The Best Artisanal Chocolate Bars
...and patties, nuggets, balls, and bites.
Mixed box from Garrison Chocolates. [Photographs: Robyn Lee]
No offense to Snickers and Nestle Crunch, but in a perfect world, we'd trick-or-treat and be handed these hand-made chocolates. Inspired by classic Halloween candies, these chocolatiers from all over the country have stepped it up with fancy ganaches, fruit pâtes, pumpkin puree, and (kids, close your eyes) scotch. Ordering these might require a little more effort than hopping into a CVS, but they're pretty special. Check out the five chocolatiers, after the jump.
Zingerman's
From left: Ca$hew Cow, WTF, Original.
How many candy bars start with two Zs? Zingerman's Zzang! are as fun to say as they are to eat (aka find stuck in your teeth hours later). They come in three flavors. Zzang Original: Virginia peanut hunks, honey nougat, all-natural peanut butter, and caramel (from organic muscovado brown sugar, how fancy). Ca$hew Cow: cashew butter swirled with roasted cashews, cashew brittle, milk chocolate, puffed rice, and a shake of sea salt (finally, cashews get some candy bar love). And the WTF? (that would be fudge). zingermans.com »
Liddabit Sweets
Cute recycled paper wrapping and green ribbons.
From left: PB&J, Coconut Lime, King Bar.
From left: Pecan Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Snacker.
The Liddabit story is a pretty sweet one. Two ladies (Liz Gutman and Jen King) befriended each other at the French Culinary Institute and joined chocolate-making forces. They've created all sorts of whimsical confections, including autumn-happy ones like Pumpkin Pie (yes, they even remembered the crust part) and Pecan Pie (with all that browned, super caramelized richness of an actual pecan pie), in addition to The Snacker (the fancy Snickers of your dreams), The King (peanut butter nougat with banana ganache and a brown butter cookie), and Coconut Lime (major coconut action here). You can find them at the Brooklyn Flea market or email them for specific mail orders. liddabitsweets.com »
Bon Bon Bar
Chocolatier Nina Wanat was on hiatus for a bit, moving between Los Angeles and San Francisco, but now her company Bon Bon Bar is back with: Pumpkin Pie (made with pumpkin and butternut squash from the San Francisco Ferry Building farmers' market), Coffee (made with Blue Bottle Coffee—even coffee haters in our office were into this), Caramel Nut (classic and good), Peanut Butter (each square alternates between honey and strawberry jam), Scotch (um, feeling a wee bit tipsy), and Ginger (candied slabs on top made from Phan Farms ginger with a lemon nougat center). bonbonbar.com »
Fran's Chocolates
Fran's GoldBites have that Halloween "Fun-Sized" smallness happening, but it's just the right amount of almonds and sweet, stretchy caramel, all coated in dark chocolate. We liked them more than the Coconut Gold Bar—there was something weird about that creamy coconut center. franschocolates.com »
Garrison Confections
Squrtles, Pretzel Balls, Chocolate-covered nuts, and on the top right, the edge of a Rocky Road Island.
Shoot, Garrison, where do we begin with you—the peanut butter patties, chocolate tablets, brittle squares, so many goodies here. But of them all, the most addictive award goes to the Pretzel Balls. Like the chocolate and yogurt-covered pretzels sold in bulk bins, these little beebees have that great salty-sweet balance. Squrtles are square versions of turtles (chewy caramel, pecans, and dark chocolate). The Rocky Road Island is just a fat brick of marshmallowy peanut butter ganache-goo with a graham cracker foundation. As far as edible bricks go, it's pretty tasty.
Ultimate Nougat Bar.
Since the brown log aesthetic can get old, this one throws on some flowery vine art. It doesn't make the chocolate taste any better (though it's already tasty) but sure looks perdy. The Ultimate Nougat Bar is a dark chocolate bar filled with creamy chocolate nougat, pistachios, hazelnuts, and caramel.
From left: Piedmont Patty, Coconut, Peanut Patty.
And finally, the patty department. The Piedmont Patty proves that a dark chocolate disc filled with gianduja, milk chocolate, and roasted candied hazelnuts could never be a bad thing; the Coconut Patty is covered in crunchy coconut flakes, with double coconut action inside; and the Peanut Butter Patty will satisfy both smooth and crunchy fans. garrisonconfections.com »
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11 Comments:
Ditto the "addictive" comment on the Garrison pretzel balls. I want more. Even after eating all that chocolate.
Carey Jones at 3:53PM on 10/28/09
the chocolates from Liddabit's look amazing!!!! Erin, you must hate your job ;-)
_greenbean at 4:04PM on 10/28/09
(bragging time). I live in Cambridge, UK, and we are lucky enough to have three separate independent chocolatiers in town. One specializes in Belgian truffles, one does a whole range of everything from chocolate lollies to truffles as well as big, beautiful slabs of chocolate with dried fruits and spices pressed in, and one is sort of a grown-up pick-a-mix where you select the truffles of your choosing and pay by weight.
We live in a rural area, so we never get trick-or-treaters, but if we did, I'd be giving them something from one of these shops. Chocolate is too important to be done on the cheap, after all.
However, I strongly maintain that everyone on earth likes Kit-Kats.
NotAmerican at 4:28PM on 10/28/09
The candy bars from Bon Bon Bar are amazing!
candresc at 5:16PM on 10/28/09
Once again fab photos via Erin: nice work!
hungrychristel at 5:43PM on 10/28/09
@hungrychristel: The photos were all Miss Robyn Lee! Also, I left out the whole violent sugar crashing afterward part...
Erin Zimmer at 6:16PM on 10/28/09
My mouth is watering now; I have to go fix dinner. www.satisfiedsole.com
Pammie at 7:02PM on 10/28/09
The best Artisanal chocolates come from the appropriately named L'Artisan Du Chocolat in London: www.artisanduchocolat.com.
Their chocolates are simply divine and those Garrison ones in the first picture could be 'clones' :-)
So guess where I'm gonna go this weekend!
Rob
Rob C at 3:16PM on 10/29/09
Wow! Those Zingerman's bars look really, really good. But oh my goodness - $6 for a candy bar??? Yikes! They better taste like gold for that price. ;-)
Annie Anderson at 1:08PM on 10/31/09
Fran's gold bars are amazing. My father used to buy them for my mom every year for her birthday and Valentine's day (this was before internet ordering, when he had to call out there), and she'd let us kids have some. The carmel part is the best carmel I've ever had.
tonisan9 at 9:42AM on 11/02/09
I was at the Salle à manger restaurant in Montreal on Saturday night and the chef had his own (and rather fancy) version of a Milky Way bar on the menu. Apparently, all those Halloween candies have a second life in restaurants too!
katerine rollet at 12:39PM on 11/02/09