Almond Roca

Almond Roca is one of those candies that always seem to be around during Christmas. And I do eat one is they are offered to me, but I never buy them myself, and I never really crave them.
My mother had a gift exchange with her friends, and one of the gifts she received included a can of Rocas. They are on top of the fridge now. Every once in a while somebody will eat one. Mostly they are left alone. I had a few earlier in the afternoon and now am reviewing them.
Almond Rocas are inch-and-a-half long sticks of either molasses or toffee, I don’t know which, coated with a painfully thin blanket of milk chocolate and rolled in a generous amount of chopped-up almonds. Actually, “chopped” isn’t the right word. These bits are so tiny and uniform, not the irregular hunks you get from chopping. Whatever. They come loosely wrapped in golden foil subtly etched with the Roca logo. So the presentation is certainly very fancy-dancy. Does the candy measure up?
The first thing that happens when you unwrap a Roca is a scattering of several almond bits. I think they secretly pour in a couple extra pieces to rattle around in the wrapper so that almonds will scatter every time you eat one of these suckers. Gah. The next thing you notice is how quickly your teeth sink through the coating of chocolate on the Roca. How quickly? Very quickly. It’s as if the chocolate is only meant to be a paste to keep the chopped almonds glued onto the molasses/toffee. A shame, too. I scraped off some chocolate with my index fingernail and tasted it... and it was heavenly. The texture was so soft that it could have been melted marshmallows, if it weren’t for the strong cocoa taste. That’s right, it didn’t taste like chocolate. It tasted like cocoa. So good. Too bad there was so little of it.
By contrast, there was way too much toffee/molasses. Chomping into the lump felt similar to gnawing on an oversized twig. A brittle twig that eventually snaps and leaves you with a mouthful of sweet pebbles. It’s a lot of work to crunch one of these down.
Rereading this, I realized I’ve been a little harsh on Almond Rocas. They aren’t as bad as I’ve made them seem. But really, this isn’t a candy that stands out from anything else in the chocolatey sugary industry. If you want fancy candies in individual pieces, go buy yourself a box of those marvelous Ferrero Rochers.

6 out of 10