Sugar Savvy

After my review of Liberty Orchards’ Aplets and Cotlets, which were a gift from my friend Rita, posted on my personal site, her mother left a comment promising to bring me the chocolate covered version next. And, lo and behold, when Rita’s parents visited her at school, they came bearing a box of Liberty Orchards’ […]

I have been sitting on these tasting notes for ages. Like most of my notes, I guess. I bought these four Joseph Schmidt truffles last winter when I was in California. Joseph Schmidt used to be an independent truffle maker; now they, along with Dagoba and Scharffen Berger, are owned by Hershey’s Artisan Confections subsidiary. […]

As I’ve noted before, Choxie, Target’s house brand of chocolate, works hard to market itself. I adore their bright, retro wrappers, and I hate that they don’t capitalize anything. Check out the descriptions of these two bars that were a holiday gift from my suitemate Alisha:
Choxie milk chocolate roasted almond sea salt bar
solid milk chocolate. […]

Back in March, over my spring break, I road-tripped to Chicago with my dear friends Katie, Chris, Rita, and Steve (who needs to get a blog or something. I’m not going to be creepy and link to his facebook page). Lemme tell ya, you’ve got to really love the people you’re road-tripping with, especially when […]

The Cadbury Picnic is a UK bar composed of milk chocolate with toffee, wafer, peanuts, sultanas, and a crispy cereal centre. You can tell it’s British not only from the spelling of centre, but also from the “toffee,” which in British vernacular is actually what we would call caramel. That is, cooked sugar that is […]

Even though Earth Day just passed, there is no reason why we can’t continue the momentum.  I am listing some earth-friendly chocolate brands that I’ve had the pleasure of trying:

Endangered Species donates a portion of their chocolate bar proceeds to help, well, endangered species. I’ve only formally reviewed one of their bars, but I’ve tasted several […]

Every once in a while, you’re fortunate enough to experience something so eye-opening that it changes the way you frame your worldview. After falling in love for the first time, or tasting your first Jelly Bellies, schoolgirl crushes and plain old generic jelly beans will never be seen the same way again. Amano’s trio of […]

These days, chocolate can be tasted with a discrimination similar to those of wine tastings. Here are some resources that I found to be helpful for planning my chocolate tasting:

All Chocolates

Tasting Basics

Selecting Chocolates

Flavor Notes

The Chocolate Review - if you register, they have a great PDF listing flavor notes
The Nibble
Real Simple’s Tasting Grid (PDF)

I started […]

I spent the latter week of my spring break in Maine and managed to nab a factory tour of Haven’s Candies, which was definitely one of highlights of my break. Though I’ve taken tours of the Jelly Belly and Scharffen Berger factories, I’d never gotten anything as up close and hands-on as my tour of […]

Annabelle’s Rocky Road is a retro candy that’s easily distinguishable by its bright red wrapper. I first read about Annabelle’s, who also makes the Abba Zabba and the Big Hunk, in Steve Almond’s Candy Freak. The wrapper promises milk chocolate coated marshmallow with cashews, which I was excited about, as it’s hard to go wrong […]