Every election year, different bakeries and candy makers come out with party or candidate-identified treats. They conduct their own, unscientific straw polls, in an attempt to determine what the outcome of the election will be. While elections won't be won or lost over sweet confections, they do add an element of fun to your convention or election return parties.

Famed chocolatier Jacques Torres has thrown his hat into the election-themed chocolates this year, with a pair of white chocolate lollipops. They are available with either a blue donkey for the Dems or a red and blue elephant for the GOP. The back of the blue pops are printed with the slogan "Barack the Vote," the others cheer that "Mac is Back." They run $5 a pop and are hand crafted with some of the tastiest, citrus-infused white chocolate around. They'd make a great election time gift for your favorite policy wonk.

Guess the politicians' favorite foods!

I'll admit I haven't gotten into too many different brands of chocolate beyond Hershey's. Well, OK, I love Lindt and Ghiradelli, but those are the mainstream (yet terrific) gourmet chocolates. I'm talking about the more exotic chocolate pleasures that many of us don't try. Here are some gift ideas for the chocoholic on your list who might want to try something a little bit different.

Vosges has a rather intriguing selection of chocolates, brownies, cakes, and ice creams. At first I thought it was some sort of art site or perhaps a fashion site. Godiva has some nice baskets and other gifts.

There are a lot of people who, as a general rule, eschew baking mixes. After all, why use a boxed mix when you can do it yourself and produce a better result? This standard may hold true when it comes to the average inexpensive store-bought cake mix, but there is a wide range of high quality, gourmet mixes available now that produced baked goods that will rival not only homemade things, but those from pro bakeries, as well. In fact, many of the mixes are coming from these pros to begin with. Jacques Torres has recently launched a line of baking mixes for several of his most popular chocolate treats: Pure Bliss Brownies, French Kiss Cookies, and Mudslide Cookies. The mixes are made in conjunction with King Arthur Flour and contain all the necessary basics for replicating the chocolatier's favorite treats at home, including a lot of chocolate. They retail for $12.95 each.

I sampled the end results all of the mixes at the SF Fancy Foods Show a few weeks ago, and while all three were excellent, the chocolate-filled chocolate chip French Kiss Cookies were probably my favorite. If you want to give one of them a try from scratch as a comparison, you can find the recipe for Jacques Torres's Mudslides here.

Still looking for some chocolaty Valentine's Day gift ideas? Why not try some kisses? We're not talking about Hershey's Kisses, although they are offering plenty of Valentine's themed candies, including Chocolate Truffle-filled kisses and Cherry Cordial Creme kisses. We're talking about upmarket kisses from Jacques Torres.

This Valentine's Day, Jacques Torres is offering a lot of sweet treats for lovers. In his stores, the offerings will include Jolie Kiss Chocolate Boxes (pictured) which are hollow kisses in dark, milk and white chocolate filled with chocolate X's, O's, hearts and mini kisses. He will also have Champagne Kiss Truffles, which are made with Taittinger Rosé champagne and chocolate ganache, then topped with a pink lip graphic. For those doing their shopping online, the Champagne Kiss truffles can also be purchased here.

Other, non-kiss treats include heart-shaped boxes filled with romance bonbons and other lovely truffles, three types of body butters - Love Tonic, Caramel Body Butter, and Raspberry Body Paint - to share with your significant other, and a huge basket called the Sweetheart collection for those who can't narrow down their options.

This box of chocolates is from master chocolatier Jacques Torres' Chocolate Factory in New York. It is a heart shape that holds a wonderful assortment of delicious chocolates and will reveal a hidden Mother's Day message, once the chocolates have all been eaten. The pieces marked "XOXO" and the bottom "v" of the heart-shape are custom-molded pieces of solid chocolate and the bon bon collection is an assortment of some of Torres' best sellers, including (but not limited to):

• Alizé Hearts of Passion - A creamy milk chocolate ganache center accented with a splash of Alize and real passion fruit
• Liquid Caramel - A creamy milk chocolate filled with a unique center with a rum twist
• Almondine - Crushed, candied almonds bound together by dark chocolate
• Chocolate Mint Tea - Milk chocolate ganache steeped with premium mint tea, surrounded by more milk chocolate

The box costs $42, not including shipping. And the secret message?

"The only thing I love more than chocolate is my mom!"

Though it may be a touch to late to order for Valentine's Day unless you live near a purveyor of fine chocolates, I have never yet heard of someone refusing to accept a belated Valentine's Day box of chocolates – particularly not if it is an exceptionally good box. Consumer Reports published ratings of their best chocolates picks, ranked into categories of excellent, very good, good and fair. Among those receiving Excellent ratings were Candinas and Jacques Torres, followed closely in the Very Good category by confections from Frans Chocolates, Godiva, Leonidas Chocolate and See's.

Every time I see See's Candies ranked lower than some other chocolate makers - though I do like the choices that CR has made here - I can't help but feel that it is because they are both widely available (here on the West Coast, anyway) and reasonably priced. Their products are excellent and, unlike some "higher end" confections, are sure to be a hit with anyone you given them to, since they mainly stick with classic flavors instead of following the arbitrary whims of flash-in-the-pan taste trends. They may not have curried truffles, but their caramels and buttercreams are definately the way to any candy-lover's heart.

In the newest issue of Real Simple, the magazine's taste-testers turned their taste buds to hot chocolate mixes. They compared over 40 varieties of hot cocoas and hot chocolates. Hot chocolates typically have real pieces of chocolate in addition to cocoa powder in them, while hot cocoas are sweetened cocoa. They broke the competitors down into categories by price and picked their winners.

In the under $5 category, the milk chocolaty Land o'Lakes Classics Supreme was the top choice, followed by Swiss Miss Chocolate Sensation, both of which you should be able to find at your local supermarket. In the $10-15 dollar range, Godiva's Dark Chocolate Truffle ranked supreme, followed by the dark and intense Schokinag Extreme Dark. For the bigger spenders, Jacques Torres Wicked, a spicy mixture with chocolate, ancho and chipotle peppers, ranked highest in the over $15 category, followed by Mariebelle Aztec.

Now, if only they'd have a marshmallow testing.