A Billion Almonds Died for You

I hope everyone had a great Easter! (I really hope you all had some good candy!) I still have some Easter treats to blog about, so just think of them as spring candies.

At Valentine's Day I found these marzipan hearts (if you didn't know, marzipan is made mostly of sugar and almond meal which sounds kind of creepy, but I like almonds and sugar, so...):



I really liked the "white" hearts (these are the color of plain marzipan), didn't like the red hearts. They had some kind of funky flavor that wasn't so good. But the white ones were really good, so at Easter I thought I'd get some more marzipan.

These look pretty festive and they are by the same company - Biermann Marzipan. You can see their website http://www.marzipancandies.com/:

See how brightly colored they can be but still be the marzipan color on the inside?

The verdict? Bleech. Not so good. I don't know if it's the coloring or the lack of chocolate. But these were not so good. Don't waste your time or your calories.

These are by Bissinger's:

Pretty gorgeous, huh?

These were better, but I still don't really like them. I mean, they are okay, but I would soooooo much rather have about 1 million other candies. Hell, I'd rather have just plain ol' almonds.

These were in the L.A. Burdick Kids Box:

Marzipan eggs and a carrot! These were tiny and were very good. But I just have to admit that marzipan is not really my favorite.

I like its texture, it seems to hold shapes and colors well, but eh....

How adorable is this?

Look how beautiful and delicate this is! I bought it at The Chocolate Bear but it's made by Blue Ridge Chocolates:

Those are marzipan eggs:

and they are good! Maybe because the ingredients are just almonds, honey and sugar. And the chocolate was delicious too! Can you see that it's both dark (the base and vertical twigs) and milk? This is a beautiful and delicious creation. Bravo!!!!

Niederegger, a German company, makes some great looking chocolate covered marzipan treats. These eggs come in assorted flavors: pineapple, apple, orange, espresso, caramel croquant, and pistachio.

Here's a milk chocolate and a dark chocolate egg:

This is milk chocolate and apple:

Yucko! I'm just not an apple and chocolate fan. Unless it's a real, fresh apple.

This is dark chocolate and pineapple (pineapple again!):

This one was good!!

As far as the other flavors - dark chocolate and orange was bad, dark chocolate and pistachio was okay, dark chocolate and espresso was yucky, and milk chocolate and caramel croquant was FABULOUS!!!!!! Croquant is French for crisp and there are some nice little crispy bits in this one. If I could get only the caramel ones, I would buy these again. But all the other flavors weren't worth the calories, with the possible exception of pineapple.

These are just adorable:

So, so cute!!!! And coated in chocolate!!

But - eh, not so great. I'm really bummed about the whole marzipan experience.

I hoped this bar by Niederegger would be good, since the chocolate to marzipan ratio is so high:

I can tell the chocolate is good, but the marzipan didn't really add anything. I would have rather had just a chocolate bar. Or a peanut butter bar! Or caramel or nuts or......well, just about anything other than marzipan. Except apple - no apple.

The Milka bar is better:

Of all the marzipan bars, this is by far my favorite. I love the creamy, delicious dark chocolate. YUMMY!!!

I had high hopes for the Ritter Sport dark chocolate with marzipan bar:

It also comes in this baby version:

Disappointing - a funky aftertaste with this marzipan. The Milka bar destroys this one!!

This bar looked really good:

Until I opened it:

Um....cream? I don't think so. Maybe back in the 30s. Another argument for EXPIRATION DATES!!!!

So we have no idea if this might have been a good bar or not. Grrrr.........

This Lindt bar has pistachio with almond cream:

While I LOVE Lindt's creamy delicious chocolate, I found it overwhelmed the pistachio and the almond cream. I could hardly taste their flavors. So while this bar was good, it wasn't extraordinary.

These, however, ARE:

There's amaretto (almond flavored liqueur):

So creamy and flavorful with little bits of nuts - AMAZING!!

And pistacchio:

See the nuts? This was my least fav - but that's because I love almonds more than pistachios. These little eggs are FABULOUS!!

This is mandorla (almond):

Also creamy and nutty and delicious! These are just so, so good!!!

Godiva's assortment of eggs - milk, dark, almond butter and coconut:

Pretty! Shiny!

This is Godiva's almond butter egg. I still don't know why Godiva has to have all that space in the middle of their confections (and you all know how hard I am on them):

But these are actually pretty damn good! I really do love almonds. I'm so sad so many were turned into marzipan. I think we should have a moment of silence.

