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April 2007

Friday, April 13, 2007

CocoaVia Bars

After my pleasant first experience with CocoaVia last year I was happy to find that CocoaVia was at the ExpoWest trade show back in January. It meant that I could try more of their products without shoveling out oodles of dough. They were sampling their milk chocolate covered raisins, which I thought tasted like milk chocolate raisins. They also had a large assortment of their bars out there. It was hard to talk to the folks at the booth for all the attendees grabbing the free samples by the handful, but I stood my ground in the crush and had a nice conversation with the CocoaVia people.

I like the idea of portion control. I had a little problem with those big tubs at Trader Joe’s sometimes, because I will just keep eating from it. I learned a long time ago to take a handful and put it in a little dish, close up the tub and put it away and then enjoy my treat.

I think CocoaVia’s idea for a portion controlled sweet is two-fold - small individually wrapped packages sold only five at a time. And charge $20 a pound.

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Chocolate Snack Bar - the package on this one is a bit deceptive. It just shows some chunks of chocolate but it’s really a bar of crispy/chewy grains with a chocolate base. It feels much more filling than the 80 calories might ordinarily seem.

The crisped rice and grain crunch is mellow and malty while the chocolate gives it a creamy and tasty component. Yeah, it could be bigger, but it’s a supplement bar, not dessert. (The ingredients on this bar list Almonds and Peanuts.)

80 calories and 25% of our daily RDA of Calcium, 15% of your Vitamin E and 10% of your B6, B12, Folic Acid and Vitamin C.

Rating: 5 out of 10

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Crispy Chocolate Bar - seemed to be more accurate on the picture front, little chunks of chocolate with itty-bitty crispies mixed in. The bar is dark and has a very green and smoky taste to it. And a bitter aftertaste. This was a seriously strong bar with a dry finish. Not really an indulgence, I felt like I was working to find the pleasant flavors instead of just enjoying it.

I waited a couple of days and tried again and I’m gonna have to pass on this one, it’s just too bitter. It’s like eating a spoonful of cocoa.

90 calories and 10% of your RDA of Folic Acid, Vitamin C & B12, 15% of your Vitamin E & B6 and 30% of your Calcium.

Rating: 3 out of 10

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Milk Chocolate Bar - was very nice. Super creamy and smooth with great chocolate notes and some caramelized milk flavors. This bar was softer than the other ones (you can see it even melted a little bit under my hot studio light when I was taking the picture).

It reminds me a lot of the Dove milk chocolate, which shouldn’t be surprising since they’re both made by Mars. However, there is an odd bitter (and only slight) aftertaste for me. It’s a little metallic and it could just be the fortifications, but it makes it less like candy for me.

110 calories and 20% of your RDA of Calcium, 15% of your Vitamin E & B6, 10% of your Vitamin C, Folic Acid & B12.

Rating: 5 out of 10

These are all okay, but I still have to say that their best innovation so far is the Dark Chocolate Covered Almonds. I even found them locally at Shim’s Produce (it’s kind of like the 99 Cent store of grocers). They had stacks of boxes for only 99 Cents. I thought there must be something wrong with them and only bought one, but it was just fine (expiration date of July).

That brings me back to the huge drawback of the CocoaVia line. The price. At about $5 a box of five, it’s pretty harsh for the pocket book and not terribly satisfying to the sweet tooth. If anything I’d feel obligated to finish something I don’t like because I paid so much for it.

Name: CocoaVia: Chocolate Snack Bar, Crispy Chocolate Bar, Milk Chocolate Bar
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: CocoaVia (Mars)
Place Purchased: samples from ExpoWest
Price: retail $1.00 each
Size: .71 ounces to .81 ounces
Calories per ounce: 99 / 127 / 141
Categories: Chocolate, Cookie, Nuts, United States, Mars, Kosher

POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:29 am    

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Chuao ChocoPod Collection

I’ve been a big admirer of Chuao since I found it last year. They use all El Rey chocolate and combine classic and contemporary ingredients for tantalizing and fresh flavor combinations. While you can only get their best items at their shops or online (such as their bon bons) they did introduce their quaint little ChocoPod (review here), which are great little nibbles of chocolate perfect for an accompaniment for your coffee-house fare.

