Sweet Treats from Italy: Chocolates and Truffle Oil

Buon Giorno, Italia!

Four days of eating and trampling through three cities in Italy ~Bologna, Verona, Milan~ and I come back to my daily life in Madrid bearing only these sweet treats. A few bars of chocolates bought randomly around Italy's streets.

MORDICCHIO CROCCANTE Bar

This is a very ubiquitious sweet treat in Milan, found in most corner grocery stores. It is a bar made of peanuts enclosed in caramel. Some describe this as peanut brittle, but I grew up with peanut brittles from Baguio with hard crackly hardened burnt sugar. This croccante bar is similar yet very different from the peanut brittle of my childhood. Sweet, crunchy, but with a distinct milky caramel flavor.



SCOTTI CIOCCO e RISO Bar

Literally translated to mean chocolate and rice bar, this is akin to Nestle Crunch, with puffed rice cereals in milk chocolate. Not too sweet, and nothing really special about it.


FERRERO DUPLO Nocciolato

From the maker of Kinder Bueno and Ferrero Rocher, Ferrero Duplo is like a hybrid of Kinder and Rocher. It's in a bar form, but each bar has 3 "balls" containing the all-too familiar combination of ferrero balls: chocolate, wafer, hazelnut creme and a whole hazelnut in the middle. It is not too sweet and if you like Ferrero Rocher then you will love this. I personally find Rocher balls to be too bland and too nutty for my taste, so to my mouth, this was just a run of the mill chocolate.

FELETTI CHOCOLATE BARS in Amaretto and Tiramisu

These are the most expensive of the chocolate bars I've bought at almost 3€ per bar. But the flavors seem interesting. Amaretto and Tiramisu cremes enrobed in Italian milk chocolate. I haven't opened these bars yet. Still waiting for a special moment to merit a chocolate indulgence/reward.

FELETTI TRAVOLETTA Bar in Gianduja
Another chocolate hazelnut creme chocolate Bar. At 3.20€ for a bar, yes it is pretty expensive, but the distinct layers of chocolate and hazelnut creme drew me in. Will not be opening this bar anytime soon as this is for my mother.

OLIO CON TARTUFO
But my best foodie buy from Italy is not really sweet. But is sure is fragrant and earthy. It's a bottle of ridiculously expensive truffle oil which I bought so I could stop dreaming of truffle flavored pasta and truffle fries and start making them!That's 15€ for a 100 ml bottle of oil.

Will try making truffle oil flavored pasta next weekend, will let you know how it goes.

Cheers!