Chocolate Pop Rocks

Chocablog has reported on popping candy in chocolate before; having, however, not personally tried this strange combination, I picked up two packets when I stumbled across plain milk chocolate covered Pop Rocks. While I can’t say from experience, the idea of keeping Pop Rocks in their usual loose state versus adding them to the contents of a chocolate bar does seem less intimidating and less likely to go wrong. There is perhaps more (or at least a different kind of) expectation from a bar form versus a member of the more informal candy species. I for one would likely approach the bar differently from a Pop Rocks packet.

Speaking of the candy species, Pop Rocks are one of its odd members, one I never really know what to make of. The sizzling and crackling feel they make, while intriguing, also feels slightly wrong, like this isn’t something you should be eating. Its similarity with chocolate is that they both melt or dissolve somehow in your mouth. Yet chocolate does this with smoothness, slowly releasing its flavors instead of lashing out like a collection of fireworks. Are the two beings too opposing to be combined?

Not really. Not if you take Chocolate Pop Rocks simply as Pop Rocks with a tweak to the original formula.

They come in different sizes, some being small while others are clusters of chocolate covering a few rocks instead of just one. Because the coating is only milk chocolate, it melts away pretty quickly, leaving the rocks to do their usual wizardry. Also because it is milk chocolate, it isn’t a great amount of aftertaste that lingers during the crackling stage. That is, not unless you eat a large enough portion at once, which I was only brave enough to do once.

The effect reminds me of chocolate soda, what with the crackling and the mild chocolate flavor. In fact, I wonder if I prefer Pop Rocks to have this thin coating to soften the effect a bit–rather than the two sides clashing, the chocolate seems to tone down the strangeness of this most strange candy. And that isn’t something I mind.

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