Comfort Foods and Indulgences

After finding the best milk chocolates in one of our most popular taste tests, our editors thought it only fair to find the best dark chocolates on the market. Tasting brands that ranged in price from $1.79 to $7.99, we were pleasantly surprised when two of the top five chocolates came from a surprisingly affordable source -- Trader Joe's!

Though dark chocolate is officially defined as having at least 35 percent cocoa solids, we tested a range between 50 and 85 percent in our quest for chocolatey perfection. We tested only solid dark chocolate bars -- that means no nuts, no fillings, and no added flavors.

Over the course of two days, our intrepid editors blind-tasted 56 different brands. Check out the slideshow below to discover the top 20 performers (and see below for a complete list of all brands that were tested). Where does your favorite rank?

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I'm spending a few days in what I'm told is the Mid-West of America (albeit the Northern Mid-West), a place I've never been to before.  It's a land of lakes and fir trees and glittering silver birches, and flying in I was startled (and a little homesick) by the landscape's resemblance to Norway.  Of course everyone who lives here is either Norwegian or Swedish.

My Minnesota hostess (who is also one of my best girlfriends) adapted a corn pudding from the book Local Flavors by Deborah Madison.  Don't be put off by the name. The recipe is delicate and delicious. I've found that using a mellifluous deep-South accent – as in "coooorrn puddin'" – assures its proper status in culinary Americana. 

This is an American staple, transformed and updated by the use of fresh herbs and goat cheese.  Up here, there is a farmer's market three times a week, and she used fresh corn as well as fresh parsley and chives cut from the selection of clay pots outside her kitchen door.

I haven’t had homemade cookies in the house for a while. My only explanation is…I eat too many of them. I can’t help it. They caaaalllll to me from their tupperware prison. I’m not making this up.

So I wanted to inject a little bit of health into what I know will turn into a feeding frenzy of cookie love. But before I go on, have I told you all that Kashi Go Lean is my absolute favorite cereal (no one is paying me to say that)? I have loved it forever. I don’t like the crunch one, it’s too sweet for me. But the Go Lean…I love. And here’s the thing, it really is a super-healthy cereal. A crazy amount of protein and fiber in every serving with barely any sugar. Now, if i would just stop enjoying it with whole milk it would be perfect.

Funny thing is, I don’t eat cereal for breakfast. I eat eggs. But I often have Kashi Go Lean as an afternoon snack. It’s satisfying. I even use it in my vanilla Greek yogurt instead of granola. It has the perfect crunch and is far less in calories. 

So, I usually use 4 cups of chocolate chips in my chocolate chip cookies. With these I halved my chips and used two cups of Kashi Go Lean instead. My kids said they were one of the best cookies I had ever made. Please know they do not like dark chocolate or healthy cereal. So wow, I certainly surprised them.

It must be something in the air, I’m not sure what it is.  Cupcakes.  Cupcakes instead of cake.  First Heather Mangrum (confession– about to be my step-daughter-in law, engaged to my stepson Alex) who wrote in about her and Alex’s adorable (and sensible and charming) decision last week to serve cupcakes at their wedding instead of cake.  And the test they ran to choose them, buying cupcakes from bakeries all over New York City, adding a kind of individual flourish to an already elegant and stylized yet slightly modest event.  The best kind.