One of the new products I’ve been looking forward to at the Fancy Food Show a couple of weeks ago was Caffe Acapella new line of Coffee Confections.

It’s genius really. Instead of chocolate, which is a combination of cocoa solids, cocoa butter and sugar, this is a combination of coffee beans, cocoa butter and sugar. Let me warn you, it’s pretty intense.

I was careful to do my tasting of these in the morning because of the obvious caffeine content.

Caffe Acapella Espresso was the first on my list, I figure I should start with the strongest. The little heart is a solid piece, .35 ounces. It has a strong snap to it and a good melt on the tongue thanks to the cocoa butter and some milk. It smells rather like freshly ground coffee. It has a concentrated coffee flavor that includes those dark roasted notes, woodsy tones and of course some bitterness. It’s well rounded out with some sugar, perhaps a little too much, but then the bitterness kicks in again at the end.

The texture is good, very much like chocolate, only with slightly more grain than usual.

Honestly, I usually don’t like “whole bean” coffee candies, I’m kind of a purist and only want the water that has passed near a coffee bean, not eat the whole thing. But I think regular readers know my affinity for anything combined with cocoa butter. This is basically a white chocolate product.

Caffe Acapella Cappuccino looked pretty much the same color as the Espresso, I expected a slightly milkier appearance. It has a softer bite to it, and melts a bit quicker. It’s sweeter and definitely milky ... almost to the point of being a bit sticky. The bitterness is pretty much absent, but so are the more complex coffee flavors.

The Caffe Acapella Caramel Macchiato may look like the others from the outside, just a nicely puffed up heart. However, inside is a reservoir of salty caramel. I’ve never actually had a caramel macchiato drink, so I can’t say whether this is a good candy-version or not. I can say that it’s very sweet, verging on throat burning (which is pretty much what’s kept me away from the drinks ... that and the regular price). My least favorite of the three.

Caffe Acapella Coffee Confections come in two formats, the little individually wrapped hearts I have here and 2.5 ounce bars. I’m not sure what the caffeine content on these is, but I don’t think my little “one-cup-a-day-never-after-noon” system could handle a whole bar.

I don’t see this format of the product on their website, just the full-sized bars. If you can get a hold of these (and keep a sharp eye out at coffee houses and at the checkstand at upscale markets), it’s a good way to sample their product line. Personally, I’d stick with the Espresso one, just because I’d be eating these for the coffee kick.

You can buy online at their webstore or use their product locator to find a shop near you that carries them. (Raley’s seems to be the only place in California that carries them, so I think I’m outta luck.) The ingredients look all natural (except I don’t know if the mono and di-glycerides in the Macchiato qualify ... can someone make a call on that?).

Michelle at Candy Addict called these Awesomely Addictive. She mentioned a more noticeable grain in hers, it’s been a full year since her review, so I suspect they’ve been conching a bit longer to get this smoother product. She also said that a full bar would be too much, I’m guessing these little morsels are an answer to that.

Related Candies

1. Java Twix
2. Trader Joe’s Espresso Chocolate
3. Theo 3400 Phinney Bars
4. Green & Black’s Espresso Chocolate
5. Coffee Beat

Here’s another candy that has been around for years but I simply have not tried: Cookie Dough Bites. The concept of the candy is pretty simple, soft nuggets of “cookie dough” covered in chocolate. After all, loads of people love to eat cookie dough as they’re making a batch and how many romantic comedies feature the heroine sitting around eating a chub of the pre-made stuff to drown her sorrows in the third act?

I guess the main reason that I’ve never tried them is that they don’t come in a single-serve size, just in these big theater concession boxes. I don’t go to the movies that often and I’ll admit that I stick to my tried-and-true favorites: Junior Mints, Good & Plenty and SweeTarts. 

All of the boxes make note that they are EGG FREE. Now, at first I looked at that and I though, what is E.G.G., is this something like Non-GMO? It took me a few moments to realize that they meant, eggs, plain old eggs. It makes sense that when you say cookie dough people might think that there’s raw eggs in there. Not only are there no raw eggs though, there simply aren’t any eggs at all. Of course the allergen alert does go on to mention that they’re made in a facility that also processes eggs (and peanuts, nuts, milk solids, wheat and soy), so it’s not like that note is anything other than an advertisement that there’s no salmonella.

