Happy Valentine's Day!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!  I'm still struggling with my life balance - dating a great guy, running my business, trying to keep working out AND writing the blog.  It's all obviously not going to happen.  So far, the blog has been taking a butt kicking.  Sorry gang!  The good news is I'm not buying my own Valentine's Day present this year, and I'm sooooo lucky to have love in my life.  But, I know what it's like to be solo, so I'm not going to turn into a sap.  For those of you who are single - hang in there - there's always chocolate and fun and loads of life to be lived.  For those of you who have love - hold it dear.  For those of you hanging on to someone who doesn't treat you right - get the hell out.  They are not going to change and you deserve better.  For all of you - this is my Valentine's Day gift to you!!!

Dove introduced these dark chocolate and cherry swirl heart promises:

I love the way they look:

I wish I liked the taste as much as their cool apprearance.  Too much cherry for me.  I still think the Hershey's Cherry Cordial Kisses do this combo best.

And while I think the messages in the wrappers could be better, at least Martha Stewart is out of the picture.  I just don't want that felon in my candy. 

Woohoo!  My freinds at Just Born haven't let us down!  Milk chocolate and dark chocolate covered Peeps!

You know how I like to compare.  Before now, my favorite chocolate covered marshmallow heart was from Hershey (hate the evil Russell Stover):

I don't know what happened to the Hershey heart, but it looks like it had a very bad night:

Look at what happened when I autopsied the Peep hearts!  Holy cow - this color has never before been seen without the help of a black light (those of you under the age of 35 probably don't even know what that is).  It's raspberry marshmallow - possibly from the planet Zenon.

And here's the autopsied Hershey Heart:

The verdict?  The marshmallow in the Peep Hearts is fluffier; it's more chewy in the Hershey Heart.  So marshmallow wise, I gotta go with the Peeps.  The Hershey milk chocolate is the best, but the combo of the super sweet raspberry marshmallow and the dark chocolate is a winner.  Overall - the best is the dark chocolate raspberry Peep Heart.  But if you don't like raspberry - hello Hershey!!  If you don't like marshmallow, well, keep reading.

I was amazed by these (I thought they would be horrible) - from Tootsie, maker of Junior Mints - raspberry cremes:

When I first saw them, I thought - what a great idea!  Why didn't they think of different flavors before?  And where the hell is peanut butter??? 

I popped the poor autopsy subject picture here into my mouth, honestly expecting them to suck.  I have to tell you, they are great!  A lot of it is that awesome size (totally poppable) and the chocolate shell/creamy filling combo that makes the Junior Mint so addictive.  I find these impossible to stop eating.  Go Tootsie Roll!

Thanks for reading!  I hope all of you have a fantastic Valentine's Day - regardless of the state of your love life.  I think it's a great day to celebrate our love affair with chocolate and with life - something that will never change!  Love to you all!!

Chocolate, Yogurt and Roses

Hi Gang!

I've been off the grid - took a few days off to head out to the mountains of North Carolina and one of my favorite places in the whole world - the Grove Park Inn. My buddy Kristina and I spent a great day at the spa and I put the latest relationship disaster behind me (or as far behind me as you can ever put those things).

Thanks to all of you for the good thoughts and the support - I love you guys!!! Obviously I need to find a man with an addiction to chocolate - then I'll be golden! : )

As summer is rapidly fading, I wanted to deliver the promised ice cream post!  But first I felt compelled to do a yogurt post.  Surely we can rationalize the consuming of chocolate if yogurt is involved.

Lindt has a wide array of flavors - some in milk chocolate and some in white chocolate.  While I love yogurt, some of these combos were more successful (in my opinion) than others.  Peach-Apricot with milk chocolate was my least favorite:

All of these have a great yogurt flavor - so if you don't like yogurt, you won't like these.  I happen to love yogurt, so I found them all pretty darn good.  Lindt seldom disappoints me.  I think with this bar I just don't really care for the peach/chocolate combo.  Not bad, mind you, just not as good as the others.

Strawberry-Rhubarb had a great, great strawberry flavor:

This was one of my favorites - a great combination and it works well with the white chocolate.

All these bars suggest you try them chilled.  I tried a couple chilled (blueberry being one of them) and didn't think it added much.  I actually found them creamier if not chilled and liked that more.

Blueberry was not as good as I thought it should be.  I like chocolate covered blueberries way better.  Amarena Cherry Creme (below) is better.

Cherry yogurt is good:

But this one didn't thrill me as much as strawberry or Amarena Cherry Creme (actually ice cream inspired):

This cherry was tarter - the milk chocolate also seemed to work better than the white chocolate.  Cherry yogurt was just a little too sweet.  This one was very, very good and I had a hard time not eating it all!!  Sooooo good!

Raspberry Vanilla Yogurt I also tried chilled. 

I found this one too sweet also.  The only white chocolate that worked for me was the strawberry-rhubarb and I think it's the tartness of the rhubarb that makes it great. 

Ritter Sport also has a yogurt bar:

And while it seems to contain plenty of yogurt, the rich milk chocolate overpowers the yogurt.  I like the Lindt bars better.

Ice cream next!!!!!  I think ice cream works a little better with chocolate than yogurt.  But these bars are well worth trying if you like yogurt!!

One of the great things about the Grove Park is the stone everywhere.  It's such a gorgeous place.  The stones in the massive lobby have quotes painted on them, and I want to share one of my favorites with you:

This old world we're livin' in

Is mighty hard to beat

We get a thorn with every rose

But ain't the roses sweet.

                                    - Stanton

Here's to forgetting about the thorns, stopping to smell the roses, and savoring all the beauty of this world.  Oh - and here's to good friends and chocolate.  Life is mighty hard to beat!!  Have a great week!!

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.