alcoholic hot chocolate that isn't hot. And it has a slight cherry undercurrent to it. Pretty tasty, but reading the back revealed the horrible truth: no chocolate at all. The wine was wine and the cream was cream, but the flavors were artificial. Tsk tsk.

What else? I still can't find those darn Mint M&M's. Nowhere I look. It's getting depressing. I suppose when the movie comes out I'll find them everywhere, but for now I can't find bag one. It makes me sad. Haven't seen the Starbucks chocolate yet either. Need to find and try.

Administrative Professionals week is this next week. If you got an admin in your world hook 'em up with some of the good stuff. Most people appreciate chocolate. It tastes better than flowers.

Saw this recipe float through the in box and had to share. It's got bacon. And chocolate of course. But bacon. In cookies no less. Sounds interesting. And I'll try most things at least once.

If you live in the San Fran area you NEED to get on the Charles Chocolate mailing list. There have been a couple of great in-store events that have crossed my inbox in recent weeks and if I lived out there I would have gone for sure.

It's not chocolate, but there are these Cinnamon Fire Twizzlers running around out there and if you like the whole hot cinnamon candy thing then these are really pretty darn good. Very pleasantly surprised by them.

Ok, that's all I've got for now. I have to attack my email sometime (running it from my iPhone has limits). I promise to talk chocolate and beer soon, but the subject frustrates me. And some reviews are due along the way. I'll see what I can work up. The computer still needs some work before it's up to where I want it to be and in theory I'm on vacation next weekend, but we'll see what I can fit in.

Oh, and there is another local brownie I need to address. I picked up one of theirs at my favorite gourmet market (ooh, it sounds so snooty when I say it - and the place is anything but snooty) and quite liked it. I need to be trying more.

Here's to hoping I haven't made any glaring spelling or grammar errors, cause I certainly am NOT going to proof it. The couch: she beckons.

'nite all!

Posted by William at 6:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Posted to chocolate obsession

Ok, so I had been planning on writing up a formal review of the Wildly Cherry M&M's and had, on multiple occasions, promised that it was forthcoming. And then I sat down to write it and realized that I really didn't have a lot to say. There really isn't a lot to say about them.

So, tearing into the bag you are met by a slight cherry aroma. Not bad and not overpowering. The M&M's themselves are of both varying size and varying shades of red. Some are no bigger than a normal M&M and some are monstrous huge. Most are well above average size and most tend away from the really dark red. The darkest ones seem to be the biggest ones and I guess that was by design. Anyway, they are big so you get that much more chocolate in each one and that's a nice little bonus. The taste is really nice. The cherry flavor isn't super-strong, but more of a background flavor. And since it isn't quite so front-and-center you don't get any sense of it being overly fake. It doesn't come across as overly genuine either, but it doesn't scream FAKE at you and that's a good thing. And finally the aftertaste. The Razzberry M&M's had an aftertaste that I just couldn't stand. With these the only aftertaste I'm getting is of milk chocolate. The cherry fades and all that is left is a little hint of milk chocolate.

So they don't have any of the weaknesses that I found in the Razzberry M&M's and are quite enjoyable. Overally I'd be forced to call that a win. I don't really like to have more than a few at a time, but I do enjoy them. As they are a nice step up from the annoyance of the Razzberry I'm going to give them a 7.5 out of 10. They aren't perfect and are far from "fine chocolates", but they do the job and do it nicely.

Now I'm looking forward to trying the Mint Crisp M&M's that they are releasing in a Indiana Jones cross-promotion. Seems to me it's time to start hitting the drug stores again. I do love to hunt for chocolate.

Posted by William at 7:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
Posted to Candy | Chocolate | Fun | Reviews

"The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, Gang aft agley" Robert Burns

But there's been stuff going on! All sorts of stuff all over the place. Stuff that needs addressed.

