So far I’ve enjoyed my latest bundle of Aldi confections that my mother sent to me from Ohio. Two of the heftier items in the package are the long boxes of Choceur After Dinner Mints. I quite liked the Choceur items I’ve picked up before, especially since they’re nicely packaged into individual servings. (Each mint is 45 calories.)

The “mints” come in two flavors: Orange and Peppermint with the boxes handily color-coded in orange and green respectively.

I liked the orange box because it captures the holiday vibe without resorting to red and green. It’s just an orange box with brown accents and a variety of white & brown snowflakes around the edges.

Inside the box it’s rather like every other box of after dinner mints I’ve had, such as After Eight and the Divine After Dinner Mints (which was fair trade and also had a nice design). The Orange After Dinner Mnits box weighs a hefty 10.5 ounces, kind of like a narrow brick. Each piece is tucked into an open brown glassine sleeve. Each sleeve reminds me that it is the Finest Quality, as if there could be some little folders that didn’t have that notation that contained sub-standard quality candies.

They’re two inches long and one and a quarter inches wide. They’re have a nicely rippled top and a decent chocolate scent with a touch of orange. However, once I bit into it the orange flavor is overwhelming. The dark chocolate has a thin layer of soft & smooth fondant inside. It’s a “whole orange” flavor with both juice and zest notes and reminds me more of the Jaffa orange candies I’ve had from the United Kingdom. The chocolate texture is creamy has a touch of cocoa bittersweetness, but mostly the flavor here is orange and a pure blast of sugar.

It’s a welcome change from the traditional mint and the orange does leave a clean and refreshed feeling. I liked them better in memory, not in practice though. I felt better about them after I was done while the zest was still kind of lingering, not while I was eating them.

Rating: 6 out of 10

The Peppermint After Dinner Mints are also pretty to look at, the dark green box is rather elegant.

The ingredients are pretty clean: Sugar, Chocolate Liquor, Glucose Syrup, Cocoa Butter, Invertase, Soy Lecithin and Peppermint Oil. (However, this is also exactly what the Orange ones say, right down to the peppermint oil.) They’re made in Germany and feature the Aldi “Double Quality Guarantee” which means that if you don’t like it, they’ll give you your money back and another of the item. (You know, just so you can make sure you didn’t like it.) Honestly I had no issues with the quality of any of their items ... it’s often that they’re just not to my tastes.

While I found the Orange ones far too orangey, the mint ones were just right. I felt like I could taste the chocolate, which was dark and roasty as well as the clear peppermint flavor. The texture of the fondant was light and crisp. It was like they were flattened Junior Mints. With more chocolate by proportion than a Junior Mint but packing all the minty power.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Though I liked the design of the box from a graphics standpoint, it wasn’t actually substantial enough for something that holds so much candy. When the package is full and the stabilizing force of the shrink-wrap is gone, it was clear that the paperboard wasn’t built well enough. The single flap of the top and the simple folded over edges meant that the box had to be picked up carefully, best with two hands when full, or else the top would fold open and the candies spill out. Serving from it is good but putting them out in a large quantity inside their little sleeves is kind of problematic as they’re slippery.

Both are great hostess gifts and a really inexpensive item to include in a coffee when having friends over or easy thing to bring to an office to-do. (Note, I say they’re inexpensive but I don’t have the price info, so I can only guess that these are less than $4.00 for a box.)

These are not Kosher but are vegetarian and should be considered vegan (invertase is listed on the ingredients, which is an enzyme produced by bees, but for industrial food purposes is almost always made via yeast for cost savings).

Related Candies

1. King Leo Dark Chocolate Crunchy Patties
2. Rogers’ Chocolates Victoria Creams
3. Manhattan Chocolates Dipped Mint Cremes
4. Cream Drops versus Creme Drops
5. Junior Fruit Cremes
6. Junior Mints Deluxe
7. York Pinkermint Patties

My mother sent me a crazy-big box of holiday candies from Aldi that arrived over the weekend. I’ll have lots more on those (photo here) soon.

The first item I wanted to mention was such an incredible deal. It’s rather generic looking box, designed smartly and spare though a rather vague package about what’s inside. It’s called Chocolate Swiss Assorted Chocolate Squares. (They’re not really squares, but the Swiss aren’t known for their precision, oh, wait, they are.)

The box holds 7.05 ounces and cost $2.29. Inside are about 45 tiny little gold-wrapped chocolate bars in four varieties. The bars are tiny, less than 5 grams each and 1.25 inches long and .75 inches wide.

After spreading out the contents, it looked like miniature stacks of gold bullion. I divided them up to get a sense of the distribution of the flavors. It’s obvious just at a glance that the red labeled ones (Gianduja) are the most prevalent. Then there were almost equal amounts of the Milch and Haselnuss. There were only seven Zartbitter.

The utilitarian color-coded labels say Schweizer Schokolade: Swiss Chocolate.

Milch (Milk Chocolate)

The cute little bars are perfectly formed. The scent is soft and milky with a light malty note.

The texture is silky smooth and sugary. The dairy flavors are most prominent with the malt and some caramelized notes. The cocoa takes a back seat, providing just a subtle woodsy note and of course the inimitable melt. The bite is quite small, so this was one case where I wanted slightly more from these slight pieces.