Milk Chocolate Cookie Dough Bites are the original product in the line. The nuggets vary in size, some are as large as a hazelnut and some as small as a pea.

The image on the front shows little bits fo chocolate chip cookie dough being drenched in milk chocolate. However, I bit a lot of these in half and never found any chocolate chips. Or even flecks.

No biggie, the chocolate coating takes up that contribution of chocolate chips quite well.

The center is not quite a moist dough, it’s a little more chalky ... but not quite shortbread territory. It reminds me more of sugar cookie dough than chocolate chip cookie dough, as CCCD has a touch of brown sugar.

They’re suprisingly tasty. The chocolate isn’t at all notable, it smells a bit like chocolate, but isn’t really that creamy or satisfying. The easy chew & pop some more qualities make them an excellent movie snack.

Rating: 5 out of 10

Unlike the Milk Chocolate version, I actually found a few chocolate chips in the Dark Chocolate Covered Cookie Dough Bites! I don’t think it made much of a difference overall. 

The dark chocolate also isn’t truly dark, it has some milkfat in it, but it’s not like anyone expected these to be vegan otherwise.

The general texture and bite was similar to the milk chocolate, perhaps a little “drier” but still very munchable. I appreciated that they didn’t taste quite as sweet (those paying attention to the nutrition label will see that the dark one actually has more fat and less sugar). The dark chocolate was a little chalky sometimes, but had a dry finish that kept them from being too cloying. The cookie centers have a slight sugary grain to them that works pretty well.

Rating: 5 out of 10

To be honest, I was more interested in the Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Bites than the original and I think that interest was well founded.

They look just like the original Milk Chocolate Cookie Dough bites, but even after I took them out of the package for the photographs, I could tell them apart with a quick sniff. These smell like peanut butter all the way.

The chocolate seems creamier on this version than the other bites, I’m going to guess that the fattiness of the peanuts helped. The center is softer and not quite as chalky as the others, it seemed to almost melt in the mouth. The peanut butter flavor is light and fresh, but kind of lacks that “fresh roasted flavor” that peanut butter cups have. I could have used just a smidge more salt and perhaps a sugary grain to sell the dough part.

Though they’re not quite the same, fans of Reese’s Bites might enjoy this as a replacement of that discontinued product. (It’s still not quite as peanutty.)

Rating: 7 out of 10

The final variety is Fudge Brownie Cookie Dough Bites. This one had a nice brownie batter consistency for the center with a good sugary grain to it. The cocoa flavors of the center went well with the chocolaty flavor of the coating. They rated a little higher for me than the regular Cookie Dough Bites, but I still think the Peanut Butter ones are the most successful of the array.

Rating: 6 out of 10

The only ones I’ve actually seen in stores are the original at places like Target, Dollar Tree, 99 Cent Only and Walgreen’s, usually for about a buck a box. They’re also sold at movie theater concession stands, probably for about $3 a box.

My other basic complaint with the candy is the packaging. I think the box itself is a bit misleading. First, in order to preserve the freshness, the bites are in a little clear plastic pouch. That’s fine, although it makes it kind of silly to have the box itself, because it’s not like you dispense from the box. The box is 3.5” wide, 6” long and .75” deep. The bag dimensions are technically the same, except that it’s of course flat. It seems that the box could be flatter or maybe the bag be narrower but fuller to be more efficient. Each box has only 3 ounces in it. A similar sized Junior Mints box has 4.75 ounces. Dots have 6.5 ounces. (Granted, Cookie Dough Bites probably aren’t as dense as Dots.)

Maybe I’m getting too snooty or expected too much after Brian at Candy Addict rates the Milk Chocolate Covered Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites as Awesomely Addictive (tm). But hey, everyone has slightly different tastes, which is why it’s so great there are so many different review sites. Here’s a roundup of other opinions: Taquitos.net has Fudge Brownie, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip and Review Busters.

