Buys Zoenen: Chocolate Covered Marshmallow Kisses

I always buy myself a special treat every weekend.  It´s my reward for a week´s worth of work.  Most Saturdays, I wake up in time to catch the first opening hour of my neighborhood grocery.   I like to shop early  in the morning during the weekend, when the store´s still tranquil and there´s not a crowd along the aisles.  It makes my shopping time more relaxing as it allows me more time to linger through the aisles  to scrutinize the merits of the weekend specials.

Sweet Find: Karina White Chocolate Crisp Bar

It´s the weekend and the sun in Holland is out!  People are in their summer best, and for once we can go out in shorts and shirts!  And so, to celebrate the summery weekend yesterday, I went out with a friend to  the city center.  We walked for hours, and crossed through  the Erasmus bridge which connects the suburban Rotterdam to the city center, the warm breeze fanning our laughters.   As always, the agenda was to tackle the essentials---dreams, game plans, all those important things you need to vent out once in a while with a trusted soul.

  Erasmus Bridge, Rotterdam  ( image from stockfootage.com)                               

GU Chocolate and Vanilla Cheesecake

I have loved Gu desserts eversince I tried them in Paris a few years ago.

What are Gu Desserts?  It´s a line of premium individual sized desserts , mostly puddings and cheesecakes,  made in the UK by Noble Desserts Inc.  They are packed in reusable, pretty ramekins and jars.

These were not available in Spain where I was based  for the last two years.  But I now live in the Netherlands and I am happy to discover that Gu desserts are usually stocked at the big supermarkets (Albert Heijn, Hoogvliet).  This morning,  as I did my grocery-shopping for the coming week,  I saw that a particular variant of Gu was on sale at 30% off.

And here´s what happened next:

Someone bought a box  of 2 Chocolate & Vanilla Cheesecakes in reusable ramekins :-)

 
    A jar of beauty

    Look at the layers and that crackly chocolate top!

    In the end,  I had my moment of Gu indulgence!

The Verdict:
This chocolate and vanilla cheesecake variant is still delicious,  with a crumbly chocolate cake base, a vanilla cheesecake layer, and a chocolate mousse top but it is a bit too sweet for me.  Of all the GUs I´ve tried, my favorite is still the Speculoos Cheesecake which I have written about here.

I have tried a few supermarket desserts and Gu comes on top by a mile.  It is not cheap, at about 3.5€ for a box of 2, but it is still cheaper (and more delicious) than buying a cake slice from the bakeries here.

Allergen Alert: Contains sugar, eggs, lactose, chocolate

Recommendation:  Delish!  Must-try.

Availability:  Available in big supermarkets in The Netherlands

Nestle Bros Aerated Milk Chocolate Bar

I was once again felled by the power of the "SALE " tag.  Let´s admit it,  the bulk of the stuff we buy on impulse during a sale are  stuff that we don´t normally buy.  It´s just the way we´re wired (or screwed).  We hunt for great deals,  and when we see the sign, S-A-L-E, we go gaga and think that we must  pounce and get as much savings from the sale as possible by, of course, buying. Not too logical, no?

This was how I was able to finally try Bros, a fairly common chocolate bar here in The Netherlands.   It´s in the same price range as the more popular Milka bars.  And perhaps that´s why I never ever tried it before, there was just no incentive to try Bros.  If I can buy myself  a Milka Oreo Bar at the same price and know that I will enjoy it immensely, why would a venture into trying something new?

So let´s blame this post on the sale sign! How one day I saw the Bros bars on sale at my neighborhood drugstore.  And I knew, I just knew that it was time to finally try it (cue in melodramatic music).

                         Bros Aerated Milk Chocolate Bar 

What´s so special about Bros?  Well, the fact that Bros is an aerated chocolate bar.  It´s a bit hard to describe aerated chocolate,  so we´ll let the chocolate speak for itself:

    Cross-section of Bros Chocolate Bar:  You see the bubbles?

Aerated chocolates are made using a whipping siphon,the kind where you need to load N2 cartridges to create those tiny bubbles. Almost a decade ago, Heston Blumenthal demonstrated in his awesome cooking show, In Search of Perfection, how to aerate chocolate using home appliances, including a vacuum cleaner.  The mad wannabe scientist in me hopes to one  day try my hand at making aerated chocs too, but since I still don´t have a whipping siphon, this aerated chocolate dream shall go into the already long list of kitchen experiments I hope to do within this lifetime.

But the question really is, why would chocolate makers go to such lengths to tweak and add bubbles to an already awesome food?  Can chocolate be even better with bubbles in it?

