Chocolatepalooza: Starbucks Caramel Brûlé, Pretzel M&M’s, Cadbury Crispy Crunch

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Hannah

I’m eating so many wonderful (sweet) things here in California that I can’t see how I’ll ever write them all up. Particularly when I’m still plowing through reviews, restaurants, and recipes from my time in Toronto.

Maybe today’s chocolates don’t need to be written about. But, then again, I don’t necessarily want to only post about hard-to-find, expensive, artisanal, and/or fancypants treats, because heaven knows that neither money nor chocolate grows on trees. (Well, cacao pods do…)

Aaaaaand I just managed to drip pistachio gelato down my top. That may’ve been the universe telling me to stop complaining about having a surfeit of treats. Message received, universe. Message received.

Starbucks Caramel Brûlé Chocolate Bites

Firstly, Starbucks spelled “brûlé” in a way I’d never seen before, but Janet has informed me that it is, indeed, correct. Go you good thing, bilingual country!

Secondly, Starbucks spelled “natural” incorrectly. Unless “natrual flavours” are something new and exciting in the chocolate world?

Thirdly, these “milk and dark chocolate surrounding a rich, creamy caramel” bites were pretty in a dappled way, with a caramel ice cream aroma.

Fourthly, the chocolate coating melted easily and the caramel inside was chewy, but initially completely lacked flavour.

Fifthly, no, I really mean that; I spent the first few seconds of every bite wondering why I could taste nothing despite knowing something was in my mouth.

Sixthly, a mild sweetness did emerge after a few chews, reminding me of Werther’s caramels with hints of butteriness.

Seventhly, these were disappointing and I wouldn’t buy them again. Actually, I wouldn’t even eat them again if offered for free. Life is too short to waste on chocolate that tastes predominantly of nothing.

Pretzel M&M’s

Larger than original M&M’s but far lighter when it comes to throwing and catching in one’s mouth, these Pretzel M&M’s were incredibly easy to eat.

The crackly sugar coating gave way to a thin layer of milk chocolate, together tasting like M&M’s. Yes, saying that is redundant, but what can I do? M&M’s have a particular taste, and thus M&M’s have a particular taste.

Beneath the chocolate lurked firm little nuggets of crunchy salty pretzel, thereby creating a fun salty-sweet-sugary-chocolatey-malty-toasty taste.

I hope peanut-butter-pretzel M&M’s are brought into existence next.

Cadbury Crispy Crunch

I’ve been craving Chick-O-Sticks like a fiend for months now.

Butterfingers are like Chick-O-Sticks covered in mockolate.

Cadbury Crispy Crunch(es) seem to be a Canadian version of Butterfingers.

Ergo I had to buy this candy bar.

With an aroma like roasted peanuts, then peanut brittle, then just a hint of sweet cocoa, I had high hopes for the peanutiness of this Cadbury Crispy Crunch bar.

It broke crisply, firmly, with the same peanut brittle-esque layers as inside a Butterfinger bar but less flaky, more solid.

Each bite was a tasty wallop of salt, caramel/burnt caramel, honeycomb, salted roasted peanuts, peanut butter, peanut brittle, nondescript unimportant milky chocolate, toffee sweetness, again salt, again roasted peanuts, again peanut brittle.

I want a Chick-O-Stick even more now.

Pumpkin Peanut Puff Pudding, Vegan and Gluten-free

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Hannah

At first glance, you may think that the above Pumpkin Peanut Puff Pudding is nothing more than an innocent sweet breakfast (or quick dessert) that ticks all the vegan, gluten-free, non-threatening, sweet yet healthful, delicious, moreish, and irresistible (particularly when topped with mini chocolate chips) boxes.

However, this breakfast/dessert is more than that. My peanut butter pumpkin pudding is a refutation, or perhaps proof positive (I haven’t quite decided yet), of Bourdieu’s theories of cultural capital and cultural hegemony, as defined and discussed in his seminal work La Distinction.

On the one hand, we have ingredients liked organic canned pumpkin, unsweetened vanilla almond milk, coconut flour, and mesquite powder, all of which can be classified as luxury goods available predominately to the cultural elite: those with the money, knowledge, and leisure time to be aware of, value, and have access to products (and “tastes”) classified by society as Healthful, Prestigious and [often thereby] Tied To Moral Virtue (“you are what you eat… and what you eat should by organic/local/ethical/healthy/virtuous”).

On the other hand, I threw in peanut butter-flavoured sugary kids’ cereal, blended it all up, and topped the resulting thick and creamy pudding with chocolate chips. Which is less in line with the Eat Only Homegrown Sprouted Polka-Dot Chickpeas And Foraged-By-The-Light-Of-A-Crescent-Moon Maqui Berries strain of cultural capital, and more, well, trashy, perhaps?

