{"id":37799,"date":"2023-03-17T17:51:16","date_gmt":"2023-03-18T00:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/?p=37799"},"modified":"2024-02-16T12:49:05","modified_gmt":"2024-02-16T20:49:05","slug":"melk-candy-bars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/reviews\/melk-candy-bars\/","title":{"rendered":"Melk\u00ae candy bars"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sjaak\u2019s Organic Chocolates<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0in Petaluma makes vegan organic chocolate bars, truffles, and other treats. When we saw\u00a0a couple of their alternative milk chocolate bars at The Chocolate Dragon Bittersweet Caf\u00e9 & Bakery<\/a> in Rockridge we decided to give them a try.<\/p>\n

\"Sjaak\u00bbs
Sjaak\u2019s custom bar mold<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sjaak\u2019s started out as Sjaak\u2019s Fine Chocolates in Eureka. Founded by Dutch immigrant Jacques Holten in 1988, he\u00a0expanded the business in 2004 to vegan organic chocolate with Sjaak\u2019s Organic Chocolates. His daughter Jessica was a co-founder of Sjaak\u2019s Organic Chocolates and now heads the business.<\/p>\n

Sjaak\u2019s Organic Chocolates checks off all the boxes for organic chocolate and then some:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Certified organic<\/li>\n
  • Non-GMO ingredients<\/li>\n
  • Rainforest Alliance certified cacao<\/li>\n
  • Kosher<\/li>\n
  • Gluten free<\/li>\n
  • Vegan<\/li>\n
  • No soy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    They even have a line of Paleo friendly coconut milk chocolates. And because they state on their website that the sugar they use is bone char-free, TIL that most refined sugar is white because it is filtered with charcoal made from animal bones so it is not vegan. Sugar that is not filtered that way \u2014 like raw brown sugar or beet sugar \u2014 is considered vegan.<\/p>\n

    The Sjaak\u2019s bars we got at Chocolate Dragon were their smaller 2 oz. bars that are packaged in \u201ccompostable film\u201d (because they also check off the box for reducing waste). I like that they have a less expensive option \u2014 they also have 3 oz. bars \u2014 easier to try something unknown or splurge on yourself guilt-free.<\/p>\n

    \"Sjaak\u2019s
    Sjaak\u2019s Melk Chocolate bar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    \u00a0Melk\u00ae chocolate<\/h2>\n

    The Sjaak\u2019s\u00a0Melk Chocolate bar was a simple 3\/8″ thick solid bar with a soft break. It used rice milk, almonds, and vanilla as a substitute for cow\u2019s milk, making for a sweet but not sugary sweet bar.<\/p>\n

    It had a licorice overtone initially which wasn\u2019t bad but a little weird. As it melted I could taste the almonds but I don\u2019t know if they were an infusion or ground in really fine or ? because the chocolate\u2019s texture was very smooth.<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s a unique taste, not bad but not chocolatey enough for me. They don\u2019t list the cacao percentage on the wrapper, but I would prefer if they bumped it up a bit.<\/p>\n

    Peanut Butter Melk<\/h2>\n
    \"Peanut
    Cross section of Sjaak\u2019s Peanut Butter Melk Chocolate bar<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    I liked Sjaak\u2019s\u00a0Peanut Butter Melk bar better. First of all because it\u2019s peanut butter (a fav). It had a distinct though mild peanut taste, and peanuts were the first ingredient in the list on the wrapper. Priorities!<\/p>\n

    It used the same melk\u00ae chocolate as the first bar. This time the bar was a filled not solid bar with a very soft break.\u00a0The filling had the texture of a Reese\u2019s Peanut Butter Cup but the chocolate had that same unusual licorice overtone and again it was just not chocolatey enough for me.<\/p>\n

    Both of these bars seemed more like candy bars than chocolate bars. The chocolate flavor is too light and the melk ingredients get in the way. The bars are well made and I liked their custom mold topped with the tulips. But they didn\u2019t scratch my chocolate itch.<\/p>\n

    They have other 2 oz bars on their site with more flavors and some are dark chocolate. The larger 3 oz. bars are available with slightly different flavors. I think I should try their dark chocolate bars sometime \u2014 or maybe the Paleo bars, anything without the rice milk combo \u2014 to see if I like them better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A proprietary milk alternative with a unique, distinct taste<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":37800,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[884,169],"tags":[1522,138,1346,121],"class_list":["post-37799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-north-bay","category-reviews","tag-melk","tag-peanut-butter","tag-sjaaks-organic-chocolates","tag-vegan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37799"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41633,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37799\/revisions\/41633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37800"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chocolatebythebay.com\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}