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Sjaak's

Friday, August 16, 2013

Eli’s Earth Bars - Treasure Bar

Eli's Earth Bars - Treasure BarThe final of the three vegan and organic Eli’s Earth Bars made by Sjaak’s Chocolates I have for review is called the Treasure Bar.

A solid layer of crunchy peanut butter topped with caramel and coated in creamy ‘milk’ chocolate. Vegan

It’s made with dairy-free rice “milk” chocolate which can’t actually be called chocolate according to the FDA, which has strict standards about such things. However, there are no other fillers in it, just cacao, cocoa butter and some evaporated cane juice. It’s an actual vegan candy bar that’s also fair trade and organic. That’s a rare thing. Of course, feeling good before you eat the candy is nice, but not really very productive if it doesn’t actually taste good. Now that I’ve tried all three of Eli’s Earth Bars multiple times, I’m ready to say that they’re actually good, but a little funky.

Eli's Earth Bars - Treasure Bar

There’s really no comparison for this bar to a commercial bar on shelves today. The center is like a crushed Butterfinger bar (or if you prefer, the vegan version would be an Atkinson’s Chick-o-Stick) mixed in with some peanut butter and then a layer of caramel then covered in chocolate.

It smells peanutty and sweet and a little like Cap’n Crunch. The rice milk chocolate coating is a little greasy and thin tasting, it’s more like a chocolate milk taste than an actual chocolate taste. The soft center is sweet peanut butter with a bunch of crunchy, peanut crisp lumps. Then there’s a stripe of caramel on the top that gives the whole thing a chew.

It’s odd, not quite successful but still compelling enough that I always eat the whole bar. (I’ve tried this bar three times now.) If you don’t or can’t eat dairy, this is a very tasty approximation of a dairy bar (but it’s made on equipment that does use dairy, so not for those with true allergies). But I’d prefer to just eat Chick-o-Sticks if I need a vegan peanut candy fix.

Related Candies

  1. Eli’s Earth Bars - Dream Big Bar
  2. Eli’s Earth Bars - Celebrate Bar
  3. Justin’s Organic Peanut Butter Cups
  4. Q.Bel Double Dark Chocolate Wafer Bar
  5. Goldie’s Premium Carob Bar
  6. Sjaak’s Vegan Chocolate Assortment
  7. Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews
  8. Chick-o-Stick


Name: Treasure Bar
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Sjaak’s
Place Purchased: Whole Foods (Pasadena)
Price: $2.49
Size: 1.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 160
Categories: All Natural, Candy, Sjaak's, Caramel, Chocolate, Ethically Sourced, Organic, Peanuts, 7-Worth It, United States, Whole Foods

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:41 pm     All NaturalCandyReviewSjaak'sChocolateEthically SourcedMockolatePeanuts7-Worth ItUnited StatesWhole Foods

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

Eli’s Earth Bars - Dream Big Bar

Eli's Earth Bars - Dream Big BarIf I were to dream big and come up with attributes of an ideal candy bar, I’d probably start with real ingredients. Each ingredient should contribute flavor or texture. It should have real chocolate. It should be organic and fair trade, as ethical as possible. (And if this is a dream, it would be one dollar and sold everywhere.)

Sjaak’s Organic Chocolate has been doing just that, with their new line called Eli’s Earth Bars. They’re organic, fair trade and some are vegan as well as being made right here in California. The bar is a nice size, the portion is 1.5 ounces, which is what I prefer for a snack. I picked up all of their bars when they first came out, diligently took their photos, ate them and then tried to find more for the review. It took me 2 years to find them in a store again.

I finally found my Eli’s Earth Bars Dream Big Bar at Erewhon, walking distance from my office. The packaging design is good, it’s attractive but not too weird looking. It looks like there’s a candy bar in there, not some mush of seed hulls and dates.

Caramel and peanut butter topped with whole peanuts and coated in creamy ‘milk’ chocolate. Vegan

Eli's Earth Bars - Dream Big Bar

The bar looks great. The milk chocolate coating is actually made with rice milk, so it’s not technically milk chocolate since there’s no dairy in it. But the chocolate is still made with real cocoa butter (none of those palm oil fillers). I was thinking the bar was going to be kind of like a Snickers, but it’s actually a bit more like a Baby Ruth.

It’s about 3.5 inches long and 1.25 inches wide. The appearance of the outside looks like chocolate, but it tastes a little, well, odd.It’s smooth, but has a bit of a milky note without thinning out the flavor. Mostly I get a rice, or cereal flavor from it.  The caramel center is stiff and a little tough to bite at first, which tears the bar apart. The peanut butter is the right balance of smooth and salty, the peanuts are fresh and crunchy. Aside from the tougher than normal chew of the caramel, the textures go well together. There’s the right amount of sweet, salt and fat going on.

