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!!!!

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Fiore Sardo Aged Cheese 1lb

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Easter Jordan Almonds

I like Jordan Almonds. Mostly because I love almonds. And hey, a candy coating can only make things better in my book! I didn't realize they were a big Easter/springtime treat until this year. Not that I've been laying awake at night contemplating this. But anyway.....

Here are all the ones I could find and unlike the malted milk balls, every assortment has slightly different colors:

Harry and David had the weirdest colors, but all these were slightly different. And here is what I think of all the different offerings:

These are by CVS:

I think they have them all the time as part of their candy collection. They were hard as rocks. No good.

These are by Target:

These tasted more like sugar than almonds and were the smallest of the bunch. I guess there are some almonds in there. Maybe.

These were from The Chocolate Bear:

These had delicious, big almonds with a great, light coating. Much softer than the CVS rocks. YUM!

These are by Jelly Belly:

And they were the only ones that seemed to have some kind of flavor in the candy coating. I didn't care for that - it was like a weird aftertaste. Yuck!

These are Harry and David's:

and they have a great almond taste. These are enhanced by the candy coating, not overwhelmed by it. But they are not quite as soft and good as those from The Chocolate Bear.

These Medicis are truly in a league of their own:

I bought them at Williams-Sonoma and they are amazing. The sugar coating is very thin and they have GIANT almonds. The back of the box reads: "When Catherine de Medicis married the future King Henry II of France in 1533, her chefs dazzled wedding guests with these sweet, crunchy confections. They are slender Lerida almonds from Spain enclosed in a very thin sugar shell. The classic assortment in pastel colors (made at Easter - every other time I've gotten them, they have been white) is made at the family-owned Confiserie de Medicis, a French confectionery named for the legendary queen."

How cool is that?

This was really interesting to me - I had no idea there would be that much difference among the different offerings:

And you know what? Once you have the Medicis the others really pale in comparison. (Hell, they've been working on those things for 477 years - they outta be good!) The ones from The Chocolate Bear were second best and were MUCH better than all the others, but the Medicis are truly amazing. If you love Jordan Almonds, you owe it to yourself to try these. Wow!!!

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