I’ve been accumulating chocolate bars faster than I can review them. (And faster than I can eat them, to boot!)

Here’s a selection of what’s been in my queue for a while with some brief thoughts on each. I don’t know much about the companies that make them, but all were tasty enough that I’m going to keep an eye out for the brands again.

My boss went to Spain and brought back three amazingly beautiful artisan chocolate bars from a company called Mallorca. Each bar was similar in format - 10 squares and wrapped in clear cellophane. The plain bar was wrapped face up, the nutted bars were bottoms up to show off the elegantly placed nuts.

The basic bar is called Kilamanjaro Chocolate and was an admirable middle-of-the-road 75% dark chocolate. It was smooth and creamy with woodsy notes and a bit of coffee in there. There was a slight grain to it and a later crisp dry finish. It was pleasant but perhaps a little too dry and acrid for me in the end.

This bar was by far my favorite. Called Chocolate con Leche Avellana Caramelizada it is a milk chocolate bar with caramelized hazelnuts.

The milk chocolate was creamy and had strong dairy notes, almost sticky and fudgy (but then again it was rather hot when I was eating it). The hazelnuts were dreamy little spheres - they were coated with a crispy sugar glaze of caramelized sugar with the nuts fresh and crunchy inside. They went so well with the chocolate I was often torn between pulling the nuts out and eating them whole and eating them with the blocks of chocolate.

I would love to get my hands on this bar again.

The Chocolate Negro con Almendra Marcona Chocolate features two blanched Marcona almonds in each square. The almonds are crisp and buttery (and are always more rounded than the pointy American almonds).

The dark chocolate here was not as strong as the first Kilamanjaro bar. It was sweet and bright tasting, some citrusy flavors along with light woodsy notes and a good buttery melt on the tongue.

The almonds were the star here, I love Marcona almonds, it’s like they’re a different nut from the almonds I usually get, they have an almost hazelnut/pine nut flavor to them.

This bar came from a friend traveling in South Korea (thanks Kiele!). It’s almost like a greeting card in chocolate!

Since it was purchased in South Korea, I have not idea what the back of the package says except for the web address: www.happynco.com which didn’t help me much in figuring out this bar. Sure, the front says stuff like “lighten up your day with dark angel dark chocolate” but I was curious about ingredients and stuff. The website is filled with cutesy images with butterflies and daisies but no sign of this bar. The character on the package, the spindly-legged princess with blonde hair is called Happy Girl with her even blonder Happy Guy. But the bar is called Dark Chocolate Dark Angel from Hatai and says it’s 42% cacao. Not too dark ... kind of in the middle.

The back of the package has some helpful pictograms that told me that the bar can be broken in half while it’s still in the package (the paperboard sleeve is scored). Then I think you’re supposed to share.

The bar inside the package is quite cute (mine was a little broken, but I reassembled it). It features a large section with a butterfly in darker embossed chocolate and four smaller squares with a milk chocolate heart and potted flowers opposite a darker chocolate piece of wrapped candy and a rainbow.

The pieces have a nice snap (obviously, since they broke easily before I got the bar). The flavor is creamy and has a slight dairy edge to it. I wasn’t wild about it, but I thought the packaging was sweet (a little too sweet and immature for me, but fun for a tween or teen and the fact that you can get sheets or pillows to match just sends it over the top for me).

What I found in the end was it didn’t have quite enough of a chocolate hit to me, but it went well with a handful of almonds and pretzels as a snack.

Finally, I got three bars from Cacao et Chocolat in Paris shortly after Christmas from my father. Two of the bars (including the one shown) were dark chocolate. One was called Teculi and was 79% cacao. It was rich yet still buttery. The bar was crisp and glossy and really smelled glorious. It has some fruity cherries in there, maybe raspberry and plum along with the deep cocoa notes.

The second bar (which looked an awful lot like the first so there’s not another photo) was called Tobago and was 88%. This one I actually still have about 1/3 sitting around in my chocolate box. It’s very dark and really a lot of effor to eat. It’s like a riot of flavors in my mouth. Some acidic notes of citrus (grapefruit mostly) and dark woodsy tones of cedar along with coffee ... but then it’s just too dry for me. I miss the creamy cocoa butter to float it all around on my tongue.

