Aldi Holiday Leftovers

Yesterday your Chocolate Priestess went with her husband, our Milk Chocolate Acolyte, and her friend Erica who accompanied us to the chocolate sculpture event we reported on back in November.  We visited two stores for basic supplies but also to check out their post-Christmas sales to see what they still had available in the chocolate category.

We went to Aldi because for basic canned goods, I've found they are just head and shoulders above other stores. Tomato paste or sauce, basic instant potatoes, butter beans, the prices are about 30-50% less than in our nearby grocery stores.  I've never been very impressed with their dairy, meat or grains selections but our Chocolate Fruity Acolyte told me to "check out the chocolate" the next time I was there.  This is some of what we found left over from the Christmas season.

All three products turned out to be from Germany and all three had cocoa butter and cocoa liquor in them.  They all had a buttery taste in them as well though they did vary in other ways.  So we wondered: Is buttery chocolate common in Germany? If you know, Sisters and Brothers, please leave a comment and tell us.

Let's tackle the Chocolate Santa from Choceur first.  As I hope you recall we had a Sacrament that was this beautiful and amazing tasting chocolate Santa figurine earlier in December.  This particular Choceur Santa was only 99¢ and weighed in at 7oz.  He was listed as being milk chocolate decorated with dark and white chocolate and thus I thought he'd be a perfect comparison to our earlier Santa.  However looking at the ingredient further I was only the ingredients for the milk chocolate and no separate listing or the white or dark varieties that you can see decorated him.  The result is that the Santa tasted the same, very buttery with a light aftertaste of chocolate regardless of where you bit into him.  He did break apart easily and he is very cute but he can't compete with the previous chocolate Santa even at this price difference.

The most adorable chocolates we found at Aldi had to be the Moser Roth Winterfest collection.  These were buttery milk chocolate again but it had a stronger flavor filled with a nice creamy center that wasn't too milky or too vanilla.  The 4.32oz box had 12 different shapes inside.  I tried the shooting star and the Milk Chocolate Acolyte tried the trumpet.  There were better than the Santa and certainly cute but that buttery quality was really throwing our American sensibilities off with the chocolate itself.  As you can see in this photo, each piece had an indent next to hit in the plastic molding which allowed us to easily slip in a thumb or finger and pop them out.  That was a nice thought from the company since since nicely detailed chocolates can be a pain to remove without damaging them or having them all fall out.

Our favor finds from Aldi had to be the Grandessa Truffle Stars which came in a 7oz box of 16 truffles in four flavors easily identified by the guide along the side and the back both.  I want to think Grandessa for this photo guide because it is very helpful for anyone with allergies or taste dislikes.  We tried these two separate ways -- my husband sucked on each piece while ate them in two bites.  He got subtle changes in flavor while I got the differences within five to seven chews usually.  Starting with the top row we had: Latte Macchiato, Caramel (my favorite), Cream, and Vanilla.  The weird thing about these was that each of them actually tasted a bit tangy like caramel at their center and not like what I expect a truffle to be. I still liked them but it wasn't what I was expecting.

So, Sisters and Brothers, tell me about your chocolate shopping experiences at Aldi.