As anyone who visits the candy isle of the grocery store might have noticed, there’s been an explosion of chocolate “buttons” – small pieces of individually wrapped solid chocolate.
I personally have been addicted to Dove’s dark chocolate Promises for a few years now. But around 2009 Christmas time I suddenly noticed 2 new additions : Godiva Gems and Hershey’s Bliss. Well, it’s time for a good ol’ fashioned taste competition!
Starting with the Godiva Gems…
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The thin gem-like discs are quite rich and have a distinct bitterness to them. I am a fan of chocolate that has a bite, although I know that not everyone agrees on that point. I liked these guys quite a bit, although I was a mite disappointed to see that it was really cocoa processed with alkali. C’mon, guys!!! You’re a fru-fru chocolate brand. Give us the real deal!
Moving on to Hershey’s Bliss….
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Well there’s a surprise… They’re actually… good. No chocolate processed with alkali, although there’s milk mixed in. I believe that milk reduces the antioxidant nature of dark chocolate, so this isn’t great. But the taste is still dark, a little bit bitter, and a little bit creamy. I give it high marks – I really wasn’t expecting much and they surprised me.
And concluding with good ol’ Dove Dark Chocolate Promises…
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I’ve lived off of these for years now, so I feel a bit cheap exploiting them in a taste-off with new-comers. But here we go anyways. Taste-wise they don’t have the same punch as Godiva and Hersheys. Maybe because they’ve been processed with alkali? I read in an article in Prevention magazine that Dove is so high in flavanols that this is the chocolate the researchers use in their studies. I don’t know if said researchers have compared Dove’s flavanols with the new Godiva & Hershey’s chocolates’… Wish I knew how to measure the levels myself!
