Monday, May 17, 2010

Chocomize Custom Chocolate Bar: Sugar High



Once again, my thanks to the good folks at Chocomize for letting me run wild through their vast candy forest and create a bar that I am fairly certain could make even the most diehard four-year-old jealous.



One of the highlights of my young life was when I was deemed old enough by my parents to start spending the night at my friends' houses. One such friend was a girl named Jennifer. Jennifer was the only child of fun yuppie parents. (Seriously, there were very few 80's stereotypes they did not live up to.) And her mom would take us to the mall where we would spend a few hours pooling together our money and making joint purchases of such need-to-own items as Madonna cassettes (yes, I said cassettes...gawd, I am old) and earrings. (Back in the day, Claire's had some insane deal where you could get something like 15 pairs of earrings for $5.00.) Sometimes we went on sugar sprees, often at the mall candy store --- you know, the kind that has giant bulk bins, which as a kid I thought was the greatest thing ever, and as an adult think of as Petri dishes of kid germs. Or we would go to the FroYo joint and toss in as much candy as we were allowed to. Good times...good times...

Anyway, it was that larval version of Gigi that I allowed to pick out the ingredients for this bar. If my actual 12-year-old self had been given the option, I think she would have gotten pretty much the same results.



The "Sugar High" bar is a milk chocolate bar that is studded with Oreo pieces, Pop Rocks, mini marshmallows, and caramel pieces.

As with any custom bar I review, I am rating the bar only on its individual ingredients and not the bar as a whole. I chose ingredients myself, and it's always possible that they could be great on their own but not in combination. Conversely,they could be great together, but because it's a custom-made bar, we are just rating by ingredients.

Why? Because I said so. So there.



Anyway...

The milk chocolate base: Very milky and creamy with a smooth melt. It also is a very sweet, sugary milk chocolate -- in fact, it almost reminded me of Cadbury milk chocolate. I am not going to lie; there is throat burn -- and while I know that this doesn't bother some people, it does bother me. It's not bad enough to keep me from eating the bars with all their custom additions, but I would never eat just the plain chocolate all by itself.

The Pop Rocks: I feel the need to apologize for the fact that the Pop Rocks look all melty (although it does look kind of cool in and of itself). They did arrive looking perfect, as the shiny little shreds you expect Pop Rocks to be, but thanks to my AC going out, along with some humidity, they became more goopy and opaque. Regardless, they still fizzed and had the cherry taste I expected. The fizzing was a lot of fun with the smoothness of the chocolate and the soft marshmallows. And the red added some nice color.

The marshmallows: perfectly soft and smooshy! A hint of vanilla flavor. Yeah, marshmallows are just plain good.

The caramel drops: The little pea-sized drops are chewy and...well, they are chewy. There's a tiny hint of buttery flavor, but mostly it's about the texture. And they look kinda like chick peas or hazelnuts. Which is cool, I guess.

The Oreo pieces: chocolaty, crunchy, exactly what you expect Oreo Pieces to be. No surprises here.



As a whole, I liked the ingredients enough to use them in other bars -- with the exception of the caramel drops. And even then it's not that it was all that bad...it just wasn't all that good. But marshmallows and Pop Rocks should definitely be used together more often.

If you want to find out how good Pop Rocks and marshmallows can be together for yourself -- or make your own dream bar -- the people at Chocomize have put together a coupon for you! If you use the coupon code "Gigi" at checkout, it will save you 10% off of your order



PURCHASED FROM:

Sample from company

CALORIES:

130 calories per 1/5 of bar.

ADDITIONAL INFO:

May contain traces of milk, nuts, and gluten.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE:

chocomize.com

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