dark chocolate Archives

June 20, 2021 Michael

Aero Truffle: Black Forest Cake – A Delicious Combo of Cherry and Chocolate

Candy Bars, Chocolate

The last Aero Truffle bar I tried was the chocolate mousse variety, which I enjoyed, but probably wouldn’t ever buy again. I sort of figured that this would be more of the same. I also wondered about the black forest cake element; is that just a fancier way of saying that the truffle part is cherry-flavoured?

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this. It’s delightful.

I should note that I quite like black forest cake; your enjoyment of this bar very much depends on your fondness for the cherry/chocolate combo. The cherry flavour is not subtle.

If you do like that combo, however, you need to try this bar ASAP — it’s great. There’s no actual cherry in the ingredients, which seems like a red flag, but there’s absolutely none of the cloying, medicine-like flavour that you sometimes get from cherry candies. The cherry flavour is quite nice.

The bar features a dark chocolate coating and a milk chocolate interior, which does a great job of tempering the intense sweetness that you normally get from an Aero bar, and adds a nice punch of rich dark chocolate flavour.

Maybe I wouldn’t have come up with the connection if I had eaten this blind, but the whole thing is actually pretty reminiscent of a black forest cake. It’s a lot better than I was expecting it to be.

Manufactured by: Nestle
Nutritional info (8 segments, 40 grams): 230 calories, 15 grams of fat (9 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg of cholesterol, 15 mg of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fibre, 16 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugar, unsweetened chocolate*, modified milk ingredients, cocoa butter*, cocoa powder*, modified palm oil, beet red, natural flavour, soy lecithin, polyglycerol polyricinoleate. *Rainforest Alliance Certified

April 21, 2021 Michael

M&M’s Dark Sweet Chocolate Bar with Minis – Surprisingly Addictive

Candy Bars, Chocolate

I was shocked at how much I enjoyed M&M’s Dark Sweet Chocolate Bar with Minis. I didn’t particularly care for M&M’s Milk Chocolate Bar with Minis & Peanuts, or M&M’s Milk Chocolate Bar with Minis & Crisp Rice (those names just roll off the tongue, don’t they?), and I sort of figured this would be more of the same.

Well, I guess I had slightly higher expectations for this one than the others — my main issue with the other two was the middling, overly sweet milk chocolate, so I hoped the dark chocolate here would be an upgrade.

It was. Though the packaging, oddly enough, doesn’t actually call it dark chocolate — it’s “dark sweet chocolate.” This might be because it contains milk ingredients, which would mean that it’s technically not dark chocolate? I’m not sure. Whatever it is, it’s pretty tasty. It’s quite sweet, but it has a nice robust chocolatey flavour that balances out the sweetness. It actually tastes a lot closer to the chocolate you’ll find in an M&M than the two milk chocolate bars that I tried.

The M&M’s Minis do a decent job of adding some crispiness to the creamy chocolate. They’re not super generous, but unlike the other two versions, I didn’t mind.

There’s nothing about this that’s particularly mind-blowing, but the more I ate it, the more it grew on me. There’s something about standard M&M’s that’s oddly addictive; once you start eating them, it’s hard to stop. Unlike the milk chocolate bars, this one does a decent job of recapturing that.

Manufactured by: Mars
Nutritional info (1/3 bar, 38 grams): 200 calories, 12 grams of fat (7 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg of cholesterol, 15 mg of sodium, 23 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fibre, 20 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Dark sweet chocolate (sugar, cocoa mass, milk ingredients, cocoa butter, lactose, soy lecithin, polyglycerol polyricinoleate, artificial flavour, flavour), M&M’s Minis milk chocolate candies [milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa mass, milk ingredients, cocoa butter, lactose, soy lecithin, salt, artificial flavour, flavour), sugar, colour (with tartrazine), corn syrup, tapioca dextrin, cornstarch, carnauba wax, modified coconut oil and/or modified palm oil (medium chain triglycerides)].

April 4, 2021April 11, 2021 Michael

Mounds – A Tasty Combo of Coconut and Dark Chocolate

Candy Bars

Mounds and Bounty are weirdly similar. They both feature sweet coconut covered in chocolate, they’re both divided into two bars, and both feature distinctive rounded edges. Mounds is the original, however. It was first released in 1920; Bounty didn’t come out until 1951.

I’ll admit I have a soft spot for Bounty thanks to a childhood fondness for the stuff, but the two are very, very similar.

