Week in review

It's quite a stormy day here in New England. I've been writing an article on morning sickness all day and I'm counting my blessings that those days are OVER! Those nine months were probably the longest I've ever gone without a regular diet of chocolate. Anyhow, I've whittled down my Polish supply. The 3 Bit had a strange, milky-flavored substance between the chocolate and the biscuit which made the whole thing a bit too sweet for me. But the Kinder Bueno, ooohhhh boy, it's true what everyone says. Yummy crispy flaky smooth. The wafer part reminded me of these peanut butter things I used to get in high school. It's like a pillow of crispy wafer, only instead of being filled with peanut butter, it has a smooth, creamy hazelnut filling. Mmmmm, mmmmm. I scarfed that puppy down in no time.
In other news, the after-Easter candy sales were pitiful. It was like the shelves had been ransacked by some crazed, last-minute Easter bunnies. The only thing I got was a bag of Nestle's eggs. I thought they were Nestle Crunch eggs, but because I was in too much of a hurry, I didn't realize that they're actually caramel eggs. They're not very good, so I'm going to make chocolate caramel cookies out of them later this week.

New inventory!

I've added an international flair to my candy cabinet. I've lived in this town for nine years and it was only last week when I finally ventured into a little Polish store about a mile down the street. It was really cute and I was amazed by the candy selection. I decided to start with the candy that looked most accessible to my American palate. First, there's the Tropic Banana in Chocolate ("+ banana extract").
Well, it's interesting. First of all, the bar is shaped like a banana, which is kind of cute. Biting into it, the texture is very firm, like a jelly spearmint leaf or orange slice. Here's the thing: the banana flavor is pretty darn accurate. It has that same slightly sour twinge of a banana, rather than the usual artificial sweet banana flavor used in other candies. And the texture makes it almost seem like a real banana. The drawback here is the chocolate. It's gritty and cheap. If this filling was coated in real dark chocolate, it would be pretty amazing.

Then there's "3 Bit," which has a sticker in English describing it as "biscuit in cream filling with milk chocolate." I have no idea what the third says but the English description is "milk chocolate bar with creamy filling." And last is the European favorite, Kinder Bueno, which, believe it or not, I've never had. So I have some tasting work ahead of me. I'll report back.