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Lake Champlain

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Things I’m Not Going to Get Around to Reviewing

I’d say that I don’t review about half of the candy that I acquire. Some is for personal consumption or gifts, but a good proportion I just never get around to. Most of that you’ll never even see. These shown below are ones I at least took photos of, yet I still couldn’t muster a review.

Do if you’ve had any of these, please feel free to chime in with your thoughts so that at least other folks can get some feedback on them.

Brix Chocolate for Wine

Brix Chocolate - Special milk & dark chocolate blends made just for eating with wine. It comes in huge blocks that seem like they’d be difficult and messy. I picked up these tasting squares at the Fancy Food Show. I photographed them, I ate them. I read some other reviews.

Valerie Gold Leaf Fleur de Sel Caramel

These are Valerie Confections liquid caramel eggs in a dark chocolate shell with a dusting of gold flakes. They were divine and I ate a half a dozen of them in a matter of three days. (Along with a fabulous box of my favorite Lemon & Hazelnut Nougat.)

Eurocrem BlokI bought this in Pennsylvania last year at the grocery store near my sister’s house. Eurocrem Blok - it sounds like it could be the name of any number of products. A brand of butter. A solid deodorant stick. Maybe a fine chocolate.

I bought it because of the name and the package design, not because I thought it’d be good. Even though the package clearly says it’s good until October 2009, it was bloomed. Could have been my fault, could have been something that happened in my luggage. Could have been the store. But it wouldn’t be fair to review it and I’m not really into eating chalky chocolate.

Brandini Toffee Samples

Brandini Toffee has been suggested for review several times by readers. I thought that the Fancy Food Show was a perfect opportunity to do that. They gave me these itty-bitty samples (mostly because I visited them on the last day, not because they were stingy or anything ... not that any candy company is obliged to give me free samples just to get reviewed, because that’s also not true).

Not really the way to review toffee. One of these days I’ll find it in stores and buy a real-sized portion, not these sugar-cube-sized stuff made for Barbie dolls.

Lake Champlain Java Truffle Egg

I diligently picked out these samples of the missing flavors in my set of Lake Champlain truffle eggs when at the Fancy Food Show.

These are the Java Truffle Eggs.

Then I ate them. They were good. I did actually intend on getting more of them, since they were already photographed at the Whole Foods by my office, but sometimes I get lazy.

Frey Swiss Delice Dark Chocolate samplesThese are little plain dark chocolate tasting pieces of Frey Swiss Delice Dark Chocolate in 72% and 55% cacao.

I picked them up because I thought it’d be interesting to taste the chocolate base for the bars that seem to be so popular at Target and come in a bajillion flavor combinations except just plain chocolate.

I never got around to it and then I lost these eensy little pieces. (Seriously, you think they’re small, but they’re actually smaller than that.)

Goat's Milk CaramelI thought this was a fabulous little bite of caramel.

Goat’s milk is a little gamier, a little tangy and sometimes a little musty tasting compared to cow’s milk. These Beurre et Lait de chevre were no exception. It was like eating a bit of cream cheese with my caramel.

At the point where I ate them after the Fancy Food Show, I’d completely forgotten where I got them from. Then I found the second one a few weeks ago and I have to say that I think they’re product best eaten fresh.

So there you have it, if not full reviews, at least lots of eye candy.

Related Candies

  1. Kohler Chocolates Garden Ganache & Toffee Mountains
  2. Askinosie White Chocolate (Plain, Nibble & Pistachio)
  3. Lake Champlain & See’s Bunny Battle
  4. Frey Supreme: White, Lemon & Lime and Citron & Poivre
  5. Ethel Holiday Assortment
  6. Lake Champlain Hazelnut Eggs

POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:34 pm     CandyLake ChamplainValerie ConfectionsFeatured News

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Lake Champlain & See’s Bunny Battle

Lake ChamplainYou thought I was done with hollow chocolate rabbits?

I can’t stop buying them. (And, um, taking photos of them, as this post will demonstrate, it’s mostly photos.)

Here are a couple of other more upscale models, in case you still haven’t outfitted your Easter basket for the year. Call it my Bunny Battle, spawned in part by sticker shock at Whole Foods (who doesn’t come away from WF without some degree of sticker shock?).

I picked up this extremely cute and extremely small goodie basket (I think they call it a favor basket) from Lake Champlain. It contains three filled half eggs and one tiny .6 ounce hollow milk chocolate rabbit. The price? $8.49.

