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Chocolate Taste Testing Party!

Hey guys! So, oh my gosh. Have y’all heard of Dylan’s Candy Bar in NYC? Oh my gosh. It is this giant candy store with three entire floors filled with every kind of chocolate and candy you can imagine! It is all about the chocolate from candy bars and truffles to chocolate fashion, jewelry, and chocolate flavored lip gloss and scented lotions. There’s even a chocolate restaurant upstairs! It is chocolate, chocolate, chocolate as far as the eye can see. It even has a fun little section with celebrities who have visited with their photo and favorite kind of candy. Such a fun little candy shop!

Chocolate Taste Testing and Macaron Social Painting Party

So when I saw this giant spinning rack, bigger than I could reach my arms around, glowing with a light from above, filled with over a dozen different flavored candy bars in rainbow colored wrappers, I knew right then and there. I had to try every single one of them. And so I wouldn’t eat all 14 candy bars in one sitting, I invited a few friends over to help me taste test them. I supplemented the chocolate with more chocolate, in the form of Cold Stone Creamery hot chocolate with french vanilla marshmallows, chocolate-filled Trader Jo Jo’s, chocolate covered peanut butter filled pretzels, and french truffles from NYC which is, hands down, the best chocolate I’ve ever had.

Now let’s get on to the taste testing!

Chocolate Taste Testing and Macaron Social Painting Party

Each candy bar was stuffed with fun flavors and fillings and offered its own unique, delicious taste. Pictured above are caramel and S’mores. Can you see the marshmallows and graham crackers in the S’mores bar?? :)

Here are the flavors we sampled:

  • Red Velvet Cake – Filled with cream cheese frosting!
  • Peanut Butter – Stuffed with creamy peanut butter.
  • Caramel – Tasted like a Rolo!
  • Banana Cream Pie – Banana flavored chocolate with bits of vanilla wafers.
  • Espresso – Coffee flavored chocolate, with little bits of crunchy coffee beans. I really liked this one, but it was not a crowd favorite. The general consensus was that the coffee flavor was too strong! Oh well, more for me. :)
  • Hazelnut – Tasted just like a Nutella chocolate bar!
  • Milk Toffee Crunch – Milk chocolate with a nice crunch. Reminded me of a Nestle crunch bar.
  • S’mores – Loaded with little bits of marshmallow and graham cracker! This one is the fun of a S’mores stuffed into a candy bar.
  • Tiramisu – I think this one was the crowd favorite! Rich, delicious chocolate stuffed with an ultra creamy and sweet coffee flavored filling.
  • Cookies and Cream – This one is like the creamy filling of an Oreo stuffed with little bits of crushed Oreo cookie.
  • Malted Milk Chocolate – I wanted to love this one, I loved malted milk chocolate, but it was not a favorite.
  • Naughty Devil’s Food Cake – Oooh, this one was another favorite! Rich, Beligian dark chocolate stuffed with gooey chocolate fudge frosting. This one’s a winner.
  • Nice Angel Food Cake – Sweet, innocent, pure white chocolate.
  • Serendipity’s Frozen Hot Chocolate Bar – This one is the flavor of Serendipity’s frozen hot chocolate… in a bar! I picked this one up at Serendipity which is just down the street from Dylan’s.

 

Chocolate Taste Testing and Macaron Social Painting Party

Let’s meet our fabulous chocolate taste-testers. Here we have Brekke, Stephanie, Dolly, and Kim.

After completely stuffing ourselves silly with all 14 flavors of chocolate, we had a nice sugar high and a major case of slap happiness going on! It was the perfect time to start our painting. The amazingly talented Stephanie from All Artful, created a gorgeous picture of a decadent chocolate macaron for us to paint. Now I have never painted anything in my entire life, not even an art class in high school! But Stephanie held our hands through the whole process with her easy to follow step-by-step instruction.

Chocolate Taste Testing and Macaron Social Painting Party

S’mores break! After we got the outline of our macaron painted we took a quick S’mores break while our backgrounds dried.

Chocolate Taste Testing and Macaron Social Painting Party

I found these fun chocolate & vanilla swirl marshmallows that I knew would be perfect for our taste testing party!

Chocolate Taste Testing and Macaron Social Painting Party

Thanks so much to Kim for taking these gorgeous S’mores photos. She grabbed my camera and went to town.

Chocolate Taste Testing and Macaron Social Painting Party

Now I don’t know about you, but I am a huge fan of Ritz crackers with toasted marshmallows! It’s the perfect combo of salty and sweet. You gotta try this.

Chocolate Taste Testing and Macaron Social Painting Party

I also had some fun spreads for us to try with our marshies, I think this Speculoos Cookie Butter from Trader Joe’s was the winner! This is how Trader Joe’s does Biscoff.

Chocolate Taste Testing and Macaron Social Painting Party

I found these cute little snowman-shaped french vanilla flavored marshmallows that we used in our hot chocolate earlier. I had to toast one of these little guys!

