Candy Bar Lab

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.

A little while back, I noticed that Trader Joe’s started carrying a wide variety of freeze dried fruits. They have strawberries, bananas, pineapples, apples and a couple others I can’t remember off hand. I’ve seen freeze dried berries at the regular grocery store before, but they were always really expensive for small bags. At Trader Joe’s, I picked up a pouch of bananas for only a couple of bucks.

So, I decided to throw some of the banana pieces into a candy bar mold with some chopped walnuts and dark chocolate (sorry, no pics). The bananas tasted awesome with the chocolate and are really crispy. In fact, I don’t think the walnuts were even necessary. If you ever get a chance, I recommend trying out some of the Trader Joe’s freeze dried fruits with your favorite chocolate. You don’t have to make it into a bar if you don’t want. Just eat the chocolate and the fruit at the same time and I’m sure it’ll taste great.

I don’t often see molded candy bars that have both milk and dark chocolate. In fact, the Nidar Yade is probably the first one I’ve had. It seems most manufacturers assume that milk chocolate and dark chocolate are mutually exclusive and that consumers want one or the other, not both in the same product.

Structure
A thin, wide molded bar with a bottom layer of dark chocolate and top layer of milk chocolate. Small, caramelized bits of macadamia nuts and hazelnuts are mixed in.

Texture
Perfectly tempered with a nice snap when you break it into the smaller, triangular pieces. The hazelnut and macadamia nut pieces are really small, but add a nice contrast to the smooth chocolate.

Taste
There’s about two or more times milk chocolate than dark chocolate, but in terms of taste, the two are split evenly. The dark chocolate is more pronounced when you first bite in, but the milk chocolate becomes more noticeable on the finish. It’s difficult to taste any hazelnut or macadamia nut because the pieces are so small, but you do get some extra sweetness from their caramelized coating.

Verdict
I don’t actually finish many of the candy bars that I review on this blog myself. I try to share with others if they’re good or I sometimes toss out the rest if they’re really bad. So when I eat an entire candy bar myself, like I did with the Nidar Yade, that’s a sign that it’s a damn good candy bar. I would put the Yade easily in the top tier of the candy bars I’ve tried so far.