Lake Champlain Organic Peru 70% Cocoa

Bold cocoa flavor, with some interesting spiciness underlying that note. It is reminiscent of pepper, but more subtle.  The aftertaste is slightly chalky, but not bothersome at all. A good effort for a mass-market bar. 7.1

Lake Champlain is a large lake that sits between New York and Vermont. I have sailed on it one summer many years ago on a 40-foot sailboat.  It was a fun trip with a good breeze.  Lake Champlain Chocolates makes a number of truffles and bars.  I am surprised that this is apparently the first of their bars I have reviewed.

Trader Joe's Chocolate Passport

 Each Year Trader Joe's sells a package of Single Origin chocolates from around the world that they called the Chocolate Palette. This year the package has a make-over and given a new name, the Chocolate Passport. In prior year the stack of bars was simply tied up with string. This year the bars are packaged in an open-faced box with a travel theme.

I have been tasting a few of the bars from the Passport, but I will not do a full review of each.  I reviewed them in 2009, and what I have tasted so far lines up with my prior impressions of the Palette. It is still a good introduction to single-origin chocolate. The review from 2009 can be found at:

Trader Joe's Chocolate Palette

Chocolat À L'Ancienne Noir 64% cocoa

Clean cocoa flavor, not complex and few side flavors. Very low bitterness, which is fairly expected for a 64% cocoa bar.  7.6

I like this bar a good deal more than the last Villars bar I tried:

Villars Maitre Swiss Dark Chocolate 72%

I also like the cool Coat of Arms that is on the surface of the bar:

This was a 50 gram (1.75 ounce) bar, and the serving size is listed as "1" -- that's the right way to serve up chocolate!  It is always hard to not eat the whole bar once you get going.

Amedei Cru Venezuela 70% cocoa

Once again Amedei brings it. Very nice combination of flavors, cherry and some berry. No bitterness at all, smooth from start to finish. Splendido! 9.1

Dandelion Venezuela 70% cacao

A strong, assertive chocolate. Fairly bitter, but that backs up the assertion. Overtones of vanilla can be noticed, and I agree with the "malty notes" mentioned on the label. There is a long aftertaste, trailing from the bitter edge. A good way to close out 2012! 8.0

I started off 2012 with a tasting of Dandelion Tanzania 70% cocoa. I also tasted their Dandelion Madagascar 70% cacao the prior November, at which time I mentioned that I had been told they were moving to San Francisco. Looks like the move was completed, as the address on the label is in The City. I'm looking forward to more bars from Dandelion.

Peets Semisweet 64% cacao

Very rich cocoa flavor. Faint cinnamon flavor can be grasped on close examination. Some bitterness, not too much. Just enough for a long lasting aftertaste. 7.3

I'd classify this as a mass-market bar.  It's well made, and has a cocoa bean stamped on every other piece. The label on the back mentions that the bar is "packed exclusively for Peet's Coffee & Tea," so I think we can assume that Peet's does not make the bar itself. There are no additional clues as to who manufactured the bar for Peet's.

$3.29 for 3 ounces

A Guilty Pleasure -- Berger Cookies

I traveled to Baltimore over Thanksgiving, and brought back some Berger Cookies.  Calling them a "cookie" is a slight misnomer. It's actually a thick layer of fudge layered on top of a thin cookie substrate.  I'm sure other bakeries make a cookie like this, but Berger's have been the go-to provider of this type of cookie for Baltimore.

I call it a "guilty pleasure" because the Nutrition Label for the cookie reveals that transfats are used in its making. It is my understanding that 1) transfats are not good for your health and 2) that food products can generally be made without transfats in all cases.  So let us avoid them, yes?

Well, yes in most cases.  I'll make an occasional exception for Berger Cookies. Okay, that's my allotment for the year!

www.bergercookies.com