Bees and Beans: Handmade Artisan Chocolate Bars
Chocolate candy bars usually don’t taste like a rich dessert. The Bees and Beans artisan candy bars handmade in small batches by Portland, Oregon pastry chef Faith Dionne are desserts-in-a-bar.
Bert's Bar, with its filberts and crispy rice, has a lovely crunchiness.
Made in small batches with whole ingredients with no additives or preservatives, Bees and Beans Bars are made fresh and even come with eat-by dates to ensure the bar you eat is at its peak of freshness.
Quality, local, and sustainable is what Bees and Beans is all about. Dionne not only wants to make delicious candy bars, she wants to support local communities, be kind to the earth, and showcase Northwest ingredients — raspberries, blueberries, hazelnuts, honey, butter, and cream. She dips her bars in dark 70% chocolate from Theo Chocolate (see our review in this section) and Scharffenberger Chocolate. Her packaging is eco-friendly and completely biodegradable.
Bees and Beans makes three different bars:
Bert’s Bar — This bar comes with a filling made of filberts, milk chocolate, peanut butter, and crispy rice all dipped in dark chocolate. Bert’s Bar has a nice rich chocolate flavor with a delicately satisfying crunch.
The Berry Bar's nougat is very soft like fresh marshmallow.
Berry Bar — Dionne takes raspberry caramel and soft honey nougat with dried blueberries and dips it in dark chocolate to make the Berry Bar. It has a distinct berry flavor and the nougat is soft, almost marshmallow like. One of our editors didn’t care for the texture of the nougat. Another editor found the bar an interesting combination of caramel and fruity flavors.
Honey Bar — This Bees and Beans bar consists of honey caramel, salted hazelnut, and honey nougat dipped in dark chocolate. This bar, a reviewer favorite, has more firm nougat than the Berry Bar and has a delightfully rich caramel with notes of honey with a sweet, salty tang.
The Honey Bar was an RFT reviewer favorite.
Real bottom line: These ridiculously rich candy bars are more like little desserts. In fact, we doubt that we could eat a whole 2 ounce bar by ourselves. We suggest you cut these candy bars into little pieces and savor them. You’ll not only make your mouth happy, you’ll be supporting local, sustainable small businesses and we love that idea.
www.beesandbeans.com
