Summer Coconut Continues

Ah - summertime!  Let's keep going to the islands, mon!  I've reviewed these Kisses before, but they are so good, let's look at them again:

They are coconut creme Kisses and you can see in the autopsy photo that the center is indeed creamy.  But there are chunks (or shreds) of coconut in these babies.  And they are damn good.  They would be awesome combined with the macadamia Kisses.  Yum!  Aloha!

Coconut candy seems to be mainly in the following combinations:
1.) without chocolate - like those vile coconut slices we looked at  (why bother?)
2.) coconut creme covered by chocolate - a coconut filling, if you will (this post)
3.) coconut (not cream) coated at least partly with chocolate (like the famous Almond Joy)
4.) coconut mixed with chocolate (not in bar form, but mixed together)
5.) coconut as an ingredient in a solid chocolate bar

You're going to see all of these variations in the next few posts.  You are going to feel like you are trapped on a desert island - one that happens to have a cacao plantation and loads of coconut trees.  Life could be worse. 

Okay, it could be worse if you only had these:

Too much crappy Palmer chocolate, not enough coconut filling.  All of Palmer's cream eggs were terrible. 

You all know how I feel about Russell Stover:

This egg is more like marshmallow cream with some coconut shreds.  Too sweet.  The dark chocolate helps, but not enough. 

I finally discovered who makes this egg!  Gertrude Hawk Chocolates.  I saw this exact design at their booth at Candy Expo.  I bought this egg at the Mast General Store and there is no manufacturer on the label.  (I really AM chocolate CSI!)

I wouldn't claim this egg either.  The base is WAY too thick and the filling has some coconut shreds, but doesn't have much taste at all.  No good. 

See's Cocoanut eggs looks okay:

But also was overly sweet.  It's the cream. Most of these coconut cream things are just too sweet.

The Godiva coconut egg:

This is much better.  Good dark chocolate and a less sweet, more coconutty taste.  One of the best coconut eggs.

Godiva has a coconut truffle:

And it's a little cloying.  I prefer the dark chocolate with the coconut in the eggs.  The truffle is a little too sweet.

Here's the problem with buying unlabeled chocolate.  The first truffle I autopsied (thinking it was the coconut) was this one:

Ooops!  Not coconut! 

This is a roasted almond truffle and it is fabulous.  Not too sweet, the almond center has a slightly salty taste.  LOVE it!!

And here are the new toasted almond gems:

Wow!  I loved these too - they are totally addictive!!  They seemed slightly less sweet than the larger truffle.  They are a sophisticates version of a peanut butter egg.  Amazingly good.  And the whole tube is $10 verses about $2 for one truffle.

Even more coconut to come!!  I figure it's the perfect thing to cover in the summertime. And yes, it's taken me this long to get to the end of the Easter Candy!  Can you believe it?  So much chocolate, so little time.

Chocolate Cream Eggs

Ah - the cream egg in all its variations! We have to start with the most beloved, classic Cadbury Egg - first in its standard size:

And then in the mini size:

I swear I thought the "yolks" used to be more yellow, but that might just be a childhood memory/delusion:

What can I say?  These are awesome - the chocolate is that delicious, creamy Cadbury chocolate.  The filling is a little bit rich for me, but they are good.  I find the little ones are a lot easier to eat - the big one is just too much.  But, hey - they rule the creme egg category rule and I don't think Cadbury should change a thing!

Russell Stover continues to suck.  The chocolate can't even come close to Cadbury's and this strawberry cream has little strawberry taste - just sweet and fluffy rather than creamy (like Cadbury).  Kinda gross:

The raspberry - in dark chocolate rather than milk, but still in that thin, crummy RS chocolate was better:

Better because the dark chocolate offsets the super sweetness of the "whip" and the raspberry taste was stronger than the strawberry.  But not something very good.

This was the worst of the three - just way too sweet (and the chocolate is not so good):

Of course, RS is better than Palmer because while their chocolate can't hold a candle to Cadbury's, it's way better than Palmer's.  I didn't even try these - the chocolate is so thick and so bad, no filling can save it:

But the flower is cute!

Sorry, Palmer.

These Kisses are special for Easter/spring and are buttercreme:

You all know I tend to really like Hershey's Kisses. But these I do not like. I do not like them, when I dream, I do not like the buttercreme. They have a kind of weird flavor to me - I guess I don't like buttercreme. The chocolate overpowers the weird taste after a minute, but why go there at all? I wouldn't waste my time with these if I were you. Sooooo many better options.

See's has a ton of eggs at Easter (last year they sent me some to review).  I wanted to try some I hadn't so I got this little egg assortment:

This one is chocolate butter:

I thought it was kind of dry.  Basically this is chocolate fudge covered in chocolate.  It really didn't do much for me.

This one is vanilla chip:

I thought this one was kind of dry too.  The filling was like vanilla fudge with some chocolate chips (which I thought would be good) but it wasn't.  Think dried out fudge - not so good.

This is Bordeaux:

This was the best of the three and Bordeaux is kind of like a brown sugar fudge coated in chocolate. 

See's has tons of larger eggs - these are sightly less than twice the size of a real egg.  The chocolate butter in the larger egg has walnuts:

And while I MUCH prefer this egg with the walnuts, it just doesn't blow me away.  For some reason all these eggs were kind of dry - dried out fudge is just no good.  The Bordeaux eggs were not dry, though.  Another mystery.

This is the big version of Bordeaux:

I like the addition of the sprinkles:

But, at the end of the day, this just doesn't do it for me.  Butter cream and brown sugar is too rich and sweet, I'd rather have peanut butter or caramel.

I haven't had great luck with Sanders in the past, but this egg surprised me:

I like maple and this had a great maple flavor with little bits of pecan coated in dark chocolate.  It's VERY rich though - like maple pecan fudge. 

As usual, this sucked:

Fluffy, sugary, vaguely mapley stuff inside a thin layer of crappy chocolate.  Glack!

Sanders also had a dark chocolate cherry egg:

But it wasn't very good - not much cherry taste.  The dark chocolate overpowered what little cherry flavor there was.  Not so good.

This is my favorite of all the creme eggs - See's Mayfair:

Hunks of cherry and pecans and wrapped in dark chocolate - I love this egg!  For me, all these flavors and textures work wonderfully together.  It is really delicious!!

I have to confess, after this, I'm just not buying anymore butter cream eggs.  They are too rich and kind of creep me out.  I do not like them in a box, I do not like them in my socks, I do not like them in a jar, I do not like them in my car, I'd rather have a chocolate bar.