Lake Champlain 5 Star Caramel

Posted by Edmund in Chocolate, Featured Articles, Gourmet Chocolate Bars, USA | 0 comments

Composition: Caramel, Almonds, and Milk Chocolate.
Region of Production: USA.
Price: $3.80 for 2.0 oz. bar (56 g).

If you love Snickers, have I ever found a bar for you! This is about the closest thing you can get to a true Snickers-like candy bar made with fresh quality ingredients that don’t overwhelm you with their sweetness.

As I opened up the bar, I got a whiff of fresh candy-like milk chocolate, with just a bit of nut. The presentation is definitely a step down from some of Lake Champlain’s other bars. This diminutive bar comes thick, filled to the brim with caramel and almonds. The make of the bar isn’t bad for candy, but the bottom isn’t smooth at all, as the chocolate has peeled away. Moreover, the top surface has a few pores, probably from the nuts, which protrude slightly.

Taste-wise, though, this bar is a dream, at least for any true fan of caramel. Typically, caramel chocolates run rampant with their sugary richness, becoming cloying within one bite. Not so here. Instead of sickeningly creamy and viscous, the caramel verges on a marzipan-like thickness and chewiness. It can still cling to the mouth slightly, but it holds its form well and doesn’t get all over the place. Moreover, it has a very natural sweetness, akin to a very light, fresh butterscotch or honey. That natural taste really complements the almonds well.

The milk chocolate, too, has that same type of balance, though it is clearly on the sweeter side. I like, too, that that there are two different layers of chocolate, each with a different texture: a crispy milky shell and a dark ganache-like layer on top of the caramel.

Oddly enough, though, it’s not the caramel but the almonds that headline the show. The nuts come in huge whole chunks, distributed generously throughout the bar, so that in every bite you get an excellent crunch. Those nuts also add just one more layer of protection against the sweetness and richness of the filling.

This bar, then, succeeds on two levels. In terms of texture, the extreme crunch of the nuts, chewy richness of the caramel, and smooth chocolate come together for an incredible mouth feel. In terms of taste, the ingredients are so fresh, so flavorful, and so balanced that I managed to eat the whole bar without once feeling any difficulty—something I can say about very few caramel chocolates.

Scores

Presentation: 2.5/5.0
Melt/Texture: 4.2+/5.0
Length: 1.5/5.0 (But not really applicable)
Taste: 4.2+/5.0
Flavor: 4.4/5.0
Value: 4.2+/5.0
Overall Score: 4.2+/5.0