Now, lest you think that it’s the little eggs that are racking up the tally there, the bunny all by itself on the Lake Champlain website is $3.25 ... it’s just chocolate, nothin’ special there. Just all natural milk chocolate.

Lake Champlain Eggs

I’ll get to the bunny in a moment, but first the unique items in this little basket (well, more like a cup) are the Lake Champlain filled eggs. They’re lovely little half eggs with a pretty molded shell that has the Lake Champlain logo and the word “Vermont” on it.

It comes with three eggs. I reviewed the blue foil wrapped egg before that has a hazelnut cream inside before, so I picked up the rest of the eggs in their set to make sure that I’ve covered them all. (The basket came with Raspberry, Caramel & Peanut Butter.)

Lake Champlain Gold EggGold = Caramel in Milk Chocolate. The shell is sweet and firm, the center is creamy and flowing. It’s pretty salty on the inside and with a real taste of burnt sugars.

Pink = Raspberry Cream in Dark Chocolate - very jammy center, definitely more fruit than chocolate.
Light Green = Coffee Ganache in Dark Chocolate - this was quite a treat, rich and robust coffee flavor, a little salty and not at all sweet. Not quite enough filling for me though, it seemed like there was a lot of shell and not a lot of cream.
Orange = Peanut Butter Cream in Milk Chocolate - oh so sweet. The filling is very light in color, much lighter than a Reese’s. It’s salty and a little grainy and very nutty.

I didn’t want to overwhelm everyone with too many See’s items, so I’ve had these Rabbits for a while. I picked up one of the milk (small in gold foil) and one of the dark (in blue foil). They’re hollow, but still rather hefty.

See's Milk & Dark Chocolate Rabbit

Lake Champlain & See's Milk Chocolate RabbitsThe See’s Milk Chocolate bunny is less than 5” tall, yet it towers over the little one bite Lake Champlain Hollow Rabbit.

Lake Champlain Milk Chocolate - it’s sweet and milky, but smooth and has a very slick melt on the tongue, almost like it has hazelnut in it. ($3.25 for .6 ounces) The larger sizes are priced at: $15 for a 9.5 ounce solid rabbit and a novelty one driving a car for $20 for 8 ounces.

Lake Champlain uses Belgian chocolate for their molded items. The ingredients are all natural.

See’s Milk Chocolate - it’s sweet and slightly less milky, with more of a roasted base to it. It’s not quite as sweet as the Lake Champlain, but still has similar silky qualities. ($2.45 for 2.2 ounces.) There is a smaller one that’s solid that goes for $1.00 at the stores and the other hollow novelites available are $4.90 for 4.5 ounces and the largest standing rabbit is $8.50 for 10 ounces.

Lake Champlain & See's Milk Chocolate RabbitsThe ingredients on the See’s are pretty standard, the only one that throws up a flag is the use of vanillin (but they also use real vanilla, go figure).

So they both taste good. They’re both good quality. They’re both cute ... I’ll admit that I like the squat and fat Lake Champlain format, but the foil wrapping and doe-like eye of the See’s is awfully lovable, too.

It comes down to two other things, I guess. Price and availability. See’s is pretty easy to find on the West Coast and of course you can order via the internet.

There’s a nice campaign to raise awareness about the hazards of giving children real rabbits (or baby ducks or chicks) at the holidays called Make Mine Chocolate. While a chocolate rabbit is not going to engender the same sort of squishy lovey feelings in a kid that a real animal will, it’s much more humane.

I had rabbits as a kid and I can attest to how much responsibility it is to care for a pet (especially one in a cage).

Dark Chocolate See's RabbitFinally, there is my huge friend the See’s Dark Chocolate Hollow Rabbit who clocks in at 4.5 ounces.

He sat around my office for weeks, I really liked the look of this rabbit in the light blue foil with his drowsy, heavily-lashed eyes and real bow.

Eventually the foil had to come off though, I had no idea what was beneath, I expected something similar to the milk chocolate one. The 2.2 ounce version (which also comes in dark chocolate) has those little drawn on hairs, so you know it’s a rabbit.

This one, well, it was startling. Mostly because it’s so stylized. I immediately thought of those Draw Me! ads that used to appear in the back of comic books and magazines.

It’s so smooth yet angular. And the eyes are so vacant.

The dark chocolate is tasty, very smooth but middle-of-the-road. Kind of like very good chocolate chips or a good cup of hot chocolate. A little hint of bitterness, no dry finish and a buttery melt.

The bunny isn’t really that much taller than the 2.2 ounce one, just wider and of course has a very thick wall. (Honestly, I had a hard time ringing his neck to break him after I bit off the ears.) They come in milk or dark, but no white.

