Ghirardelli: Milk & Peanut Butter

Have you ever been having a bad day and just wanted some creamy, gourmet peanut butter with crunchy peanuts enveloped in rich milk chocolate (yes, I lifted that from the box description)? That's how I was feeling in CVS the other day, which is not necessarily the most exciting place to have a bad mood-induced chocolate spree. But they do carry nail polish, too -- a plus. So CVS in Bronxville, NY is where I got this bar from Ghirardelli, and where I incidentally passed up on a number of other enticing bars, such as the pistachio bar from Lindt. Don't discount CVS as a respectable place to make a chocolate purchase.

Ghirardelli: Milk & Peanut Butter
Cocoa Content: unlisted (30% is my guess)
Notable ingredients: peanut butter
Origin: n/a

What did you expect? The peanut butter and chocolate combo is a timeless delight. When I was little I used to bite the tops off of Reese's Cups and eat all the peanut butter -- flaky, pale, peanut paste, really -- out from within before finally eating the bottom layer of chocolate. This peanut butter bar had less accessibility for that kind of mischief, and the peanut butter inside each individual square was not quite so hefty and thick as that inside a Reese's Cup, but what it lacked in volume it made up for in crunchy, moist texture. Of course the peanut butter in a candy bar should be crunchy, and made with real peanuts!

But -- let's be real. Peanut butter is pretty much always delicious, as long as it isn't completely deprived of some added sugar and salt (yes, I said it.) Reese's Cups never suffered for the slightly synthetic peanut taste -- and while the chocolate in a Ghirardelli bar is certainly far superior to that manufactured by Reese's, the chocolate & peanut butter experience is always roughly the same. When someone I shared this bar with noted that it was like a glorified Reese's bar, I had to admit -- well, first I had to admit that there's no such thing as a Reese's Bar, only Cups, Stix, and Pieces, pay attention -- but also that this bar didn't actually differ from a Reese's Cup in a meaningful way. It's kind of the exact same thing.

And that's all it needed to be. It took me back to childhood for 8 crazy nights (that's how many squares there were.) And never again will I doubt CVS's ability to surprise me in new, chocolatey ways. A-.