Ghirardelli All Natural Chocolate

My beloved readers know that, in my book, politics and chocolate don't mix.  I don't care if chocolate is made by underpaid farmers or if it is produced by highly paid factory workers.  I only care if it is good.

Ghirardelli has this new all natural line, but they don't beat you over the head with it.  They aren't screaming about the evils of chemicals.  Their other stuff has the chemicals, so I guess that wouldn't be very wise of them.

Ghirardelli's PR people sent me some coupons for free samples and I managed to find all the first three flavors (milk, almond and hazelnut), but couldn't find the crisp to save my life.  I finally resorted to buying a combo bag that was on massive sale at Kohl's. (On sale because it was in a Christmas package - lucky me!)

I swear sale chocolate somehow tastes better.  And if it's a really great deal, I feel I must buy it.  Look to see me on an upcoming Hoarders episode.  I'll be the crazy candy lady.  They'll try to take my candy away and I'll claw their eyes out.

The first flavor is milk chocolate:

Love the Ghirardelli logo.

A nice, creamy and delish milk chocolate.  If you've been looking for an all natural chocolate - here you go!

This is my favorite of the bunch - hazelnut:

Look at all those nuts!

I like the mix of the hazelnut with the milk chocolate - a great combo.  The slightly bitter hazelnut sets off the sweet milk chocolate very well.  Love this one!

Here's almond:

It looks like a lot of nuts, but the almonds got lost in the chocolate - I would have liked more of them.

Here's my crazy assorted Christmas sale bag:

Seems to be a lot of rice crisps.

I gotta tell you, I've never been a big fan of the rice crisp.  Nestle Crunch is lame to me.  Why take up space that could be filled with about 1,000,000 better things?  Nuts, caramel, fruit, peanut butter, even just chocolate.  Yeah, yeah - they have an interesting texture.  Whatever!  They have zero taste.

Here's the bottom line - if you want a natural chocolate line - you've got it!  Delicious, creamy Ghirardelli milk chcocolate in four flavors.  It.s good - and with the hazelnut - possibly great. 

Easter Odds and Ends

I was lucky enough to go by Harry and David's candy tasting on Sunday and found these little babies on sale. My Harry and David store had so much extra Easter candy, they were allowed to mark it WAY down. This bag of milk chocolate chicks was originally $8.95. I got it for $1.97:

Pretty and colorful (although looking a little tropical for baby chickens):

Cute! No Peep, mind you, but still cute:

These guys are a solid milk chocolate choice. They are not as good as the milk chocolate rabbits below from The Chocolate Bear, but they melt in your mouth and are pretty darn good. (I'd put them somewhere between Hershey and Lindt.)

I also snagged this gift tower for $19.95 (I figure the boxes alone are adorable!):

There were a lot of different things inside. The most interesting were these larger than normal jelly beans:

These INDIVIDUALLY wrapped malted milk balls (who's ever seen that?):

And these spring pretzels:

They are billed as yogurt covered:

While these (Easter Pretzels) by the South Bend Chocolate Company, are coated in white chocolate:

I love those Easter eggs floating all over the bag! In the Catholic Church pretzels are historically associated with Easter and were hidden like Easter eggs. The Pennsylvania Dutch make pretzels and I toured a factory or two in PA. I like pretzels. Although I would have been bitter if my parents had hidden them instead of Easter Eggs. In fact, I probably would have grown up twisted. (Bwah, ha, ha!)

You know, both are really good and it's pretty hard to tell the two flavors apart, but the yogurt is a little lighter and I like it better. Both have about the same calories, so it provides no big health benefit. The best (or worst) thing about these is you can't stop eating them! It's the salty and sweet combo - delicious!

For the most part, I find those gift towers to be a rip off - $5 worth of stuff in $20 worth of packaging. But it was pretty and on sale, so what the hell.

This was the single most impressive Easter treat I got this year (drum roll please!) from our friends at L.A. Burdick:

Love the elegant label! And look at this fancy packaging!

