Chocolate Gift Baskets

There are good chocolates…and then there are the best chocolates that chocolate gift baskets can ever have. But the question is, must you try all available chocolate gift baskets so you can rate every single brand in them—and run the risk of getting fat? Or is there a way to tell good chocolates from bad ones before plopping them into your mouth?

Chocolate connoisseurs do use some simple tricks to know outright what’s worth trying and what’s not even worth their time. Most chocolate experts would tell you that it all starts with what’s in the chocolate bar. The tag price isn’t always a good indication of what you’re getting in terms of the taste. If you want to play safe, expert advice says look at the ingredients. If you know what to look for, you can shell out a dollar for the best buy in any candy store.

Let’s start with dark chocolates, which chocolate gift baskets often have a lot of. You should not miss the top three ingredients on the label of any brand of dark chocolate: first, cocoa liquor (a.k.a. chocolate or cocoa, sometimes cocoa solids or chocolate mass); second, sugar, which can be in the form of natural sweeteners like cane juice or molasses; third, cocoa butter.

Dark chocolate can also have optional ingredients like soy lecithin, a substance that makes the rest of the ingredients stick together; and vanilla (not vanillin, which is synthetic vanilla not made from milk but from pine sap). You may also want to look at the add-ins to make sure there are no fake substitutes for fruit bits, nuts, essences and flavorings. Keep away from suspicious words like hyrdrogenated or artificial.

When it comes to milk chocolate, which is also a favorite choice in chocolate gift baskets, look for the ingredients mentioned above, and don’t forget milk. You can find milk in chocolates as milk powder, cream or whole milk. While in dark chocolate, cocoa liquor is usually the first ingredient, in milk chocolate, it is generally demoted to second or third because milk chocolate has less cocoa content.

Finally, for white chocolates, don’t bother looking for cocoa liquor because it can’t be there. Instead, white chocolate should only have cocoa butter.

But what if you’re tired of chocolate gift baskets and want to try out chocolate pastries and confections such as truffles and tarts? As with chocolate bars, it doesn’t hurt to check the labels, especially if you’re buying packed confections. If you’re out in a shop and handpicking what you want, it would be good to have the baker or chocolatier handy. Ask him when the products were made, the chocolate brand that was used in making it, and when it was bought. Don’t go near shrink-wrapped boxes. Chances are, they have been preserved to the hilt and have been on display since the last season.

Generally, conscientious chocolate manufacturers will use good beans to make the good chocolates that chocolate gift baskets are made of, and which conscientious bakers will, in turn, buy to make good confections.

Another tip is to look at the packaging. Of course, chocolate gift baskets that you can buy online or off the shelf are always neatly packed. But if you are buying individual bars, make sure to examine the packaging details closely. If it’s packaged well, you can bet that the manufacturer also took a great deal of effort for it to taste well.