Godiva also filled this gorgeous egg with their little eggs:





Isn't that a beautiful thing? I love that - I'll keep the pretty egg for next year and eat all the chocolate eggs this year. YAY!!! So you can actually have your egg and eat it too!

Bwah, ha, ha!!!!

More Easter Peanut Butter!!

I really do have the greatest job in the world. I was giving my "Motivation by Chocolate" seminar for the leadership team in the Town of Waynesville, NC on Tuesday, and they told me I HAD to check out the chocolate shop on Main Street. It's called The Chocolate Bear and it was fabulous. Love their logo:

And their packaging:

And I HAD to score a bunch of their great chocolates (more to come). I just wish I'd had my camera with me - the place was beautifully decorated. The cute lady working there told me that she and the owner were both interior designers and you could tell. Hopefully, the town will bring me back out to speak and I'll snag some pics for you all. But until then, the chocolates will have to speak for themselves.

They carry the creations of local chocolatiers and bakers and also order from large companies, so they have quite an amazing assortment. Like this festive and gigantic peanut butter cup:

Or what I THOUGHT was a festive and gigantic peanut butter cup:

It's not - it's a fudge cup. I hate to say it, but if I had known this (I swear the sign said peanut butter) I wouldn't have gotten it. I have nothing against fudge - and this is good fudge. It just doesn't rock my world. (Maybe if it were peanut butter fudge!) This is just plain ol' soft chocolate fudge encased in a milk chocolate cup. I'm sad about this. : (

I hope I fair better with the rest of their treats. It's not like they were cheap - the "I Wish It Was Peanut Butter Cup" cost more than $6.00!!

Here are my typical favs in the peanut butter egg department in their standard size:

This was the first time I'd seen this packaging. Last year King Size was one giant egg:

These were broken and a bit melted when I opened them, but they are still beautiful to me.

I like the white chocolate too, although I prefer the milk. The white is just a tad too sweet, the milk - perfection. But don't get crazy - I wouldn't turn down a white chocolate Reese's Egg!! What do you prefer? White or milk?

Breathtaking:

Okay, Palmer is in the house! They have both an egg assortment (peanut butter with dark chocolate coated coconut cream and butter cream - we'll see them in a future post):

and a clear rip off of the Reese's packaging and colors:

All these chocolate companies are shameless when it comes to ripping off the ideas of their competitors. At least Palmer added a little yellow flower on top:

Well, the Palmer PB Egg can't hold a candle to the Reese's PB Egg. Much too much, too thick, waxy Palmer chocolate. Bummer - I was kind of rooting for them. Palmer's PB seems to be creamier in their smaller eggs (which makes no sense to me, but it is what it is). These are not worth it at all. Stick with Reese's.

Look at these from Trader Joe's:

There are three individually wrapped eggs in the box - roughly the size of the standard Reese's egg. They have a little flower design on them:

Now here's a weird thing, when I made my first autopsy cut - I saw no peanut butter - just chocolate!

I had to cut again further down the egg. This does not bode well for my obsessive love of peanut butter:

Boo! These are totally lame! I love Trader Joe's PB cups, so I thought these would be delish. Nope - not peanut buttery at all. If you just want a chocolate egg with a slightly peanut buttery center - these would be perfect for you. The chocolate is good, don't get me wrong, but why bother involving peanut butter if you are going to overwhelm it? Boo again!!

Across the street from The Chocolate Bear was a Mast General Store. I LOVE Mast General Stores! They are the coolest old timey general stores and they have a kickin' candy section. This peanut butter egg came in a completely generic wrapper and there is no company or website listed anywhere. So we have no clue who made these:

Cute dancing bunny:

And pretty good looking peanut butter too:

This egg was exactly as it looks - great peanut butter and a pretty decent chocolate. Still too thick a chocolate shell in my book, but much better than either Palmer or Trader Joe's.

This is a Lamme's (remember them from my Texas trip?) peanut butter egg:

I knew I was going to be in trouble when the damn thing was hard to cut:

Peanut butter and chocolate are not supposed to be hard. (Look at my poor melted and cracked Reese's Egg - this stuff is soft!) This one looks good in the picture - good peanut butter to chocolate ratio, but it's crappy. Damn - these are so disappointing!! (And I bought two at $2.75 each at A Southern Season!) It was the weight that fooled me - they are kind of heavy and I thought - "Oh yum - these are packed with peanut butter!" Yeah - freakin' rock hard peanut butter. Where's the Fairy Bunny when you need him? Or her. Or it.