This egg - about the size of a small football is inside:

See how big it is? It's a Rocher Egg - a dark chocolate egg coated with chocolate-covered, caramelized almond slivers AND:

Filled with assorted truffles! Can you say, "OMG!" Screw pretzels!

This is simply and extraordinary act of chocolate wizardry. Those almonds in that dark chocolate are to die for!! And the truffles inside are so rich (made in the French fashion with cocoa powder all over them) it's mind boggling. L.A. Burdick is an amazing chocolatier and one bite of this creation will convince you. These almonds were put to a much, much better use that marzipan - bah! A+++++ I will definitely be enjoying this for a while! And will order more treats from this amazing chocolatier!

This little guy (cute) was in Mast General Store. You don't see very many dark chocolate bunnies:

Made by Canipes Chocolates and Candies from Myrtle Beach, this dark chocolate was pretty sweet. Must be low on the cacao. Average at best.

I was completely prepared for these to be horrible:

Don't get me wrong, I love the way they look - the nostalgic scenes in great detail and color:

But I was convinced they would taste terrible. Yet again, I was wrong! The chocolate is much better than you would expect. The label says they are made with Belgian chocolate and that they are made for CVS, so I don't know who really made them, but they are unique as hell, very pretty, and they taste pretty damn good! Shut my mouth!

I saw this in The Chocolate Bear and when I read the sign - "Bunnies on the Half Shell" - I had to buy it. How hilarious is that?

The bunnies are dark, milk, white, pink and tan:

Dark is my favorite. White, pink and tan did nothing for me and after having the dark chocolate, I wasn't as excited about the milk chocolate. The half shell was festive but that horrible hard decorative edge (technically edible) is vile. But funny - damn funny! And great dark chocolate.

How cute is this delicate mini Easter basket?

A "big" milk chocolate bunny (maybe three inches tall - these guys are little), and a baby dark, white, and pink. Adorable - and all resting on Easter grass!

The milk chocolate one was delish - a nice milk chocolate with some depth - not too sugary. Dark was great - the other two - bleech. But adorable!

How's this for a creative combo also from The Chocolate Bear?

A painted cookie background (Easter egg) with a chocolate bunny on top. And you know what? It works! The cookie is good, but bland enough to suit the chocolate. Creative and delicious - the winning combination!

So what are the final thoughts?

Candy tastes better when you buy it on sale.

But glamour candy (L.A. Burdick) ROCKS!

I still can't be sure what will be good and what will be terrible from looking at it. Meaning I still can't judge the interior by the exterior.

Creative and funny (bunnies on the half shell) will always win my heart.

All those who experiment in chocolate, I salute you!!

Easter Jordan Almonds

I like Jordan Almonds. Mostly because I love almonds. And hey, a candy coating can only make things better in my book! I didn't realize they were a big Easter/springtime treat until this year. Not that I've been laying awake at night contemplating this. But anyway.....

Here are all the ones I could find and unlike the malted milk balls, every assortment has slightly different colors:

Harry and David had the weirdest colors, but all these were slightly different. And here is what I think of all the different offerings:

These are by CVS:

I think they have them all the time as part of their candy collection. They were hard as rocks. No good.

These are by Target:

These tasted more like sugar than almonds and were the smallest of the bunch. I guess there are some almonds in there. Maybe.

These were from The Chocolate Bear:

These had delicious, big almonds with a great, light coating. Much softer than the CVS rocks. YUM!

These are by Jelly Belly:

And they were the only ones that seemed to have some kind of flavor in the candy coating. I didn't care for that - it was like a weird aftertaste. Yuck!

These are Harry and David's:

and they have a great almond taste. These are enhanced by the candy coating, not overwhelmed by it. But they are not quite as soft and good as those from The Chocolate Bear.

These Medicis are truly in a league of their own:

I bought them at Williams-Sonoma and they are amazing. The sugar coating is very thin and they have GIANT almonds. The back of the box reads: "When Catherine de Medicis married the future King Henry II of France in 1533, her chefs dazzled wedding guests with these sweet, crunchy confections. They are slender Lerida almonds from Spain enclosed in a very thin sugar shell. The classic assortment in pastel colors (made at Easter - every other time I've gotten them, they have been white) is made at the family-owned Confiserie de Medicis, a French confectionery named for the legendary queen."

