Review - Yummy Treats

Review – Yummy Treats

Ok, so by now you know the drill. This is a review on some of the Yummy treats I have recently been able to taste. 

There are a lot of relatively unknown companies and small businesses out there that are purposely keeping their business small (I know this mentality, we do that too with Horse Beach Rides) so as to keep the great service and products as high quality as their loyal customers have come to know and appreciate. Many bankers, economists and heck even friends will tell them this is a bad idea; they will say you should make your business huge, join groupon, and advertise in all the glossy magazines.

But me, I say “stick it” to those people, although it is not always easy to find these small businesses, it’s worth the searching when you do find them, and advertising via social media, word of mouth, and great customer reviews is much better than big TV or radio ads.

So, here’s my ‘kudos’ to some of those small businesses (some who have gotten somewhat larger) that I have recently had the pleasure of meeting or experiencing their great services and products:

Tasha’s Fantastic Fudge

Sorry not the best photo,
I was more interested in eating the
 treat than in photographing it.
Find them on Facebook or on Twitter

As an absolute sweet tooth, when I received this yummy little package, it took every ounce of my will power to not gobble it all up personally. You see, I’m a kind heart (at least I try mighty hard to be a kind heart) and decided to share it with my folks. With a cup of strong coffee in the one hand and an ever decreasing sized piece of yummy fudge in the other I zoned out to my version of “heaven”. I also hear they do wedding favors and home deliveries. Hmm, one day when I get married can I just skip the wedding cake and have fudge dipped in chocolate instead?

Photo courtesy of Tasha's Fudge

Chocolate Memories

Chocolate Memories is made in the Drakensburg Mountains. I am not a fan of international chocolate, why should I be when SA has (hands down) got the BEST CHOCOLATE IN THE WORLD? OK, I’ll admit, Dark Swiss chocolate comes pretty close. But when we get family or friends visiting from overseas, it’s a favorite of theirs to bring chocolate from the country they reside in as gifts for us. American chocolate is just waxy. New Zealand chocolate’s only saving grace is that they put little chopped up dried bits of kiwi fruit into it, but otherwise it’s pretty bland. British Choc, ugh, let’s not even go there! And if you go into the shops here in South Africa, the imported chocolate that you can buy, well let’s just say it’s not worth it if they paid you to eat it.

I’m not being patriotic here, I couldn’t care two hoots and a tin if I was called African or European, I don’t even know what’s going on in parliament, and I point blank refuse to begin to read or listen to any national anthem. I’ll never vote, and I’ll never join the army. But, I think the thing about African Food stuffs is that we have the sweet African sunshine, and although SA is super westernized by general African standards, we are a lot less commercialized and hormone induced with our food products than say, USA or UK. So yeah, I’m a South African chocolate lover, especially dark chocolate.

Anyways, back to this product. I got a 40% Dark chocolate. I opened the prettily designed box, carefully unwrapped the gold foil and was very impressed by the dark choc with an imprint of the Drakensburg Mountains and decently sized blocks. The taste was a very strong and rich chocolate. Although unlike the bigger brands who deal dark chocolate, this was not a sharp bitter taste, but more a dark yet creamy taste. I think they make this chocolate out of more cream than milk, because it is that rich. Fortunately for me, it was too rich for my family so I got to have this all on my own, and yes, half the slab is still sitting on my bedside table with a tiny piece broken off and melted in my mouth each evening. Now don’t even think about coming to steal that off my bedside, I will kill you if you do ;-). But you can buy it directly from the makers at 

www.chocolatememories.co.za

Royal Dansk

What can I say, if south Africans know how to make chocolate, the Danes know how to bake! I should know, grandma’s a genuine Dane, she immigrated to SA in the 50s (I think), and grew up in Danmark (the real danish peeps spell it with an 'A' not an 'E'), she even went to a finishing school where she learnt all the traditional recipes. Fortunately for me, grandma’s a strong old lady and still has all her wits about her, she still bakes a killer sand cake despite being in her mid 80s.

Find the AWESOME people behind these delectable
treats on Facebook and Twitter

Needless to say, I’m pretty fond of Danish foods, so I had pretty high expectations for the Royal Dansk Cookies box I was about to open. I really wasn’t disappointed either. With cookies wrapped in pretty little muffin papers, the box was full of promise.  Bulging with choc-chips (if it’s in a baked item, I don’t mind chocolate that is not made in SA), these little cookies melt in your mouth and give you a taste sensation to die for. Have them with a cup of mom’s (she learnt from grandma) strong Danish style coffee and this was a perfect mellow out at the end of a long hard day of work. I could go on forever describing and detailing the things I love about this particular brand, however I wont do that today. :-)

Cooee

I don’t have many fizzy drinks or sodas. I personally prefer water, coffee or mom’s homemade lemonade. However, if I’m going to be suckered into drinking soda, it WILL be Ginger Beer. For many years only Stoney made a decent Ginger Beer. But, not so long ago I discovered Cooee, which is half the price of Stoney and is just as good. So, yippee. Then I got given a gift of 4 cans of Cooee, in various flavors. How cool is it that they now do cans? The flavors I was given were Apple, Ginger Beer, Pineapple and Iron Brew. So obviously I’m a fan of the Ginger Beer. The Apple I decided to try out, and it almost tastes like appletizer. I really dislike Iron Brew, so I’m going to be palming that off to someone else (any takers?), and lastly, I tried the pineapple. The pineapple tastes just like Pinenut. Not my favorite, but it’s not bad either, for those who like Pinenut, this is a MUST. So all in all, yup, cooee is going to have my business, they give good quality (although I’m fussy about the flavors) cool drinks at nearly half the price of the bigger brands. A little piece of interest about the Cooee brand that I recently learnt, they've been around for over 50 years (see what I said about keeping it small?) and apparently the name originates from native Australia!

So to prevent myself from boring you to death with lots of writing and long winded-ness, I wont be doing any more today. However, I still have a bunch of yummy edibles to review and share my thoughts on with you. Some of them include these brands: