Candy Bar Lab

Heath Bars were easily one of my top three candy bars as a kid, along with Snickers and Twix. For me though, it’s best form was in Ben & Jerry’s Heath Bar Crunch. Unfortunately, I don’t believe they make that stuff anymore, but I can still have a plain old Heath Bar like this one whenever I have a craving.

Structure
A thin slab of toffee enrobed in milk chocolate.

Texture
The toffee is crunchy and brittle. You’ll notice that the chocolate doesn’t quite stick to the toffee, so there’s a tendency for it to want to break off if you don’t commit to biting firmly through the bar.

Taste
Toffee is such a magical taste. It’s pretty much caramelized sugar and butter. In fact, that’s exactly what it is, so it’s no surprise that it tastes good. Combined with milk chocolate - even less than stellar Hershey’s brand - toffee is even more magical. I could pretty much eat Heath Bars all day and not get sick of the flavor.

Verdict
I’ll admit that I’m completely biased about the Heath bar. There was no way I wasn’t going to give this a thumbs up. I’ve been enjoying these things for a couple of decades and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.

The last Lake Champlain bar I tasted was absolutely one of the best candy bars I’ve ever had. Sadly, it’s been a while since I’ve had any of their products. Recently, I stopped at the Lake Champlain Chocolates store in Stowe, VT and was inspired to test out this peppermint bar.

Structure
A molded bar of dark chocolate with small pieces of peppermint pieces mixed in, segmented into eight large squares.

Texture
The chocolate is perfectly tempered - smooth with a firm snap. Unfortunately, the peppermint bits they’ve added don’t improve upon the texture of the plain chocolate. They’re small, hard, and not really all that delightful to bite into.
Taste
Again, the chocolate is really good and the peppermint disappoints. This is only a 54% cocoa product, which is a low percentage for dark chocolate, but right in the range that I prefer. It’s not overly sweet and not too bitter. As far as the peppermint pieces I mentioned, they disappoint because they don’t really add much flavor. There’s a hint of peppermint on the finish, but not nearly enough to live up to the billing of the packaging, which lead me to believe that peppermint was going to be the main flavor character.

Verdict
A bad candy bar by Lake Champlain Chocolates would be a huge accomplishment for some other manufacturers. Honestly though, I really didn’t enjoy this candy bar. I did like the chocolate, but would have preferred it either without the peppermint all together or with more peppermint punch built in.

The Chokito immediately reminded me of the Freia Peanøtt Kubbe, except instead of peanuts, this version has rice crisps. Since the Kubbe is one of my favorite candy bars ever, I had high hopes for the Chokito.

Structure
An inner core of caramel fudge surrounded by rice crisps and enrobed in chocolate.

Texture
The caramel fudge center is firm, but soft enough to easily bite through and it doesn’t stick to your teeth. I would compare it most closely to the inside of a 3 Musketeers, except not quite as soft. The relatively large rice crisps provide a nice texture complement and the chocolate binds everything together well. The whole product is perfectly balanced texturally.

Taste
The flavor of the Chokito was a huge letdown. Specifically, the caramel fudge center tasted really artificial. If you’ve ever had the low calorie, Skinny Cow brand caramel ice cream cones, it tasted like the fake caramel in those. Unfortunately, neither the flavorless rice crisps or the sub-par tasting Nestlé chocolate could help make up for the odd flavor of the caramel fudge.

Verdict
The Chokito should be a great candy bar. Texturally, it’s fantastic and all of the ingredients really should taste good together. For some reason though, they don’t.