Snacks: Very limited winter edition Schogetten

The duck and I have a history of trying to buy seasonal chocolate too late (which, in Germany, equals about a month into the respective season). So, when we discovered an image of limited edition pumpkin spice Schogetten online in early autumn, the duck spent every grocery shop scanning the chocolate aisle. To no avail. Instead, we found Christmas-themed Veganz chocolate. Upon further inspection of the bookmarked image, we realized that, though we consider pumpkin spice an autumn flavor, these Schogetten were part of a limited winter edition trio – together with a white cinnamon- and a dark mint candy cane variety. We love cinnamon. And after last summer’s lemon cupcake debacle, we decided to also give the dark variety a chance to help us trust Schogetten again (you never know). The more chocolate we try, the better the chances of finding one we love, right? We still had to find these limited-edition chocolates. And it took us months to locate a store that carried all three. At least we got to buy them on sale. After searching for so long, the duck and I were thrilled to finally hold these chocolate cubes in pretty boxes in our wings and hands. Now we only had to try them – for this year’s first super-specific taste test:

Three rings chocolate flavors for the snoozy kings under the sky

The duck told me that with such a terrible title, I shouldn’t expect anyone to get the reference. But I’m going with it.
After a journey nearly as strenuous as Frodo’s, (the duck assured me,) we were excited to finally try these three thrilling Schogetten flavors. We like how, combined, they offer a variety of chocolate, fillings, and textures. Again, I will stress that the duck and I have particular tastes in chocolate (we only sometimes like white- and rarely enjoy dark chocolate with less than 70% cocoa solids). So you might need to translate our subjective ratings to your chocolate preference. Also, I suspect that these limited edition Schogetten are available in an especially limited number of areas, considering how hard it was for us to find this German chocolate in Germany (so, this will be a particularly useless vicarious taste test). With that out of the way, the duck and I now present to you:

Our specific thoughts on these very limited edition winter Schogetten

Pumpkin Spice
This was the variety that began our most recent Schogetten hunt. Why? The duck and I couldn’t recall ever encountering any German pumpkin spice treats. So, despite our mixed experiences with creamy and possibly fruity fillings, we knew we had to try this variety. We were more curious about the taste than expecting to love this chocolate. While we generally like milk chocolate Schogetten, we knew our assessment of the “pumpkin spice filling” could go either way. As ardent fans, we weren’t worried about the mixed-in pumpkin seed pieces.
The first bite gave us sweet pumpkin – a flavor that, paired with our limited pumpkin spice snack experience (we’re more familiar with the spice mix sans pumpkin), was a bit confusing. Other than that, we don’t mind this chocolate. The duck and I like how the filling doesn’t taste milky, but we are disappointed that even though we can discern the crunch, we can’t really taste the pumpkin seeds. Combined, the chocolate with the filling tastes slightly too heavy for us. But this might be partly due to our taste buds having encountered more vegan chocolate recently. All told, this variety gets a subjective, in-the-moment, 3/5 ducks. If our taste buds weren’t so confused, and we didn’t consider it a tad too heavy, this chocolate might have received an even better rating. Overall, we’re glad we tried it.

Cinnamon Crip
This sounded like a safe bet. We’d had white chocolate Schogetten with a thin milk chocolate base before, so, in that respect, we knew what to expect. Initially, we didn’t know what “crispy cinnamon bits” were supposed to be. After our first bite, we realized the name says it all. The crunchy bits have a pleasantly strong sweetened (but not too sweet!) cinnamon taste. We love how they break up the solid chocolate they’re embedded in. The flavors all go well together, in the duck and my opinion. For us, the only negative point is that this is white chocolate. And, like the pumpkin spice milk chocolate, it is a bit too heavy for our liking, especially at room temperature. Therefore, we award a rounded-up 4/5 ducks for a perfectly executed white-with-a-hint-of-milk-chocolate square with decidedly delicious crispy cinnamon bits.

Candy Cane Mint
Initially, the duck and I only grabbed this variety because we felt we couldn’t ignore one out of three. Then we remembered that chocolate we didn’t expect to adore had surprised us before. Low expectations can lead to big surprises, after all. Our interest gradually increased. It’s no secret that we’re usually not too fond of medium-dark chocolate (we find it too sweet for how dark it is). But we were curious about the chocolate filling, which we hoped would be fluffy. We don’t love hard candy, but we like mint. Suffice it to say we were very excited to try this!
The first taste was a pleasant surprise. The duck and I love the softer chocolate mousse-like filling with its crunchy mint-flavored miniature sugar beads. We don’t find the dark chocolate too sweet in this. In fact, we think it nicely complements the soft and crunchy filling. To us, the intensity of the mint flavor is just right – it’s not too mild but also not reminiscent of toothpaste. You know what? This might be our favorite of the three; to us, it doesn’t taste heavy at all. It’s a late Christmas miracle!
We almost gave this chocolate a rounded-up 5 ducks. But, when we realized that we were pleasantly satisfied after just a square, or two, we hesitated. Doesn’t a perfect rating mean you’d find it nearly impossible to stop? After much deliberation, we decided to award our first official visual 4.5/5 ducks. Despite its minor imperfections (by our subjective standards), this variety has done the unexpected: It redeemed last summer’s Schogetten fiasco!

After searching for so long, the duck and I have finally regained our trust in Schogetten! What a great way to begin the year!

What’s your most surprising snack experience? We’d love to read about it!