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August 2005

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Green & Black’s Maya Gold

Name: Maya Gold
Brand: Green & Black’s (Organic)
Place Purchased: gift
Price: unknown
Size: 3.5 oz
Calories per ounce: 164
Type: Chocolate

It’s strange, but I got this bar (two different sizes) as a gift from two different people the same week. They’ve got good taste (thanks Ruth & Jay)! I’d first tried Green & Black’s last Thanksgiving when my sister-in-law brought a box of the little medallions to dinner. They were super, and not at all grainy like some other organic chocolates I’d tried.

Green & Black also uses Fair Trade suppliers for their cocoa and also organic. Green & Black was purchased by Cadbury Schweppes earlier this year.

This bar is a little different because it’s flavored. Maya Gold is dark chocolate with orange and spices. Think of that orange spice tea. The chocolate is smooth, rather sweet but doesn’t overpower the chocolate flavors. The main spicy flavor note that I detect is clove, which I don’t normally like, but it works well with orange. There’s a little hint of vanilla and perhaps some nutmeg.

Overall, it’s not my favorite flavor of chocolate, but the consistency of the chocolate itself is very good. Not quite as buttery as the Chocovic last week, but sweeter and I can see myself eating more of this in one sitting.

Other reading - here’s more about G&B’s Fair Trade Maya Gold bar.

Rating - 8 out of 10

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:16 am     All NaturalCandyReviewGreen & BlackChocolateEthically SourcedOrganic8-TastyUnited Kingdom

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

The Mysterious Cup-O-White Gold

Name: Peppermint Cup-O-Gold
Brand: Adams-Brooks
Place Purchased: 99 Cent Only Store
Price: $.33
Size: 1.7 oz
Calories per ounce: 124
Type: Chocolate/Mint

This candy cup has left me mystified. Is it really from Adams-Brooks? They don’t mention it on their website ... no one mentions it on their website on any of the internets. Have I stumbled across an inter-dimensional 99 cent store that sells candy unknown to us here?

Why is it called Cup-o-Gold anyway? The center is clearly white. The package is silver ... these things trouble me. But not enough to keep me from eating it.

Like the original Cup-O-Gold, this milk chocolate cup sports toasted coconut and almond bits in the chocolate. The ratio of chocolate to the filling is a little off. Upon my first small bite (not pictured), I didn’t hit filling, just chocolate. The second bite, which was sizeable (like the photo) didn’t hit filling. Finally on the fourth bite which by now meant half the cup was gone, I hit a small hidden cavity of filling. Instead of a light, frothy filling like the Cup-O-Gold, this one was a little tacky, a little stiff.  The mint was barely perceptible.

I bought this thinking it’d be like a milk chocolate Junior Mint - a gooey minty cream center. Alas, the coconut competes too much with the scant mint. If there were less chocolate and more filling, perhaps it wouldn’t seem so overpowering. However, the package does say thick rich milk chocolate, so who am I to go expecting things not advertised?

Rating - 4 out of 10.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:29 pm     CandyReviewAdams & BrooksChocolateCoconutMarshmallowMints4-BenignUnited States99 Cent Only Store

Out of Africa come some chocolatey nuts

Name: Out of Africa Macadamia Nut Chocolates
Brand: Nutfields (Kenya Nut Company Ltd)
Place Purchased: Africa
Price: gift
Size: 65 grams
Calories per ounce: unknown
Type: Chocolate

I don’t think I’ve had a better story to accompany a candy for this blog than this one. The short story is a friend, Will, went to Africa and brought me this candy.

The long (and great) story that goes with it is one of the internet, passions and following dreams. Will and I met while writing novels (actually we met while drinking coffee and procrastinating writing novels) and have gone on to have many adventures together like walking the Los Angeles Marathon, writing more novels, hiking to the bridge to nowhere and a half a dozen photo safaris.

Well, damn if he didn’t go off and go on a real life safari and take a gazillion photos with his new bride viewing African wildlife. And damn if he wasn’t sweet, and brought me something I’d probably never have otherwise:

 

Inside this cute little box that looks like something someone would bring back from an African safari, including the name, “Out of Africa.” Inside is a plump macadamia nut covered in sweet milk chocolate. Simplicity itself. Thank goodness those candy makers realize that this will spend its time in a suitcase and they’ve packaged the candies in a little tray. Sweet!

I had three for breakfast this morning (and two when I took the photos). Only one left!

