Mars Twix Coconut

Even though I eat a lot of candy and chocolate just for this blog, I try not to let myself lose my love for the stuff. Sometimes, I eat candy just to eat it, and it feels good. One of my favorite "just for fun" candy bars is Twix, so I couldn't pass up a chance to try Twix Coconut. The sample in this review was kindly provided by a PR representative, but please rest assured that I did not let that influence my opinion (and I definitely would have bought it myself eventually anyhow).

Twix Coconut is a new, summery variation on the classic Twix, available starting this spring. The coconut flavor is in the caramel, which should be good news for those wary of coconut texture. Coconut is one of those great polarizing flavors, or at least, when people don't like it, they really seem to hate it. I don't know if it's the flavor or the texture, but I used to be a coconut-hater myself. Thankfully, my husband turned me around.


When I opened the package, the mild chocolate and strong coconut scent of the bars reminded me of German chocolate cake. The coconut flavor in the caramel was good, not too strong and not too sweet, and it went well with the milky flavors that were already there.

Twix is all about the chocolate/cookie/caramel texture combination, so no changes were made to that formula. I liked the addition of coconut flavor; it seemed to temper the sweetness of the bars, which made me happy. As long as you like coconut, this limited edition bar is certainly worth a taste.

B+

Twix website

Coconut What?

Hey, wanna see something super freakin' cool? See that there vegan brunch plate from Memphis Taproom? That "bacon" is made from coconut chips — yes, coconut chips! — and it's got all the right smokey flavors and all-important crisp. I tell ya, it's akin to culinary voodoo.

I first heard about the technique of using coconut chips to make vegan bacon over on Vegan Brew. It sort of blew my mind, and I'm not sure how I didn't know about this all these years.

Then I was watching Food Network's series Diner, Drive-ins and Dives specifically to catch the segment on Memphis Taproom, a vegetarian and vegan friendly gastopub in Kensington. It was on this episode of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives that I peeped Memphis Taproom's chef smoking coconut (home cooks without a smoker can just use liquid smoke) for their vegan smoked coconut club sandwich. Oh, joy, I can have coconut bacon without lifting a finger in the kitchen.

On their own, coconut bacon chips are a bit hard to eat with a fork because of their small size, but I could certainly go for coconut bacon bits crumbled over a bowl of grits, or between bread like Memphis Taproom's club sandwich. Gotta get back there! Or just make my own.

Mrs. Fields Cookie Recipe Chocolates

One of my favorite cookbooks is my Mrs. Fields cookie recipe book. There are some fantastic cookies to be made, and I've certainly never been disappointed by a cookie purchased at a Mrs. Fields store. For these reasons, I did not fear these chocolates when they showed up in my stocking this Christmas.


These were purchased from Target by my mother, and the box says they cost $1. The three flavors included were Dark Coconut Macaroon, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, and Brownie Truffle. The cookie dough flavor sounded especially up my alley, since I am a huge fan of cookie dough ice cream.


Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough was first on my list to try. I feel I should mention that none of these chocolates had much of a smell. Anyhow, inside was a lump of cookie dough. I could taste the mediocre chocolate shell, but the cookie dough center had none of the vanilla or salty flavor that actual cookie dough has. It shouldn't have surprised me, but this was just painfully sweet.


Dark Coconut Macaroon was next, and again, the first thing I noted was the overwhelming, throat-burning sweetness. Aside from that, there was creamy, sticky coconut paste inside. It tasted like a Mounds bar, which wasn't bad, since I like coconut.


Finally, I sampled Brownie Truffle, which was like a chocolate coated chunk of brownie. Unsurprisingly, this one was also ridiculously sweet. The filling was grainy (I felt sugar granules) and almost chalky. It was slightly better and much more authentic than the cookie dough flavor, but really, at this point, I was not in the mood.

I don't pull this rating out very often, but both my husband and I found these to be just too sweet to enjoy. We split each piece, so I can't even imagine finishing all of them myself. They were edible, but far too cloyingly sweet for me to ever want to consume again. It's nice that they tried to diversify, but Mrs. Fields should definitely stick to cookies.

D

Here is a link to another review of these chocolates.

Mrs. Fields website (but these chocolates can't be found on the website)

Orbit Pina Colada Gum

I'll admit it - my heart did a little dance of joy when I saw this gum at the grocery store. Orbit is my favorite brand of gum, and rarely am I disappointed by it. One such case was the recent flavor, the polarizing Positively Pomegranate, which tasted good but had a bizarre texture. I should pick up another pack to see if anything has changed.

On the topic of this flavor, both my husband and I thought we had tried Pina Colada gum before but couldn't remember a specific instance. In any case, the gum came home with us because I couldn't resist.