The final bar in the set was a white chocolate one (which I didn’t photograph because it was broken). It was glorious ... it was so buttery and though sweet, it had some wonderful cocoa background notes (I don’t know if it was deodorized cocoa butter as a base or it just assumed some of the chocolate flavors from being shipped to me with the other strong bars).

In my package were also some truffles, which didn’t look photo-worthy after their world travels, but I found them quite nice, very simple. Creamy, toasted flavors and a good buttery melt. They have a nice website in both French and English (though I don’t know if they’ll ship to North America). It looks like the kind of place I’d definitely put on my list of shops to visit (along with everywhere else David Lebovitz tours).

I give the whole pile of chocolate a 6 out of 10 with the standouts of the Mallorca Chocolate con Leche Avellana Caramelizada and Cacao et Chocolat White Chocolate bar at 8 out of 10 (bars I would buy for myself). I have no idea of the price on these and of course none of them have nutrition labels on them.

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I have the best friends who bring back the best sweets from all over the world. In fact, a co-worker is in Greece right now with a list!

My friend Will went to Europe on a decadent cruise and found something truly “of the place” to bring back from Sorrento, Italy for me.

I’m telling you about this not so you can go out and buy these, because I’m not sure you can (they supposedly have a website but it’s not been working) but just to show both the universality of sweets and the local flavor.

This little box and bag contains some rather upscale almond dragees (rather like the Cherry Almondine M&Ms from last week) from a little shop called Confetti & Agrumetti.

These little olive-sized morsels have a freshly roasted local almond at the heart. It’s then coated in a white chocolate flavored with lime zest and then coated in a colored candy shell. The shell was not as sharply crisp as some Jordan Almonds I’ve had, but still a nice crunch. The white chocolate was thick and sweet but had a really strong citrus zest to it. The almond at the center was nicely toasted to a darker brown than I think we’re accustomed to here in the States. It was rich and flavoful and had a good crunch.

Antonio, the fellow who runs the shop, I hear is a hoot. He loves to sing to his customers and expressed a desire to live and retire in Southern California (how funny, because I’m pretty sure a lot of Californians would be happy to swap with him). You can see in this photo Will took of his wife buying these little goodies that the panning machine (it looks like a tiny cement mixer) is right out there in the open and you can watch him drizzle the candy coating on right before your eyes. (Perhaps panning drums will become the new stand mixers as must have appliances.)

Here’s the only other English reference I could find to the shop.

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Here’s a little fun for the Summer. Some white and some dark.

Ferrero makes quite few different little two bite confections besides their Rocher and Mon Cheri. The one that I’ve kind of avoided all these years is the Ferrero Raffaello. Why? It looks kind of like a snowball, and I was afraid there’d be some marshmallow in there. But a kind reader set me straight.

Each package contains three little coconut covered spheres. Unlike everything else in the Ferrero line, these are not individually wrapped ... unless coconut flakes count as wrapping.

I rather admire Ferrero. They really seem to understand their marketing segment. An upscale chocolate in sophisticated wrappings that you can buy at the drug store or grocer. Not terribly expensive, decent quality and in flavor/texture combinations you just don’t get in other American chocolates.

I bought a single serving package, which is a small tray with three little candies in it, each in a little white fluted cup. They’re a little messy, with a lot of dislodged coconut coming out of the package along with them.

They smell like summer: like coconut and a sweet hit of sugar.

They’re not terribly big, at about a third of an ounce each they don’t feel very dense. I guessed at what they’d be like inside from the ingredients, that there would be a wafer sphere with a cream filling.

Sure enough, I got it right. The coconut gave way to a crisp but bland wheat wafer shell and a milky flavored cream inside (think buttercream frosting). That must be a lot of dairy in there, it contains 6% of your RDA of Calcium!

The cream had some strong dairy flavors and a pretty smooth texture. It wasn’t as sweet as I’d expected. In the very center was a little nut that at first I thought was a hazelnut but then found out was an almond when I read the description on the back of the package that called these: Almond Coconut Treat. 