Related Candies

1. Mint Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites
2. Jujyfruits & Jujubes
3. Dots
4. Good & Plenty (Fresh from the Factory)
5. M&Ms Line
6. Hershey Bites: York, Reese’s Peanut Butter and KitKat
7. Chocolate Pocky

Here’s something I haven’t seen at the stores. Nestle has expanded their Crunch Stixx line into the coffee arena with these Nestle Crunch Cappuccino Stixx. They come in a vivid red box that actually stopped me in my tracks at the Dollar Tree.

I was actually a little worried that this was a product that had come and gone and these were remnants, but these had an expiry date of May 2008, so for just a buck (they’re $2 or more at the grocery store), I figured I should give them a go. (I’ll admit I’m still confused because they’re not listed on the Nestle-Stixx website.)

(This is the same Dollar Tree where I stood there wondering why there were two different package designs for Goetze’s Caramel Creams ... then I looked at the expiration date, some were perfectly fresh and new, the others expired in early 2006. They were both the same price. Seriously, why would I buy the old ones, except perhaps as a wrapper collector? I bought the fresh ones.)

The official definition of these on the package is milk chocolate covering a wafer filled with cappuccino creme. I think they’re positioned to be a calorie-controlled portion, as they’re only 90 calories per stick.

Honestly, I didn’t expect much. I expected sweet milk chocolate and fake coffee creme.

However, they smelled pretty good. Like a good hot mocha. The crisp of the wafer tube was good, bland but with a slight cereal taste. The inside cream had a strong coffee essence to it and some actual bitterness. I welcomed that light bitter bite to go along with the sweet chocolate.

This is what Coffee Crisp should be like ... good coffee flavor, not too sweet with some light crunch and real chocolate.

I ate them. I ate them all.

Related Candies

1. Cafe Select Chocolate Coffee Trios
2. Butterfinger Stixx
3. Pocket Coffee
4. Nestle Crunch Dark Stixx
5. Coffee Beat
6. Coffee Crisp

Here’s something you probably didn’t know about me. I like science fiction. I like good scifi and bad scifi, doesn’t matter. I can quote passages from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I know what a Tasp is, I have a complete set of the original Stainless Steel Rat comic book adaptation ... I even read the novelization of Star Wars when I was 10. All that’s missing is actually writing science fiction novels. Oh, and I’ve seen every episode of Star Treks ... all the Star Treks (TOS, TAS, TNG, DS9, VOY & ENT).

So when I got a lovely box of chocolates from my co-workers for my birthday, my first thought when I saw them was, “My stars! They look like different foreheads of aliens on Star Trek. Seriously, look ... a Klingon ridge! Ferengi ear! Cardassian neck skin! (I know, it must be very hard to give me gifts.)

It’s not just the textures, it’s the dusting of food-safe iridescent powder that make me think of fantastic humanoid creatures from other planets. Perhaps they’re missing out on a marketing angle ... mm, Denobulan Spiced Chocolate!

The chocolates actually are lovely and tasty. They’re from Boule, who I go back and forth about. I love their Kalamansi fruit jellies and their ice cream. But sometimes the chocolates are a little, I don’t know, off to my tastes. Mostly I’m unhappy with their little button ones, which are molded. I seem to be happier with enrobed or dipped chocolates, which is happily what these were. Plus they’re expensive. But the best kind of fine chocolates you can get are fine chocolates as a gift.

(I think what might have pushed me to be so flippant with them was that there was no key for the chocolates. They were hand-picked, so we had the list that Patrice in my office made, but no guide as to which was which. So Patrice ended up calling them back and making them describe each and every one. I’m not sure if Boule has noticed, but they have a website and it wouldn’t be too difficult to put some little photos and descriptions up there.)

The fun part was that after photographing them, I shared them and I didn’t look at what they should have been or were supposed to be. I just ate them.

There you go, no review. I just ate some chocolates. And enjoyed them.

