Iowa Chocolate #1

Not far from where your Chocolate Priestess was born and raised, she discovered a chocolatier called Divine Decadents that her parents had seen advertized in the county newspaper.  We had to stop in and were told they were still recovering from a busy Valentine's Day season -- this what we love to hear on The Chocolate Cult.  Judy is the chocolatier and according to her husband Ed, the man who is working on their website, she is constantly coming up with new products and new flavors.  Today I'm going to look at just a few of their products and later in a Saturday Sacrament I'll look at some more.

I bought two samples of fudge that you can also get at a candy shop a bit south in a city called Cedar Rapids.  This included the "Snickers" and the "Peanut Butter Cup" varieties but these aren't exactly what you'd get in that other shop.  The "Snickers" has a more creamy taste and the chocolate blends more with the peanut flavor in this piece.  Overall though it is superior to the candy bar it is named for.  The "Peanut Butter Cup" though is very different than the piece I got at the other shop.  This has an inverse of the layers with two peanut butter fudge and a central chocolate layer.  It still has the mini peanut butter cups and as you can see in the picture they are packed in that top layer.  This is the better choice for the peanut butter lover but it is good for any cocoa-peanut lover.

The other item I bought at Divine Decadents was their BAT which stands for "Big Ass Turtle".  Now, you all know what a turtle is, right?  Chocolate, caramel and nuts, usually pecans or cashews.  But this is a huge dark chocolate, tree nut free version.  It is as big as my hand and the peanuts are all on the bottom of it giving this three layers: dark chocolate, caramel, and nuts.  The nuts are salty and that concerned me at first since I find that salt can overwhelm chocolate.  The caramel is sticky and tangy with a hint of sweetness as well.  The dark chocolate has that nice bitter kick to it and is real chocolate that melted in my hand when I held it to eat.  Taking a bite revealed that the entire thing is very sticky and the bites have to be pulled more than cleanly bitten off.  The individual flavors mix according to how you eat it -- peanut side down, more salt, chocolate side down, more cocoa.  I recommend eating it peanut side down because then the flavors that you encounter are salty peanut, tangy caramel ending with the dark chocolate.  A huge treat for about $3 so this is a great buy.

Divine Decadents has not only quality chocolate but practically a monopoly on chocolate in this part of the country.  They supply much of the chocolate for a Cedar Rapids store called Simply Divine which we will look at in a few reviews.  Right now, Sisters and Brothers I need you to check out their website and encourage them to keep making good products and keeping making that website better so you can sample Judy's talent for yourself.

Sisters and Brothers, may you, too, take the time to slowly appreciate what the Divine and human ingenuity have offered you in chocolate.