First up there is this study that was conducted by the University of Illinois in conjunction with Mars Inc. that shows that the CocoaVia brand chocolates can lower both your cholesterol and blood pressure due to them being fortified with plant sterols. Normally I'd sneer at any study conducted in conjunction with the manufacturer of the product being studied, but I doubt that the U of I is in the business of selling itself out. I've known whether to take the product seriously or not. I tried some (it was free) and found it ok, but I did like the idea that they guarantee a certain level of flavanols. Turns out that those plant sterols might be something special as well.
Medical News Today
Food Production Daily

What would you do with 20 tons of chocolate? That is the question facing the individual or individuals who stole a trailer full of Hershey's products this week. The theives made off with the trailer and ditched the tracking device. The trailer has since been recovered. The chocolate has not. 20 tons is a lot of chocolate. What the heck do you do with that much chocolate? I can't imagine you could sell it all to one buyer. If you did you would have to split it into separate lots and move them separately with appropriately forged paperwork in case the driver is stopped. Hmmm.... how do you move 20 tons of chocolate? I suppose there are a number of people on both sides of the law pondering that question about now. I suppose I'll leave them to it.

Hershey's is launching a new line of chocolate snacks called Hershey's Bliss which comes in three varieties: Milk Chocolate, Dark Chocolate and Milk Chocolate Meltaway. They are apparently - and this is entirely the wording from the press release - "targeting female chocolate lovers" and letting them sign up to host one of ten thousand Bliss launch parties nationwide. You can sign up to get in on the free chocolate action by visiting this site. I'm impressed with the way that they're socializing the whole luanch. This is a neat experiment in marketing and social networking as they give you online tools to send invites and share pictures and stuff as well as giving you the snax and some host gifts (so, yeah, you want to be hosting the party). So sign up and give it a shot! Or not if Hershey's isn't your thing.
Press Release
Signup Page
Product Page

A lot of stuff that people send me seems to get caught in the old bulk mail bucket and the bits that don't, well, I'm not as diligent as I should be in answering all of my correspondence or addressing everything that happens across my inbox. One of those things that has floated by recently is Chocolate Expert, a site with a nice selection of reference articles and recipes on chocolate. Seems to be a pretty decent sort of place so I figure they are worth a mention.

Another of those things that showed up and wasn't given quite the interest it deserved was the site The Chocolate Life. It's a community-based site for those with a love for that most perfect of foods. It's one I'm going to have to give a closer look at. I like the community idea thang they have going. And I received a question in a recent email that would be a lovely topic for discussion over there.

I'm hoping that I'll get the M&M's review that I promised a few days ago up tomorrow and a review of the Amano Cuyagua bar if I can find the darn thing. It was on my desk and I was eating it just a few days ago. I can't figure out where the heck it's disappeared to. Of course the last week has been chaotic on my desk with all the computer work so its only natural that it would be a little harder to find. I think it's out on the kitchen table from when I was taking pictures of it. Anyway, I plan on finally reviewing it this week. Really I do! I also plan on talking about my painful experiences with extremely high cacao content chocolates and the potentially difficult combination of chocolate and beer. Assuming this cold goes away and I don't spend any more days in bed.

Posted by William at 9:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)
Posted to Chocolate | Fun | News | chocolate obsession

So I'm at the grocery store last night picking up some green leafy stuff for the rabbit and I happen to wander by the promotional aisle where all of the Easter stuff is. Well, I figured it was worth a look to see if there weren't some good post-Easter deals to be had. The deals weren't bad, but what I really got excited about was finally finding the Wildly Cherry M&M's! I didn't have the highest of hopes for them, but figured what the hey, they're new so I might as well try them, right? Imagine my horror when I found myself liking them! I need to go back for a second try, but I'm afraid that I actually like these. For some reason the Razzberry M&M's didn't click that well with me so I sort of expected these to miss as well. But I'm afraid that I might just like these. I'll put up a full review later this week, but right now it's looking pretty positive (not that it isn't subject to change).

Posted by William at 8:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Posted to Candy | chocolate obsession

I've made a number of passes through the Easter candy aisle at the grocery store lately and I've generally come up with little or nothing to show for my efforts (aside from a few Peeps). This last trip to the store I finally noticed something different about one of the items that I had previously managed to ignore. One of those items I assumed was simply a holiday re-packaging job turned out to be a little bit more. It seems that they managed to sneak out another Limited Edition Three Musketeers and it had been right in front of my nose for weeks (maybe). Last time it was the Mint Three Musketeers which, frankly, didn't do much for me. This time they go the Raspberry Route which I, for some odd reason, had high hopes for. So into the basket it went (along with a mixed bag for the candy bowl at my desk at work).

