"mariebelle" news and stories

One of the reasons that Archie Comics have been popular for more that half a century is that the characters had a simple, recognizable look that readers - past and present - know and love. It was created by Dan DeCarlo, known for his pin-up drawings as well as for his cartooning, in the 1950s. Unfortunately, their poorly-drawn new look could very well kill the long running series. Whether you read the comic now or read it at some time in the past, it is clearly the end of an era and worth a moment of silence.

To get your fix of the pinup look, you'll have to look elsewhere - like at chocolate bars. MarieBelle has an entire line of pin-up girl chocolate bars. There are 12 designs to choose from and each is available in milk (35% cacao) or dark (60% cacao) chocolate. The smooth chocolate is stamped with the MarieBelle logo underneath the wrapper.

Update: Apparently, the characters (via Betty's "blog") don't like the makeover either. Hopefully they'll stick with the old designs.

Source

Mariebelle's new Iced Aztec Chocolate has been getting a lot of press lately, which is not surprising given that it is a product from the chocolatier famous for their wonderfully rich Aztec Hot Chocolate. Finding a way to make hot chocolate into a summertime drink takes some ingenuity - or does it?

Apparently not.

It turns out that the new drink still has to be prepared with boiling water to fully dissolve the chocolate before being combined with ice. This is somewhat disappointing because the very name suggests that "iced chocolate" might be able to start and finish cold, with no heating required. With no further explanation on their site, this seems to indicate that it is simply a repackaging of their standard product with some new instructions. At least they didn't raise the price with the repackaging ($22/ 20-oz), but don't feel the need to rush out and try this if you already have some of the hot chocolate mix in your cupboard.

Source

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.