The biggest difference is that Mounds is covered in dark chocolate versus Bounty’s milk chocolate (apparently there is a dark chocolate version of Bounty, though I don’t recall ever seeing it). I think pretty much every candy bar is improved by subbing dark chocolate for milk; it delivers more chocolatey flavour than its milky counterpart, and its slight bitterness balances well with the sweetness of a candy bar. So that’s definitely a point in Mounds’ favour.

The coconut portion of Mounds seems slightly creamier, but I think the coconut itself is a bit more roughly chopped, which means that you’ll still be chewing it even after the coconut flavour has mostly faded away. Point: Bounty.

Still, that’s a fairly minor complaint; both are delicious and extremely similar. I prefer Bounty, but I think that has more to do with childhood nostalgia than anything else.

Manufactured by: Hershey
Nutritional info (2 pieces, 49 grams): 230 calories, 13 grams of fat (10 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 0 mg of cholesterol, 55 mg of sodium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fibre, 21 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Corn syrup, semi-sweet chocolate (chocolate, sugar, milk fat, lecithin (soy), PGPR, vanillin, artificial flavor, milk), coconut, sugar, contains 2% or less of: salt, hydrolyzed milk protein, sodium metabisulfite to maintain freshness.

March 7, 2021March 14, 2021 Michael

Pal-O-Mine – An Unpleasant Sugar Overload

Candy Bars

If you follow this blog at all, you’ll notice that it’s exceedingly rare that I give anything less than two out of four. I mean, it’s candy. How bad can it be?? Candy bars are like pizza; even when they’re bad, they’re still pretty good.

But there are exceptions, of course. Enter: Pal-O-Mine, an old-timey Canadian chocolate bar (the packaging proudly proclaims that it’s a “Ganong original since 1920”). How it’s managed to stick around for so long is a complete mystery to me.

It’s upsettingly sweet. It hurt my teeth and burned my throat. It gave me a mild pain behind my eyes, which basically never happens. I had to eat a pickle after just to cleanse my palate of the overriding sugariness. It’s sweet.

The wrapper describes it as “fudge & peanuts,” and I guess you can taste a mild peanutty flavour if you really concentrate, but mostly it’s just like eating pure sugar.

The soft fudge is covered in a fairly generous layer of dark chocolate, which you’d think would temper the sweetness a bit and bring the bar a nice chocolatey flavour — but it accomplishes neither of those things. It’s lost in the tidal wave of sweetness.

You know those really bottom-of-the-barrel boxes of chocolate you can get at the dollar store? The kind that makes Pot of Gold look gourmet in comparison? That’s what Pal-O-Mine reminded me of. It’s just soft and sweet and unpleasant. If you’re a real sugar fiend maybe it’ll do something for you, but otherwise there’s a reason you’ve likely never heard of it.

Manufactured by: Ganong
Nutritional info (2 pieces, 55 grams): 210 calories, 6 grams of fat (3.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 5 mg of cholesterol, 10 mg of sodium, 39 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fibre, 33 grams of sugar, 1 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugars (sugar, yellow sugar, glucose, lactose), dark chocolate (sugar, chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, milk fat, soy lecithin, vanilla flavour), milk ingredients, peanuts, salt, dried egg white (egg white, citric acid, baker’s yeast), natural and artificial flavour.

November 19, 2020January 10, 2021 Michael

Aero Dark Chipotle Truffle – A Nice Combo of Sweet and Spice

Candy Bars, Chocolate

Spicy chocolate is an odd combo that can be off-putting if done poorly. Done right, however, and the spiciness adds a nice warm heat that compliments dark chocolate surprisingly well.

I honestly didn’t think Aero could pull it off, but hey, what do you know — they did it.

The chipotle truffle part of the bar doesn’t have a ton of flavour — there’s a mild floral heat, but for the most part, the bar tastes of dark chocolate with a bonus spicy kick. The level of spice is mostly just a mild tingle; you don’t even notice it at first. It’s there, but it’s subtle enough that it never gets in the way or makes the bar taste gimmicky.

And the dark chocolate is quite tasty; it’s on the sweeter side (the sweetness is likely amped up by the milk chocolate interior, which complements the dark quite well), but it has a deep chocolatey flavour that’s quite satisfying. As for the texture, the snappy exterior and the classic Aero bubbliness is a delightful combo.

Manufactured by: Nestle
Nutritional info (8 segments, 40 grams): 230 calories, 15 grams of fat (9 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg of cholesterol, 15 mg of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 2 gram of fibre, 17 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugar, unsweetened chocolate, modified milk ingredients, cocoa butter, cocoa powder, modified palm oil, soy lecithin, natural flavour, polyglycerol polyricinoleate, annatto extract, paprika extract.