Chocolate Versions of Ice Cream

Somethings really are better left alone.  I think ice cream is better as ice cream and chocolate shouldn't try to be ice cream.

I got these (by Turin) because peanut butter was included.  I think there should be real peanut butter ice cream.  But I've never seen it, so there must be a reason.  Maybe it's just no good.  It seems like it would be good.....

Well, I can say with certainty the peanut butter here was no good!  UGH!!!!!  Terrible!  The orange one in the lower right corner was supposed to be peanut butter.  HORRIBLE!

The tan one was coffee and that was much better.  Tasted like the coffee ice cream my Dad liked when I was a kid.  Faux ice cream in my book - I mean, really - coffee as an ice cream favor?  Even as an adult I don't like it.  As a kid I was convinced it was some kind of adult conspiracy.

Godiva produced a bunch of ice cream truffles - this one is pecan sundae:

Looks good with gooey caramel, vanilla and carmelized pecans on top.  But wasn't very extraordinary to me.  I think I'm the only person alive that thinks Godiva is totally overrated and completely overpriced. Zzzzzz.........

More Godiva ice cream flavors:

Pistachio:

I like the screaming green color and the layer of chocolate.  It was smooth and creamy, but I found the flavor weak.

This was supposed to be Neapolitan with strawberry and vanilla (notice the pink drizzle?):

No strawberry!  A total rip off - instead I got chocolate and vanilla.  Again smooth and creamy, but not very flavorful.

Ditto for this one which I think was supposed to be Rocky Road:

Zzzz.......

Hazelnut Gelato:

I love hazelnut and even this one was boring.  Totally disappointing.  Godiva is going to be my new Russell Stover.  I hate them both.  Although I might hate Russell less because he's so much cheaper.

Let's check out their $3.00 bars.  Here's Hazelnut Gelato again:

Look at those fancy G's - must stand for Gotcha!  or Gullible or Greedy:

I can see the hazelnut, but I can't taste much of it.  Tastes like a chocolate bar. Lame.

Here's Vanilla Sundae:

Boo!  What vanilla?  A nice dark chocolate (which completely overpowers the vanilla), but sure as hell nothing like a vanilla sundae.

And finally Oranges & Cream in white chocolate:

While heinously sweet, this actually resembles something like ice cream.  Remember those orange push-up things the ice cream man used to have?  My brother liked those.  Orange sherbet or some similar crap?  One step above SORBET?  That's what this tastes like.

When you are turning chocolate into sorbet you have lost all credibility as a chocolatier.  Like orange sherbet needs to be replicated in chocolate.  That's chocolate treason.

The Emperor really does have no clothes.  Maybe Lady Godiva really is a good image for them. 

Lessons?

Ah - they repeat so often!  Just because you CAN do it, doesn't mean you should.

A fancy wrapper and an expensive price don't mean a thing.  You really can't judge a chocolate bar by its wrapper.

Be who you are - ice cream should be ice cream and chocolate should be chocolate.  When you try to be something you 're not - we lose you.  And there's only one.

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!!

Coconut Chocolate Bars

I love the folks at Seattle Chocolates.  I got to meet them at the Fancy Food Show and they really are a terrific group.  They sent me samples of their latest new truffle line and I can't wait to review them!!  In the meantime, let's get back to coconut.  They have a bar that is nothing short of amazing:

Delicious smooth dark chocolate with coconut flakes AND the ingredient that really makes it rock in my opinion - sea salt.  Very different, very, very good.  An excellent, excellent bar.  It's a truffle bar - so see the creamy truffle center? (And you gotta love the coconut AND the sea salt - talk about the islands, mon!).

Seeds of Change (organic - kumbayah) has a dark chocolate and flakes of coconut bar:

And while also good, I enjoyed Seattle Chocolate's a bit more.  The chocolate was creamier.  But if you don't want the sea salt, this bar is an option.

This Lindt bar actually has a coconut filling and milk chocolate, so it is much sweeter than the other two:

And it comes in these cool little cubes:

I have to say - it's pretty damn good.  You can't really compare it to the others because it is so different.  Totally yummy, but sweet.  And I like the little squares!!

Vosges has this neat little assortment of baby bars.  I like this because sometimes you really don't want a whole ginormous bar.  Especially when you may find you don't even like it!

Two of these bars involve coconut - the Woolloomooloo Bar - described as roasted and salted macadamia nuts, Indonesian coconut (not just any regular coconut, mind you), hemp seeds, and deep milk chocolate:

I think I would really like this bar if it weren't for the hemp seeds.  They add a little grainy seedy taste - just like you can imagine.  I swear I think Vosges adds ingredients just to show off.  Or to up the bullshit factor - it actually says on the wrapper - "hemp oil will provide softer skin, stronger nails and thicker hair."  Dear God.  At least they have in tiny print a disclaimer saying the FDA hasn't approved any of this idiocy.

The other coconut bar is the Naga Bar - sweet Indian curry powder, coconut flakes, deep milk chocolate:

This bar is all about the curry.  If you like curry - you'll like this bar.  Me - I'm not that big a fan of curry.  This is an interesting bar to me, I'm glad I tried it, but I wouldn't ever crave it.  Or buy it again.

Vosges has great chocolate, but when you add curry - well, the chocolate doesn't matter as much.

Leave it to Lindt to go completely off the reservation and do a white chocolate and coconut bar:

You all know how I love Lindt, but this bar is not for me.  Not because it's necessarily bad, but because milk and dark chocolate go so much better with coconut!

I'd have to say my favorite chocolate bar with coconut (where the main ingedient is chocolate, not a coated coconut) is the Seattle Chocolates bar - so creamy, with such a fantastic combination of flavors.  And I LOVE the fabulous art deco wrapper!

Lindt's Chocoletti is kind of a hybrid with its coconut filling, but it's pretty great too.

I think the most exciting thing is the variety of choices and the creativity of all the chocolate makers.  How great is that?  I'm telling you, no matter how bad a day you have, at the end of it, if there's still chocolate out there, everything will be alright.  And as long as there is a new chocolate bar to try, there's a reason to carry on!

Woohoo!!!!!

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!!