The Good: Good taste, Affordable, Generally natural ingredients.
The Bad: Weird serving size, Could always be less expensive
The Basics: Ghirardelli Mint Cookie chocolate bars are one of Ghirardelli’s new delights that certainly deserve to be tried, even for those who are not fans of milk chocolate!
While my recent vacation with my wife left me with a decent stockpile of products to review, one of the ironic things was that some of the things I came back with were things that I could have just as easily found locally! One of the products I picked up on vacation that I know was available at my local grocery store was the Ghirardelli Mint Cookie chocolate bar. Amid all of the foods unique to places I visited in Minnesota and Wisconsin, I found the Ghirardelli Mint Cookie bar on clearance and that was enough incentive for me to pick some up! While I love chocolate mint candies, for some reason I wasn’t keen to pick up the Mint Cookie bar – which is still relatively new – until it was on clearance for 50% off!
I shouldn’t have waited!
Hopefully, the Mint Cookie bar is not being discontinued by Ghirardelli; it is a worthwhile chocolate bar. While I prefer dark chocolate, the Mint Cookie bar lives up to its promise from Ghirardelli.
Basics
Ghirardelli Mint Cookie chocolate bars are one and a half inch squares of chocolate that are about one-quarter of an inch thick and connected side by side and in rows, to form a bar of eight segments. Each bar comes unified in a foil wrapper. The foil-wrapped chocolate bar is sealed in a cardboard package.
Each chocolate bar is sold in a way that it is easy to segment and control portions. In this form, the 3.45 oz. bar, the chocolate bar represents two and a half servings. Each bar has a milk chocolate base with a crunchy cookie center. Each bar is stamped with the Ghirardelli logo.
Ease Of Preparation
These are candy, so preparing them is as simple as opening the cardboard and then opening the foil wrapper from around the actual chocolate. There is no grand secret to eating Ghirardelli Mint Cookie chocolate bars.
Taste
The Ghirardelli Mint Cookie smell mostly like peppermint. The fact that the cookie carries the mint flavor makes the fact that these smell so richly of mint impressive.
On the tongue, this chocolate is light and very sweet. The Mint Cookie cuts through the sweetness with a cool peppermint flavor. The mint in the cookie does not stand alone, it is enriched by a darker chocolate flavor that finishes the peppermint flavor with a dryness and cocoa flavor that makes the bar a delightful mix of sweet and dry. The net result is a candy bar that tastes like a chocolate-dipped cookie, much in the style of some of the fancier Oreo cookies!
This chocolate bar is very sweet and leaves a milky, cool peppermint aftertaste in the mouth for about five minutes after it is consumed. The aftertaste is not at all unpleasant.
Nutrition
These are candy, so they are not healthy, but the Ghirardelli Mint Cookie chocolate bars are not nearly as bad as they could be. The primary ingredients are sugar, cocoa butter, and whole milk powder. There is nothing unpronounable in these candies and all of the ingredients could be readily identified by me.
A serving from the Ghirardelli Mint Cookie chocolate bars is considered three squares, which is a ridiculous serving size for a bar that is segmented into eight pieces. From three squares, one takes in 200 calories, including 150 calories of fat. There are 40 mg of sodium and 2 grams protein, but almost no vitamins or minerals in these chocolate bars. There are negligible amounts of Vitamin A (2% RDA) and Calcium and Iron (6% RDA), but not other major nutrients.
These are not Vegan-compliant, nor are they recommended for anyone with a nut allergy as they contain trace amounts of hazelnuts (they are the second to last ingredient in these bars. They are, however, kosher.
Storage/Clean-up
The bars of these Ghirardelli Mint Cookie chocolate bars might remain fresh for quite some time, but I bought mine on clearance arguably because it was nearing the expiration date. The bars we picked up on our vacation two weeks ago would have lasted until the end of October, 2014, had I not consumed them first! One assumes that if they are kept in a cool, dry environment they will not melt or go bad. It is hard to imagine just what it would take for these to go bad outside melting and refreezing.
As for cleanup, I applaud those who actually throw the wrappers away in socially appropriate places, as opposed to litter. Outside that, there is no real cleanup needed, unless one is eating them in a hot environment. In that case, it is likely one would need to wash their hands, though these bars do not melt as easily as less-expensive chocolates. When this chocolate melts into most fabrics, it will stain.
Overall
Ghirardelli Mint Cookie chocolate bars are good, but the more I had them, the more I found myself wishing Ghirardelli had made them with dark chocolate. That said, they are worth hunting down, clearance or not!
For other Ghirardelli Chocolate reviews, please check out:
Ghirardelli Chocolate Squares Intense Dark Cherry Tango
Intense Dark Cabernet Matinee Chocolate Squares
Sublime White Vanilla Dream White Chocolate With Vanilla Beans Chocolate Squares
8.5/10
For other chocolate reviews, please visit my Chocolate Review Index Page for an organized listing!
© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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