DOVE Chocolate is well-known in the USA and many other places around the world now. Still a private company, DOVE has grown and grown into international powerhouse that provides chocolate year round as well as for may holidays though not all holiday. This Christmas DOVE has four bags of chocolate in their PROMISES line called "Snowflakes" -- Milk, Dark, Peppermint Bark, and an Assortment. They sent The Chocolate Cult one bag of each of these and today we will reveal them to you all in full sensory fashion. As you can see in the photo to the left each bag is a different color so they are easily to identify. They should be available in most mass retailers around the USA as well as other countries. Leave a comment and let me know where you've found these in your city, Sisters and Brothers.
We'll start with the blue bag of Milk Chocolate. The pieces are individually wrapped in either silver with blue or blue with silver foil around a hexagon of chocolate. Our bag had 13 blue and 23 silver pieces in all for a total of 36 pieces; 5 pieces = 1 serving with 200 calories made of 7g saturated fat, 10mg cholesterol, 25mg sodium, 1g fiber, 20g sugars, 2g protein, 2% daily Vitamin A and iron, and 6% daily calcium. The one I unwrapped for this review said "Joy to ... you" on the wrapper. All of the Snowflake PROMISES measure 1 inch across and 0.5 inches deep. This one has a creamy cocoa scent when I take a whiff of it before biting into it; it makes no sound but immediately starts to melt coating my tongue and mouth with smooth chocolate. There is a hint of vanilla with the cocoa and cream but primarily the cocoa is the stronger flavor which is what I want even in my milk chocolates.
The Dark Chocolate is in the red bag and like the previous bag, the individual hexagons of chocolate are wrapped in red with silver or silver with red foil. 5 pieces = 1 serving of 200 calories made of 5g saturated fat, 5mg cholesterol, 3g fiber, 17g sugars, 2g protein, and 6% daily iron. Our bag had 19 red and 16 silver wrapped chocolates for a total of 35 pieces. As soon as I opened the bag itself, my nose with hit by the semi-sweet chocolate fragrance -- wonderful. The message on the wrapper says "What if "the season to be jolly" last all year long?" Why couldn't it? Sometimes in life you have two choices -- laugh or cry -- and when that happens, Your Chocolate Priestess has been working to laugh as a way to cut stress. If you have a busy holiday season, this attitude is very helpful. This makes a slight snap when I take a bite and the chocolate starts to melt. This is semi-sweet and it does have that sweet start with a bitter finish to it that I think anything semi-sweet should have. Have you ever notice though that candy is often not labeled semi-sweet merely dark or milk chocolate? If you let it melt, both levels of flavor will build up but the bitterness lingers more as does a bit of a cocoa buzz by the second bite. Excellent.
The color coding is important when you get to the Chocolate Assortment bag. The bag itself is purple but inside are the red/silver and silver/red Dark Chocolate, the blue/silver and silver/blue Milk Chocolate as well as the silver with gold snowflake decoration pieces that are Caramel. Why not a bag of just the Caramel though? Instead of repeating the previous two descriptions we'll focus on the new Caramel variety. First, the nutritional information is more tenuous because there are three varieties so I won't give that information here. Our bag had 12 Milk Chocolate, 12 Dark Chocolate, and 12 Caramel pieces for a total of 26 Snowflake Promises. This bag had a lighter chocolate scent when I opened it and I could tell it was from the Dark pieces. As you can see this is a milk chocolate piece because it is not as dark as the previous. The message on this wrapper is long: "Spending time is a greater gift than spending money." Agree or disagree? Back to the Caramel Snowflake. The fragrance is a sweet yet tangy caramel with a hint of the cocoa. This makes a soft snap as I take a bite and the light yellow caramel inside starts to ooze out. The flavor is more balanced than the scent with the milk chocolate holding its own with the caramel that is more tangy than sweet really. A nice surprise but now I would how it would work with the dark chocolate.
Finally for the holiday we have the Peppermint Bark green bag with silver foil wrapped squares with red and green pocka dots on the wrapper. These are not the Snowflake variety, just PROMISES. This bag also revealed a dark fragrance when I opened it but it had a hit of peppermint behind it. Inside were 28 pieces of this treat. Unwrapped this has a more peppermint and creamy essence when I bring it to my nose. Take it from the wrapper I read the message: "A smile is the perfect gift, personal and encouraging." Perhaps but I really like those fuzzy, warm house socks that prevent my feet from slipping on our wooden floors. This measures 1.25 X 1.25 X 0.5 inches with 1/5th of that depth a dark chocolate base with a white chocolate and peppermint candy top. This makes a slight snap when I take a bite with the dark side down. The candy pieces are crunchy and loud but as I chew they get chewy and the cooling from the peppermint builds up. The white chocolate is creamy but the bitter edge to the dark is what starts and finishes off this first bite. Flipping the candy over increasing the peppermint flavor but also increases the dark chocolate finish so I'm torn between which way I preferred eating it.
DOVE Chocolate has provided us with great quality at a reasonable price once more. Even though Christmas is only 15 days away (did that scare you, Sisters and Brothers?), these aren't only for Christmas. Let's be honest, if you live far enough north in the Northern hemisphere snow is probably a fact of your life so these Snowflake PROMISES and PROMISES could represent your environment regardless of your culture or religion. Good chocolate, decent price, easy to find, and cutting across cultural lines make these chocolates worthy Sacraments. Now let me know what Snowflakes you've found, what stores you are finding them in, and what you think of them, Sisters and Brothers.
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