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This year they’re expanding their ChocoPod line with their new collection of filled ChocoPod.

Chuao gave me a sampler box (sorry, not available to the public) so I could try all the flavors.

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Picante - spicy Cabernet caramel. This one had a lovely tangy and fruity flavor that gave my throat quite a burn. (Dark Chocolate)

Passion - passion fruit and caramel. I’m not usually a big fan of passion fruit (or guava or papaya for that matter), but this was fab. It was sweet and grapey and mellow. It makes we want to give passion fruits another try. (Dark Chocolate)

Modena - strawberry & balsamic caramel. I’ve had this one as a bonbon, it has a great fruity flavor with a very noticeable dark tang to it from the balsamic. What it’s missing, for me, is the caramelized/burnt sugar notes that would bring out the deeper flavors. (Dark Chocolate)

Candela - spicy macadmia praline. Ugh, I did not like this one at all. The texture was great, the praline was a little crunchy from the caramelized sugar, but macadamia are just not a good flavor to me. Since this was a macadamia paste, there wasn’t even the macadamia texture as a reprieve. Again, totally a personal thing. (Dark Chocolate)

Banana - banana brown sugar caramel. This is the flat version of the Cambur bonbon I love so much. Sweet and salty with a wonderful fresh banana flavor. A little on the sweet side, but this one had more in the chocolate department than the bonbon does. (Milk Chocolate)

Dulce de Leche - milk caramel. Wonderfully milky, rather sticky on the tongue but with a good complex cooked milk and sugar taste. (Milk Chocolate)

Since I was a big fan of the Cambur (the bonbon version of the Banana), I’m enthusiastic about the idea of being able to pick these up at a coffee house. (Might I suggest Chuao’s sales staff contact my favorite coffee house, Sabor y Cultura in Hollywood and see about getting them into that cafe?) I know they’re a bit more expensive than some treats, but the size and proportion are just right for me.

YumSugar also gave these a try. She didn’t like the Banana as much as I did, but gave the set a thumbs up. I haven’t seen these in stores yet, but you can order online right now. Banana and Dulce de Leche aren’t available yet. (So if you have to order, just get them in the BonBon version!)

Name: ChocoPod Collection
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Chuao Chocolatier
Place Purchased: samples from Chuao Chocolatier
Price: $4.95
Size: 2.3 ounces
Calories per ounce: 50-80 calories each
Categories: Chocolate, Caramel, Nuts, United States, Chuao

POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:02 am    

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

More on the Messing with our Chocolate Mess

There’s been some news on the FDA Chocolate Standards change since my last post.

First, Guittard Chocolate Company has issued a press release. Below is a quote from Gary Guittard, the fourth generation chocolatemaker:

“The Citizen’s Petition proposed to FDA by the Grocery Manufacturers Association has many good points as it pertains to other foods, but if adopted it would allow the current “Gold Standard” for chocolate to be changed in a way that will ultimately result in short-changing the consumer and changing what we know and love as traditional chocolate.  There are no clear consumer benefits associated with the proposed changes.”

But what I thought was especially interesting was this point that the release also brought up:

Changing the current “Gold Standard” for chocolate by allowing the substitution of hydrogenated or chemically-modified vegetable fats for cocoa butter will also have a dramatic impact on cocoa growers in Central and South America, the Caribbean Basin, Africa, and nations in Southeast Asia at a time when the global chocolate industry is working to improve working and economic conditions of these developing countries’ farmers.  In fact, the plan to substitute these types of vegetable fats for cocoa butter would cause a disastrous economic impact on their livelihoods as the demand for cocoa butter would likely decrease and prices would plummet as some manufacturers switch to the cheaper substitutes.

Go read the whole thing.

