Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Great Chocolate, Underwhelming Bar: Catching Fire Release Week Continues With Wild Ophelia’s Crispy Crunchy Caramel Corn And Dark Chocolate Bar!


The Good: Amazing dark chocolate flavor, Wonderful quality, Does not melt easily
The Bad: Unfortunately weak additive flavor, Fairly expensive.
The Basics: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Crispy Crunchy Caramel Corn And Dark Chocolate Bars from Wild Ophelia are an interesting idea that is executed without enough of the promised additive to make it worth picking up.


Friday’s DVD release of The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (reviewed here!) is rapidly approaching and I feel lucky to have stocked up on Wild Ophelia’s The Hunger Games: Catching Fire candy bars. I think it’s important to say up front in my review of Wild Ophelia The Hunger Games: Catching Fire District 5 Power Crispy Crunchy Caramel Corn And Dark Chocolate chocolate bars that for the problems that this candy bar has, the chocolate is not one of them. Wild Ophelia makes an exceptionally good, high-quality dark chocolate. The flavor of the dark chocolate in these bars is of a quality that almost justifies their price. Given how many other incredible dark chocolate bars Wild Ophelia and its parent company, Vosges Haut-Chocolat, make, it is not worth spending a dime on a chocolate bar from the company that does not live up to its promised unique flavor. Unfortunately, Wild Ophelia’s bar with Caramel Corn does not do that.

The Wild Ophelia Crispy Crunchy Caramel Corn And Dark Chocolate Bars are good chocolate, but a poor combination of the flavors.

Basics

The Wild Ophelia The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Crispy Crunchy Caramel Corn And Dark Chocolate Bar is a solid dark chocolate bar from Wild Ophelia. Each 2 oz. chocolate bar is wrapped in a cardboard wrapper indicating that it is from District 5. Inside the cardboard case is a thick metallic plastic wrapper (with a seam resembling a Pop Tart more than a chocolate bar). The actual chocolate bar is 4 1/2” long by 2 13/16” wide by 1/4” thick. The Bar has no identifying marks or logos on it, but it is segmented to make three 1 1/2” wide by 2 13/16” long bars. The top features ribbing that give the bar a very Art Deco look that is distinctive.

The chocolate is very dark and incredibly solid. Individually, the bars are found in the $3.99 range, which is expensive, though I found mine on clearance for $2.99. Given the quality of these bars, it is tough to call them too expensive.

Ease Of Preparation

Wild Ophelia The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Crispy Crunchy Caramel Corn And Dark Chocolate bars are chocolate, not finding food within the game arena in the Hunger Games! Preparing them is as easy as unwrapping the candy bar. Because the chocolate is pricy, at least for what it is, it should not be eaten in huge bites!

Taste

The Crispy Crunchy Caramel Corn And Dark Chocolate chocolate bar has a scent that is entirely dominated by the chocolate. The bar smells strongly of rich, dark, unsweetened chocolate. The bar smells exclusively of dark chocolate, but nothing close to caramel corn or popped corn.

On the tongue, Wild Ophelia creates an exceptionally good dark chocolate. The Crispy Crunchy Caramel Corn And Dark Chocolate chocolate bar is dark and rich and it must truly linger in the mouth for the chocolate to melt away. After it dissolves, there is a salty, muted flavor that is vaguely like caramel corn. There is not much of the familiar, delightful buttery flavor of caramel corn and while the amazing chocolate is great, the caramel corn is little more than a texture to the chocolate bar.

The The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Crispy Crunchy Caramel Corn And Dark Chocolate bar has a slightly bitter aftertaste that lingers on the tongue for about a minute after one is done consuming the bar. After that flavor fades, the sweetness of the caramel coating on the caramel corn brittle is evident again.

Nutrition

Wild Ophelia makes their fine chocolates with fine ingredients, which is arguably why they are so expensive. With the primary ingredients being dark chocolate (70% cacao), caramel corn brittle, and sea salt, the Wild Ophelia The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Crispy Crunchy Caramel Corn And Dark Chocolate bars are not bad, but they are candy. However, Wild Ophelia does use natural ingredients and organic ingredients where possible; none of the ingredients are unpronounceable. In a 1 ounce serving (which is odd because there is no easy way to break the bar into two equal pieces), there are 140 calories, 90 of which are from fat. This represents 16% of one’s RDA of fat (34% of the RDA of saturated fat). Each bar has 10 mg of Sodium and 2 grams of protein. There is a smattering of Calcium (2% RDA), Iron (15% RDA) and Magnesium (10% RDA), but no other vitamins and minerals. In other words, this is not a snack to try to survive on.

While the bars are all natural and have no preservatives, they do contain soy. As well, there is an allergy warning for tree nuts, peanuts, sesame seeds, milk, wheat, and soy, which implies that these The Hunger Games: Catching Fire bars are not Vegan-compliant. They are, however, Gluten Free.

Storage/Clean-Up

Because the chocolate is so hard, the Wild Ophelia The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Crispy Crunchy Caramel Corn And Dark Chocolate bars are not especially susceptible to heat. Still, these should be kept cool in order to not melt. With that in mind, as long as they are kept cool and dry, these will last almost a year (the one I picked up today would have lasted until August 26, 2014, had it not been consumed by my wife and I).

Clean-up is easy, so long as the chocolate does not melt. The Wild Ophelia Crispy Crunchy Caramel Corn And Dark Chocolate bars have wrappers that ought to be properly disposed of, but otherwise, the chocolate washes off skin and non-porous surfaces. It the chocolate melts onto fabric, consult a fabric guide.

Overall

The Wild Ophelia The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Crispy Crunchy Caramel Corn And Dark Chocolate Bar is hard to call a failure; it’s a tasty chocolate, but it does not live up to the promise of its multiple flavors. That makes for an expensive dark chocolate bar in cute packaging.

For other Wild Ophelia The Hunger Games: Catching Fire candy bars, please check out my reviews of:
District 7 Lumber Smoked Chipotle Chili And Milk Chocolate Bar
District 10 Livestock Beef Jerky & Smoked Mesquite And Milk Chocolate Bars
District 3 Technology Arabica Coffee & Crystal Salt And Dark Chocolate Bars

4/10

For more food reviews, please check out my Food Review Index Page!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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