I know, I know. I keep going back to Russell Stover. I just can't walk away. It's like how I keep going back to those bad guys. Speaking of which, Afghanistan Man called me again last week. To remind me our first date two bloody years ago was on Easter Sunday. And to tell me how great I am and then to disappear again. I hate men and right now I'm hating these candy companies for wasting so much peanut butter!

Well, the picture doesn't look so bad....

How can it be so tasteless? Is it really this hard to work with peanut butter? This must be a peanut butter cream (although it doesn't say that on the label. Creams are so much fluffier and lighter, maybe that's it.) Why do I think Russell Stover won't let me down just like these bad boys I keep going out with? When will I learn from my mistakes and realize that people (and candy makers) just don't change. At least this only cost me 49 cents.

This egg is different from the others in that it has crisped rice:

Can you see it in there?

This egg looks great - it even has a great texture. But the peanut butter is still kind of tasteless. These are made by Sanders Candy (you will see in a future post that they also make Pecan Titans which are God awful.) I think you want to keep eating this egg because it's thick and fluffy and the rice crisps make the texture interesting. But the taste is totally boring. Not worth the calories. Tricky, tricky!!

Let's see some giant eggs:

This is by my poor beat up standard Reese's Egg for scale:

Look at all that delicious Reese's Chocolate:

This egg is so damn good it should be illegal! The only slight drawback is that to make it this big and have it stay together the chocolate base is very thick - it kind of comes apart when you try to eat it. But, let's face it - this thing is awesome!! It reminds me of the world's largest Reese's Cups (reviewed many posts ago) which my friends and I could NOT stop eating.) Maybe Reese's puts some kind of addictive substance in their products. Oh yeah - they do - it's PEANUT BUTTER!

See's has peanut butter eggs:

Like the PB to chocolate ratio:

And See's peanut butter actually has some taste! This is their biggest peanut butter egg:

Look at the size of that monster! Here's the deal though - while See's peanut butter has somewhat of a peanut buttery taste and there is plenty of it, it's not as salty as the Reese's peanut butter. There's is just something about that Reese's peanut butter that is so damn good! But I'll say that See's is the second best. In fact, I'll say that See's and Reese's are the only ones worth eating.

I also found this egg in Mast General Store and it's by Canipes Chocolates and Candies in Myrtle Beach, SC. Maybe that's where the dancing bunny egg came from too. Who knows? Yet another Easter mystery. I love the pretty box:

And look at the size of this thing!

I even put the standard egg on top so you could see the size!

It weighs 8 ounces and if you can imagine a decent size potato - that what this is like. A chocolate and peanut butter potato. This one really is a peanut butter cream egg - and it is WAY too rich for me. It's more like fudge or frosting - which I might normally go for, but not where peanut butter is concerned. Way too sweet and too egg whitey - not peanut buttery enough.

These are totally not Easter candy, but I just found them and want to go ahead and see what they've got to offer. They are the only two PB & J candy bars I've seen:

Okay - this doesn't look so great:

Uh-oh - I'm not a big fan of the whole jellied raspberry thing (see that bottom layer):

The raspberry totally overpowers the peanut butter. There are also crushed potato chips in here (kinda cool, huh? They give it a great texture and up the saltiness factor.). It actually seems like it could be pretty good, but there's just too damn much raspberry. Maybe if the raspberry were reduced by half. Or added in a different consistency - more like a filling than in that scary jellied state.

When I saw this on Bissinger's web site, I had to get it:

Pretty, isn't it?

And I'll be damned if it doesn't taste like peanut butter and jelly! It's really kind of eerie - I thought it would be much more chocolately. It's not something I would really crave, but it is a work of art and of tasting genius. The raspberry (raspberry jelly in this one too - my PB & Js were always made with grape jelly) is the stronger taste here too, but it works much better. I am so surprised!

Yay for Reese's, little yay for See's, and big fat BOO for everyone else (except for Bissinger's P B & J). More Easter candy to come!!! Marzipan, coconut, caramel --- good grief - I need a few more days! Maybe if I pray to the Fairy Bunny......