"chocolate bars" news and stories

What happens when you get a world-renowned pastry chef and chocolatier to do a taste test with mass-produced chocolate bars? New York Magazine got François Payard to participate in a blind tasting of 14 nationally available chocolates. And while this test isn't completely recent, having taken place over a year ago, it's still interesting to see how your own personal preferences stack up to those of a pro.

The candy bars tasted were Dove Milk Chocolate, Hershey's Milk Chocolate, Caramello, Ferro Rocher, Nestle Crunch, York Peppermint Patties, Junior Mints, Snickers, Baci, Cadbury Dairy Milk, M&Ms (a rather obvious entry, easily identified), Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Toblerone and Kit Kats.

While a few garnered a "terrible" rating, like Hershey's and Ferro Rocher, Payard liked Dove, Caramello, Nestle Crunch and Snicker's. I still like Junior Mints and York Peppermint Patties, whether they have an "artificial" quality or not. Payard's favorite was the Baci, which he deemed to be "the most delicious" of all the chocolates he tasted. How did your favorite do?

[Thanks Anna!]

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The Seattle PI held an informal bakeoff that pitted three types of chocolate against each other in a recipe for chocolate decadence cookies, which are so rich, they're basically brownies in cookie form. They used Nestle's Tollhouse chocolate chips, Baker's Chocolate and expensive Sharffen Berger chocolate.

Both the Nestle Tollhouse cookie and the Baker's beat out the high-end chocolate cookie.

Unfortunately, the whole article is approached with what sounds like complete disdain for anything other than the Sharffen Berger chocolate, which is a shame. The fact that it didn't win doesn't mean that the palates of the taste testers weren't sophisticated enough to like expensive chocolates over less expensive chocolates; it means that the testers didn't think Sharffen Berger in particular stacked up. Many people who love chocolate, even very dark chocolates, don't like the unusually bitter notes that are found in the SB chocolates. And for a cookie that has decadence in the name, very few people are going to prefer something that actually tastes bitter (not just bittersweet) over something that tastes rich, chocolaty and sweet.

All in all, the Sharffen Berger cookies were probably still very good, but this little bakeoff just reaffirms the fact that it doesn't really matter what kind of chocolate you use for baking. Save your expensive chocolate for eating on its own.

The Decadence Cookie recipe can be found here.

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KitKats have long been one of the top-selling candy bars in Britain since their inception in 1935 by Rowntree LTD. The brand has been owned by Nestle since 1988, and Nestle increased its global distribution, making it one of the most popular candies in the world. To appeal to different tastes in different markets, Nestle has been producing flavored KitKats for many years now. These have enjoyed great success, particularly in Asian and Australian markets. The Wikipedia entry lists more than 65 different flavors of KitKat.

After having success elsewhere, Nestle turned to these limited edition and exotic flavors in the UK, with releases that ranged from strawberries and cream to mango to "Christmas pudding" all over the course of one year. They flopped. And not only did the flavors not sell, but KitKat sales in general fell by almost 17%. Galaxy bars saw an 11% increase in the same time period, largely making up the deficit in the number of bars sold.

The problem was that the bars were "not what [people] expected" from KitKats and the novelty wasn't enough to sustain sales. People purchased the flavored bars and lost interest in them, as well as being slightly turned off the original because the market was so saturated with KitKats. The flavors have been discontinued and the company is going to refocus on making up lost ground.

Hershey's, which owns the rights to the candy bar in the US, has released very few limited edition flavors, sticking primarily to white chocolate and dark chocolate. The company is unlikely to try a wide variety of flavors in the US because candy bar sales are not nearly as strong as in the UK. The company is, however, planning a caramel KitKat towards the end of this year.

[via WSJ]

Ghirardelli has been making delicious dark chocolates since the company opened more than 150 years ago, but to meet growing consumer demand, they have introduced some new, gourmet chocolates. Intense Dark Gourmet Chocolate Bars are blends of unique Ghirardelli dark chocolate with new flavors and varying cocoa contents, designed to appeal to a wide variety of chocolate lovers. The four flavors include:

Twilight Delight - 72% cacao smooth dark chocolate
Citrus Sunset - 60% cacao dark chocolate with orange and caramel crunch
Espresso Escape - 60% cacao dark chocolate with finely ground espresso beans
Toffee Interlude - 42% cacao dark chocolate with toffee and carmelized almonds

Ghirardelli hosted an event with chocolate experts including Alice Medrich and Elizabeth Faulkner to determine the best food and drink pairings with these chocolates, all of which can be viewed here. My favorite suggestion is to pair Espresso Escape with marshmallows to make "adult" s'mores. Yum! The 3.5 ounce bars should be in stores around the country by now, but I have only seen them online so far.

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