This content has been archived. It may no longer be relevant
When my friend Linda was visiting over Valentine’s Day she received a gift from her husband. Valentine’s morning the doorbell rang and there stood the delivery man. He quickly placed a beautiful bouquet of flowers in a pretty vase and a heart-shaped box of candy on the center of our dining room table. (As an aside, I really want to know what they spray on flower arrangements these days. Linda travelled here by plane, so she left her vase of love here for us to enjoy. It has been 13 days since the flowers arrived. Four days ago I placed them on the front porch and they still look as perky as the day they were delivered. Kinda scary if you ask me.)
Anyway, Linda generously shared her box of chocolates (unfortunately for her in a family our size, even a large box is emptied quickly). There was no diagram or paper outlining what different flavor awaited us upon our first bite into the delicious morsels, so we had to guess. We were wrong every time. I was in search of anything caramel. I struck out, all three times. My heart was set on caramel and I got a creamy orange, then another time a fruity strawberry. My last stab in my quest for a bite into a sweet, chewy, sticky caramel delight that you have to hold firmly clamped between your teeth and then pull straight out in front of you with one long motion of your arm was met with failure. I even tried a darker chocolate and different shape, but no, no caramel for me. After attacking the box with gusto, we humbly remembered our manners and saved the last piece for Linda. She smiled knowing she would not be offering me the wet half-eaten piece of chocolate-covered caramel she had just discovered that had fooled me by looking exactly like a chocolate-covered cherry!
So, I invite you to join in a little bit of fun with me. I am having a contest. Please write in the comment section of this story, your funniest, most creative or practical way you discover what luscious flavor awaits you inside a box chocolates. My family will judge and pick our favorite answer. The winner will receive a box of Ohio-based Esther Price chocolates. The winner will need to be in the Continental U.S for this contest, but any readers out of the country, I would still like to hear your answers. The winner will be announced Wednesday, the 6th of March at high noon. 🙂
I am looking forward to reading your responses. Join in the fun!
Stick a toothpick in it like you would to see if your cake is done and see what flavor comes out or if it’s resistant you may be scoring the caramel! That’s what I’m always after too!
My four family members stand around the box and each choose a piece and take a tentative bite. Then we trade each other for our favorites! Also, if you use a knife to cut off a bite, you’re allowed to put it back for the next person. Kind of like Dirty Santa! Take what you know or take your chances.
Years ago, when I was young, a roommate received a large box of chocolates from her boss. No diagram was provided so we took turns eating half of each – leaving for the other the halves we didn’t like!
This is too funny, Jamie. Doug just bought me Esther Price candy for Valentine’s Day as it’s my favorite and we’ve yet to find any chocolate here in Wyoming to even come CLOSE to tasting half as good. When I opened my box there was no diagram and I too LOVE the caramels. I found one almost every time I tried. LOL! When I was younger and my taste buds liked fewer flavors, I would take out a candy, push in the bottom with my finger – if I didn’t like what I found, I’d put it back. No one would be the wiser until they bit into it, then it was too late to go back. Sneaky, I was. I didn’t bite it, just pushed it in. LOL!
Girl, I am that one who bites, tastes, hates and puts back OR I have been know just suck the chocolate off and spit out the insides. Sad, but so true.
I like to discover the inside of the chocolatey goodness by playing a very young child hood game promoted by an old tv comercial. How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsy pop. Only this would be how many licks would it take to get to the luscious flavor inside of Ester Price chocolatey goodness. This process is very slow but it makes the reward in the middle so much sweeter. 🙂
When I was a little girl, I used to take a tiny bite out of each piece of chocolate until I discovered the flavor I desired. Sometimes it would take me awhile. Now that I am almost 41, I still have a temptation to sample each piece, but NOW when I fall to the temptation, I at LEAST cut the piece in half with a knife and not my teeth. 😀
We look at the design on the top of the chocolate and try to decipher what we think it represents. The person with the most creative answer “wins” the first bite. If the person is correct and it is a flavor they like, the get first dibs on the matching piece for there is usually more than one of each type in the box. We do make a chart of the swirls atop the chocolate as we discover the flavors for future reference, but alas it is usually no where to be found when we get the next box of chocolates.