It smelled like toasted coconut, which might instantly put off some people, but I can't imagine those people choosing to buy this gum. The piece was hard at first, and took some tough chewing to get started. It was fruity and sour on the tongue, and sweet coconut dominated the flavor profile, with a background pineapple and a hint of mint.

The sweetness was the first to go, after a couple minutes, and then it was just a mild coconut. The mint hung around for a while, and the leftover flavor wasn't bad. There were occasional bursts of pineapple as I continued chewing. The gum seemed to get harder as I chewed, and had somewhat of a rubbery texture. It became a workout for my jaw after about 15 minutes. Despite this, the flavor was tasty and original, and it makes a great addition to the Orbit line up.

Have a look at Gigi-reveiws and The Impulsive Buy for more.

A-

Orbit Website

Summer Tirol

These summer Tirol chocolates came in a fancy cup, and I bought them in a grocery store for about 300 yen. There were 12 designs (one for each Zodiac sign), but only 3 flavors: acerola, lemon, and coconut.

I love the pastel metallic colors, and even though I'm not into astrology, the package designs were pretty neat. Also, there were a lot of chocolates in this. Eating the whole cup would set you back about 1000 calories. On their own, they are about 30 calories each.


Coconut was half white and half milk chocolate. It smelled like coconut, but a little bit too much like sunscreen. Thankfully, it didn't taste like sunscreen, but the coconut flavor was very mild. Actually, I wished that the coconut flavor was stronger. It had a biscuit center, adding a nice texture. B

Acerola (cherry) was my favorite of the flavors. It smelled very fruity, and had a bright, strong cherry Starburst-like flavor. The white chocolate was light and smooth and didn't get in the way of the delicious, tart cherry gummy center. The gummy texture was sticky and chewy like a fruit gem. A+

Lemon smelled a little bit like cleaner, but tasted good. It reminded me of a lemon bar, because the chocolate was buttery and the gummy center was sour. The gummy had the same texture as the acerola. My sister didn't like the combination, but my husband and I did. B+

The lemon and acerola were nice and bold, so the coconut was disappointing by comparison. Overall, though, this was a nice variety pack, and there was something for everyone.

Tirol Chocolate website

Chick-O-Stick Ice Cream

Don't ask why, but vegans love Chick-O-Sticks -- that bright orange, round stick of crunchy peanut butter and toasted coconut candy that, if you've never had one, is somewhat similar to the center of a Butterfinger Bar.

Okay, I'll tell you why vegans love Chick-O-Sticks. When you're a starving vegan on a road trip in the middle of no where, the Chick-O-Stick is your best bud, as it's one of only a few vegan candies in the aisles of a 7-11. And Chick-O-Stick is quite good. Who doesn't like crunchy peanut butter and coconut candy that sticks in your teeth!

I had this fabulous idea of making vegan Chick-O-Stick ice cream, but, dang it, someone beat me to it. To quote a Chumbawamba lyric (yeah, I like them, despite that one hit in the late 90's), "you can't write a song that's never been sung," and, similarly, you can't create a dish that's never been made.

Ah, well, I made the ice cream anyway, but with my own recipe. Since the vegan chocolate coconute ice cream I made last year turned out so well, I used the base from that recipe with added peanut butter, and Chick-O-Stick bits thrown in toward the end of the churning process.

And it was AWESOME! So awesome, I made a second batch almost immediately. Slightly peanuty, slightly coconuty, with lots of fun crunchy candy bits.

Get on it, vegans (and non-vegans), you know you love Chick-O-Sticks!Chick-O-Stick Ice Cream
makes about 1 quart

1 cup water
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup peanut butter
2 cups canned coconut milk
3 (2 oz) Chick-O-Sticks, crushed

• Heat water and sugar in a medium saucepan until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat.
• Add syrup, peanut butter, and coconut milk to a blender, and blend until peanut butter is thoroughly incorporated.
• Chill ice cream base for a couple of hours or overnight.
• Freeze in ice cream machine. During the last minutes of churning add crushed Chick-O-Sticks and churn for a few more minutes until candy bits are evenly distributed. (I experimented with crushing the Chick-O-Sticks, and found pulsing with a food processor produced too much powder. Smashing the sticks while still in their wrappers with a cast iron skillet, just a couple of bonks, gave the results I desired -- large to small chunks with minimal powder.
  

Coconut Truffles

Last year I made truffles for a birthday gift in February, and inadvertently posted them right before Valentine's Day. This year, I made truffles at Christmas, but am purposely posting the recipe before Valentine's. So...I guess what I'm saying is you can't go wrong with making truffles for any occasion, at any time of the year, and Valentine's is perfectly fitting.