     Dark Chocolate See's Rabbit

Related Candies

  1. Upscale Hollow Chocolate: Michel Cluizel & Hotel Chocolat
  2. Wonka Golden Egg
  3. Palmer Hollow Chocolate Flavored Bunny
  4. Russell Stover Hollow Milk Chocolate Bunny
  5. Lindt Chocolate Bunnies (Dark & Milk)

POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:25 am     CandyReviewEasterLake ChamplainSee'sCaramelChocolateCoffeeKosherPeanuts8-TastyBelgiumUnited StatesHead to Head

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Lake Champlain Organic Dark Bars

Lake Champlain Organic BarsYesterday I did a little roundup of all natural candies and I forgot to mention Lake Champlain. It’s a little expensive to feed to kids but they do make actual candy bars. It’s an excellent brand that uses carefully selected ingredients, which I always appreciate and recently introduced an organic line.

Each bar is 1.25 ounces, which I think is the perfect portion of good chocolate.

The bars look like they’d be great for traveling too, small enough to tuck in your bag and finish in one sitting but they also feature a nice paper wrap with an inner foil wrapper that means you can actually close it back up (some of these foil wraps used these days are two atoms thick and fall apart in a light breeze).

image

Dark Spicy Aztec also features a 55% cocoa base chocolate. This one also has spices and pumpkin seeds. I’ve had a few spicy bars over the past few years and my share of spicy hot chocolate as well. This is probably the best of all of them. The spices, while strong, are still very flavorful and don’t overpower the chocolateness. I love pumpkin seeds (pepitas) and they go so well here, adding a little crunch and setting off the spicy flavors all over again.

While it tastes like there’s a whole cupboard of spices in here, the label says only cayenne and cinnamon. I could have sworn I tasted a little nutmeg, some clove and cumin. Amazing!

I have to admit that the spice is, well, spicy. It gave me a bit of a tingly burn on the back of my tongue and in my throat. Not so much to stop me from eating it, but more tender mouths may not appreciate the power. 9 out of 10

Dark Chocolate is a basic semi sweet bar. It’s on the sweet side but also very creamy and has a good, quick melt on the tongue.

I’m not as keen on this as the Spicy Aztec, but since it’s the same chocolate base, it’s a good place to finish off the review. The chocolate notes are rather middle of the road - there’s nothing that jumps out at me like coffee or balsam or raisins. It’s just nice and thoroughly chocolatey. It doesn’t feel like a “better for me” compromise because it’s organic. It’s smoothly conched and nicely tempered. 8 out of 10

The Organic bar line from Lake Champlain also includes milk chocolate, with a plain bar and a sea salt and almonds bar. The Lake Champlain website offers a kit of all four bars as an introduction or you can order them singly. They also make little squares, which I’ve tasted at the Fancy Food Show before, but to be honest, I don’t care for very thin chocolate, l like it a little thicker ... these bars are the ideal thickness.

My hesitations on Lake Champlain as a whole are that it’s not that easy to find and a bit expensive (and I don’t like the logo much). Of course it’s good quality, nicely packaged and all natural, so you get what you pay for. If you’re tentative about them, keep an eye on their Sale Page on their website, sometimes there are insane deals in there (nothing at this writing though).

Related Candies

  1. Chocolate Hellfire Chip Cookies
  2. Chuao ChocoPods
  3. Xocoatl 73.5%
  4. Dagoba Dark Bars
  5. Cha-Cha-Cha Choxie
  6. Green & Black’s Maya Gold
  7. Pumpkin Pie
Name: Organic Dark Chocolate: 55% Dark Spicy Aztec & 55% Dark
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Lake Champlain
Place Purchased: Whole Foods (Glendale)
Price: $2.50
Size: 1.25 ounces
Calories per ounce: 160
Categories: Chocolate, Nuts, United States, Lake Champlain, Kosher, All Natural, Organic

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:48 am    

Tuesday, May 2, 2006

Fairway NYC

I talk about Trader Joe’s a lot as a candy source; the store opening in Manhattan was big news. But on my trip to NYC, I found that they already have an extraordinary store, Fairway. We pretty much stumbled upon the market while walking back from the Upper West Side to our hotel in Times Square.