It was a nice little refreshing treat, but I didn’t find them very satisfying on their own. As part of a mix, they’d be nice as a little change of pace, but I don’t see myself sitting down with a package.

Made in Belgium. Rating: 6 out of 10

The item I was really interested in was something that I saw announced on the All Candy Expo website several weeks ago. Ferrero Rondnoir which sounded like a it would be a dark chocolate Ferrero Rocher. Well, they’re not quite that, but still quite a nice extension of the Rocher line.

I didn’t expect to see these until the ACE next month, so imagine my surprise at finding them at the RiteAid (the same RiteAid that seemed to have the Elvis Cups out three weeks early).

The trio of candies are wrapped in an elegant bronze/brown foil with a little sticker on top that confirms that they are the Rondnoir (in case you get them in a mixed box). They’re further packaged in little brown fluted cups ... perhaps packaging overkill, but they’re a little wafer sphere in a skimpy little paperboard tray ... they probably need the protection.

Again, I’m bad at reading directions or press releases, so all I knew was that these were dark chocolate. I fully expected them to be just like the Rocher.

They’re not at all like Rochers. First, the outer coating is a chocolate crumble - think really rich Oreo cookie bits. Inside that is the wafer shell. Inside that is the dark chocolate cream. It’s light and buttery with some nice but not overwhelming chocolate flavors. Think hot chocolate, not quite rich ganache.

Then at the center is not a nut but a little sphere of super buttery dark chocolate. In fact, it tastes very little like chocolate, but it is like a little ball of cocoa butter (or perhaps something worse that I prefer not to think about). Eaten alone, it’s a little too slippery. Eaten with the whole sphere at once, it’s the perfect little creamy burst.

I’m rather fond of this new Ferrero product and I plan to stuff my sample bag with them at All Candy Expo next month and even consider buying them in the future. The small package makes portion control pretty easy and it’s hard to just rush right through them, considering all the packaging (hey, my city takes aluminum foil in the recycling bin!). At 1 ounce it’s 160 calories, so yes, it’s calorie rich for its size, but then again, if you only bought one package you’re safe.

They remind me of the Lindt Lindor Truffles ... which is a good thing.

This variety is made in Germany. Rating: 8 out of 10

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Santos returned to LA with some wonderful new Mentos for me to try! (See more of her lovely gifts to Los Angeles bloggers at Franklin Avenue.)

Today I’m sampling the fantabulous and refreshing Mentos Fuji Apple.

The Green Apple Mentos that are pretty easy to find domestically (sometimes they’re labeled for Canadian sale and say Pomme Vert), but they’re definitely not the same thing. The Green Apple Mentos taste like that wonderful artificial green apple. Kind of plastic but puckeringly pleasant.

The Fuji Apple Mentos are a lovely off white color, like the inside of a freshly sliced apple.

Fuji Apple, well, is awesome. It replicates that crisp apple flavor so well. A little bit of the apple skin and a lot of the tart tingly flavor of real apples. They say they have “nature identical flavors” in there on the ingredients, for whatever that’s worth. If you’re a candy swapper or planning a visit to Asia and looking for something inexpensive to bring home for your pet-sitter, this might be the thing.

This candy was made in China and labeled for the Philippine market.

The Mentos USA website says they have a “Flavors of the World” store, but they are sadly lacking in the really great flavors they do offer overseas. Oh, how I wish that they did carry the true global varieties. Japan, Philippines and China all carry this flavor and it’s possible you can pick them up in Australia easily.  I haven’t seen them in the Asian markets in Los Angeles (but I haven’t looked very hard since Santos always hooks me up).

Note: these Mentos have no gelatin in them as the American and European ones do but contain something called Gellan Gum instead as a thickening agent. They are not certified Halal or Kosher though (I have some others that I’ll post about that are Halal). Maybe some vegans can weigh in on whether Gellan Gum (derived from bacterial cultures) is on the approved list.

Another curiosity ... in the US Mentos are usually called Chewy Mint on the package. Just about everywhere else they’re called Chewy Dragees.