Sadly, I can’t think of too much to say about these. They’re moderately unremarkable and that, I guess, is their biggest strength. The texture of the Mint Three Musketeers really bothered me. If the whippy fluff stuff isn’t properly whippy and fluffy then it shouldn’t say Three Musketeers on the package. The Mint was like that. The texture just felt wrong. It didn’t help that I didn’t find them that tasty either. These little Raspberry critters have a much better texture and the flavor isn’t bad either. There isn’t a whole lot of chocolate flavor to it, but that isn’t much of a surprise when you consider that there is a lot more of the fluff than there is chocolate. The raspberry fluff is really pretty decent. It does taste sort of artificial, but not to the point of being bad. The hint of chocolate and not-offensively-artificial raspberry flavor work together nicely.

So this turned out to click with me a lot better than the Mint variety did last year. It isn’t as good as a normal Three Musketeers, but better than the mint so I’m giving it a 7.5 out of 10, a score that sits it right between the two reference bars. It’s really not bad at all, but it’s also really not amazing. If you like raspberry candy these might go over well and I would say they’re worth a try, but I haven’t seen anything but Minis in this flavor and I know that I’m going to have to work to give away the rest of the bag I bought unless I find somebody who really likes them a lot.

Posted by William at 7:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)
Posted to Candy | Chocolate | Fun | Reviews

Well, now. I just don’t quite know what to think about this. Starbucks is stepping into the world of chocolate delivering tea and coffee flavored chocolates with the aid of (drum roll please)…. Hershey! Yeah, I’m being intentionally misleading. I can’t see Starbucks using anything as pedestrian as normal everyday Hershey chocolate (or Special Dark). Instead they are using an unspecified chocolate from the Hershey Artisan Confections collection of companies. And it appears to be one that is associated with bean-to-bar chocolate making. By my interpretation that would make it Sharffen Berger. Dagoba would also be possible, but if they were going organic I’m sure they would trumpet it. I’d guess they want quality without the additional cost that organic chocolate generally carries.

The flavors sound like they’ll be interesting. From the press release:

The collection includes: signature dark, mocha and milk chocolate bars and tasting squares; Tazo® Chai, Passion and Citron tea-infused chocolate tasting squares; Caffè Mocha, Chai, Espresso, Caramel Macchiato and Madagascar Vanilla Bean Truffles; and Milk Chocolate Covered Caffè Verona® Coffee Beans.

I’m curious to try some of what they are offering. I’m enjoying the whole tea and chocolate combination lately and I’ve always liked a little coffee with my chocolate so it should all be worth a taste. There is a link to the press release below and there is some neat stuff on it with product pictures and videos of chocolate tastings so check it out.

Press Release

Posted by William at 8:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
Posted to Chocolate | Fun | Producers | Retailers

A lot of what I've been eating lately, in terms of chocolate at least, has been the stuff I was finding at the grocery store. Whatever bars they happened to have (more often than not it was just the Lindt Excellence bars) and whenever I saw something in the candy aisle that caught my eye I would make sure to take it along with me as well. And I really haven't eaten a lot at all.

But recently I was motivated and excited to dig through the Easter selection at the grocery store. I ended up rather disappointed. There was a lot of the sort of items that change their general shape and wrapping for each holiday and the same old stuff in a different wrap just isn't all that exciting to me. I did find one thing I was interested in, though. They had Hershey's Vanilla Creme Kisses and that seemed like something I couldn't pass up.

So the kisses come sitting flat in this triangular sleeve package which is a nice design. The kisses themselves are larger than the kisses I'm familiar with, but since they're filled this is a good thing. You get a better balance between the amount of chocolate shell and flavored stuff. The shell is standard Hershey's Kiss. Nothing all that special. It's the stuff inside that had me interested. The vanilla creme is thick stuff but softer than the shell. I suppose I expected it to be sweeter than I found it to be and was pleasantly surprised. The vanilla creme isn't overly sweet or overly strong and is a nice companion to the chocolate. They are good and don't have that aftertaste that I disliked so much with the Cherry Cordial Kisses (and it started so well, too).

