Valentine’s Day is inching closer and closer. And people always say the best gifts are ones given from the heart, but nothing says “I love you” better than something from the heart for the stomach.

So in honor of all those lovey-dovey cherubs hovering by, here is my February candy recipe of the month. I call it my Lots-a-Luv Cookies. These babies are sure to wow anyone you present them to because they aren’t the sort of things you would just hand over to anybody.

Read More »

I was recently given the opportunity to try a box of Ococoa’s Butter Cup Collection. I thought I knew chocolate. I thought I knew what flavors go well with chocolate (peanut butter, mint, and Sunkist, to name a few). I thought I knew what to expect from a box of chocolates. Then came Ococoa.

I get a lot of mail and have been receiving two to three packages per week for the last few months. When a box arrived last week, I assumed it was a homeschooling product I was expecting and didn’t bother to look at the return address. I got a knife, sliced the tape on the box, opened the flaps, and said, “I smell chocolate….”

That is a very pleasant, very enticing way to open a package.

Read More »

When I was at the Chocolate Show the other weekend, I was excited to find New Tree there, a chocolate company with which I am quite familiar! New tree is a gourmet Belgian chocolate company located in San Anselmo, California that not only makes good chocolate, but they’ve added health benefits to it as well!

Each of the different delicious flavors of New Tree chocolates are categorized according to a desired health effect when you eat them. For instance, in their Energizing line, they have chocolates with coffee and ginger to help stimulate you. Or would you rather have something Soothing? They use citrus and lavender for calming effects.

Read More »

A long while back, I reviewed some wonderful chocolate covered blueberries from Chocolate Moon. Unfortunately, the company went out of business. Recently I received an email from Ms. Chocolate who said she now makes chocolate covered blueberries as good or better than the Chocolate Moon blueberries.

So, she sent me some and also sent me some chocolate covered apricots and cherries and also cocoa almonds and toffee almonds. The fruits are all dried before being coated in chocolate and a coating of colored, fruity, chocolaty candy. In a word, all the candy was fantastic. Let’s look at each individually:

• Chocolate Covered Blueberries: These are wonderful. They are truly delicious. The ratio of chocolate to blueberry is just perfect. I could easily eat a whole bag of these in one sitting. For comparison, I tried out some Harry and David chocolate covered blueberries and they were nothing compared to Ms. Chocolate’s.
• Chocolate Covered Apricots: Honestly, I don’t know if I’ve ever had an apricot before I tried these so I have nothing to compare them to, but these are good. Of all the things from ms. Chocolate, these were probably my least favorite, even though are actually pretty good.
• Chocolate Covered Cherries: The cherry flavor is actually really subtle. I am used to the overly sweet and fake cherry flavor (such as in the Cherry Kisses). These were really good and quite large. I liked these a whole lot more than I thought I would.
• Cocoa Almonds: These are whole almonds coated in dark chocolate (though very milky dark chocolate I would say), then dusted in cocoa powder. These too were excellent. They reminded me of very almondy Hershey’s ar with almonds.
• Toffee Almonds: These are whole almonds dipped in milk chocolate, rich butter toffee, and lightly dusted with powdered sugar. I love toffee and these were crazy-good – absolutely fantastic.

As I was writing this review and tasting the candies again, my wife commented that she thought these were the best candies we have tried since starting Candy Addict. I think I agree.

• Ms. Chocolate website

candy, sweets, chocolate, fruit, toffee, almond, almonds, cocoa, blueberries, apricots, cherries