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I pretty much love PayDay bars. They’re the original energy bar as far as I’m concerned. Long before I knew about glycemic indexes it was obvious that PayDay contained a lot of calories, but they’re slow and sustained. A nice hit of sugar and quick glucose and then along protein boost that keeps the tummy from growling and prevents that “I need a nap” feeling.

A PayDay bar, as the advertising tagline used to say, is mostly nuts. At its center is a log of inert and dense nougat. Covering that is a layer of usually firm caramel and then the whole thing is rolled in lightly salted peanuts.

The PayDay is one of the older candy bar brands in the country, first produced by Hollywood Brands, Inc. in 1932. During the depression bars like PayDay, that had both a hopeful name and high calorie count (mostly from fat and protein) were actually eaten as meal replacements. The brand has switched hands a few times (as shown in the Hershey’s timeline) but still remains unchanged, now made by Hershey’s.

The bars contain about 3.8 grams of protein per ounce, which is pretty high for a non-protein fortified bar. You can credit the high proportion of peanuts for that.

In the case of the Fresh from the Factory PayDay bars, they were in the fun-zie of .7 ounces (regular bars are 1.8 ounces). I like fun size bars, so this was a nice way to get the bars. (Kind of like the FFTF Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.) I’ve never had such a soft bar before, which is indeed a treat. I don’t mind the firmness of the usual bars, but the caramel is really much more present here than in any other bar I’ve had before. The nougat is soft and has a pleasant sweet fudgy texture. The peanuts taste like fresh roasted nuts and were all good quality (though not huge or anything).

PayDay bars currently come in a few different versions, including the Chocolatey Avalanche which replaced the limited edition real chocolate covered bar. I’ve tried the Honey Roasted PayDay and found it distractingly flavorful ... less about the nuts and more about the honey flavor. The original has survived for a reason, it’s good. It’s really one of the best Summer Bars there is. No chocolate so no worries about melting, long lasting energy to keep you going between meals.

The important thing is that the regular PayDay bar is just fine when it’s not factory fresh (a little time in a pocket or in a hot car to warm up and you can pretend).

You can order now for shipment the week of August 13, 2007.  It’s $20 for a tub holding 2 lbs and 14.4 ounces. Not a bad price for nearly three pounds of fresh candy (however, the shipping, I believe is an extra $10 depending on where you live).

PayDay bars contain both milk and egg products, so are not suitable for vegans. Kosher.

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Last year M&Ms introduced a limited special tin of eight new gourmet flavors. They were sold only through their website. They were absurdly expensive (I think it was $49 for the set in a tin) and I never saw anyone review them.

Flash forward to a year later and I was reading on Chocolate Bytes that Heather found what I think are individual bags of some of those gourmet M&Ms. She picked up Cherry Almondine and Vanilla Crisp at the Las Vegas M&Ms World. Since my husband was off to NYC, I sent him to the M&Ms World in Times Square to see if he could find the Vanilla Crisp for me. Sadly, all they had were Cherry Almondine, which he picked up anyway.

The stand up bag announces these as a Special Edition (not limited edition, I’m not sure of the difference). The package also describes them, “freshly roasted almonds wrapped in cherry flavored white chocolate.” Sounds enticing (if you like white chocolate, cherries and almonds).

The M&Ms come in two colors, a dark marooon and a creamy beige. They smell an awful lot like cherry cough drops. The crispy shell is great and the almonds, though small, are truly fresh and tasty. The white chocolate with cherry? Well, it is strong. It’s not too sweet, but the cherry is quite a kick in the head. There’s no tangy bite to it, it’s just all sweet and nutty and of course cherry.

I do have to admit that I’m coming around on my dislike of cherry things and found these pleasant and they were certainly a hit on a long bike ride that I took on Sunday. (I got the empty package back from my bud and our ride organizer, Will, at the end of the trip.)

At $6 a bag, I don’t think these are special enough to warrant buying them again. Koppers does far better interesting flavor mixes and on the whole if I were looking for a quick almond treat, I’d pick up the Milk Chocolate Almond M&Ms which have never disappointed me.

There’s no word if M&Ms is making any of the other gourmet Special Edition flavors like Crunchy Cookie Mint. Keep your eye out if you’re in an M&Ms World store.

