Little Secrets - Toasted Coconut Dark Chocolate Pieces - Dec. 10, 2019

Chocolate of the Day: 

Little Secrets
Toasted Coconut Dark Chocolate Pieces
Good - Good +
Weight: 1.06 oz. (30 g.) / 5 oz. (142 g.) in total package
Calories: 150 calories in 1 serving (18 pieces)
Cost: $5.99 for 1 package
Purchased from: Piazza's Fine Foods, Palo Alto, CA

Welcome to Day #3 of Chocolate and Coconut Theme Week.

Today's Toasted Coconut Dark Chocolate Pieces were from Little Secrets, LLC (Boulder, CO).

These candy-coated yellow and green pieces were crunchy and creamy, and had authentic dark chocolate and coconut flavor. They were sweet, with a bit less sweetness (thank you) than traditional hard-shelled chocolate candies.

These Toasted Coconut Little Secrets were made with no artificial colors or flavors. (The colors were from "natural sources.")

Zachary Confections - Milk and Dark Chocolate Raspberry Cremes - Dec. 16, 2017

Chocolate(s) of the Day: 

Zachary Confections

Milk and Dark Chocolate Raspberry Mini Cremes

Good

Weight: 1.48 oz. (42 g.) / 11.87 oz. (336 g.) (per label) in total container

Calories: 180 calories in 1 serving

Cost: $N/A part of a Candy Club subscription

Purchased from: N/A - taste of someone else's (subscriber's) candy

Welcome to Day #4 of Chocolate, Fruit and Nuts Theme Week. 

Today's Milk and Dark Chocolate Raspberry Mini Cremes were made by Zachary Confections (Frankfort, IN). The company got its start in 1950, making novelty items in Chicago (the self-proclaimed Candy* Capital of the World in the early 1900s). 

The company now turns out thousands of chocolate creme pieces (and many other candies, including at least 10 flavors of candy corn) in its 300,000 square-foot, modern facility in central Indiana.

Each of today's round, milk and dark chocolate pieces were filled with a light colored, creamy but solid, raspberry-flavored sweet center. These were eaten with walnuts.**

*Most chocolate items featured on ChocolateBanquet.com are classified as chocolate, not candy; that is, sugar is listed below/after cocoa/chocolate in the ingredients. Today's chocolate was part of a Candy Club subscription box, and the #1 ingredient was sugar.

**Because there's not much protein, fat or fiber to slow down the absorption of the sugar in candy, I eat candy with nuts—like the roasted walnuts pictured with the Raspberry Mini Creme pieces here.

Junior Mints - Peppermint Crunch - Jan. 15, 2017

Chocolate of the Day: 

Tootsie Roll Industries, LLC
Junior Mints - Peppermint Crunch
Good
Weight: .93 oz. (26.4 g.) / 3.5 oz. (99 g.) total package/box
Calories: 113 calories in 10 pieces
Cost: $0.99 (sale) for 1 package/box
Purchased from: Jo-Ann (Fabric and Craft Stores), Mountain View, CA

Welcome to Day #8 of Chocolate and Peppermint Theme Week.

Today's handful of Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints from Tootsie Roll Industries, LLC (Chicago, IL) provided a sweet peppermint rocket ride with a hint of semi-sweet chocolate.


I think the milky, creamy white center might have been liquid peppermint sugar. It's a candy after all, and sweeter than most chocolates I've been eating. (It's been several years since I've featured the original Junior Mints on this site.)

How were these different than regular Junior Mints? Red flecks and peppermint flavor mostly. I also remember Junior Mints center being soft, but slightly more solid than these, but I could be wrong.

The box and the pieces themselves looked fairly generously sized, but, again, I didn't have any original Junior Mints to compare them with. (What kind of chocolate mad scientist am I? For shame.)

These Junior Mints were made in a facility that "does not use peanuts, tree nuts, or gluten."

Little Secrets - Peppermint Dark Candies - Jan. 13, 2017

Chocolate of the Day:

Little Secrets
Peppermint Dark Chocolate Candies
Good+ - Good ++
Weight: .7 oz. (20 g.) / 5 oz. (142 g.) total package
Calories: 95 calories in 1/2 serving (12 pieces)
Cost: $5.29 for 1 package
Purchased from: Whole Foods Market, Los Altos, CA

Welcome to Day #6 of Chocolate and Peppermint Theme Week.

Today's Peppermint Dark Chocolate Candies from Little Secrets, LLC (Boulder, CO) were made with (Fair Trade) 55% Cocoa.

These festive red and white chocolate mint discs with crunchy candy shells contained "over 74% Fair Trade ingredients" overall, and no artificial colors or flavors. (The company used/uses fruit and vegetable extracts for coloring.)

The refreshing peppermint flavor was nicely balanced with the dark chocolate centers.

These would seem to be a perfect transition candy between Christmas and Valentines Day, if you can still find them on the shelves in January or February.

Little Secrets - dark and milk chocolate candies - Nov. 2, 2016

Chocolate of the Day: 

Little Secrets
Classic Dark - Dark Chocolate Candies
Good - Good +
Weight: 1.5 oz. (42.5 g.) in one package
Calories: 200 calories in 1 package
Cost: $1.99 for 1 package
Purchased from: Whole Foods Market, Cupertino, CA

Little Secrets
Milk Chocolate Smooth and Creamy Candies
Good - Good +
Weight: 1.5 oz. (42.5 g.) in 1 package
Calories: 210 calories in 1 package
Cost: $1.99 for 1 package
Purchased from: Whole Foods Market, Cupertino, CA

Welcome to Day #5 of Trick or Treat Week.

With each passing Halloween, I've been able to include more organic, fair trade and preservative-free chocolate items—or at least ones without a lot of additives or artificial colors and flavors. It's great to have more choices.

Today's crunchy and chocolatey Classic Dark Chocolate Candies (55% fair trade cocoa) and Milk Chocolate Candies (40% cocoa content) distributed by Little Secrets, LLC (Boulder, CO) contained "no artificial anything." Instead of artificial flavors or colorings, natural food-based colors from plants such as beets and spirulina were used instead.

The purplish and orange yam-colored candies shown here contained an extra layer/coating of dark chocolate, and so were a bit larger than the red and blue milk chocolate pieces.