Ever see something on the shelf at Trader Joe’s and BAM! You just gotta pick it up?!?! Well I picked up three of them yesterday! I spied these little gems on the “What’s New” section at my local Trader Joe’s and said I just gotta rush home and write about them!
What we have here is a trio of chocolate bars from Belgium, two of them are dark chocolate and one is milk chocolate. Specifically, there is a one bar with milk chocolate filled with caramel, one filled with Chocolate Buttercream and then the one I’m most interested in is the one filled with Speculoos cookie butter! On the package it says “Les Chocolats de Belegique” so they must be great!
I’ll start with the Milk Chocolate filled with Caramel. I like milk chocolate OK and this was a nice rich creamy version. The caramel adds a nice layer of complexity and sweetness. For those that aren’t dark chocolate fans (are there really any out there!?!?), this is a good alternative. Not my favorite of the trio, but a nice, high quality milk chocolate bar.
The next one I tried was the Dark Chocolate filled with Chocolate Buttercream. I really like this one. Chocolate inside chocolate! Double trouble! When you bite into the hard exterior of the dark chocolate and you get your tongue on the chocolate buttercream you mouth just goes “whoa!”, what just happened? Very rich and satisfying!
The last one I tried and I saved it for last because I knew that this was the one, the holy grail of chocolate bars! When I first wrote about Speculoos Cookie Spread I predicted that Trader Joe’s would find many ways to put this spread into just about anything they could. I still predict that we will see things like Speculoos Ice Cream, Speculoos Drinkable Yogurt, Speculoos chips, you name it they are going to put this stuff in everything! The first thing I thought of back then was that this stuff is great, but but by itself is OK. It needed chocolate and Trader Joe’s spared nothing on this. They pared these with a rich, dark chocolate from Belguim.
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| Speculoos filled, Buttercream and Caramel |
Biting into the bar, it’s the same as the chocolate butter cream bar, just a slightly firmer interior. When you get through the chocolate you get to the speculoos and when all that mixes in your mouth that’s when the magic happens! I think this is a wonderful combination of chocolate and speculoos. This speculoos looks a little lighter than from the jar and I wonder if it’s a different blend. It doesn’t taste as strong as the jarred version, but maybe they wanted to lighten it up for this combination. It’s a bit like a really good Reeses Peanut Butter cup (hmmm…. speculoos chocolate cups anyone?) but without any peanut flavor. It has that kind of texture and mouthtfeel. Yum!
If you are looking for an indulgence, go with these bars. You can’t go wrong with any of these bars and I’ll rate them separately.
I rate the Trader Joe’s Belgium Milk Chocolate with Caramel 7 bells.
I rate the Trader Joe’s Belgium Dark Chocolate with Chocolate Butter Cream bars 8 bells.
I rate the Trader Joe’s Belgium Dark Chocolate with Speculoos Cookie Spread bar 9 bells!
Get them while you can, these things tend to cycle pretty quickly!
I love Trader Joe's milk chocolate candy bars especially this new one filled with caramel. In response to your commentary, I may be one of the few people who can't eat dark chocolate. The high caffeine content interferes with my medication making me nauseous and dizzy. However, I still crave dark chocolate!
These WERE my favorite chocolate bars. I’m sad they are no longer being made.