Bunnies and Eggs - It Must be Easter

As many of you have probably heard ad nauseum, I am a firm believer in establishing distinct seasons for each holiday. For example, you can't celebrate Christmas before Thanksgiving is over, but you also can't start on Thanksgiving until Halloween is out of the way. This same principle applied to seasonal/holiday-themed food - it would be too much of a good thing if you started in on the mince pies before December 1st, or indulged in hot cross buns before the start of Lent. Basically, it just tastes better when you know you only have a short while to completely enjoy it.

So, needless to say, I've been holding off on eating reams and reams of Easter candy so far this year, despite the fact that it's been in stores since about, oh, January. But this weekend I've embarked on an Easter candy feast, to glorious results.

The first two things I sampled were a bit of a cheat, as I've eaten (and thoroughly enjoyed them) before (and they're not technically candy bars) - Cadbury Mini-Eggs and Caramel Bunnies. It's important to note here that you should never accept any substitutes for these - the original is the best! Caramel Bunnies are pretty self-explanatory - basically an abnormally tall and skinny chocolate bunny filled with buttery caramel. It's nice - nice and thick chocolate that's soft enough to kind of meld with the not-too-runny caramel inside - but the filling pales in comparison with last week's Irish Cadbury's caramel filling. A solid 3 bars.

For the unititated, Mini-Eggs are small egg-shaped chocolate covered in multi-colored speckled shells, and they besically taste like the best M&M's EVER. Luckily I had Morgan to help me finish the bag, otherwise I would have eaten them all up in about 5 minutes. :P 4.5 bars! (And...this post has now motivated me to go out and buy a fresh bag - whoops.)

The third component of my Easter chocolate extravaganza was the riskiest - a Twisted Bar. I wasn't sure about this one, as it's a candy bar based on the ever-popular Creme Egg. I hate Creme Eggs (maybe it's the goo-iness or the fact that eating something resembling a raw egg is never really that appetizing), but I actually liked the Twisted bar! The bar is thick chocolate surrounding a creme filling that is slightly more dense than the Creme Egg (it mostly stays within the bar when you take a bite) but with the same garish white and yellow coloring. The filling is still overly sweet, but this is tempered by the fact that you don't have to swallow a whole mouthful at once or risk it dripping down your chin (ew). And the chocolate to filling ratio is a lot better - the chocolate is nice and thick so there's not too much creme versus the shell - an example the Turkish Delight could learn from! It was still too sweet for me to have the whole thing (my willing assistant - and Creme Egg fanatic - Morgan graciously finished the bar for me) and I'm not sure I'd eat it again, but it was a lot nicer than expected. 2.5 bars.

Altogether, a delicious combo - really, all that was missing were the Peeps! (http://www.justborn.com/product-finder/peeps/easter) It's ok, I'll compensate by whipping up a batch of these instead (http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Chocolate-Nests).

A combined 3.5 bars!

Happy Easter, everyone, will be on hiatus next week as my lovely cousin Christie is coming to visit but will return with a thrilling new installment featuring whatever we can pick up in Copenhagen/Malmo.

Bar-o-Meter

1/2



Ireland, Italy, and Switzerland, Oh My!

Dear readers -

Apologies for the long hiatus - I've been in Italy seeking obesity through other means...namely, pasta, pizza, and at least one gelato a day. The work of a food-lover is never done. For all of you who have been waiting the next post with baited breath, wait no longer!

In celebration of my vacation, and because I have wonderful friends who keep me well stocked in exotic chocolate bars, I'm skipping my regular British candy bar this week and reviewing a veritable smorgasbord of international chocolate bars. Yum.

First, Carol kindly brought back a selection of Irish chocolate from her holiday last week (all in the interest of research, of course) and gave me a few Cadbury versions to try. The Irish version of Turkish Delight fared much better than the English one, having a better ratio of weird jelly filling to chocolate, the Golden Crisp bar had nice little honeycomb-like crispy bits buried in chocolate, and the Caramello had a nice buttery caramel filling, just the right amount of runny-ness. However, I think what really got me excited about the Irish chocolate were the three versions of Snack! (that's their punctuation, not mine) bars - wafer, sandwich, and shortbread. In short, not only are Snack! (love the exclamation point) bars tasty little biscuits covered in chocolate (which is always nice) but they also have fantastic Irish-type sayings on the front, like "Oh, go on then" and "Tis lovely". This made me laugh, and only added to the chocolate experience...4 bars for the lot!

Second, I picked up a chocolate bar in Italy while in a tabaccheria in Verona. This was no easy task. The Italians apparently do not enjoy their cheap chocolate bars like the English, since there was only KitKat, Snickers, and Kinder varieties to choose from. (I don't know, maybe the Italians are too busy eating, say, pastries, or homemade egg pasta, or delicious bread.....ah, stop now!) However, I did manage to snag a gem of a bar called a Tronky, which said it was made in Italy right on the wrapper. Yes, that's right - TRONKY. Seriously, this bar should get points just for having the best name so far. Sadly, the taste does not live up to the name - the Tronky (hee) is a thick, dry wafer surrounding some chocolately-hazelnut filling. The wafer, while brown in color, doesn't taste enough like chocolate, and actually, isn't even sweet. This completely detracts from the filling, which is passing in a Nutella-like way. BIG disappointment - I didn't even like eating the thing. Whatever the Tronky's other faults, I just have to point out that it was a remarkably robust bar for traveling, actually managing to survive the trip back to England intact. And that's why it's getting 1 bar.

Third, the bar that didn't even make it out of Italy intact. Julia, one of my traveling companions, took a day trip to Switzerland (like you do) our last day in Italy, and was kind enough to bring me back a bar - the Torino. (Again, this was the only bar that actually seemed to be Swiss - maybe the Swiss are too busy with fondue? Oh, and real chocolate.) In any case, the Torino was the opposite of the Tronky and promptly melted into a smushy shape in my purse on the 3-hour trip home. Luckily, a stint in the refrigerator made it edible. And edible it was! The Torino is notable for being the first bar to be covered in 'real' milk chocolate - this stuff put Cadbury's to shame. The inside of the bar is a nice creamy hazelnut filling, which was equally nice just out of the fridge and at room temperature. The bar was a bit rich for my taste (took me two sittings to finish!) but I think the lovely chocolate on the outside really made this bar a winner. For the chocolate coating alone - 3 bars!

So, my international feasting over, I'm having a special Easter edition next week before sampling the best of what Coperhagen/Malmo have to offer when my lovely cousin Christie comes to town. Stay tuned!

An overall 2.66666666666667 bars! (Use your imagination - haven't figured out how to make the Bar-o-Meter do that yet)

Bar-o-Meter