The Original Zzang! Bar

Posted by Edmund in Chocolate, Gourmet Chocolate Bars, USA | 1 comment

Ingredients: 64% Dark Chocolate, Sea Salt, Roasted Peanut, Nougat, and Caramel.
Producer: Zingerman’s Bakery.
Price: $6.00 at Zingerman’s site.

This is a gourmet take on a candy bar, and Zingerman’s Bakery sure hits the nail on the head. The Zzang! Original has a very Snickers like flavor to it, with roasted peanuts and caramel coming out as the prominent flavors. I really like the thought that went into the flavor selection—this isn’t a simple two ingredient bar. It has nougat, caramel, roasted peanut, sea salt, and chocolate, all of which are big, bold flavors on their own. Just as importantly, the bar is hand-made, so it lacks the artificial, candy-like taste that you get in the large-scale, manufactured candy bars that we’ve grown up on.

As a result, nothing is cloying, overpowering, or too sweet in any way. In fact, this is probably the most balanced candy bar I’ve ever had, which is especially surprising because it includes so many flavors that can be cloying on their own (caramel, nougat, and chocolate). Moreover, the balance is both due to the quality of each ingredients as well as the synergy among all the flavors.

First, the chocolate shell is dark, coming in at 64%. It adds a semi-bitter, intense cocoa without going overboard, and it helps balance out some of the sweeter flavors. I like, though, that since the chocolate only comes in a thin shell, it’s not dominant and so lets the other ingredients have their share of the spotlight.

Even better, the Zzang! Original Bar includes some sea salt, so that it has a salted caramel taste to it. That salt both helps to lighten the sweetness and to enhance it through contrast (interestingly enough, adding a bit of salt to something sweet actually cause the taste buds to perceive it as sweeter, technically speaking). The salt especially kicks in during the aftertaste, leaving you wanting more chocolate, in the best way possible.

The roasted peanuts are also delicious. They’re distributed so generously throughout the bar that you get some of the delicious crunch in every bite. They don’t come off as too hard, either, because the mix on the inside is perfectly soft, as though you’re biting into a gigantic marshmallow-like layer of caramel. The sensation of munching through the firm chocolate crust only to find something so perfectly smooth and lightly crunchy inside is fantastic.

That caramel doesn’t disappoint, either. It’s made with a special kind of brown sugar that leaves you with a slightly fresher, lighter, and less abrasive sugary taste than what you’d expect from a typical caramel.

Best of all, though, is the synergy. In terms of texture, you get the smooth, crunchy, and chewy. In terms of taste, you get the sweet, chocolaty, salty, creamy, rich, and nutty. Needless to say, the Zzang! Original is easily one of the most interesting, complex candy bars you will ever try.

As a side note, I also really like the presentation of this bar—something I never thought I’d say about a candy bar. Unlike most candy bars, it comes in its own box, and that box is immediately inviting, displaying a cartoon version of the bar and a slogan or two. The bar itself is well-constructed, too, looking like a high-end Snickers—small, long, and thick. When you eat it, you definitely know it costs more than the average bar just by looking at it, because it’s too even and smooth—the surface is polished, and no nuts jut out.

The Original Zzang! Original, then, impresses in every way, from presentation to taste to the flavor combination. In doing so, it not only delivers a delicious experience, but it elevates the meaning of “candy bar.”

Presentation: 4.0/5.0
Taste: 4.3-4.4/5.0, for a candy bar. This is one of the best candy bars you could ever ask for.
Flavor: 4.5/5.0
Value: 3.5/5.0. Very expensive for a candy bar, but made with some of the highest-quality ingredients.
Overall Score: 4.2/5.0. Snickers on crack!