Chocolate Taste Testing and Macaron Social Painting Party

Now back to our painting! It’s time for the finishing touches. On the left is Kim’s gorgeous macaron, and you can probably guess who the hot pink one on the right belongs to. :)

Chocolate Taste Testing and Macaron Social Painting Party

Stephanie gave us lots of options for customizing our paintings — adding an Eiffel Tower, Parisian accent stamps, and french macaron calligraphy. Here’s Kim’s finished painting.

Chocolate Taste Testing and Macaron Social Painting Party

This one belonged to Dolly. How amazing does her Eiffel Tower look?? That was not a stamp, all these talented ladies painted their Eiffel Towers all on their own. Wow!

Chocolate Taste Testing and Macaron Social Painting Party

Here’s mine. It’s so me. Pink and simple.

Chocolate Taste Testing and Macaron Social Painting Party

I love how Brekke’s turned out! So gorgeous and collage-like.

Chocolate Taste Testing and Macaron Social Painting Party

And here’s Stephanie’s! She effortlessly painted this one while standing up and holding the canvas in one hand and the paint brush in the other while showing us each stroke step by step. You can also see her painting in the very first photo of this post which we used as a guide for our painting party.

UPDATE: Check out Stephanie’s step by step video tutorial to paint your own macaron in a mug!

Chocolate Taste Testing and Macaron Social Painting Party

I love how unique each of ours turned out to be.

Thanks for coming to our little party! See you soon!

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40 Responses
  1. LucyExpress

    Aw! This must’ve been so fun! But Hershey’s will always be the best chocolate ever! But I still wish I was invited to a chocolate taste testing party!

  2. Christine @ Oatmeal in my Bowl

    I never knew there was so much chocolate available! LOL. Definite sugar high! I think Smores with the addition of a Nut Butter would be fabulous. Yummm…. the Ritz cracker sounds good, too!

  3. Haley

    Ahhh your beautiful pictures and the chocolatey, cupcake goodness make me melttt!! So beautiful and warming! Love your travels!

  4. Beth

    love this party. fun to see how each one of you all paint so differently. so creative. smores are a wonderful treat. yummy. (:

  5. Kristin Murdock

    SO CUTE Amanda! What a fun idea! And as a side note: Dylan’s Candy Bar is even more amazing because its founder/owner is Ralph Lauren’s daughter. So cool, hu?

  6. Christy

    I’ve been thinking about hosting one of these parties, but I’ve been intimidated because I can’t paint. I think I’ll do it, it looks like fun! Great idea with the smores break! :) I love all of the paintings!!

  7. Liz (Little Bitty Bakes)

    Ahhh, this looks like so much fun! And how fitting that you girls painted macarons, I’m pretty sure you’re the French Macaron Queen of the blog world!

  8. Jenn

    Oooo….I love all of your paintings! SO adorable and would go perfect in my office at work, as I have a Paris theme. I love different pics with different views of the Eiffel Tower.

  9. Elisa

    wow! The treats look delicious (I am a chocoholic, I am suffering in silence here!), and the macaroon paintings are really lovely! You ladies are all so good — I doubt mine would have come out that cute!

    I used to live in Westchester so I have been to NYC a bunch of times, but I never to Dylan’s Candy Bar… yet. My best friend and I have already discussed a trip there the enxt time I go visit ;-)

  10. Cassie

    I too, LOVE Dylan’s! We’re getting one in L.A. in the spring and it can’t come soon enough! Your paintings are great. Any chance your friend would give a tutorial online?

  11. Mindy

    AMANDA! Thanks for sharing your fun time! I love all of your emails. I think I speak for a lot of your fans when I say that you makes us feel like we are actually there with you! I also wanted to comment on your hair. Looking good gal!

  12. Jane Mykleby

    I am with Mrs. Success. Can we be friends? I mean, I am already your stalker.
    I want your job..what is your job? Professional blogger, photographer, cupcake/chocolate taster? Call me, Jealous!

  13. *kristi*

    So fun!! I wouldn’t be able to eat that much chocolate, but what a really cool way to spend a winter evening :) And…is it just me or is there an extra phantom marshmallow being toasted in that first photo of you guys in front of the fire?? I count three ladies with three arms out, but four marshmallows on sticks! LOL It’s tripping me out!

  14. Emilie @ Emilie's Enjoyables

    Great job for a first time painter! And the chocolate bar sounds amazing, I’m going to NYC in February and will definitely have to make a stop here.

  15. The Mrs @ Success Along the Weigh

    Not to sound creepy but dang I’d love to be your friend! None of my friends would do something this cool! LOL

  16. Teri Dingler

    Oh My! How did I miss all these neat places in NYC??!! Thanks for letting us know about all these places so that when I go back I can put some of these on the “to do” list! What a fun party! Great ideas!

  17. Averie @ Love Veggies and Yoga

    TJ’s is having a nationwide shortage of cookie butter. I blogged about it earlier this week but basically…super hot seller, they can’t keep it on the shelves and the warehouses can’t get it so if some random store still/currently has it…Stock up!

    I love it so much.. so much.

    And love that you’re choc taste testing with the ladies..how fun!

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Meet Kevin & Amanda

Kevin and Amanda

We love to travel and to eat! Here we share our favorite quick and easy recipes, plus travel tips and guides for our favorite places around the world. If you have any questions about what camera I use or how I edit my photos, check out my photography tutorials.

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