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There are a few things to remember. The new standards will expand the definition of chocolate, which will still include the current standards. This means that the chocolate that we know and love may continue to exist by those manufacturers that have customers who value their quality product. However, because of the new latitude, the cocoa butter which we know and revere for its unique mouthfeel may be replaced in part or total by other vegetable fats in products on the market that you already purchase.

I know, an oil is an oil right? You use them interchangeably all the time! Making a salad dressing? Olive oil is the same as partially hydrogenated coconut oil, isn’t it? Of course not! If you wouldn’t do it to your salad, why on earth would you do it to your chocolate?

The permission to substitute is a degradation of the already liberal standards for chocolate. It provides no benefit to the consumer. I’ve said this before, it’s perfectly legal for a confectioner to make a coconut oil based mockolate product and sell it right now. Why do they want to call it chocolate? For you? No, it’s for them to be able to sell you a cheaper product under the same name as a well-respected and high quality product. Sure, you’ll know it just by reading the ingredients, but when I buy something called orange juice, I expect the juice of oranges. When I buy chocolate, I expect the whole bean elements to be present.

In the mean time, I’ve also been doing my darndest to get a hold of the actual FDA document that we’re supposed to be commenting on. I know it seems silly, but don’t you think that the FDA has an obligation to post the document for public review within the window for public comment? Keep an eye on this page, perhaps it will be posted soon.

I’ve also contacted the Chocolate Manufacturers Association for their comment on this and I’ll have more to report on that. (I got a response, I just need to go through it completely.)

Keep this page bookmarked for all of my updated coverage on the issue. Don’t forget to do your part (and then claim your raffle ticket in my drawing!).

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:29 am     CandyFDAChocolateNews

Browse the Candy Blog Photo Archive

Jim Bumgardner of KrazyDad put together this completely awesome mosaic of the candy review photos from Candy Blog.

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It runs on Flash and shows itty bitty thumbnails of over 1,000 photos I’ve taken over the past two years. Roll over one of them, and a larger one will pop up for closer view (and drool). Then click on the photo and it’ll take you to the Flickr.com page with the photo (and hopefully there will be a link to the review back here if I’ve done my captioning correctly). You can view the photos in a boring static mode here.

The mosaic will be updated periodically with new candy photos, so you’ll always be able to browse the archives in a way more befitting this eye candy.

Note: you’ll have to disable any pop-up blockers on the CoverPop site. Don’t worry, there’s no ads there. Not only that, he’s got a discount coupon code at Old Time Candy if you hafta hafta order something when you’re done. Check out Jim’s other Coverpops while you’re there, too.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:10 am     CandyFun StuffPhotography

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

After Easter Candy Sales

So last night on the way home from work I stopped at Walgreen’s and CVS to see what was still around. Both had 50% off sales. Now, this may sound like a good deal, but this is off of the “regular” price, which they don’t usually sell stuff for anyway. (At least I don’t buy stuff at regular price.)

Here’s what I got:

Hershey's Milk Chocolate Eggs

  • 1 large package of Peeps Yellow Bunnies (I might do more mashups)

  • 2 Snickers Creme Eggs (I didn’t try these before and didn’t realize they’re different from the Snickers Eggs I tried last year)

  • 2 Bags of (7 ounces) SweeTart Chicks, Ducks & Bunnies

  • 1 Bag of 8.5 ounces) Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Eggs (still PGPR free!)

  • There isn’t much in online sale land. Godiva hasn’t put their stuff on sale yet, there are a few things at Lake Champlain and See’s never seems to have sales. Pop a note here if you see a great deal though.

    Deeper discounts come as more time elapses, but then the selection decreases. The trick, I’ve found, is to shop at a store where people don’t usually stock up on candy. I’m not going to tell you where that is until I’ve plundered their selection yet! (I love you, sweet readers, but not that much!) I’m actually looking for stuff like the Lindt bunnies and Easter truffle assortments I saw a few weeks ago, but no luck yet.

    I’m going to do a little deeper digging later this week (I have a bunch of deadlines right now and can’t quite devote as much time to candy acquisitions as I’d like). What have you found so far?

    POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:41 am     CandyFun StuffShoppingSav-On/CVSWalgreen's

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