Candy Bar Lab

Vosges first caught my eye when I found their Bacon Chocolate Bar. It’s a bold concept for a candy bar, but not one I was going to try seeing as how I’m a vegetarian. The Barcelona Bar on the other hand is a fine substitute for me. It has sea salt and smoked almonds so it should have the smokey, crunchy, and salty properties of bacon.

Structure
A thin, “deep milk chocolate” bar chopped hickory smoked almonds and sea salt mixed in.

Texture
The milk chocolate is smooth and rich. The almonds are chopped really fine - about the same size as the large sea salt crystals. Between the two, they add a couple types of crunchiness that give the bar some textural interest. I also like how thin the bar is. It gives it a delicate feel that’s easy to bite through.

Taste
Wow, this was really delicious. The 45% cacao chocolate is deep and rich and there’s quite a bit of sea salt. I’m a total sucker for chocolate and salt together. The only disappointment was that the hickory smoked almonds weren’t that noticeable. There was a slight aroma and aftertaste of smokiness, but I would have liked it to be more prominent.

Verdict
I stopped myself (barely) from eating the whole bar in the first sitting. It was hard though, I really wanted to eat the whole thing right away. This definitely gets a thumbs up from me. I have another Vosges candy bar in the house right now, the Calindia, that I’m now really looking forward to.

I love the packaging for this bar, which is simply called Cuba. The candy bar itself is wrapped in gold foil, which is then covered in plastic - twisted off on the ends like a Tootsie Roll wrapper. The Cuba logo type is clear plastic, so the gold foil shows. I’ve never seen a candy bar wrapped like this before and I award them points for creativity. As for the candy product on the inside, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect from the Norwegian description, but I could figure out that it had chocolate and almonds in it from the ingredients.

Structure
A molded high cocoa percentage milk chocolate with a soft chocolate filling containing small pieces of almonds.

Texture
The chocolate shell is thin and snaps apart nicely as you bite through to the soft center. The filling is light and fluffy like a mousse or a whipped ganache. The almond pieces are chopped very fine and add a little bit of crunchiness. I also noticed some small sugar granules suspended in the filling.

Taste
Cuba has a deep, intense chocolate taste with a bit of saltiness - a welcome shot of flavor in contrast to some cheap, tasteless chocolate I’ve had recently.

Verdict
This bar is a definite thumbs up. It’s more like a truffle you’d find at a chocolate shop than it is a candy bar you’d expect to pick up at a convenience store.

I received this bar as an Easter gift a while ago, but with so many candy bars lying around in my place waiting to be reviewed, it’s taken me a while to get to this one. I see these Chocolove bars all the time at Target, but since I actually don’t like the packaging design, I’m never tempted to buy them. If I hadn’t received this as a gift, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up for myself. Of course, I’m happy to try out any new candy bars and this is no exception.

Structure
It’s 18 segments of molded dark chocolate with pieces of toasted almonds and dried cherries mixed in.

Texture
The first thing you’ll notice is the strong snap to the chocolate when you bite in. It’s definitely one of the best tempered chocolates I’ve had. The almonds are chopped up pretty small and are toasted well, so they have a nice crunch. The dried cherries are a little chewy and stuck to my teeth after the chocolate had melted away.

Taste
You can taste right away that the Belgian dark chocolate is high quality. It’s only 55% cocoa, so it’s fairly sweet for dark chocolate, which is good because it counteracts the slight sourness of the dried cherries. The toasted almonds have a nice subtle flavor that complements the other components well.

Verdict
I didn’t love the dried cherries and would have enjoyed the bar more without them. Even so, this is a quality candy bar that I thoroughly enjoyed. I’m anxious to taste some of Chocolove’s other varieties. In fact, I have a Crystallized Ginger in Dark Chocolate bar sitting around that I’ll have to try out soon.