Of course, you’re more than welcome to simply call this recipe “delicious” and have that be that. It is, after all, a tasty and nourishing creation, with the nutty maltiness of the cereal, mesquite, and coconut flour combining well with the roundness of pumpkin and your chosen extract and sweetener.

But, see, sometimes I miss academic life and how it felt to thread together the theories of Bourdieu, Veblen, Baudrillard, and Foucault in such a way as to cast light on the way our world shudders and moves around us.

So I’m calling this my Capital Pudding. Because it is both capital (ol’ chum!) and potentially reflective of class capital.

Though I still haven’t decided whether it’s more high or low culture.

Pumpkin Peanut Puff Pudding, Vegan and Gluten-free

Original recipe
Serves 1

1/3 cup (heaping; 100g) pumpkin puree, canned or pureed
1/2 cup unsweetened vanilla almond milk, or any non-dairy milk
1/2 cup (heaping; 25g) Peanut Butter Panda Puffs, or similar peanut butter cereal (*cough Reese’s Puffs cough*)
1 tb coconut flour
1/4 tsp almond extract (or vanilla extract)
1/4 tsp mesquite powder (or cinnamon)
pinch salt
sweetener, to taste (coconut sugar, maple or agave syrup, or stevia)
chocolate chips, to garnish

1. Are you ready for this? PUREE EVERYTHING (except the chocolate chips) in a blender until gloriously smooth and thick. You can now enjoy this straightaway, or put in the fridge for an hour or so, at which point the pudding will thicken up gorgeously and you will be very happy. Garnish with chocolate chips before serving.

2. “Never resist a sentence you like, in which language takes its own pleasure and in which, after having abused it for so long, you are stupefied by its innocence.” - Jean Baudrillard, Cool Memories, Volume One.

Submitted to Ricki’s Wellness Weekend, Healthy Vegan Friday, Allergy-Friendly Lunchbox Love, and 5 Ingredient Monday.

Chocolatepalooza: Lindt Wasabi, Camino Almond, and Snickers Peanut Butter

Posted on April 28, 2013 by Hannah

Congratulations to Karen, the winner of my Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil Giveaway! I hope your home is filled with delicious joy upon receiving the jar of goodness.

It’s happening again. I’m eating chocolate at a rate that far outstrips the number of reviews I’m writing. You know what this means, don’t you? (No, Mum, it doesn’t mean I should replace every second chocolate bar with a sandwich.)

Chocolatepalooza time!

Lindt Excellence Wasabi Dark Chocolate

As a dedicated lover of all things spicy and hot (both in terms of chocolate and life in general), I snatched up several bars of this previously-unknown-to-me Lindt Excellence Wasabi Dark Chocolate as soon as I spotted it in a Toronto drugstore.

The aroma was strongly spicy, almost pungent, though more like horseradish than wasabi. (Yes, wasabi is a type of horseradish, but you know what I mean.)

The wasabi was just as present in the flavour as it was in the perfume, contributing a noticeably spicy, earthy, horseradish-y flavour to the dark chocolate’s buttery-caramel mellow sweetness.

There was even a little burn in my throat by the time I’d finished half the block in one sitting. Oh yes.

Camino 55% Dark Chocolate with Almonds

Camino’s Fair Trade, organic, and vegan dark chocolate with almonds appeared in the stocking that the wonderful Teresa, Lisa’s mum, gave me at Christmas. Teresa has provided amazing support to me here in Canada (in fact, she was instrumental in providing the contacts that led to my internship), and for this I will be forever grateful.

Just as I am always grateful for gifts of vegan chocolate.

The aroma of Camino’s chocolate was headily enticing, giving notes of toffee, hot fudge sundaes, and almond croissants in Parisian patisseries. The chocolate was firm but smooth, the almonds crispy, and the overall flavour spoke of tropical fruits and pear, malt and, again, toffee.

Lovely.

Snickers Peanut Butter

Um.

Well.

This happened.

Snickers Peanut Butter was purported to be (I guess it was) peanut butter nougat topped with a peanut butter layer and then a caramel layer, all covered in milk chocolate.

I thought to myself: “Surely this will be enjoyable. Yes, it’s mass-market candy made from likely terrible ingredients, but it’s all about peanut butter. How can that be bad?”

After eating both squares, I thought to myself: “That was not enjoyable. My heart is the colour of sad. How can so many different components coalesce into a flavour of nothingness? Why was every aspect of this bland? Where did I go wrong in my life?”

Note to self: dipping Lindt directly into peanut butter will always be a more satisfying experience than anything from the Snickers pantheon.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Coconut Squares, Vegan and No-Bake

Posted on April 7, 2013 by Hannah

I think there is a frenetic bumblebee stuck inside my chest. I think he is flying in circles around my sternum, breathless, whizzing, so fast as to be only a blur, so fast that even he, in his wild zooming, can’t be sure whether his movements are borne of excitement or terror.