Well, that was my question when I bought my inexpensive, on sale Nestle Bros bar.

The Verdict:  Okay, so I think I get what these tiny bubbles do to the chocolate experience.  At firs bite, the chocolate flavor appeared mild, but then as my mouth warmed the chocolate and the bubbles were exposed,  there was thatsilky, light as air texture , and the chocolate flavor seemed to be stronger, more intense. The reason, it seems, is because the aerated chocolate has greater surface area than a regular bar.  Because of the bubbles, points of contact between the flavor sensors in the tongue and the chocolate is way greater.   As the tiny bubbles and the tongue get in contact,  melting occurs faster, and there are tiny burst of chocolatey flavor.

The main draw of aerated chocolates is that they provide  light as air, intensely chocolatey experience.  Did Nestle Bros achieve this?

The Verdict:  Eating this indeed makes for a very velvety, light-as-air yet very chocolatey experience.  One problem though, the chocolate used for Bro is very sweet, almost cloying.  So yes it´s very chocolatey and very light, but way too sugary!  Now I feel the cocoa used for this bar wasn´t really of high quality chocolate.  But maybe that too is too much to ask for, since Bros of the same ilk as Mars, Nestle Crunch, Milka and Hershey´s.  And these chocolates, which we all loved when we were kids, tend to be too sugary.

Allergen Alert: Contains sugar, lactose

Recommendation: So-so.  But I figure that kids, since they like everything sweet, would enjoy the novelty of this ¨bubbly¨ chocolate.

Availability: Available in France, Holland, Belgium, Germany.  Sold in supermarkets, drugstores and newspaper and candy stalls.

Worth Buying: Amicelli Chocolate Hazelnut Creme Sticks

I often see these classy-looking hexagonal boxes of chocolates in big groceries in the Netherlands but I was only tempted to buy this weekend because I find it a little expensive.  A small 200g box of Amicelli costs the same as a family pack of Bounty bars or Twix White bars.  I can buy 4 bars of Milka Chocolates for the price.  Just a little too pricey for me.  But last week was a particularly trying one and I needed a little indulgence, so on Saturday at the the grocery,  I caved in and bought my first  box of Amicelli.

Amicelli is made by Mars Europe.  Reviews have called it the better, more indulgent version of Kinder Bueno.   Hmmm,  although both Amicelli and Kinder Bueno are filled with hazelnut creme, I don´t really agree with the comparison, because Kinder Bueno is geared for kids and youngsters with a very milky flavor.  It´s a little too sweet for me whereas Amicelli is less sweet and is I think meant for older, more, ehem, discriminating tastes.

 A box of Amicelli contains 16 individually wrapped Amicelli chocolate rolls

    Amicelli Chocolate Rolls

    The six inch long Amicelli Roll

   The Amicelli Roll

    The Amicelli layers:  a thin coating of  milky chocolate followed and thin wafer layer and  a heart      brimming with hazelnut creme

    It is certainly not difficult to pick up some Amicelli sticks!

    The layers of Amicelli Sticks

Allergy Alert:  Contains hazelnut creme, lactose, soya lecithin

Verdict: Delicious!  I have a love-hate attitude to Hazelnut creme products.  I hate Ferrero Rocher but I like Nutella.   Amicelli is on the love list. 

This is an indulgent treat. The sweetness grows on one´s palate, such that one stick is enough to satisfy me for the day.  Because of its somewhat delicate flavors, there is something classy about Amicelli.  This is not the kind of treat that you gobble up in one go!  It is more like the kind of secret vice that we place in our bags, something to help us through the rough day, a delicious chocolate helpline to buoy us over shitty days or  it can be our little reward for tasks done well.  This is the kind of chocolate a woman keeps to share with friends amidst heart-to-heart talks, or the kind we can share with our colleagues when we take a break from grown-up, we-need-to-solve-this dilemmas.

Of my box of 16 Amicelli sticks,  I still have 10.  Yeah, I ate 6  sticks in three days! I should reward myself for my willpower, yes?  Tomorrow, I´m going to the rest to the office tomorrow and share them with the team, some small sweet thing to rally us through another week of work.

Recommendation:  WORTH BUYING. If you find some Amicelli Sticks,  go buy!  They are perfect little chocolate bars for grown up chocolate lovers like us!  I think I´ll go buy a few more boxes as gifts to friends when I come home to the Philippines in September.  It´s classy and delicious and while not cheap, is reasonable enough to give to dear friends.

Availability: In big grocery stores in The Netherlands, Austria and Germany