Dove has once again come out with an offering to their “relaxing” line of chocolate. Opposite the Ghirardelli and Lindt dark chocolate intense extremes, Dove wraps their packaging in “ribbons” with sleek designs and a whirlpool of chocolate.  So, does the new Dove relax or not?

Packaging:

As I stated, it’s all very serene, the idea that you’re about to bite into the most relaxing part of your day is clearly conveyed with this design and packaging. What is unique (that I do like a lot) is that instead of one big bar, the bar is the same size but packaged into three separate foil wrapped packages. I’m not a fan of waste and making more garbage through excess packaging, but I am against stale chocolate or other weird stuff mixing with my stock before I get the chance to devour it all. Yes, I am trying to practice constraint with my chocolate candy habits.

Appearance:

It’s dark, it’s got the classic Dove crest and I can clearly see that there are almond bids up in those hills. Upon closer inspection, I’m pretty sure I can see cranberry bits too. But no one should ever get that close.

Smell:

Smells good. Like quality dark chocolate. That’s all I can smell though, the cranberry and almonds are lost in this one.

Taste:

The first bite of the first square definitely had all three ingredients, first you taste the chocolate, then the nuts, then the cranberry. The cranberry is tasted most after the other two have disappeared and the bit has become lodged in your back molar. Eating a full square all at once leads to a much more satisfying taste experience in terms of knowing that you’re eating a cranberry almond chocolate bar, but the cranberry bits are still stubborn and tend to linger. If I did not know what the flavor of the chocolate candy bar was, I would have guessed that I was eating raisins or cherry bits, since cranberry isn’t a common ingredient for this type of candy bar yet.

I love cranberries. The sauce, the dried, the raw and the color. I don’t love this chocolate bar, but I don’t hate it either. Will I grab for it again sometime not out of curiosity? Only if it’s on sale…

If you happen to be browsing around your local Costco this November and December, keep an eye out for Truffettes de France, Chocolate French Truffles dusted with cocoa powder. Costco brings these in by the pallet full every holiday season, but if you try and find it online good luck, it’s not there. This is an in store special only. And it is special, for $9.99 a 2lb box, good luck beating that. But just because it’s low cost, is it low taste?

At first, it doesn’t look like much, in fact it looks pretty gross.

Actual size: inch across, inch tall and inch wide.

Inside, they look pretty much the same:

With a little light and with no light, you can see just how dark this truffles are.

But how do they taste?

The first ingredient is vegetable oil and that’s pretty prevalent from the texture as soon as you start chewing. Not to say that it’s bad, it’s certainly smooth, but it’s not the milky smoothness you expect from a truffle. It is most certainly a very dense piece of chocolate.

It’s sweet and very chocolatey tasting with a faint crunchiness of sugar in the background (that or my sample piece rolled in sand) and while it’s good, I know I couldn’t possibly eat more than a couple of pieces. After that, sugar coma will set in and I’ll start to feel sick from the overload.

The verdict: buy them and set them out at your next holiday gathering. They’ll be sure to disappear but you won’t be tempted into eating the whole box in one sitting and then fall victim to early onset sugar comas.

More and more chocolate producing companies are striving to give themselves a unique branding in the crowded chocolate candy market. It’s true, you gotta stand out somehow. Maybe it’s adding whacky ingredients like Frey Supreme (hot chili pepper anyone?) or Dove Chocolates, targeting women and focusing on relaxing, treating yourself and loving everything around you with a chocolatey hug. (Complete with positive life affirming message inside the wrapper.) Or maybe it’s hiding that you’re going to “mocklate” or reviving an old brand, but whatever it is, this has got to be the one that makes me laugh the most….which is what brings us to today’s post: Extreme Chocolate!

Does chocolate need to be “extreme,” “intense” or kicking me in the face?  Let’s find out.

Hershey has offered their “Special Dark” chocolate version for a long time now and perhaps is even to blame for starting the whole thing. I’ve got nothing against Special Dark, I just wonder what makes it Special. I get the dark part. Fairy dust?

Swiss chocolatier Lindt offers us their version with the “Intense” line. Enjoy pear intensely, mint, orange or just plain dark.  Dark by itself is intense as it is, but I like that we added the qualifier here to make the consumer think that the chocolate they are eating now could destroy a Krackle bar with just a mind bullet.

Mars jumped in on the energy drink craze long ago with the Snickers Charged bars.  Who doesn’t want caffeine in their candy bar? It’s not like we don’t get it anywhere else. And at 60miligrams per bar, it punches a soda right in the face! Let’s not forget about Snickers XTreme either. See how they dropped the “E” on extreme? Who needs an “E” when you’ve got nothing but caramel and peanuts?! Oh wait, I think they call that a Pay Day. Add chocolate and you’ve got a Baby Ruth!

The best has to be their newest offering: The Lot. It features Mr. T, nuts and the word “sucka”. Please be sure to check out the Australian Snickers website that promises to “get some nuts!!”

Ghirardelli also as an “intense” line to draw attention to just how dark their dark chocolate is. It’s INTENSE! They also have an Espresso Escape so that you can get your coffee high and escape as well. I believe you are escaping from the sugar gnomes that rob small children of their senses like pixie sticks do.

And last but not least, is the aforementioned Pay Day, but in Avalanche form! Careful or you’ll be buried under a mountain of peanuts and caramel, covered in chocolate! It’s like Snickers XTreme! Oh wait, it IS Snickers XTreme! Who could resist that whirlwind of chocolate candy goodness?

So ask youself next time before you unwrap that chocolate bar: is this extreme? Is it in my face? Is it like how when someone once tried to tell Chuck Norris that roundhouse kicks aren’t the best way to kick someone. And then it was recorded by historians as the worst mistake anyone has ever made?

Don’t make that mistake. Eat your intense chocolate and like it!