Like Trader Joe’s the store focuses on more gourmet, upscale or wholesome fare, with many items sold with their private label but at super-delicious prices. The best part, of course, was their candy section. They had a huge aisle of pre-packaged bulk nuts and panned chocolate goods, most of which made by Koppers.

imageThe first thing that caught my eye were these little M&M sized dark chocolate goodies called Cayenne Pepper Savory. It was just what I was looking for all these years, a peppered chocolate in easy to eat morsels. But when they say Cayenne Pepper, they really mean it. It’s far too spicy for comfort. I might try putting them in cookies or something, but it’s too bad, the chocolate is really nice, but the afterburn is serious. ($5.99/lb)

Of course I have a hard time believing that they really were that hot, so after a couple of days I try another one. Same result ... whoo! I don’t know, it’s growing on me.

imageThis was by far the best of the Koppers finds. It’s little cubes of dried apricot covered in dark chocolate. So simple. The chocolate has a nice smoky, dark bite. It’s sweet but doesn’t overpower the natural sweetness and tart chewy bite of the apricot.

It’s nice to find an affordable version of the glace apricots that I’ve seen at the upscale chocolatiers. Of course these don’t replace them, but they’re portable and high quality. ($5.99/lb)

imageOh, I had such high hopes. Look at them, they’re gorgeous! Dark and glossy and sweet smelling. But there’s something so wrong about the taste and even though I’ve been sampling these for weeks, I can’t quite put my finger on it. They chocolate is sweet, but bitter. Smooth but a little waxy and it has this odd dairy taste to it, even though it’s dark chocolate. The malted center is not really malty or maybe the chocolate is overpowering it. I was just so disappointed.  ($4.99/lb)

And here’s the big secret - Fairway sells Lake Champlain! Only it’s their house brand and it’s far cheaper. I picked up two 5 Star Bars and they were only $2.19 each!  I picked up the Caramel one, just to make sure the Fairway house brand was truly the same as the Lake Champlain, and I also got this one, the Fruit & Nut Bar.

image

This stunning 2 ounce brick ‘o chocolate is dark chocolate on the outside, filled with a hazelnut praline (think Caffarel’s Guanduia) studded with pecans and dried cherries. Now I know I say that I don’t like cherry flavored things, but I have no problem at all with the real ones. This bar was really nice, the dark chocolate was bold and reigned in the thick flavor of the hazelnut praline quite nicely.

The nuts weren’t as numerous as I’d hoped, but the bite of the sour cherries and the chewy texture was a nice mix. I do like the inventiveness of mixing pecans and hazelnuts - two sadly neglected nuts in American candybars. Of the two that I’ve had now, I still prefer the Caramel bar, but this one is certainly interesting and I’m wondering how it compares to the 5-Star Hazelnut bar.

Fairway had a large selection of candies, both in their own packaged bulk items like the Koppers, upscale brands like Scharffen Berger and Valrhona. I also saw a huge variety of imported candies like European brands like Cadbury and Nestle (not the American versions). 

Fairway Market
2127 Broadway (Between 74th & 75th)
New York City
(212) 595-1888
Hours: 6AM-1AM Daily (isn’t that insane!)
Other locations: Plainview, Harlem and soon Brooklyn

Related Candies

  1. Rum Cordials
  2. Chocolate Hellfire Chip Cookies

POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:26 am     New York CityReviewKoppersLake ChamplainChocolateMaltNuts8-TastyUnited StatesShopping

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Lake Champlain Hazelnut Eggs

I would be remiss in reviewing Easter candies not to include something a little more upscale. Besides the usual drug-store fare such as Russell Stovers, I found quite a few candies at Whole Foods. I got a wonderful birthday basket of Lake Champlain a couple of months ago and have been nibbling away on it, so I thought I’d check out their seasonal items.

image

These little impluse buys were in a bucket by the checkout stand. At $.79 each, I was willing to give them a try (I didn’t even know what they were except that they were blue and from Lake Champlain). When I got home and bit into one (I know, brave!) I was pleasantly surprised to find a hazelnut praline. The eggs are actually “half-eggs” and about the size of an egg-shaped walnut and probably weigh a little less than a half an ounce.

In fact, if you were wondering where to get those Caffarel Guanduia chocolates in the States, look no further than these for your domestic equivalent.

The outside is rich milky chocolate and the filling is a soft hazelnut and chocolate mixture. It’s thick and clingy, nutty and buttery. Yum. I can’t eat a lot of these at once (I only bought two, so I’m safe). They’re very rich tasting and utterly filling. One with a cup of coffee is quite a treat.

The Lake Champlain Easter eggs come in a variety of flavors (caramel, raspberry & coconut) that you can order from their website and I’m sure some Whole Foods carry them as well.

There’s no way I can possibly keep up with all the Easter candies, but Joanna over at Sugar Savvy has created a roundup of a lot of dark chocolate Easter eggs.

