Looking for a gorgeous chocolate gift? Whether you’re treating yourself or someone else, Edward Marc has some lovely goodies to share with you. I recently received of a box of Edward Marc gourmet assorted chocolates and a box of chocolate peanut butter pretzels to review.

The first thing I noticed was the packaging. It’s very classy and elegant, without being stuffy. My immediate thought was “Ooh, this would make a nice gift!” When I opened the box of chocolates, I was delighted to see that the inside was even prettier than the outside.

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Make-your-own-combination chocolate bars must be the next big thing – or at least some people hope they are. As soon as I posted my review of Chocri, what should we get but an offer of samples from another website that offers the same sort of product.

Chocomize is American (although they use Belgian chocolate) and offers a different range of additions, although they also say that ten billion combinations are possible. They offer some pre-made combinations, which doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of the thing, but as someone who previously lamented that I didn’t really want to pick from among ten billion choices, I guess I shouldn’t throw stones, right?

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Another box of filled chocolates to sample! You guys have no idea how hard I work for you. Derry Church Artisan Chocolates have a schtick which is kind of cute, where each one is named after a city and is flavored with stuff that at least sort of has something to do with the place they are named after. They also have some flavors that I can pretty much guarantee you have never encountered, which is sometimes a good thing and sometimes very much not so good at all.

San Fran – black mission figs. Good dark chocolate. Just a hint of figs really but it’s enough. It’s a good combination.

London – butter toffee and crushed almonds. I picked this up and said to my assistant “I don’t like toffee, you can have this one,” and took a little bite. And then finished the whole piece. (Don’t worry, there were two, he got the other.) Nice and buttery and not the kind that sticks in your teeth. They need to make a whole big bar of this.

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Chocri is a German company that plans to open for business in the US in the new year. Their website allows you to design your own chocolate bars – white, dark, or milk, with your choice of additions, which range from the normal (nuts, fruit) to the more exotic (gold balls, gummy bears, spices).

When they asked if I’d like to order some sample bars to review, I was all “heck yeah,” but as I delved into the site, I began to realize that I am not exactly the ideal customer for this sort of thing. Because A, I have very strong opinions about what flavors go together, and B, I am overwhelmed by too many choices.

So, on the one hand the only things I would be sure I would like were the totally traditional choices like milk chocolate with crispy rice. On the other hand I knew that was totally not in the spirit of the thing. What would be the point of getting a combination that I could get anywhere?

Beyond that, I no longer remember exactly what went on in my mind as I clicked around the options on their site – so many that they claim that more than ten billion combinations are possible. So when the following bars arrived, I thought some crazy person had ordered them:

• White with red rice and mango cubes
• Milk with coconut shavings, candied rose petals and a marzipan rose
• Dark with pecans, sour cherries and orange pepper

Well, on the bright side, they sure aren’t anything you could walk into a store and buy, right?

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I’ve been on hiatus from the candy world ever since I relocated to Montana for graduate school. My days seem to be riddled with homework and the correcting of grammatical mistakes made by the students in the freshmen composition course that I teach. Have you ever tried reading 24 essays for split infinitives, misuse of appositives, and the lack of proper semicolon use? Let’s just say it makes for a very draining experience.

Luckily, the kind folks over at Bubble Chocolate knew just how to perk up my day by mailing me a sample of their chocolate. In what world is free chocolate not a good thing?

I had never heard of this company, which makes sense considering they are new and based on the East Coast. But I have heard of and consumed similar products. Aerated chocolate, the candy term for such a confection, is something I first discovered in New Zealand with Nestle’s Aero, but have seen in many forms since.

For those of you not familiar with aerated chocolate, my best equivalent is to compare crème fraiche to meringue: they are both similar in consistency and appearance, but the latter is much lighter. Bubble Chocolate comes in two varieties: milk and dark chocolate.

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