As an adult, I pop a toothpick into the underside of the chocolate bonbon ~ that way NOBODY knows I cheated, and I can even get away with offering them to unsuspecting friends. Gross :o) However, when I was young I used to take a “small” bite ~ which constituted at least 1/3 of the thing ~ and then put the leftovers back in the box if it was undesirable. Coming from a family of 7 people, we used to see what the teeth marks looked like to see who the offender was. That way we would know if we wanted to take the germophobic risk of eating after so-n-so. LOL!
HeatherJ
Heather, you are the winner of the chocolate contest. Please email me, first and last name and address. I will send it right away!
Icepick, drill down into the bottom of the candy so nobody will notice after you take a core sample and decide if you want to eat it or leave it……sneaky…hehehee
Just got a box of these for Valentine’s Day, bigger than the one in the picture, though (good and bad; my scale told me this morning the bad side!) My favorites are caramel, too! I really don’t like the other kinds, so I would bite off the bottom of the chocolate, scoop out the insides and either let the dogs lick it off my fingers, or try, repeatedly, lid open, to fling it off my finger and into the trash. Either method required hand washing before digging into the box for another try. Sigh On the bright side of things, this method does save (some) calories while still fulfilling my chocolate fix. I did this with all the dark chocolates. I let the boys eat any of the milk chocolates they wanted, because the stearic acid in dark chocolate is good for you. 🙂
Ok – so I have thought about this all day!!! When I was growing up my mother made us choose a chocolate and stick with it! If we bit into it – it was ours! And, there was no squishing one either!!! You pick one – you eat it or throw it away!!! And, true all I wanted was the chocolate covered caramel!!! You can actually keep the entire box of everything else if I can just have the caramel!!!! So now today I am thinking of dastardly ideas of how to ensure my piece is the one and only peice of caramel in the box (aside: why do they do that? Have just one chocolate covered caramel in the box????), because when it comes to chocolate covered caramel, I am selfish, with a captial “S.” And, to be honest this contest has brought out the absolute worst in me!!! I need to repent of all my evil thoughts!!! LOL! Ok but I was thinking . . . I could take a very sharp knife and cut the bottoms off the candy, then carefully put them back together should I get a disappointing piece. NO One would ever know . . . . maybe!
I Take a cheese slicer that has a very thin cut to it. Trim a little off the bottom of the piece of candy so you can see what is in it. That way you can stick it back together if it isnt the one you are looking for and the top of the candy still looks great. No one ever knows. Because they all have the same design.
I use a toothpick to cut away a little bit of chocolate from the bottom! No one is the wiser unless they catch you in the act. Props to the companies that include a grid though! While it is fun to find a clever way to see what is in the middle to avoid disappointment, I want to enjoy my chocolate treat and not be spitting out a gross flavor.
No great idea comes to mind so I think I will go to the store and buy a box of chocolates, I am willing to do this, simply to help you with this great experiment.
On the rare occasion my family has assorted chocolates, I find myself sneaking into the kitchen to eat the best flavors before the rest of my family. This may seem to make me a bad conniving person, but remember the wise words of Forrest Gump, “life is like a box of chocolates and you never know what you’re going to get.”
During these midnight raids, I gently crack the the bottom of a chocolate’s coating until I am able to see the filling. If the filling is undesirable then I carefully squeeze the chocolate back together. The small crack that’s left should appear as a simple result of rough handling if it’s even noticed at all. This is the method I use to determine the assorted flavors in a box of chocolates.
I use the internet to research the candy (and provide negative feedback to the cheap company that provided no chart) and if that fails, I whack it in half with a big knife.