How cool is that?

This was really interesting to me - I had no idea there would be that much difference among the different offerings:

And you know what? Once you have the Medicis the others really pale in comparison. (Hell, they've been working on those things for 477 years - they outta be good!) The ones from The Chocolate Bear were second best and were MUCH better than all the others, but the Medicis are truly amazing. If you love Jordan Almonds, you owe it to yourself to try these. Wow!!!

Pavlov's Coupons

I'm happy to announce that my brother took his boys out Trick or Treating - dressed as a very cool Darth Vader and Boba Fett, I might add. And there were loads of Trick or Treaters where they lived. Yahoo!! The tradition lives!! At least for those on the dark side. : )

And my good friend Mike was visiting friends at the beach - and they had tons of Trick or Treaters. In fact - they almost ran out of candy. But they managed to save three white chocolate Reese's cups for themselves, so all was not lost. Happy Belated birthday, Mike! He was 30 minutes shy of being born on Halloween.

I'm feeling better about the future already.

I have come to realize in recent weeks that I am a sucker for coupons, especially those fabulous e-mail offers from companies like Bath and Body Works and Harry and David. In fact, I'm like Pavlov's Dogs. Remember them? The experimenter would ring a bell and then feed them. Pretty soon all the experimenter had to do was ring the bell and the dogs would salivate - food didn't even have to be present. Well, all these retailers have to do is send me a coupon and I immediately go to their website and buy things. I don't even have to need anything. Bow wow!

And they are smart - once you spend money and use a coupon, they send you more coupons! I'm salivating just thinking about it!

Well, this week I got a coupon for 25% off your entire purchase at Harry & David - sweet!!! That was a no brainer - I totally scored some great stuff to blog about! Wheee!! (This is a brilliant marketing strategy, by the way. Marketing directly to the people who are most likely to buy from you. Give them an offer they can't refuse - and voila - instant sales.)

So let's see what I got!

Harry and David has some pretty darn good chocolate. The truffles are smooth and creamy and the flavor good - not too subtle, not too overpowering.

Fruit flavors are seldom my favorites, but these are good. As you can see, these aren't those cheesy cream filled things like you get from my enemy, Russ Stover. This is delicious chocolate ganache. I liked cherry and raspberry better than orange, but it's all a matter of personal preference.

Now these truffles look like they have nuts on them, but look at the real picture below:

These are Moose Munch truffles. Moose Munch is their collection of popcorn blended with a variety of flavors. So crazy me thought there might be something more to these - like a crunch. They were described as "starting with a thick layer of decadent milk chocolate". "Inside, we've blended real nuts with even more creamy chocolate, then added toffee's crackle." Hmmmm.......the nuts are so blended that you can't detect them. And you can see the toffee. Not much crackle going on.

The flavor doesn't seem nutty - more like a like coffee flavor. Not bad, just not at all what I expected. These are not my favorite. Too wishy-washy. What makes the Moose Munch line is the crunchy popcorn and the mix of flavors and textures. These ain't got it going on.

Is this not the perfect collection? I LOVE all these flavors, so I'm pretty excited about this one! At the top is hazelnut - and you can see the nut there - no messing around! This one is delicious. BUT there are better hazelnut offerings out there - Perugina Kisses leap to mind.

The almond is smooth and creamy, but I think it should have a nut too. I actually prefer chocolate covered almonds to almond flavored truffles. Who knew? But I know now.

Peanut Butter is my favorite - no surprise there, huh? But are these better than Reese's Peanut Butter cups? I have to say no. I know, crazy right? The cost like a million times more. They just don't really kick. The peanut butter isn't particularly smooth and creamy or really peanut buttery tasting. Trader Joe's Peanut Butter cups are way better too.

So I just want to let you all know that Halloween is alive and well. And so is scientific theory.