Name: Hazelnut Praline Eggs
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Lake Champlain
Place Purchased: Whole Foods
Price: $.79 each
Size: ~.42 ounces
Calories per ounce: unknown
Categories: Chocolate, Nuts, United States, Lake Champlain, Easter

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:02 am    

Monday, January 2, 2006

Lake Champlain Select Origins

I’ve reviewed a few single orgin chocolates before (and I really liked the Chocovic). I find the idea of it being like fine wine and elusive and all that intriguing, but it’s also kind of frustrating because you might find something really fantastic that can never be replicated. That’s why chocolate blends like we’re used to are so widely used. A Hershey bar always tastes like a Hershey bar. Godiva always tastes like Godiva.

Lake Champlain is also the maker of the highly esteemed and highly expensive Five Star Bars. And of course my friends Will & Susan are well aware of my affection for good chocolates and gave this to me for Christmas.

image

The packaging is very pretty, four different single origin/cocoa percentages in pretty little wrappers and six of each little square. They’re in a clear plastic box that lets you see the delectable stacks of squares. Not only did I review these in alphabetical order, but it also happens to be the order of increasing cocoa solids.

African Blend (54% cocoa solids) - This one was by far the sweetest, it has a good mild woodsy aroma with a slight smoky note. It’s not at all complex, but very pleasant.

Grenada (60% cocoa solids) - This one has a remarkable lavender hint to it, with a lot of other balsalm notes and definite herbal qualities. The finish is rather bitter and dry but it’s also pretty sweet and buttery and smooth.

Sao Thome (70% cocoa solids) - This one has more immediate bitter notes and though very smooth it was also rather dry. The buttery melt has a slightly tart bite towards the end, complex blend of woodsy notes and vanilla. By far my favorite, the most chocolatey in my feeling.

Tanzania (75% cocoa solids) - This one was exceptionally smooth and buttery, which surprised me given its high cocoa solids. It was also bitter and had a very dry finish. There was a bit of a sour bite on the front of the mouth and a slight cherry note to the whole flavor (a blend of both the sour cherry and the more robust wild cherry flavor).

I tasted all of these without looking at the website and was pleased to see that I was tasting the same things that they’re selling these squares on. These types of tasting squares are a great way to get a good cross section of all the flavors that chocolate can hold within it.

Name: Small World Chocolates: Select Origin
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Lake Champlain
Place Purchased: gift (but available from Whole Foods & online)
Price: unknown
Size: 6.7 ounces
Calories per ounce: 141
Categories: Chocolate, United States, Lake Champlain, Kosher

POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:26 am    

Monday, September 12, 2005

Lake Champlain Five Star Bar

Name: Five Star Bar - Caramel
Brand: Lake Champlain Chocolates
Place Purchased: Whole Foods
Price: unknown
Size: 2.1 oz
Calories per ounce: unknown
Type: Chocolate/Caramel/Nuts

A few weeks ago I did a radio interview and on the show Steve Almond gave the host a Five Star Bar. Steve had also featured the bar in his book Candy Freak, so I was already aware of its virtues. Still, I’d not seen one in person. I did get a gift over the holidays though, of a little package of their milk and dark chocolate squares, which were very nice and smooth.

The bar has it all. It’s a hefty little log, about as wide as it is high and twice as long as that. At two ounces, it’s bigger than your normal candy bar, but smaller than a king-size. It’s not quite gourmet, but too good for the regular candy shelf.

Upon biting into it there’s an intense explosion of caramel. The first ingredient on the package is CREAM, so you know how fatty and smooth this bar has got to be. The caramel has a good carmelize sugar taste to it, without going too far into toffee land. It’s very sticky and smooth. Inside there are nuts and a few dark chocolate bits (not enough for me, but you know, who am I to quibble with something so positively reviewed).

One thing’s for sure, I’m going to try all their Five Star Bars. For the record, my husband also picked up the Java Truffle Bar and a Peppermint Bark (I don’t have the package in front of me and their website is down). The Java bar is really nice, with a good smokey coffee flavor to it and it’s not too sweet (and made with dark chocolate). The mint one is really smooth but not quite minty enough for me.

Interesting note - I give high marks to all candies with the word five in their name. Coincidence?

Rating - 9 out of 10 (they’re really expensive)

Related Candies

  1. Fairway NYC
  2. Lake Champlain Hazelnut Eggs

POSTED BY Cybele AT 5:37 pm     All NaturalCandyReviewLake ChamplainCaramelChocolatePeanuts9-YummyUnited States

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