Showing posts with label cherry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cherry. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Chocolate Cream Eggs

Ah - the cream egg in all its variations! We have to start with the most beloved, classic Cadbury Egg - first in its standard size:



And then in the mini size:





I swear I thought the "yolks" used to be more yellow, but that might just be a childhood memory/delusion:


What can I say?  These are awesome - the chocolate is that delicious, creamy Cadbury chocolate.  The filling is a little bit rich for me, but they are good.  I find the little ones are a lot easier to eat - the big one is just too much.  But, hey - they rule the creme egg category rule and I don't think Cadbury should change a thing!

Russell Stover continues to suck.  The chocolate can't even come close to Cadbury's and this strawberry cream has little strawberry taste - just sweet and fluffy rather than creamy (like Cadbury).  Kinda gross:









The raspberry - in dark chocolate rather than milk, but still in that thin, crummy RS chocolate was better:








Better because the dark chocolate offsets the super sweetness of the "whip" and the raspberry taste was stronger than the strawberry.  But not something very good.

This was the worst of the three - just way too sweet (and the chocolate is not so good):









Of course, RS is better than Palmer because while their chocolate can't hold a candle to Cadbury's, it's way better than Palmer's.  I didn't even try these - the chocolate is so thick and so bad, no filling can save it:



But the flower is cute!

Sorry, Palmer.





These Kisses are special for Easter/spring and are buttercreme:





You all know I tend to really like Hershey's Kisses. But these I do not like. I do not like them, when I dream, I do not like the buttercreme. They have a kind of weird flavor to me - I guess I don't like buttercreme. The chocolate overpowers the weird taste after a minute, but why go there at all? I wouldn't waste my time with these if I were you. Sooooo many better options.

See's has a ton of eggs at Easter (last year they sent me some to review).  I wanted to try some I hadn't so I got this little egg assortment:



This one is chocolate butter:



I thought it was kind of dry.  Basically this is chocolate fudge covered in chocolate.  It really didn't do much for me.

This one is vanilla chip:


I thought this one was kind of dry too.  The filling was like vanilla fudge with some chocolate chips (which I thought would be good) but it wasn't.  Think dried out fudge - not so good.

This is Bordeaux:



This was the best of the three and Bordeaux is kind of like a brown sugar fudge coated in chocolate. 

See's has tons of larger eggs - these are sightly less than twice the size of a real egg.  The chocolate butter in the larger egg has walnuts:







And while I MUCH prefer this egg with the walnuts, it just doesn't blow me away.  For some reason all these eggs were kind of dry - dried out fudge is just no good.  The Bordeaux eggs were not dry, though.  Another mystery.

This is the big version of Bordeaux:



I like the addition of the sprinkles:





But, at the end of the day, this just doesn't do it for me.  Butter cream and brown sugar is too rich and sweet, I'd rather have peanut butter or caramel.

I haven't had great luck with Sanders in the past, but this egg surprised me:








I like maple and this had a great maple flavor with little bits of pecan coated in dark chocolate.  It's VERY rich though - like maple pecan fudge. 

As usual, this sucked:





Fluffy, sugary, vaguely mapley stuff inside a thin layer of crappy chocolate.  Glack!

Sanders also had a dark chocolate cherry egg:






But it wasn't very good - not much cherry taste.  The dark chocolate overpowered what little cherry flavor there was.  Not so good.

This is my favorite of all the creme eggs - See's Mayfair:









Hunks of cherry and pecans and wrapped in dark chocolate - I love this egg!  For me, all these flavors and textures work wonderfully together.  It is really delicious!!

I have to confess, after this, I'm just not buying anymore butter cream eggs.  They are too rich and kind of creep me out.  I do not like them in a box, I do not like them in my socks, I do not like them in a jar, I do not like them in my car, I'd rather have a chocolate bar.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Frequent Chocolate Flyer Programs

As I've mentioned earlier, I am a sucker for coupons. And I am the dream shopper for the designers of frequent flyer programs for chocolate lovers.

But, I gotta tell you, Lindt's program is WAY better than Godiva's. For example, today I stopped by Godiva because after my big expenditure at Easter I got a free two piece box and my free chocolate (you get one a month).

Of course, their plan works well, because I usually buy something when I'm in there. This is my free stuff (gold box and heart marzipan) and the stuff I bought for $10:


A lot of their new spring flavors are fruit - mango and peach and pear, and I just didn't want to try them. I did get some new ones I'll review soon though. I was glad to hear that they thought the best Godiva egg was the almond butter - that's the one I liked so much. Always nice to have some back-up!


Then I went to Lindt and look at this haul!!! The entire back row - the giant bag of assorted Lindor truffles, the two bags of assorted Fiorettos (pralines with either a caramel, cappuccino or hazelnut nougat filling wrapped in crunchy crisp and Lindt milk chocolate), and one of the bars were free! Now THAT'S a rewards program! Get on this, chocolate lovers! Also Lindt gives you free samples just for going in - Godiva gives you one a month if you have their rewards card. I got all this for $37. I LOVE LINDT!!!


That's a bag full of those hazelnut filled ladybugs on the left and behind it is another bag with ten pieces of assorted chocolates. Who's my daddy? Lindt!!


Since we just reviewed every chocolate cherry thing under the sun - I thought I'd review their cherry bar:



This was good, but not as good as my fav, the Perugina chocolate covered cherry. I like it when there's some cherry in there, not just the liquid.

But damn, I love that chocolate!!!!!

And remember marzipan, which for the most part I didn't like? Well, this is marzipan as it should be done from Godiva:










The dark chocolate was thick enough to really enhance the flavor and this marzipan was good - has a rich almond flavor with no weird after taste. I gotta give Godiva credit for this one - completely delicious.

Oh - those little Lindt eggs in pistachio and amaretto and mandorla that I loved? All sold out very fast - they were a huge hit. So I'm doing pretty good at picking the winners! Of course, I'm sure I've picked a few dogs only I love. ; )

I can't tell you how much fun I have with the Lindt employees at Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh - they are so much fun every time I go in and are so excited about their products. Joy and enthusiasm and fun really are contagious - make sure you're a carrier! And sign up for these rewards programs - there's free chocolate waiting for you!