While on our recent adventure to seek out Ben & Jerry’s Schweddy Balls, we had tracked that ice cream flavor down to a Whole Foods here in Atlanta. While there, and while scoping out the bakery section, we came across samples of this: Milk Chocolate Toffee Pretzels by Divine Art Toffee, based out of Tennessee. Now, I was able to see quickly what they had done there: combining three things that I think are awesome in an effort to get me to buy and eat tons of their product. Crafty.
And initially, the prospect of six ounces of crunchy sweet chocolatey goodness might seem daunting…at a $12.99 pricetag. But I urge you to not flee, because we threw ourselves heroically on that grenade and snagged some in the interests of science. Before we even open it, take a look at the ingredients: pretty stark, not a lot of insanity here. Pure sugar cane, pretzel (natch), water, grade AA pasteurized butter, pecans. Oh and Guittard milk chocolate. So the price tag starts to make sense: high quality ingredients. And each stick is hand rolled. Okay, we can get behind that.
The samples we received at the store were little broken up bits of pretzel covered in the stuff. However, in the container you get: a full-on stick of yum. Check this out:
What follows is a very balanced bit of ingredient juggling. The pretzel is primarily there as a delivery mechanism for everything else–and by that I mean, does it scream “Pretzel!” when you eat it? Not really, no. The pretzel taste hits first, followed by the nice (but very subdued) chocolate (partly why I picked the milk chocolate over the dark chocolate to take home), then the toffee comes in with guns blazing.
[ad#longpost]There are two major kinds of…well, three kinds of toffee. The first is the very buttery toffee. The second is the not-so-buttery toffee but still quite tasty. And the third bucket is where we put everything that’s dry or uninteresting or yick. This toffee I would place squarely in the second column. Which is fine, because of the balance of the tastes involved. I think the really buttery toffee would be too overwhelming. But it all works.
What’s interesting is that the guys at the store said basically, “Don’t worry, you eat one and you’re good.” This when I expressed concern that I would be able to inhale six ounces of toffee-covered pretzel without breaking stride. And you know what? They’re right. After a stick, I was sated. Oh sure, my brain wanted more–because nothing exceeds like excess–but my body said no thanks. It’s been a few days at the house and it’s not empty yet, and that’s just with around eight or so big sticks in the container.
Now still, there’s the price tag question. My thought is this: even if you wouldn’t spend $13 on yourself for this sort of thing–it makes a great gift. Easy way to strike somebody off your list, and just remember: there comes a point in the season where just eliminating people from the list of to-dos is a good thing. Their website is here but the pretzels are a Whole Foods-only product for the moment. But various toffees are for sale–although they will sell them to individual customers if you don’t have a Whole Foods in your area. So give them a ping. They’re good folks.
