Tuesday, January 12, 2010

A Poxie on Choxie

Hang in there, gang! We are almost done with all the holiday chocolate!

I've got some more Choxie we need to review. The first is a three pack of holiday bars:



This one is a milk chocolate creme brulee truffle bar:


Wow - this is a pretty good, albeit RICH bar. It is "caramel and vanilla infused white chocolate truffle with a touch of toffee, blanketed with milk chocolate." It's the toffee that makes it so good - I wasn't expecting it. It mimics the carmelization on the top of a real creme brulee. I am shocked and astonished and thrilled. VERY sweet and rich, but a good bar.


Of all the Choxie gingerbread offerings, this one is the best. It's a milk chocolate gingerbread truffle bar. It has some gingerbread cookie pieces in in, but they are relatively small (unlike those horrible bits). But this is nothing to run out and buy. Nothing great.

The hazelnut bar had a lot of bloom on it, looking pretty crappy I must say:




This is the milk chocolate hazelnut biscotti truffle bar. The description reads: "satiny milk chocolate yields to reveal a duet of tastes and textures, with pieces of crisp almond biscotti and hazelnuts throughout." Oh la, la! After seeing that bloom, I was skeptical. But damn, this was the best one! I love nuts, so the hazelnut flavor was a big hit with me. I thought the biscotti might make it too dry, but no - delish! I am shocked!!


But I will not remain so for long:



These are dessert truffle meltaways and the assortment is pretty even:


You know how I hate it when you get ten of one flavor and three of another.

The first one is apple pie:



I think apple pie is one of those flavors that doesn't need to be a chocolate. This did taste like apple pie, but was such a poor rendition of apple pie that it's not worth it. Maybe if the center was creamier? I don't know - let's just say one of these was enough to last me the rest of my life. And I like apple pie. But not these.

Pumpkin Pie:


Yucko - all I can taste is a weird spice - no pumpkin. Gross. And I love pumpkin. Evil.

Dark chocolate mousse:



This wasn't too bad - had a good rich dark chocolate taste. But it isn't the best dark chocolate in the Universe. And everything else in the assortment is horrifying.

Gingerbread:




What happened? The bar was good! This is horrible! It doesn't taste like gingerbread and has a weird aftertaste.


All I can say about this box is YUCK.




So far, all I can endorse are the bars. The rest of this stuff is pretty terrible. This is the last of the Choxie holiday stuff - the "Slice of the Holidays" truffle collection:






More pie. I'm scared. First up is milk chocolate pumpkin pie:



Huh? I can't taste any pumpkin. The outer truffle shell is pretty thick and these also have more chocolate in the center of the truffle. Unusual - something about their production. Boo!!


This is dark chocolate cherry pie:



Tastes a little like cherry, but nothing great. Again, maybe too much chocolate? See the lines of chocolate through the filling?


Key lime pie:





This was very not good. I'm not sure I'm the best one to judge because I don't really like key lime, but it tasted kind of fake - kind of chemically. Ew.

White chocolate banana creme pie:




Ugh - same for banana. These are really just not good. The chocolate isn't very smooth and the flavors seem off - not authentic.


Apple pie:



Again, awful. Chemical? Weird spice? Makes me want to taste an apple. Creepy.


Pecan pie:


Glaaack. These are all bad, bad, bad.


Here's what I think about Choxie to date:


Very cool boxes and the chocolate is great to look at. They have some awesome designs.


The bars are good - we'll try some more.


The other stuff - truffles, etc. - is really bad. And this stuff isn't really cheap (a la Palmer), so it should taste a little better.

Thoughts:

Just because it can be chocolate, doesn't mean it should be chocolate. Apple pie ROCKS. Apple pie chocolates are the spawn of Satan.

Another example - Quaker just made a creme brulee rice cake. Would you like to ponder that for a moment? I'd go so far as to say the exact culinary opposite of creme brulee is the rice cake. No good can come of this.

Fancy packages do not mean good content. Over and over we learn this. I'm going to start wearing burlap.

Two rights can make a wrong. Apple pie = right. Chocolate = right. Apple pie + chocolate = wrong. Very wrong.

Two rights can make an even better right. Chocolate = right. Peanut butter = right. Chocolate + Peanut butter = yahoo!!!!


Food math is confusing. I need a Reese's.

7 comments:

Kris, in New England said...

Apple Pie? Pumpkin Pie? and Chocolate?

Just. Not. Right.

Unknown said...

probably several Reese's... (I saw the Easter candy:) on the idea of burlap, maybe with a brown satin tie... can't go to far from the COC dress code ;)

Denise Ryan said...

You two rock!!! We should all three go to Hershey in the Fall!

benzurawski said...

I know this may not fit...poptarts are kind of in a dessert/snack no-mans-land, but I just found out there is a pumpkin pie pop tart out now.

Thought folks should know.

Tis the season in which I am a sucker for all things pumpkin pie-ish.

http://www.poptarts.com/PumpkinPie.aspx

Denise Ryan said...

Ben!!! OMG I am SOOOO excited!! I'm with you - love, love love any thing pumpkin and had no clue about the Pop Tarts!!! MUST get some!!! BTW - Cheryl's has some awesome pumpkin stuff - but pretty expensive. : (

Ben Z said...

Great Denise! I feel like I can already 'pre-taste' a pumpkin pie poptart before I actually eat one...ya know? But it's worth a try if I see a box. Gotta show my support.

I had to look up what Cheryl's was... looks tasty! My dream is to be in a 'treat of the month' type club...Love the idea of getting food in the mail. ha. ...Someday...

On a related note...I was recently thinking of just posting a 'candy bar a week' posting on etsy or something...the candy wouldn't be anything too special...I would just send a new small treat each week to people who order it and charge a small fee... kind of like the joy of getting a netflix dvd but a kitkat bar or something instead. another '...Someday...'

Denise Ryan said...

Ben - I swear we are kindred spirits. I am on the hunt for those Pop Tarts - let me know if you find them!! I actually joined Cheryl's cookie of the month club. You got like two dozen cookies every other month. What a disaster! I have so many frosted frozen cookies in my freezer, it's crazy! I had to cancel or get fat. But it was like a beautiful dream. : ) Your candy bar idea sounds like a good one - just one bar a month. Genius!