Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Sugarfina: The Chocolates

Sugarfina Assortment

Last week I profiled the exceptional and hard to find gummis from Sugarfina. They also sent a second Bento box to me with chocolate items. They’re all panned candies but a far more diverse selection from the gummis. Most are made in the US, and like the gummis, Sugarfina doesn’t specify who makes them.

Sugarfina - Vanilla Bean Malt Balls

Vanilla Bean Malt Balls: The white chocolate coating is flecked with vanilla bean bits. The pieces smell strongly of vanilla with a hint of toffee and coffee in there. The coating is sweet and milky, but completely overwhelmed by the bourbon-y vanilla. There’s also a fair bit of salt in there, so it wasn’t as sickly sticky feeling as it could have been. There’s a layer below that, perhaps a dark chocolate but mostly it’s there to break up the sweetness. Below that is the crunchy center, which has a mild cereal flavor but not much in the way of malt.

The whole effect is satisfying, but in the sense that I didn’t need to eat more than two in one serving. So even though the package was small and had very few pieces in it, I never felt the need to gobble the whole thing up.

Sugarfina - Single Malt Scotch Cordials

Single Malt Scotch Cordials: are a classic from Koppers. While I love the panned cordials, these raised my expectations a little too high. I’m good with a comforting rum flavored cordial without complaint. But these were labeled as single malt scotch. Though they have a little stronger note of leather or tobacco, they’re not terribly different from the ordinary flavored cordials. I’ll probably stick to the rum or cognac version in the future.

If you’ve never had them, there’s a liquid center, which is a little flavored syrup, then a sugar crusted shell then a layer of dark chocolate. The sugar shell makes it all very sweet.

Sugarfina Espresso Caramels

The Espresso Caramels were very similar to the Trader Joe’s Butterscotch Caramels (which I suspect are made by Marich). They’re wonderfully proportioned with a fair amount of mild semi-sweet chocolate and a nugget of soft, chewy caramel at the center. The coffee notes were not particularly strong, but still created a satisfying candy.

Marshmallow S'Mores

The Marshmallow S’Mores are an extraordinary little construction. At the center is a little marshmallow, then a milk chocolate coating. What sets this apart is the dusting of graham cracker on the outside. The marshmallow is mild and also kind of tiny, so all it does is make the whole thing lighter and easier to chew without giving it the doughy puff of sugar that I usually associate with Smores. The milk chocolate is sweet and very milky which offsets the graham crackers slightly salty and cereal flavors. I didn’t really care for the graham notes, mostly because they seemed a bit on the stale side, for crumbs.

DSC_2438rb

Pastel Malted Milk Eggs are a classic. It’s hard to not like them, even when they’re bad. There were only four of them in the little box, because they were each so big. The malt was good, crunchy and dense. The chocolate was okay, it didn’t add much to it, as is usually the case with pastel eggs because of the crunchy shell. I’d eat a lot of these if I had them.

Peanut Butter Caramels

DSC_2455rbPeanut Butter Caramels are not new to me. I tried them a few years back after hearing the concept and being intrigued. It’s a caramel center with a peanut butter coating then it’s rolled in powdered sugar. The whole effect is sweet, not peanutty enough and not chewy either. But I still find myself eating them all. I don’t know if they need chocolate or not, but I like the idea of a peanut butter confection that doesn’t have chocolate.

Rainbow Raisins

Rainbow Raisins

Rainbow Raisins were completely new to me. It makes sense, if a Peanut M&M is just a candy coated Goober, why can’t there be a candy coated Raisinet?

The colors are satisfying and lovely. The shells are crunchy and perhaps even a little floral tasting. The raisins were especially moist and chewy though sometimes I wasn’t sure there was any chocolate in there at all. They’re quite sweet, but the tangy bite of the raisins cuts that a little bit.

On the whole, the chocolates are quite fun and it’s easy to see how the hard to find combinations would make a special gift. They’re also expensive and though the bento boxes are a silly amount of packaging, the regular boxes are actually pretty efficient as they’re stuffed to the brim. The result of the packaging is that the candies don’t roll around a lot and get scuffed up.

I’m giving the whole roundup an 8 out of 10 rating.

Related Candies

  1. Sugarfina: The Gummis
  2. Trader Joe’s Chocolate Covered Sea Salt Butterscotch Caramels
  3. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Tahitian Vanilla Caramels
  4. Trader Joe’s Milk Chocolate Malted Milk Eggs (Plus a Bonus)
  5. Bit-O-Honey
  6. Jelly Belly Deluxe Easter Mix
  7. K Chocolatier

POSTED BY Cybele AT 5:10 pm Tracker Pixel for Entry     CandyReviewCaramelChocolateCoffeeMaltPeanutsWhite Chocolate8-TastyUnited States

Comments
  1. Oh my, I gotta stop reading your blog. These sweets make my mouth water so much, it’s a drowning hazard!

    Comment by Alex on 7/16/13 at 10:58 pm #
  2. I think my favorite part of this article is your fabulous pictures! It’s almost as if you’ve captured their flavors through images… almost. Sugarfina is something I will have to add to my list of things to try!

    Comment by Miranda Imperi on 8/06/13 at 1:56 pm #
  3. can you do some facts on all candy not splitting it up into it’s own groups because I am doing work on that topic. please):

    Comment by tilly on 8/09/13 at 1:41 am #
  4. on recent trip to downtown la we came across a sugarfina candy store and purchased two kinds of candy..dark chocolate toffee almonds and finnska black they were buy far the best tasting candies we have tasted by far,thank you

    Comment by joseph evan on 1/14/16 at 7:53 am #
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