Rating - 7 out of 10

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:51 am     CandyReviewChocolateNuts7-Worth ItKenya

Monday, August 29, 2005

Necco Hot Stinky Feet

Name: Hot Stinky Feet
Brand: Necco
Place Purchased: 99 Cent Only Store
Price: $.25
Size: 1.5 oz
Calories per ounce: 93
Type: Jelly

This is one of those candies that tries to be edgy but really isn’t. They’re little cinnamon jelly candies and they happen to be shaped like feet and they happen to have the unfortunate name “Hot Stinky Feet.”

Here’s what the package says (because I couldn’t find any mention of it on Necco’s site):

Necco is pleased to introduce you to our line of Toe-rific Brand candies. The original creator of this line of products is Dr. Mark Wolpa, a podiatrist who created these fun foot-shaped treats for you to enjoy and bring attention to how important healthy feet are. Keep them happy because they’re the only two you will ever have. “So remember to open mouth wide and insert (candy) foot.”

The feet themselves are actually pretty cute. The detail even includes a big toenail. They’re definitely cinnamony - upon opening the package there was no doubt what flavor these are. They’re kind of like Hot Tamales, only without the candy shell.

Personally, if I were marketing these I couldn’t call them Hot Stinky Feet. I’d probably call them “Hot Foot” and have a little image of a foot with some lit matches or something. But maybe some over-protective group thought that’d give kids some bad ideas. Anyway, I couldn’t find any mention of these on the Necco site, but did find the good podiatrist’s website called Toefood - which is kinda cute too. The Stinky Feet also come in Sour Apple.

Rating - 7 out of 10 (I did eat the whole package, but I doubt I’ll buy them again)

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:16 pm     CandyReviewNeccoCinnamonDiscontinuedJelly Candy7-Worth ItUnited States99 Cent Only Store

Friday, August 26, 2005

Filbert Friday

Name: Krachnuss
Brand: Munz
Place Purchased: Switzerland
Price: gift from Jay
Size: 100 g
Calories per ounce: 161
Type: Chocolate

Before I had a candy blog I had trouble getting people to bring me gifts from their travels. Maybe I was too embarrassed to actually ask for candy from other countries, but now it’s a given that if any of my friends (hell, friend’s friends) goes anywhere interesting, they are tasked with bringing something back.

At first the name was kind of scary. Krachnuss sounds like “knuckle cracker” to me. And that hazelnut on the package? It’s bigger than a chestnut. However, open up the wrapper and it’s pure delight.

Those are whole hazelnuts in there. It makes for a rather lumpy bar and the hazelnuts are poorly distributed, but man are they good! Not roasted too long, they have an excellent snap and slightly sweet tinge to their nuttiness. The milk chocolate is sweet and smooth and doesn’t try to upstage the delicate hazelnuts. I love hazelnuts, by the way (or filberts as they’re called in the Pacific Northwest) and love how they’re the peanuts of Europe. Even the packages, which give information about possible allergens only mention soy and almonds - there’s no note about any peanuts.

Name: Ragusa
Brand: Camille Bloch
Place Purchased: Switzerland
Price: gift from Jay
Size: 50 g
Calories per ounce: 154
Type: Chocolate/Nuts

 

Over the past few weeks the topic of Ice Cubes has come up a few times. At a party, in my interview on Radio Open Source and when Jay gave me this candy bar. For those of you not familiar with Ice Cubes, they’re a little chocolate cubes made with hazelnut paste. However, the pernicious part about them is that the first ingredient is hydrogenated coconut oil. I’m lucky my arteries are still open. My first year in the dorms in college there was a little store on campus that let you use your meal card to buy food - I bought a tub of 100 of these (probably cost me the equivalent of 10 meals). Though I love them, I’ve been trying to resist them ever since then.

Well, along comes a Ragusa bar, and thank goodness the Swiss have made a more wholesome version. You can’t tell from the photo, but the bar is about 5 inches long, 1 inch wide and 3/4” high, and pretty dense for its volume. This little bar is filled with a smooth and cool truffley filling and studded with whole hazelnuts. (If this sounds good, you might also want to try Perugina’s Baci.) Man, this is a good breakfast. The nuts give it just enough of a protein balance to keep the sugar charged filling from causing glycemic overload.

The bar is a bit messy to eat. It’s wrapped in a thick aluminum foil and the chocolate coating only covers the top and bottom, so the sides get kind of sticky. I still haven’t managed to get to the end of the bar and master popping the last of it out of the wrapper. It’s also been a bit warm here in Southern California the past few days and I wasn’t keeping this in the fridge, so on top of its natural softness, it’s downright limp. I might just go get a spoon.

Ratings - Krachnuss - 8 out of 10
Ragusa - 8 out of 10

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:16 am     CandyReviewChocolateNuts8-TastySwitzerland

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