What's to love about these truffles? They are beyond easy to make, since we're not fooling around with tempering chocolate for an outer coating. And, I swear, if I didn't tell you, you'd never guess that these truffles are vegan.

I had such great results subbing coconut milk for heavy cream when making chocolate coconut ice cream last year, I thought why not sub coconut milk for heavy cream in truffles? Coconut milk and heavy cream are both rich with fats. Results: awesome!

So easy. This is all you do:Pour warm coconut milk over chopped bittersweet chocolate.

Stir chocolate and coconut milk until chocolate pieces are completely melted, and coconut milk and chocolate are incorporated. Chill in fridge until cooled.
Scrape up about 1 tablespoon's worth of ganache, and form into a rough ball.

Roll ball around palm of hands to make more uniform. Your hot little hands will melt the surface of the ganache balls, but that's OK.
So the coconut flakes don't get dirty with chocolate from your truffle-rolling hands, if you have a friend, let them roll the still warm-surfaced truffles in a dish of coconut flakes as soon as you make them. If alone (like I was), you're gonna have to work harder to get the flakes to stick to the now cooled truffles by pressing stubborn coconut flakes onto the truffle.

Simple, no?

Coconut Truffles
makes about 35 truffles

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
½ cup coconut milk (not lite)
2 cups sweetened coconut flakes (toasted, if desired)

• Scald coconut milk in a small saucepan on the stove.
• In a small bowl, add hot coconut milk to chopped chocolate, and stir until chocolate is melted and thoroughly incorporated.
• Store chocolate ganache in refrigerator until chilled (1-2 hours).
• Scoop out about 1 tablespoon of chilled chocolate ganache, and, with your hands, roll into balls. Place balls on parchment or waxed paper.
  
• Roll ganache balls in a bowl of coconut flakes, pressing flakes into the surface of the balls.
  

Chocolate Coconut Ice Cream

Kicking myself. That's what I'm doing for not getting around to this vegan chocolate ice cream recipe last summer. It's been sitting in my bookmarks with all the other neglected and untried recipes. I even meant to make it earlier this summer, but, yeah, it just didn't happen.

The recipe was bookmarked from Chow, and they, in turn, got the recipe from the chocolate and ice cream demigod, David Lebovitz. And, now, you're getting it from me. Love the interwebs!

The original recipe is called Chocolate Coconut Sherbet, but, thanks to coconut milk, this non-dairy frozen treat eats like the creamiest, richest ice cream. I have a hard time calling it sherbet, so I won't.

The first bite does have hints of coconut, but, fear not coconut haters, after that it's all smooth, rich chocolate. Seriously good. Seriously simple. Seriously vegan (if you use vegan chocolate).

Chocolate Coconut Ice Cream
adapted from David Lebovitz
makes about 1 quart

1 cup water
1 cup sugar
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
2 cups canned coconut milk
1 tablespoon dark rum

• Heat water and sugar in a medium saucepan until sugar is dissolved.
• Add chocolate to the syrup and stir until chocolate is completely melted.
  
• Remove from heat, and stir in coconut milk and rum.
• Chill, then freeze in ice cream machine.
  

Mars Starburst Tropical

I should know by now to be wary of "tropical" versions of things. I learned my lesson many years ago with Tropical Skittles. But I guess I forgot that lesson when I bought this bag of Tropical Starburst. Let me break down each flavor.

Mango Melon: I don't really taste mango, but I can kind of taste the melon (cantaloupe). I don't think either fruit is as sour as this tastes, though.

Royal Berry Punch: Tastes a lot like clear gummy bears, but not good ones. I don't really taste berry at all, actually, although the first bite was almost cranberry, in a bitter sort of way.

Pina Colada: Very plastic-y taste. I think it's from the attempt at tasting like coconut. The pineapple is almost there, but the sugary taste is overpowering.

Strawberry Banana: I liked this best of the bunch. It tastes very artificial, but at least it does hit its target of strawberry banana. Not that it's a very tropical combination.

Starburst is one of those candies that was better as a child. Now they all just taste too sweet. I can still eat the originals, although too many gives me heartburn, as I recently discovered. If I get the urge for Starburst again soon, I won't pick Tropical.

C

Starburst Website

Vosges Naga Bar

This might be the most expensive candy bar I've ever eaten. This little thing was $3.50 at Whole Foods, but I've always wanted to try curry chocolate, so I just couldn't say no. The full size was something like $7.50 so I went with the little one. It was supposed to come with tasting instructions, but I didn't see any.


