Nobody Knows the Truffles I've Seen

Back to Candy Expo!  I had to stop by the Palmer booth and tell them I thought they were the Michelangelo's of chocolate.  They seemed unimpressed.

I've never seen any of these in the stores - Palmer peanut butter cups and candy bars:

Look at these - remind you of anything?  Looks like they're trying to imitate Lindt's Lindor truffles:

These are Palmer's Twists - brown is double chocolate, red is peanut butter, and aqua is white chocolate:

Well - they are about as you would expect - that waxy, too sugary Palmer chocolate.  But once again, there is something about their peanut butter that I really like.  It's good and salty.  But these ain't got nuthin' on Lindt!

At the entrance to the Expo, Lindt had their giant golden bunny - I love this guy!

At their booth, they had one of their master chocolatiers and she hosted a chocolate tasting.

We got to try a 90% dark bar from their Excellence line - designed with a thin profile to melt in your mouth.  It was good - but WAY too bitter for me.  I much preferred the 47% dark with roasted almonds.  Very good. 

See the little bags to the right of the picture - near the bunny?  That's their new little three truffle bag.  Here's a display of them:

The bars we got to try:

We also sampled their new hazelnut truffle:

This is one fabulous truffle - delicious creamy milk chocolate and crunchy hazelnut - YUM!  A+++

Now just to compare some Lindor Truffles with those Palmer things:

 

Really, Palmer?  Why even go here? 

Can you see just from the picture how much more fabulous these truffles are?  Creamy, awesome chocolate - that's Lindt's dark truffle on the left, peanut butter in the middle.  So amazing!!

This is a Whisper Bon Bon from Arcor and all I have to say is bleech:

That wafer layer around the peanut butter tasted stale and the peanut butter and chocolate were lame.

This is the Madelaine Chocolate Company booth - look at all these colors of malted milk balls!!

This is what they look like in when packaged:

But these these are the really exciting things!!  Duets double-filled chocolate truffles!!  I'm not sure where to get these - I've found Madelaine's chocolate in Kohl's before.

They come in four flavors:

Peanut butter and raspberry:

This is pretty damn good - I mean you can even tell just from looking at the picture!  What a great idea!! 

 

This is milk truffle and white truffle:

This one I didn't like - there was a weird aftertaste of some kind.  And why buy this one anyway when you can have peanut butter and raspberry?

Here's raspberry and white truffle:

This one was good, if a little too sweet for me.  I liked it, but I liked the peanut butter combo better.  But damn, this raspberry filling is GOOD!

Ah - this one is peanut butter and caramel:

Whoa - this one was pretty damn good too.  I still like the peanut butter and raspberry best, but this was a close second.  Overall these Duets are very good and very different from anything else out there.  Yum!!

The two halves aren't divided by chocolate, but they stay separate - very cool.

Now here's something about them that kind of makes we want to puke - they are aimed at female consumers ages 25 to 50 (no problem there).  But their VP of sales and marketing said that Duets hold special appeal for those involved in planning bridal and baby showers because "such events are about bringing two things together, much like Duets."  Oh dear God, you have GOT to be kidding me! 

Since when has peanut butter and jelly represented man and wife, mother and child, or anything other than just two damn good flavors together? 

But they are so good, I'll forgive a weird stretch from the Madelaine marketing department.  Yay for truffles!!

 

Milk Chocolate Eggs (and a Carrot)

These are the most beautifully packaged chocolates I've yet to see:

Each of the eggs is slightly larger than life size and the color Mylar wrapping is tied with a golden cord:

I found them at Williams-Sonoma and they are Florentine Chocolate Eggs. They even have their own little plastic pedestal!

They were hollow and I find it hard to compare hollow chocolate to solid chocolate. I know - it shouldn't matter, but the thinner pieces let so much air get in and the smooth surface changes the texture. This is a wonderful silky milk chocolate - I'd place it between Lindt and Neuhaus (see below). Not quite as earthy as Neuhaus, but wonderful and delicious.

I found these Madelaine chocolates in Kohl's of all places (chocolate is everywhere - life is good!):

I really like these springy, tropical foil wrappers - they just scream aloha!

This is a solid milk chocolate. Good.

They also made these large solid milk chocolate eggs:

Very pretty, very good.

Isn't chocolate a beautiful thing?

These Hershey's Bliss eggs (in the stolen Cadbury packaging) are pretty good:

Mostly because of the "meltaway center":

It gives them a smooth, creamy richness. I really liked these.

Palmer has an egg assortment (we already reviewed caramel and peanut butter). This one is fudge:

Because it's more like a truffle with the fudge filling than their solid egg (below) it's better, but it's still got the outer waxy mockolate shell. These are just too sugary sweet and not chocolately enough. But the assortment was fun overall.

Palmer's regular solid mockolate eggs are just plain bad:

So waxy and just awful. Not worth the calories. Not even close.

I got this carrot which was originally $4.95 for 47 cents. I couldn't say no to it.

I'm showing you the back because I thought it was interesting to see all the drizzle marks:

This carrot was made by Seattle Gourmet Foods and was richer and creamier than both the Madelaine and the Harry and David Milk Chocolate Easter Eggs (I see why it was originally $4.95 - it was very good. I think they didn't sell because it was a carrot. No one wants to think about carrots when they are indulging in chocolate). The H & D Milk Chocolate Eggs:

In fact, I couldn't tell this one and the Madelaine eggs apart. They tasted exactly the same to me.

These are sooooo cute! They are a little bit smaller than all the other eggs:

Lindt has some great packaging - this is a little tin box:

These blew all the others out of the water. You just can't beat that super smooth and creamy Lindt chocolate. And this smaller size is great! Very poppable! (And thus very dangerous. Thank God they have the foil wrappers to slow you down.)

These are mini Lindor truffle eggs in the Lindt trademark golden bunny (I reviewed the little bunny that was in the middle in an earlier post - yep, he's gone):

But not forgotten!

Of course, they are fabulously creamy and delicious:

And the larger eggs? Need I even say anything?

So rich, so creamy, so decadent - I don't see how Godiva can stay in business with Lindt out there. There is just no comparison! These truffles are transcendent!

Speaking of Godiva:

I hate to say it, but these milk chocolate eggs are pretty good. They are not as good as Lindt, but they are better than H & D and Madeline.

But yet again, the ultimate winner is Neuhaus - at least in the solid milk chocolate category:

What makes these so good is they really taste like chocolate - that wonderful earthy, complex, rich taste. They aren't overly sweet or cloying. They are just about the chocolate.

You know, I'm really starting to get the hang of this chocolate thing. I see why Palmer is so bad and Neuhaus so good. But I had to pare it down to the essentials - i.e. no peanut butter or caramel confusing things. You really do have to try a lot of different things to figure out what works best for you. And you have to be brave enough to say - I've tried them all and I still like the Snickers bar! If you don't try different things though, you really can't know. That's what the journey is all about - trying things, exploring and figuring how who you really are.

Thanks for taking this chocolate journey with me! And let me know what you think or what you'd like me to review. Kris - coconut is still coming, I promise!!!!!