The aliens in clockwise order from upper left to lower right are (click the numbers to see the original images):

1. Ferengi
2. Borg Cube
3. Cardassian
4. Gorn (eye)
5. Dreman (juvenile)
6. Flaxian
7. Romulan
8. Klingon
9. Bajoran
10. Denobulan
11. Tosk
12. Hirogen

Hmm, did I miss any? Or do you disagree with my associations? (Okay, I also probably had way too much fun making my first Candy Blog Animated gif.)

Related Candies

1. Boule Hat Box
2. Boule Chocolates and Fruit Pate

I haven’t written about Ritter Sport in a while, but that doesn’t mean that I haven’t been eating them. There’s a wonderful feature for the All Candy Expo attendees, it’s a candy room where they give you a little bag and you can fill it to the top with candy in a huge room of bins and barrels of the stuff. I found a tub of Ritter Sport Minis and took home about two pounds of the tiny buggers.

But I also stopped at the booth for the Ritter importer to see what was new and found a few bars I’ve never reviewed, including this hefty White Chocolate with Whole Hazelnuts bar.

I’ve hung onto this bar for a while because I really need to be in the “mood” for white chocolate. It was 43 degrees this morning in Los Angeles when I got in my car to go to work; brisk weather usually helps to push me over into the white chocolate territory.

The wrapper says whole hazelnuts and they’re not kidding. Just look at that first bite I got! The bar itself is a lovely creamy ivory color, a little on the yellow side.

What the front label leaves off that the back mentions is the whole description for this bar: white chocolate with hazelnuts & crispy rice. (Turn it over and the hazelnuts are quite evident sticking out as are the little nibs of rice.)

The bar smells like hazelnuts and milk with a light touch of vanilla. It’s not until I bit into it that I got the malty notes of the crisped rice (hey, barley malt is actually listed on the ingredients).

Most of the hazelnuts are large and nicely toasted to bring out their flavor. The crisped rice adds a texture to the bar as well, keeping the pure white chocolate (made with sugar, cocoa butter, cream, skim milk, whey, lactose and vanillin) from feeling too sticky or cloying. I think it could use a smidge more salt (there’s a little in the crisped rice) but for non-white-chocolate consumers, this could be a gateway drug (well, the real gateway drug for white chocolate would be Green & Black’s White Chocolate bar).

It’s a very pleasant bar and I had no trouble finishing the whole thing.

Related Candies

1. Frey Supreme: White, Lemon & Lime and Citron & Poivre
2. Peruvian Candies
3. Ritter Darks
4. Green and Black’s White Chocolate
5. Ritter Sport Capuccino and Rum Trauben Nuss

Over the holidays my mother was in town for a visit and we went on a hunt for exotic citrus. I thought for sure I could find some fresh yuzu in Little Tokyo. (I was also keeping my eyes open for kalamansi, dalandan and ponkan.) Finally I did see some yuzu at Mitsuwa Marketplace, but at $29.99 a pound (about $8 each), I had to give up on my plans to candy yuzu peel.

There were a few consolation prizes though, including my new favorite Wheat Chocolate and I picked up a tube of Meiji Gummy Choco.

I’ve had these before, one of my co-workers loves to bring in new finds from her local Asian market and shared some with me. But I gobbled them up before I could take any pictures. So here they are, in all their glory.

Meiji packages these in several different ways, but I prefer the tall tube (a little shorter than a standard paper towel roll).

The design on the package is absolutely wonderful. It’s colorful and exciting but not too busy. Even without the English on the package, it’s pretty easy to figure out what’s going on inside. Each end shows the little candies, just slightly larger than real life. There are also cute little peep mascots on the package wearing little hats ... I think they’re hats, or someone’s dipped their heads in chocolate.

Luckily this was an export package and was in English. The mix of flavors here are Strawberry, Muscat and Orange. The flavored white chocolate coating is real white chocolate. The ingredients for the confection start out like this: sugar, corn syrup, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, palm oil, concentrated fruit juice, skim milk powder, cacao mass, gelatin ... and so on.