The bar most certainly doesn’t taste like disappointment or shame. It tastes like a candy bar. It’s not healthier, it’s still a candy bar, but it doesn’t compromise on the core beliefs - it’s vegan and organic and ethically sourced.

Gluten free but made on shared equipment with dairy.

Related Candies

  1. Theo Salted Almond Dark Chocolate
  2. Eli’s Earth Bars - Celebrate Bar
  3. Sweet Earth Bittersweet Chocolate Drops & Coffee Caramels
  4. Dark Angell Organic Candy Bar
  5. Equal Exchange Chocolate Caramel Crunch with Sea Salt
  6. Go Max Go Jokerz Candy Bar
  7. Rally Bar


Name: Dream Big Bar
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Sjaak’s
Place Purchased: Whole Foods (Pasadena)
Price: $2.49
Size: 1.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 160
Categories: All Natural, Candy, Sjaak's, Caramel, Chocolate, Ethically Sourced, Organic, Peanuts, 7-Worth It, United States, Whole Foods

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:06 pm     All NaturalCandyReviewSjaak'sCaramelChocolateMockolateOrganicPeanuts7-Worth ItUnited StatesWhole Foods

Friday, March 29, 2013

Eli’s Earth Bars - Celebrate Bar

Eli's Earth Bars - Celebrate BarThe world of candy bars has changed a lot in the past 100 years, since the first mass-produced combination bars appeared in stores. At first local candy companies made bars that were distributed regionally. Eventually, after World War II, candy bars became national brands. You could find a Hershey’s Milk Chocolate, Snickers bar or a Butterfinger at most candy stores though there were still plenty of local brands.

Today the candy landscape is dominated by just a few international brands, and the new upstarts that are found on the fringes fit into a different niche now. They’re special interest bars. These are the bars that incorporate local ingredients, fit into special manufacturing concerns like allergens, or in the case of the Eli’s Earth Bars from Sjaak’s Chocolates, they’re vegan (made without any animal-derived ingredients).

The new line of bars is interesting, because they’re not quite versions of already-popular candy bars. The Celebrate Bar is A delicious coconut caramel topped with whole almonds surrounded by chocolate. That doesn’t sound like any other candy bar on shelves today.

How did they make it vegan? Well, here’s the pretty short list of ingredients:

Dairy free milk chocolate (evaporated cane juice, rice milk powder, cocoa butter, cocoa paste, almond milk, whole vanilla bean), brown rice syrup, coconut, evaporate cane juice, almonds, coconut milk, coconut oil.

Eli's Earth Bars - Celebrate Bar

I’ve had two of these bars now. The first one I photographed and ate. Then I searched months and months to find them in stores again. Both bars looked the same, a long chewy plank of coconut caramel topped with whole almonds and then covered in a vegan milk chocolate. The milk chocolate is made without any dairy ingredients (but in a shared facility, so not appropriate for those with allergies) but uses real cocoa butter.

The chocolate itself is chalky and has a soft cereal note to it. The cocoa flavor is lacking, but overall it’s a pleasant coating. It’s kind of like how I feel about hot cocoa made with water instead of milk; I’ll drink it but I wouldn’t choose it. The chewy center is quite good, a very dense coconut and caramel combination. The caramelized sugar notes are missing, but the texture is great.

It’s an interesting bar and I had to throw my expectations about the milk chocolate out the window. This is not really a vegan milk chocolate, it’s just a very mild chocolate - the rice milk makes it something different in both intensity (which is what milk does to chocolate) and texture (which is kind of sad). I would probably prefer this bar with a true dark chocolate coating, but I understand the goal here was to make it with a milder chocolate. It still doesn’t match up to the expectations I have for milk chocolate, but if I toss those out and just experience this, I was surprised at how much I liked it. (It’s similar to how much I like Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews, even though they don’t use a real chocolate coating.)