Haselnuss (Hazelnut in Milk Chocolate)

This bar was the same as the milch but with the addition of some crushed hazelnuts.

The scent is mostly from the hazenut. There’s a light toasted and cereal note in there. The texture of the chocolate is the same as the milch, soft and creamy but with a strong grassy flavor of the hazelnuts and the crispy crunch of the pieces. Wonderfully snackable.

Gianduja (Hazelnut Chocolate)

Gianduja, or gianduia, is a paste made from sugar, chocolate and hazelnuts. Depending on proportions of the ingredients, sometimes it’s solid enough to make into bars. This gianduja is still a bit softer than the milch. There’s no snap at all, it just bends (and as you can see from the photo, gets dented easily).

That softness gives it a quick melt. In this case it has a strong roasted hazelnut flavor and a little bit of cocoa in there. It’s quite sweet, but doesn’t have much grain like some other versions like Milka can. It’s a bit sticky and completely filling.

Zartbitter (Bittersweet Chocolate)

This is quite a nice looking little bar. It has a very bright snap to it and a smoky scent.

The flavors and texture are very different from the milk varieties. It’s thick and chalky after it melts a bit on the tongue and is a lot like a rich chocolate pudding. It has some strong bitter components and some tea and astringency as well. Sometimes it tastes burnt, like the edge of an overdone brownie. It’s not complex, just kind of a comforting and fleeting bitterness and dryness. I can’t say that I loved it, but I found it a decent counterpoint to the very sweet milk chocolates from time to time.

It’s a great value, when you consider how much a mid-brand large chocolate bar would cost about the same. It’s more than Dove Chocolate Promises or Hershey’s Miniatures, but this is also a variety set that’s pretty hard to find. The ingredients are fair - there are no additional oils in there, but they do use PGPR (though it’s listed after soy lecithin so I have to wonder how much is in it and if it’s in all varieties).

Related Candies

1. Hachez Edel Vollmilch Nuss (Milk Chocolate with Hazelnuts)
2. Walkers Nonsuch Roasted Hazelnut Toffee
3. Moser Roth Chocolate
4. Short & Sweet: Hazelnut Bites
5. Ice Cubes
6. Frey Supreme: White, Lemon & Lime and Citron & Poivre
7. Caffarel Gianduias

I picked up this Moser-Roth Premium Dark Chocolate 70% Cocoa on my last trip to Ohio.

I discovered for myself then what all the buzz about Aldi markets was about. Like Trader Joe’s (owned by the same family), Aldi has “house brands” of confections. I sampled quite a bit of their Choceur (Luxury Mini Chocolate Bars and Coffee & Cream) already so when my mother offered to send me some more, I took her up on the offer.

Moser-Roth is a German chocolate company, and I couldn’t find much on them except that they’ve been around since 1902 and most recently were bought up by Storck (who make Werther’s, Toffeefay, Riesen and Mambas) in 2007 - well, that’s what the German Wikipedia says, the Storck website makes no mention of it. I’ve never seen them anywhere but Aldi here in the United States. (Maybe someone who knows German better can help out with that, even the translators don’t make it much clearer whether Aldi just has them under contract or bought them.)

The package doesn’t give much information about the company, but does say a little about the chocolate itself: The chocolate is made from the finest quality ingredients, carefully prepared according to a classic recipe. Chocolate lovers will savor the strong aroma of dark chocolate blended with the best South American cocoas.

The packaging is one of my favorite styles. It’s a paperboard box/sleeve that holds a hefty 4.4 ounces but packaged in five smaller single portion bars.

Each little bar is wrapped in a light paper-backed foil. It doesn’t say much on it, not even what kind of bar it is, just Privat Chocolatiers and then on the side it has a little warning: may contain traces of nuts and/or dairy products.

The little bars are the perfect weight, as far as I’m concerned, each is .88 ounces and about 145 calories.

The scent is a light woodsy and coffee aroma. The color was a little dead, a little on the gray side of brown instead of red. It has a distinctive snap and crunch, I was concerned it would be chalky. But it melts nicely. It’s a little tangy but not fruity and buttery - kind of like cashews or pistachios.

As a little indulgence they’re extremely satisfying. I didn’t feel the need to start another bar after the first one for several days.

Price: $1.89
Weight: 4.4 ounces
Calories per Ounce: 164
Rating: 7 out of 10

When my mother sent along some more of Aldi’s confections, this milk chocolate Toffee Crunch set of bars was in the box.

Like the dark, this little sleeve holds five .88 ounce individually wrapped bars. Part of the description goes like this: In this variety, bits of buttery golden toffee are encased in fine milk chocolate made from select cocoa varieties. This extraordinary combination gives the smooth chocolate its refined crisp, making it pure enjoyment for chocolate lovers.

Like most milk chocolates, this had a much softer snap than the dark chocolate.

The bar was pristine, nicely tempered and glossy smooth. The little nuggets of toffee were pretty easy to spot even before I took a bite.