Now, you may find this a little odd, but before I was exposed to the Gummy Choco, I’d never had chocolate-covered gummis before. (I’ll have some Muddy Bears up in the next week or so as a comparison). Somehow I always thought that the texture combo wouldn’t work, that the chocolate would be grainy and flaky compared to the gummi or that the chocolate would be subpar. Meiji has balanced theirs with a very soft gummi that’s pretty intensely flavored along with a generous and flavored white chocolate coating.

If the idea of white chocolate is just too difficult for you, Meiji makes a milk chocolate and strawberry version that’s also spectacular (and often sold in boxes instead of the tubes). I haven’t seen them in the States, but here are some more versions on Flickr.

Basically, I love these. I love the look of the package, I love the easy-to-dispense tube. The taste is great, often with flavor mixes there’s one that I don’t like, but I loved all of them. The price for an import candy wasn’t too bad ($1.49 at Nijiya Market in Little Tokyo Plaza) and it was absolutely fresh. There’s even 8% of my daily RDA of calcium in every serving. If they sold these at movie theaters, I might actually start going to the movies again.

They’re pretty popular and can be found in both Chinese, Korean and Japanese markets as well as various webstores. I’m not sure if they’re carried in comic book stores, but keep an eye out anyplace that you can find manga and other Asian imports.

(Meiji also makes other tubular goodness with their Coffee Beat.)

Related Candies

1. Sour Gummi Bears
2. Brain Candy! (gummi brains)
3. Lifesaver Gummies
4. Gummi Clown Fish
5. Fragrant Gummies

One of the items that I’ve gotten several notes with recommendations to review is the new line called Cocoa Deli out of the United Kingdom. One of the things that I think some folks will find exciting about these little upscale treats is that they’re made in a “no nuts” facility. It’s pretty unusual to find anything other than a plain chocolate bar that can claim that.

The unique selling proposition with the Cocoa Deli Chocolate Heaven collection is that they look like little ice cream pops.

It took me a few months to track down a place that sells them, it turned out to be Walgreen’s. But I really lucked out because this variety package with all four varieties in little tins turned out to be half off. So the original price was $6.99 for 5.1 ounces and I got it for $3.50.

I’ve heard that the variety in the little tubs that they sell year round can vary, but in this case each flavor came in its own color-coded tin with a clear lid. They’re really cute and useful tins that have no actual branding on them, so I could probably re-gift them with other little sweets in them if I felt like it.

While the package says that each tin is “filled with indulgent mini popsicle shaped chocolates” there were three inside each package.

Each chocolate is individually wrapped and clearly marked with the flavor. Each package boasts that the chocolate comes from Belgium and in smaller print on the back of the box it says that the whole thing was packaged in China. So, let’s see ... the cocoa beans are grown in the tropics, shipped to Belgium where it’s made into chocolate, which is then shipped to England where it’s made into the little candies, which are then shipped to China to be put into tins and boxes and then shipped to the United States. No wonder they want $7 for twelve little chocolates (about $22 a pound at regular price).

The little nuggets look like tiny popsicles, though in this version there’s no wooden stick (they do other confections on sticks that are a bit larger ... this one is all edible).

The first flavor, Vanilla Caramel was a lovely little piece. The milk chocolate (30%) is very sweet but seems to be offset very well by the caramel filling. It’s a saucy caramel that feels more like it’s about the texture, which is smooth with only the slightest hint of grain. There’s not much of a burnt sugar flavor but a nice saltiness that keeps the whole thing from being cloyingly sticky.

Citrus Chocolate smelled very orangy right out of the package. The milk chocolate is quite smooth, though also very sweet and a little sticky feeling. It’s a pretty dense milk chocolate, boasting 30% cacao content. But in this case it’s all about the orange flavor. The orange center is a soft, truffle-like thing, though not quite as buttery. The orange notes are all zest and quite strong. It reminded me of what a Terry’s Chocolate Orange should taste like (instead of being grainy and too sweet).