Related Candies

  1. Six Kilos of Felchlin Arriba 72% Chocolate
  2. Sweet Earth Bittersweet Chocolate Drops & Coffee Caramels
  3. Dark Angell Organic Candy Bar
  4. Go Max Go Mahalo Candy Bar
  5. Sunspire Coconut Bars
  6. Sweet Earth Chocolate Cups
  7. Sjaak’s Vegan Chocolate Assortment


Name: Celebrate Bar
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Sjaak’s
Place Purchased: Whole Foods (Pasadena)
Price: $2.49
Size: 1.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 160
Categories: All Natural, Candy, Sjaak's, Caramel, Chocolate, Coconut, Ethically Sourced, Nuts, Organic, 7-Worth It, United States, Whole Foods

POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:35 am     All NaturalCandyReviewSjaak'sCaramelChocolateCoconutEthically SourcedOrganic7-Worth ItUnited StatesWhole Foods

Friday, December 21, 2007

Sjaak’s Vegan Chocolate Assortment

Sjaak's Organic & Vegan Chocolate AssortmentThere’s hardly anyone who can argue politically with the qualifications of Sjaak’s Organic Chocolate Assortment. It’s organic, it’s fair trade certified and even vegan! (For locovores, it’s also made in California.)

I first visited Sjaak’s chocolate shop when I lived in Eureka, CA back when I was in college. (I didn’t frequent the shop since I worked for a rival shop down the street.) My brother even lived in an apartment above the shop for some years and ended up becoming a friend of the family.

Flash forward eighteen years and now I see what I thought was just a little local chocolatier at the Fancy Food Show ... and then at Whole Foods!

Sjaak's Vegan Chocolate Assortment

The packaging isn’t the most exciting part about these chocolates, it’s an ordinary green box with gold lettering and a little window so you can peek at half of the chocolates. Inside is a gold plastic tray with each of the candies in its own fluted paper cup. Out of the box they’re quite attractive.

The key on the back reveals what each is. In my assortment I had: Coffee Truffle, Almond Creme, Raspberry Truffle, Pecan Caramel, English Toffee, Solid Dark Chocolate, Almond Truffle, Hazelnut Creme and Peanut Caramel. Instead of dairy fats Sjaak’s opts for soy milk, palm oil and sunflower oil.

I shared this box with Bronwen, my local vegan taster, so she may pipe up down in the comments with her thoughts.

Solid Dark Chocolate - I thought this was a good place to start. Most good dark chocolate is vegan, so this is a no brainer. There were two little medallions molded with a daisy on the front and wrapped in foil. The chocolate is rather sweet and not terribly rich and dark. If you’re a milk chocolate fan, this is probably a good place to start with dark.

Peanut Caramel - I was curious what a caramel would be without butter and milk and while this didn’t have that buttery smooth taste, it was very nice. It reminded me of a good quality Goldenberg’s Peanut Chew (which also has no butter in it). The peanuts and the dark chew of the caramelized sugar and the sweet chocolate went well together. It was kind of a charcoal note to the roasted peanuts, but that brought a richness to it, almost like coffee.

English Toffee - I thought this would be an actual hard toffee, instead it was a truffle creme with little caramelized sugar bits in it. It was an enjoyable texture combination, like many of the pralines that I’ve had lately. The creme of the center was a little thin feeling on the tongue, mostly because there’s nothing like butterfat for a rich taste (mmmm, cholesterol).

Pecan Caramel - pretty much a pecan version of the Peanut Caramel, this was pretty darn good. I could eat a whole box of these. The lack of butter was more than made up for with the woodsy pecan flavors and crunch.

Almond Truffle - this was the first truffle I tried. The powdered sugar coating kind of put me off, as I thought it started the whole thing off very sweet. The truffle center is very smooth, but again, it feels thin and watery when it melts, it’s just missing some deep complexity that the dairy brings to the combination.

Coffee Truffle - the stronger flavors and the cocoa dusting made this a darker and richer tasting truffle. The center was smooth and melted quickly, thus giving up the coffee notes very quickly but dissipating. I could have used a stronger coffee kick or a dark chocolate.

It’s really nice to see someone trying to get all the elements into their chocolate line. The box was fresh and each piece looked great. They were also very generous pieces, oddly enough, one of the better values at Whole Foods when it comes to their politically correct candies ($41.25 a pound). If you’re lactose intolerant but enjoy fine chocolates, this might be the best option out there (though beware, the box warns that they do share equipment that processes dairy so it’s not for those with severe allergies). I think I’d still opt for butterier cousins, so I’ll have to give their regular line another try here sometime.

Related Candies

  1. Trader Joe’s Fair Trade Chocolate Truffles
  2. Pure Fun & Yummy Earth Organic Hard Candies
  3. Theo Confections
  4. Rice Milk Chocolate Bars
  5. Equal Exchange Chocolate
Name: Sjaak's Organic & Vegan Chocolate Assortment
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Sjaak's
Place Purchased: Whole Foods (Pasadena)
Price: $11.99
Size: 4.65 ounces
Calories per ounce: 151
Categories: Chocolate, Nuts, Peanut, Chew, United States, All Natural, Organic, Fair Trade, Chocolatier

POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:05 am    

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