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There’s a movie coming out this week called The Simpsons Movie which is based on some long-running cartoon also called The Simpsons. (Yes, I know you know who The Simpsons are!) I live in Los Angeles and we’re blessed with two live-action promotions for the movie ... they’ve turned two 7-11 stores into Kwik-E-Marts. It’s kind of fun, you can go into the store and see dimensional cut outs of your favorite characters and partake of a few of their favorite fictional foods. This means Buzz Cola, Krusty-Os and those pink glazed & sprinkled donuts are actually available.

Sadly, there is no candy actually associate with the series, but I did pick up these Simpsons Fruit Snacks, which have been out for a few years. (If you want other candy content from The Simpsons, check out

Jamie’s awesome list with videos!)

The Simpsons Fruit Snack is about as lame as a product you’d expect to find if you really lived in Springfield. The package is nice and happy and says things that are totally true like “mixed fruit flavor”, “no preservatives” and “made with real fruit juice” and sports images of the Simpsons kids: Maggie, Lisa and Bart.

But once the package is open and not in view there is absolutely nothing “Simpsons” about these. They’re shaped like little fruits ... not little characters.

So I decided that I just wasn’t working hard enough at this ... that I wasn’t taxing my imagination and decided that they ARE Springfield characters ... if you really work at it. (The illustrations below may require a bit of squinting to make it work.)

Orange:  Apu (on those formal occasions when he wears his turban)
Grape: Sherry and Terri
Strawberry: The Space Coyote
Apple: Kang & Kodos
Cherry: Radioactive Man
Yellow: Just about any other Simpsons character but I like to think it’s Mr. Sparkle

The promise of the package and the Simpsons tie in aside, the flavor of the candies is pleasant. They’re a gummi (with gelatin), but extremely soft. I was happier once I let mine sit out for a couple of days. They do have a full days allowance of vitamin C and they do have fruit juice as the first ingredient (just as those Scooby and Hello Kitty snacks had real fruit juice).  So for a friendly fruit gummi, they’re a pretty good deal for $1.59. Not really flavorful, just, well, pleasant.

Other irritated opinions about the lack of relationship between the Simpsons and the fruit snacks: Taquitos.net, Amazon.com & VeganCore (may be a different version of the snacks that didn’t have gelatin though).

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Months ago YumSugar urged me to try the Sour Gummi Bears from Bristol Farms, and I didn’t. Most of the time when I go into Bristol Farms (which may be five or six times a year) I opt for the Licorice Pastilles or some imported chocolate bar. But this time I not only remembered, I found a bag that was mostly clear ones (that means Pineapple, my friends!). This didn’t stop me from picking up that Italian torrone as well.

YumSugar wasn’t wrong, these are tasty gummi bears. They’re rather like the Sour Patch Kids - a sour sand covers a traditional fruity gummi bear. I suspect that these are made by Farley’s & Sathers. I’m actually concerned that these are not labeled correctly, the ingredients said: Corn Syrup, Sugar, Modified Corn Starch, Fumaric Acid, Citric Acid, Lactic Acid, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Artificial Colors. What’s missing on this list is some sort of jelling agent, like Gelatin. I actually sent Bristol Farms an email, but it’s been over a week and there hasn’t been even an automated response (so much for trusting them with my top dollars).

The bears come in the normal Gummi Bear flavor array: green apple, lemon, pineapple, strawberry and orange.

The gummis are soft and chewy (and most definitely gummis with some gelatin in them, you can’t get this texture with corn starch). The flavors aren’t deep, the sour sand keeps everything on a tangy + sweet level. The orange one reminds me a lot of orange jell-o with a hit of orange pixy stix. They’re not quite as tart as Sour Patch Kids, but of course they’re also a different flavor set, so it’s not an apples to apples comparison.

I was especially thrilled at the high ratio of Pineapple ones, which is a flavor that goes so well with the sour sand it’s ridiculous. The least favorite flavor out of the bunch, oddly enough, was the green apple, which I would have thought would do well. The red was strawberry instead of cherry, so the assortment scored points there.

I’m sure there are cheaper places to get these, especially if they are made by Farley’s & Sathers, which are a really well priced, good quality brand.

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