This was some smooth chocolate. The milk chocolate base was as silky as I've ever tasted, and the coconut added a nice grittiness. The curry was not how I expected, but I was pleased. I suppose I thought it would be more present, but it instead provided a bit of background heat and a nice spiciness. I am a huge fan of spicy foods, and spicy sweet is a fantastic combination.

OK, I lied, I have had this expensive stuff before. A few years back, my husband's parents gave us the Black Pearl (ginger + wasabi + black sesame seeds + dark chocolate) and the Red Fire (Mexican ancho & chipotle chillies + Ceylon cinnamon + dark chocolate) bars in a Christmas gift and they were very similar to this one; really high quality chocolate base and background heat.

The aforementioned Vosges chocolates are definitely something special, and although they aren't five alarm spicy, they definitely aren't for people with low heat tolerance. I can't really say it'd be worth the money for me to buy them often for myself, but as a gift, sure, bring them on!

B+

Vosges Haut-Chocolate

Key Lime-Coconut Cupcakes

I don’t own what is probably the most popular vegan cookbook out there – Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. Neither do I own Moskowitz’s Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. I like to think that it's not that I'm slow or cheap, but that I was just waiting for the big kahuna – Veganomicon: the Ultimate Vegan Cookbook.

Ok, I'm cheap. I was waiting for someone (Santa) to give me one of Moskowitz’s cookbooks.

The first recipe I made out of Veganomicon was mini key lime-coconut cupcakes for the last Philly food blogger meetup. Can’t find key lime-coconut cupcakes in the index of your Veganomicon? That’s because it’s not there.

I knew I was making non-vegan mini key lime bars, but wanted a vegan counterpart. When I saw the coconut-lemon bundt cake recipe in Veganomicon, I immediately thought of banana-lime bread with lime glaze that I used to make that also used coconut. Bingo! Substitute lime for lemon, put the batter in a mini-cupcake pan, and slap a lime glaze on those suckers!

I liked these guys a lot. They were sweet, but not cloying. If you want cloying, just add a lime and cream cheese-like frosting. Cloying is good, too.

Key Lime-Coconut Cupcakes

1 ⅔ cups granulated sugar
⅔ cup vegetable oil
1 14-ounce can coconut milk
¼ cup rice or soy milk
¼ cup lime juice, (key lime or regular)
3 tablespoons grated lime zest
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 ½ cup shredded coconut, (sweetened or unsweetened)

Key Lime-Rum Glaze

¼ cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon rum
3 tablespoons lime juice, (key lime or regular)

• For the cake, combine sugar, oil, coconut milk, rice milk, lime juice and zest, and vanilla in a large bowl.
• Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into the wet ingredients in batches, mixing well after each addition. Mix in the coconut.
• Pour the batter into a greased mini-cupcake pan, and bake for 18 minutes in a pre-heated 350° oven, or until the cake is done. Let cool.
• To make the glaze, combine brown sugar, rum, and lime juice in a small pan over low heat, stirring constantly for about 5 minutes until a thin syrup develops. Brush tops of cupcakes with glaze.

Papaya-Coconut Cupcakes with Ginger-Lime Cream Cheese Frosting

Speaking of exotic flavors, I finally got around to making one of the scrumptious sounding and looking cupcakes at Cupcake Bakeshop by Chockylit, a blog devoted to the cupcake. If you haven’t been to the site, do go. I put it on my blogroll a few months ago.

Her cupcake darlings are creative and inspiring. They're not your standard flavors offered at bakeries. Here’s a sampling of the unusual-for-cupcake flavors: tarragon, basil, fennel, chili, tea, eggnog, persimmon, and lychee.

Some of the cupcakes are complex and amazing. I’m eyeing a cupcake inspired by the Samoas® Girl Scout cookie for an upcoming eating event – my second favorite Girl Scout cookie after Thin Mints.

I’m a sucker for pictures, and her pictures are gorgeous. I know my cupcakes will never look that good due to my chronic impatience and lack of a pastry bag, yet I still am not afraid to dive in and try to recreate the beauty.

The cupcakes all look good, but I decided to try the papaya-coconut cupcakes with ginger-lime cream cheese frosting.

I had everything already in the kitchen, expect for a papaya. The recipe calls for six ounces of papaya, but I don’t have a scale. I just threw some in; I’m not sure how much.

I substituted reduced-fat coconut milk and reduced-fat cream cheese because it was on hand. I would not recommend reduced-fat cream cheese if you were taking these to an event, only because the resulting icing is softer. If it’s warm outside, the icing could be a melting mess.

The result was very good. The cake was more like a fruit quick bread. The icing was my favorite part – tangy lime with spicy ginger. I put the full tablespoon of ginger in, but for my taste I could have put more in.

If only I had the time and metabolism to make and eat every one of her cupcakes!