"Basically a way to eat Nutella in a handy wrapped stick." I picked up the Classic Nougat Chocolate Bar from the small but packed-full-of-goodness Blue Apron Foods in Brooklyn. Blue Apron carries a wide variety of international candy bars, but this one with its classic gold wrapper caught my eye. The bar's gold packaging reminded me (how could it not) of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Forget the kiddie cartoon characters and bright colors, I'll take a crisp gold wrapper any day. I unfolded the wrapping to reveal two layers of solid nougat, one dark and one light. The bar proved to be soft and dense at the same time. Each bite screamed chocolate and hazelnut nougat perfection. The...
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Photograph from Svadilfari on Flickr There is something so frustratingly natural about the Cadbury Creme Egg. Nothing, of course, about its flavoring, but about its cycle. Like all other naturally occurring things, it is born in spring and then grows into something less adorable. One can only suspect it ends up as a peanut butter pumpkin around October and makes its final appearance as a gold foil-wrapped hard block of Christmas-tree-shaped chocolate at the end of the year. Such is life, and aging is difficult even for chocolate. Just when I thought I'd have to wait until April for the 2009 generation of Cadbury Creme Eggs, I was snatching up some Cadbury chocolate at Boots when I discovered what...
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The
limited-edition Indiana Jones Snickers bar. What makes it Indy-worthy? It has a hint of coconut in it. And can I just say that that little addition makes all the difference?
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According to Business Week, bigwig Western chocolate companies like Nestle and Hershey are trying to please Asian tastes, given a booming chocolate industry there. Say hello to azuki-bean Kit Kats in Japan, green tea Hershey's Kisses in China, and ginseng-enriched confections in South Korea. Here we thought Abba-Zaba was crazy! Check out the article's matching slideshow....
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The new Snickers Charged has peanuts, caramel and 60 milligrams of caffeine, about the same amount of caffeine as a small cup of coffee. [via NYDN]...
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Apparently nobody told the Swedish candy company Cloetta that Plopp just ain’t the most appetizing of onomatopoeias. Or else the company just didn’t care. The bite-sized milk chocolate squares are filled with a gooey caramel and become the perfect nibble. Or series of nibbles... The one I had recently was a gift from a globetrotting friend—how could I resist?...
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Like many food lovers, I was enthralled by Kim Severson's story on British chocolate bars in the New York Times. Severson tries to explain why British chocolate bars have a different taste from their U.S. counterparts. She concludes that it is a combination of slightly different ingredients and processing techniques. You've heard of terroir, which is, according to Wikipedia, a "French term in wine and coffee used to denote the special characteristics that geography bestowed upon them." Let's call what Severson reported "factoir," or the special characteristics that factories bestow upon chocolate bars. Even more interesting was the main story's taste-test sidebar, in which Severson concludes that "British chocolate bars do taste better." Not that we don't trust the...
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