ChocolateBet: September 28, 2007

Chocolate of the Day:

Tiny little M and Ms 

Very Good
Estimated calories: ?
Price: $ ?
Purchased from: Nuts for Candy in Burlingame, CA

Today's chocolate: a small handful of tiny little M and M's (bought in bulk). These miniature-sized M and M candies were very good -- better than expected. They had a nice, rich chocolatey smell and taste.

ChocolateBet: September 27, 2007

Chocolate of the Day:

2 pieces
Georgia's Confections, Nuts and Snacks, Skokie, Ill.
"Kits" Chocolate-Flavored Taffy
Good - Very Good
Price: $?
Purchased from: Nuts for Candy, in Burlingame, CA

I ate these chocolate-flavored taffy "Kits" while traveling from SJC to Seattle with Alec. So much more fun than what they were handing out on the plane.

ChocolateBet: September 26, 2007

Chocolate of the Day:

1/4 bar
Annabelle Candy Co.
Annabelle's U-No bar
Comments: Good; however, it seems like I can taste the hydrogenated oils a bit
Weight: 1.5 oz. (42 g.) total bar
Calories: 1 bar is 250 calories total; 1/4 bar is approximately 65 calories
Price: 99 cents
Purchased from: Nuts for Candy, in Burlingame, CA

It's fun to get reacquainted with chocolate and candies from companies that are long-time local favorites in your own backyard (or a short hop across the San Francisco Bay in this case). Some of these "nostalgia" brands/bars are better than I would have expected, especially if they've stuck to ingredients (like real molasses or real sugar) and not additives, or new-fangled stuff with long words. 

ChocolateBet: September 25, 2007

Chocolate of the Day:

BB Bats - Chocolate flavor
(Gilliam or Georgia Nut Company?)
Very Good: better than expected.
Weight: .4 oz. (estimate) for 1 piece/sucker
Calories: ?
Cost: Price was 25 cents
Purchased from: Nuts for Candy in Burlingame, CA

BB Bats are small, individually-wrapped, flavored taffy suckers/pops that date back to the 1920s and the era of "penny candy." Today's BB Bat was Chocolate flavored and I really enjoyed it.

A number of companies have produced BB Bats over time. I believe when I bought this BB Bat, they were being produced by Georgia Nut Company.*

*Note: Georgia Nut Company later got out of this business, and as of the Spring of 2012 Runk Candy had started making BB Bats.

ChocolateBet: September 24, 2007

Chocolate of the Day:

1-2 bites
Annabelle's
Rocky Road (Dark Chocolate Coated Marshmallow Mint with Cashews)
Good-Very Good
Weight: ~ 1.2 oz. (51 grams)Calories: ~ 60? (out of 240 total for whole bar)
Cost: $0.99
Purchased from: Nuts for Candy, Burlingame, CA

There are currently three flavors of Rocky Road bars (image shown above from Annabelle website). Today's chocolate was Annabelle's Rocky Road (Dark Chocolate Coated Marshmallow Mint with Cashews). Annabelle Candy Co. is local to the San Francisco Bay area - based in Hayward, CA.

I had only a bite or two, as cashews and I sometimes don't see eye to eye. (I'm convinced it may be because cashews are related to the poison oak family; I'm sensitive to poison oak and had some whopping good cases of it when I was much younger.)

It was Good - Very Good. Nice green mint marshmallow filling and the dark chocolate is a definite plus. I definitely would have shared this, if someone else had been around. The price for this bar = 99 cents. One bar is 240 calories; the bite that I had was about 60 calories.

ChocolateBet: September 23, 2007

Chocolate of the Day:

1 piece
Preston's
Milk Chocolate Honeycomb candy
Very Good
Cost: $?
Purchased from: Preston's, Burlingame, CA


On the way up to San Francisco I decided to pull off the freeway in search of chocolate in the Burlingame area. I visited three different places.

First, I asked a very nice man at an Italian deli where I might find chocolate, and he directed me to Shaw's on El Camino. Shaw's used to have a few different locations, including one on El Camino in the Mountain View/Los Altos area.

The second place I stopped at was Nuts for Candy, which specializes in "Nostalgic Candies" - chocolates and candies, gifts, toys, and ice cream. I had a very nice conversation with a man named John there, who knows his chocolate/candy. I mentioned that I loved living in an area where there were still many regional chocolatiers still in business, and he listed off local brands in the San Francisco Bay Area, including Scharffen Berger, and Annabelle Candy.

The last chocolate stop was Preston's on Broadway in Burlingame. And I had my chocolate of the day here: 1 piece of milk chocolate honeycomb candy. It was Very Good. 

ChocolateBet: September 22, 2007

Chocolate of the Day:

1 bite

Mackenzies Chocolates

California Banana Slug

Good

Weight: about 1 oz. per slug

Calories: one bite = 60 calories (estimate)

Purchased from: University of California, Santa Cruz, campus bookstore

Yesterday my daughter moved into her college dorm (about an hour away) to the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC). The UCSC mascot is the banana slug.

In honor of her departure and her new school, I ate a bite of a very realistic-looking yellowish banana slug -- which was filled with, to my relief, dark chocolate.

I bought this chocolate slug earlier this month when we first took a trip to look at her dorm room and went to the UCSC bookstore. (The slugs that came in three or four different chocolate flavors/versions.) The slug was so convincing, that I could only manage to eat one bite of the slug's tail.

Mackenzies Chocolates is a local Santa Cruz chocolatier.



The California Banana Slug (about 1 oz. per slug) is made by Mackenzies Chocolates of Santa Cruz.