It smells rather sweet and milky. The bite is soft and immediately sweet and creamy with a strong dairy flavor. The toffee crunches are exactly that, crunches with a distinct buttery flavor that made me think they were butterscotch flavor for a while it was so strong.

The velvety milk chocolate was a bit sweet for me, though I liked the slightly salty crunch, I would have prefered just a little less sugar here.

This bar is rather similar to the Dove Peanut Toffee Crunch (though obviously no peanuts here). But it’s also a bit of a better deal if the price on these is the same as the dark one.

Price: unknown
Weight: 4.4 ounces
Calories per Ounce: 135
Rating: 8 out of 10

But the true treasure in this parcel I received (well, for this post anyway) is this octagonal box of Moser Roth Fine Truffles - Dark Chocolate 70% Cocoa.

The box is nicely made but perhaps a little downscale for what’s actually inside.

The photo doesn’t give a good sense of the scale here. The box is 4.5” across and 2.5” tall.

The height made more sense once I opened it. Inside each little truffle is wrapped in foil & tissue, with a little gather at the top. It reminded me of some Caffarel Eggs I got from Williams-Sonoma after Easter last year (never reviewed, just photographed & eaten).

The little eggs are, well, little. They’re molded with the name Moser-Roth on one side and little squirlies all over. They’re about 1.25” tall. The wrappings protected every last one of them.

Ingredients:

Chocolate (cocoa mass, sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanillin), vegetable fat (coconut & palm oil), sugar, skimmed milk powder, high fat milk powder, fat reduced cocoa powder, butterfat, soy lecithin, vanillin

This is pretty much the same as the Lindt Lindor 60% Extra Dark

I’ve never seen high fat milk powder, but it sounds awesome.

It was easy for me to bite them gently along the seam to cleave them in twain. Inside there’s a chocolate creme.

The outer shell is a nicely smooth very dark chocolate with a distinct bitter edge to it. The cream filling is less flavorful but achingly silky. Like the Lindor 60% Dark Truffles and some other vegetable oil based truffles, they’re a little “empty” tasting. But in the case of these the proportions are more equal with the chocolate shell and filling, so I got more flavor from them.

As a little indulgence they’re also pretty low in calories - only 52 each versus the 70 for a Lindor ... simply because of the size.

If there’s an Aldi near you, these are a great Valentine’s or Easter treat. (I don’t know if they were a Christmas item or an every day one.)

Price: unknown
Weight: 4.6 ounces
Calories per Ounce: 170
Rating: 8 out of 10

Related Candies

1. Trader Joe’s French Truffles
2. Nestle Treasures 50% Cacao Dark Chocolate Truffle
3. Lindt Lindor Truffle Eggs
4. Ice Cubes
5. Ritter Schokowurfel
6. Crown Jewels Chocolate Orange Truffles

While in Ohio popped into an Aldi’s market as my mother had scouted out their candy section for me. This international chain is kind of like Trader Joe’s or Fresh & Easy, offering low prices for standard and gourmet fare with most products under house brands and a rather warehouse-style shopping environment.

One of Aldi’s brands of confections is called Choceur and is priced so well that I was dubious that it could be any good at all. But they have a Double Quality Guarantee, which means if I don’t like it, they’ll give me another and my money back.

This box was called Choceur Luxury Mini Chocolate Bars and described on the front as Bittersweet chocolate bars with hazelnuts and rice crisps in a chocolate creme filling.

That sounded pretty much like a cross between Perugina Baci and Ferrero Rocher or maybe Ferrero Mon Cheri. This 7.05 ounce package was only $1.89.

Inside the box are 11 little bars, which are more like sticks. They’re about 3.5 inches long and .75 inches wide and .5 inches tall. Each is nicely molded with a simple design on top and made the trip from Ohio, through Pennsylvania and back to California without incident. Each little bar has 100 calories (and unlike the 100 Calorie Chocolate Bars I wrote about yesterday, the packaging here has the appropriate balance of protecting the product, advertising the contents and not taking up more space than it needs to).

The little sticks have a sweet hazelnut and chocolate aroma.

The bite is soft, the center is a buttery light chocolate cream with little crisped rice bits and crushed hazelnuts. The hazelnut flavor isn’t overwhelming, not quite as intense as Baci or a true gianduia, but amazingly satisfying.

The chocolate is silky and smooth, but doesn’t have a lot of pop to it. It doesn’t detract from the bar much, it just supports the texture and gives a small bittersweet background to the sweet creme center.

Overall, for the price these are amazing. They’re the perfect little treat for coffee or tea, an afternoon snack or something to tuck into a lunch without breaking the bank. Or a hostess gift or perhaps dump them out of the box and put them in Christmas stockings. Are there better versions of this out there? Sure, but even Ferrero Rocher or Perugina Baci costs about $6 for the same amount but most of that is packaging and you’re not likely to see commercials for these.

I have another Choceur bar that I bought at the same time that I’m quite eager to try ... especially since this box is almost gone.

Related Candies

1. Harry & David Chocolate Pinecones
2. Short & Sweet: Hazelnut Bites
3. Ritter Sport White Chocolate with Hazelnuts
4. Ritter Schokowurfel
5. Milka Alpenmilch