So while I think that the kisses look a little strange compared to the normal ones, I do find them to be a tasty diversion. Not the sort of thing I'm going after on a normal basis (being more into the dark chocolate and less into the candy and milk chocolate), but it's pretty good stuff. I'm going to call it a 7.5 out of 10. It's some tasty snacky stuff.

Posted by William at 8:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
Posted to Candy | Chocolate | Reviews

Yeah, it’s been about forever since I last posted. Something stressful has been going on and I’ve been in comfort food mode which generally means very little in the way of chocolate. Not that it wasn’t there. I just sort of turned my attention to the baked goods and there was quite often a chocolate component to the particular baked good. It just wasn’t the sort of thing I was going to be posting about. Chocolate mousse cake and beer sort of thing. And if it wasn’t a baked good then it was more likely than not whatever I could find at the grocery store (which really wasn’t a whole lot - the bar I wanted just wasn’t on the shelf).

The stress has died down a bit compared to what it was and I’m really kind of getting things back to normal and getting some chocolate back into my life. So this is sort of my getting over my non-posting guilt and serving notice that I’m sort of back more or less. I’m itching for some good chocolate and will be heading down to Jungle Jim’s to look for some stuff to snack on and I’ve still got an item or two collecting dust around the home or that I’ve eaten and not really talked about.

So, yeah, sorry I’ve not been posting, but life is like that sometimes.

Posted by William at 8:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
Posted to chocolate obsession

Wow. It seems like forever since I last had a bar of just chocolate. I’ve had all sorts of truffles and brownies and bars with stuff in, but it’s been, I don’t know, since October since I last had a bar of what I would call tasting chocolate. I’ve had tons of them on hand, but have been eating really very little chocolate at all (trying to eat healthy - ugh!) and the bars have just sort of been ignored as I tackled other stuff. But last night that changed. At long last I cracked into Patric Chocolate’s premire release, the Madagascar Sambirano Valley bar. Patric are that most special of breeds – a bean to bar producer (in their case I think artisan is called for) – and the bar is a micro-batch product. And it’s one heck of a bar to mark my return to pure chocolate.

I’ve made no secret that I’m a sucker for nice packaging and the boxes that Patric use are very nice with gold trim and a nice cacao pod graphic. The bar, once extracted from it’s gold wrap, is beautiful. It’s darker than milk chocolate and lighter than a lot of dark chocolate and has a little red in it. It's well formed with a nice engraved P on each square and has a great snap. The aroma is a mix of cedar, coffee, raspberry, and cherry. I didn’t expect the cedar, but that’s what my nose was telling me. The box tells us to expect notes of citrus, red wine, and berries. To me it opens with a quick hint of caramel and a nice mixed berry note and bright orange. The flavor progresses to richer wine (or brandy?) and cherry notes while the berries settle into more of a raspberry note. And somehow there is a bit of citrus running along with it. As it closes I have to go with more of the wine, orange, and raspberry and a hint of lemon or lime as it fades leaving a lasting hint of brown sugar (?!) on the palate. There is really a lot going on in the flavor and I seem to read a little something different each time. I’m really not good with Madagascar chocolates so certainly take this review with a grain of salt. I’m afraid that I might be missing or misreading a lot here.

But even if I am missing something, what I am finding is extremely pleasurable. It is a smooth ride with nice mix of citrus, berry, and wine and no bitterness to speak of and would make a great chocolate for a relative neophyte (like me!) to enjoy. I really enjoyed the bar a lot. I’m calling it a 9.5 out of 10 (I worry that I score too high a lot) but have to warn that my reviews should be taken with a grain of salt for inexperience and the fact that I inject a lot of my personal tastes into the numbers. But, you know, this blog really is more about my impressions and experiences as opposed to some great and overriding chocolate standard. Anyway, I like the bar a lot. The score stands and I have to say I’m looking forward to seeing what they come up with next.

Posted by William at 8:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
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