I cannot feel still tonight. I can sit still, yes, but I cannot feel still. Something is coming. Change is coming. It is like the way the air smells before a thunderstorm hits on a stifling summer’s day: electric, fresh, new, dangerous. I am balanced on the balls of my feet, ready to spring, even as I sit here calmly, carefully, slowly typing these words.

I want to dance madly in the moonlight and I want to collapse in a giggling heap of limbs on a Twister mat at 3am and I want to play Catch and Kiss in an empty school playground after walking precariously across the monkey bars with hands out for balance and I want to stand on the edge of a cliff dizzily carolling echoes into the abyss and I want I want I want I want I don’t know but I feel and it’s coming and I want I want I want.

For now, I will calm the whirling inside with these vegan no-bake chocolate peanut butter coconut squares. Enticingly sweet dates, rich peanut butter, dark cocoa, thrumming vanilla, white-bright coconut. Dairy-free, gluten-free, sweet but not cloying, chewy and soft and perfect and beckoning.

I can almost pretend that these are all I want.

And yet, and yet, can’t you smell the storm whispering through the air?

Vegan No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Coconut Squares

Makes 12 – 16
Original recipe

1 cup (packed) Medjool dates, pits removed
1 cup peanut butter (I used salted; add a pinch or two of salt if yours isn’t)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup desiccated coconut, plus more to sprinkle

1. Line a 20cm/8inch square tin with baking paper, extending the paper over the sides for easy removal later.

2. Place the dates, peanut butter, vanilla extract, and cocoa powder into a food processor, and process until everything is fully combined into a smooth dough/batter.

3. Add the 1/3 cup of coconut, and pulse until mixed through.

4. Tip the dough into the tin, and press down firmly until the mixture is smooth and evenly compressed. Sprinkle additional coconut on top, as much as your heart desires, and then place in the freezer for about half an hour. Cut into squares and serve, or store in the fridge or freezer for later.

Submitted to Ricki’s Wellness Weekend, Healthy Vegan Friday, Raw Foods Thursdays, and Allergy-Friendly Lunchbox Love.

Canadian Snack Reviews: Hannah and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Snacks

Posted on March 10, 2013 by Hannah

It’s not always magic, laughter, and rainbows here in North American Snackworld. Sometimes it’s the opposite. Sometimes the storebought edibles I fall prey to can barely even be called “edibles”. But hey, you live and learn, right?

Well, you might. I think we all know I’ll keep buying ridiculous snacks regardless of how many times I’m bitten (not twice shy). After all, as even this post shows, there’s always a sugary light at the end of the tunnel.

Sticky Toffee Cheese.

The worst. The worst the worst the worst.

With an extra side of worsererness.

Dates and “toffee flavour” and golden syrup in waxy tangy cheese.

This is the kind of thing that makes me glad I’m lactose intolerant, and upset at myself for pretending I’m not while at the grocery store.

Did I mention this was the worst?

I am hurt. A plague o’ both your houses!

How is it possible for there to exist a peanut butter flavoured with honey that tastes neither of peanut butter nor honey? What kind of devil work is this? America, you can keep your Skippy peanut butter. I’ll be sticking with my country’s Skippy The Bush Kangaroo.

Okay, so these President’s Choice Gorgonzola Flavoured Mini Cheese Crackers weren’t terrible, per se. The first bite was quite nice, as I do love blue cheese. However, after two seconds of gorgonzola flavour, the crackers dissolved into a sweetish paste that reminded me of why I’ve never liked Ritz crackers.

Pass.

Kellogg’s Cinnamon Pops were borderline tasty, but more because they brought back memories of eating Corn Pops in the US in the early 90s than because I truly loved the flavour now.

However, this cereal does get points for teaching me the phrase “Pas de Pops sur mon gazon”. Now that’s bound to come in handy next time I visit France.

I wanted Chubby Hubby. I wanted peanut butter-filled chocolate-covered pretzels. Instead, I ended up with Ben & Jerry’s Caramel Hat Trick, which is described as Caramel Ice Cream with Swirls of Caramel & Fudge Covered Caramel Chunks.

Pretty good, initially, but then too sweet. I’m so pretentious these days; every time I have straight caramel, I end up wishing for Maldon sea salt flakes to sprinkle on top.

Ah, Cracker Jack. At least you never fail me. Ninja vegan caramel popcorn and peanuts with a name and mascot reminiscent of Gene Kelly in Take Me Out To The Ballgame and On The Town.

I could eat handfuls of Cracker Jack for always.

Wayfaring Chocolate

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