I’m not really into receiving gifts, but I’m always happy to acquire fancy chocolate.
Recently a business partner sent me a beautiful box of specialty chocolates, and I’ve been savoring them at a pace of 2-3 a day ever since. There were at least 20 different types of chocolates in the box, and none are labeled.
There was a time when I would have much preferred to know what I was biting into in advance, but in my old age I like the uncertainty. It could be really good, or it could be slightly less good. There’s nothing a fancy chocolatier would put into a chocolate that would cause me to spit it out (unless they start putting sauerkraut or olives in the middle).
I still have my favorites, of course. One of my greatest delights to find inside of a chocolate is…more chocolate. That’s always a winner. I like to discover peanuts, walnuts, and other nuts inside of chocolate. And most recently I found raw cookie dough inside of a chocolate. That was amazing.
What’s your favorite thing to find inside of a chocolate?
Jamey,
Peanut Butter!
Cheers,
Joe
I’m thinking that dry kalamata olives in chocolate might not be a terrible thing (thanks for the suggestion!) … then, google says that green olives in chocolate are already available. Now, I’ll have to do some real world investigation.
https://lunya.co.uk/product/dark-chocolate-with-olives/
Cookie dough is one of my favorites. 🙂 I also like marzipan, and any ganache but amaretto ganache is one of my favorites. I don’t typically like the fruit flavored cremes that much (although fruit flavor+ chocolate ganache like raspberry dark chocolate ganache is still yum) but I’m sure a place might surprise me at some point. I like the center to be soft and creamy, not sticky or chewy. 🙂 I don’t mind nuts, a crunchy texture change can be fun. And I love nuts, especially pecans but really all nuts. But don’t like the candied fruit kind of centers that are very sticky/chewy. But yeah, cookie dough is awesome. 🙂
We used to get a Whitman’s sampler every Christmas. Last year in post-Christmas sales I found a giant one-layer one here in New Zealand and was in heaven. Some of the old favorites were gone, but I was delighted to see Whitman’s still in business, making good product, and not bought out by some nasty multinational conglomerate like Nestle or Cadbury. I’ve always liked mint and chocolate, cherry cordials and orange cream.
By the way, Jamey, did you know that there are some conventions around shapes of chocolates, for example, I believe squares are meant to be caramel and mints are round? Not every manufacturer follows these conventions, of course, and fillings seem to be proliferating.
Julia: I didn’t know that! I love that there’s a universal language among chocolates in that way. 🙂
Peanut butter is pretty great. Orange creme is not bad either. Chocolate is almost always amazing though.
Cookie, orange peel, or cake like chocolate covered madeleine cake… Yum! 😀 Runny caramel or soft chocolate is great too!
The blood of my enemies.
For me, nothing can get better than hazelnuts or almonds on the inside. After that rum or chocolate liqueurs. But dark coffee flavored chocolate is a winner.