Rasberry Truffle is the only dark chocolate piece in the set. Wow, the center of this was a pretty intense fuschia, but the ingredients only list dried rasperries as an ingredient, so that’s all natural. The raspberry scent is nice, floral and little grassy. The creaminess of the center is interrupted by the actual bits of raspberry. For the most part it’s little tangy bits surrounding seeds. The flavor is nice, but I’m not terribly keen on seeds like this in my chocolate. The dark chocolate is sweet, not terribly complex but stands up well to the berry.

When I got to the Peppermint Crunch Truffle, I wasn’t sure if it was going to be a milk chocolate truffle center or a white cream. It ended up being the milky former, which was a nice surprise. The crunch part, as you might imagine, is crushed candy pieces (not polenta or nonpariels). I was glad these were not only individually wrapped but also in their own tins, as this one smelled strongly of mint before even opening the wrapper. It’s nice to avoid that cross-contamination of strong flavors. It was pleasant, super creamy smooth with a light and cool touch of peppermint. The crispy crunch of the bitty mint bits brought some nice texture to it.

I’m curious to try some of their other items in their line but there’s nothing in particular that sets these apart from other comparably priced chocolates (See’s, for one) except for the no nuts part. For someone looking for some help with portion control, each piece has 60 calories (so one of these single-flavor tins has only 180 ... less than most candy bars). As a Valentine’s treat purchased at the drug store, it’s certainly far better than most of the other choices (I’d much rather have these than the Dove Jewels, but at regular price these cost twice as much).  The packaging is cute and I’m glad I have a few tins to put other candies in later on for snacking. I’m just glad I didn’t pay full price for them.

Related Candies

1. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels
2. Russell Stover Heart
3. Elmer’s Chocolate
4. Ferrero Rocher
5. The Rocas

After Christmas sales tend to make me more adventurous. I saw these World’s Finest Chocolate Dark Continental Chocolate Almonds at Walgreen’s while they were still in their 50% off mode.

The box is very tasteful and appealing with a tiny cellophane window that shows that they’re nice looking glossy dark chocolate covered almonds. While they’re not the largest almonds in the world (I think Trader Joe’s consistently has the largest chocolate covered almonds I’ve ever seen) I was hoping that they were fresh.

The box is interesting, larger at the top than the bottom, which was kind of odd when I opened it because it means that the opening for spilling out the almonds from the top is pretty wide (and that means easy to fumble).

My experience with World’s Finest Chocolate is limited to the fundraising bars, and since I don’t have any neighbors or co-workers with kids in band, I haven’t had one in about a year (and that was a milk chocolate crisp bar). I never much cared for their chocolate, I always found it a bit sweet and waxy. (Our band in high school sold mostly those boxes of M&Ms ... or at least that’s what I bought.)

Some of the pieces looked about the size of a Peanut M&M and others were the larger almond size you’d expect. They smell very sweet, though not much like chocolate or almonds, more like a vanilla candle.

The chocolate coating is passably creamy, a little on the dry/chalky side with a very strong sweet and fake-vanilla finish. The almonds inside are pretty consistently crunchy, but not very fresh tasting. There wasn’t a bad nut in the bunch, but they just didn’t have a strong nutty taste ... it seemed to be all about the chocolate.

Dark chocolate covered almonds are one of my favorite foods. In fact, I think a handful with some pretzels and coffee are an ideal breakfast. I’ve had these sitting on my desk for a little over a week and I ate less than half the box. They look great, the spare packaging is elegant and the price, even when not on sale, is pretty decent. But the taste just didn’t wow me. These taste more like the box than those two great elements: dark chocolate and fresh almonds. Instead I find myself eating my plain old raw almonds instead.

I may give World’s Finest Chocolate another try at some point, though according to the WFC website, the Continental Almonds are their top seller.

Note: the bittersweet chocolate World’s Finest Chocolate uses contains milk, so is not suitable for vegans. Their website says their Kosher, but the package doesn’t indicate that.

Related Candies

1. Sconza 70% Dark Chocolate Toffee Almonds
2. Dove Caramels & Chocolate Covered Almonds
3. Charles Chocolates
4. Cocoavia Chocolate Almonds