DOVE Almond Dark Chocolate Bars Revealed

Remember back at the beginning of 2012, Sisters and Brothers? I'm sure you can! We received a huge basket from DOVE as well as a video interview with Claire Robinson. We still have not revealed all those products to you yet but here's one more for today's Saturday Sacrament: Almond Silky Smooth Dark Chocolate Bars.  Soon we'll be featuring the 71% bars as we do some baking and candy making as the weather gets cooler.

Each bar is big at 3.3oz that the nutritional information labels two servings of 9 individual pieces which is about right with two pieces left over by my count of 5 rows of four sections.  IF nutrition is so important to you, then I think you know the best way to deal with chocolate is darker and moderate quantities.  In this case, I think four pieces, or one vertical line of the chocolate, is very satisfying because you get the darker chocolate but also about one whole almond per piece give or take as you can see in the photo and in the next close-up as well.

The bar is almost half an inch thick allowing the chocolate to just cover the almonds on top but you can see they point through on the bottom.  The bar has a nice dark cocoa scent with an undercurrent of creaminess.  I have to be right over an almond to smell it.  This bar was a bit broken as you can see but breaking the other pieces is a challenge if an almond is on that scored line. Of course the cacao percentage and the thickness means the bar snaps loudly when I bite, the almonds are a continuous crunch, too.   I can tell these nuts are roasted, they add no sweetness to the bar so be certain you love your dark chocolate before trying these.  Between the chocolate and the nuts though I notice just one piece tends to dry my mouth out so have some water ready.  This also means there is a nice cocoa buzz generated.

What do you think, Sisters and Brothers?  Have you had this version of DOVE's Silky Smooth bars?  They also have a Promise bite size version of this as well as bags of chocolate covered whole almonds now.  For the natural ingredient list, for the quality of the chocolate and almonds, and for the nice buzz this creates, these bars earn a Sacrament status today.