Valentine's Day Chocolates No One Wants To Eat

There's a marked difference between Valentine's Day chocolates you'd rather not eat and Valentine's Day chocolates you should not eat under any circumstances. These chocolates aren't merely second rate selections; they're largely relics of the candy-making world that may have once been the favorite choices of chocolate lovers, but have long outlived their charm. Some of them should never have been created in the first place (IMO), but that's the free market for you. If only there were a guild of chocolate-minded citizens who could advise on such things, maybe we could sidestep the catastrophic chocolate creations that get left behind like litter when February 15th rolls around.

Since we're not lucky enough to live in a gilded age of chocolate gauging, I feel it's my responsibility to call out the chocolates on the Valentine market that are best avoided entirely, for the sake of enjoying the holiday. It may seem unlikely that there is a list of chocolates that no one wants to eat, but against all odds I was able to conjure up a collection that nobody who truly loves you would give as a gift. 

If you haven't shopped for your sweetheart yet, you can take this round-up of some of the worst Valentine's Day candy as a cautionary tale for your upcoming purchases. And if you happen to receive any of these undesirable bonbons, remember: you're under no obligation to eat them. You can hide them in the back of the pantry and pretend like they never happened.

Chocolate and strawberries are a Valentine's candy combo made in confectioner's heaven, a pairing in which both parties perpetually compliment one another. But when the flavors appear in the form of a strawberry crème-filled chocolate in a romantic sampler, the weird fluffiness that holds the strawberry essence tends to ruin the party. On first encounter, it might be an innocent mistake, especially if you have a soft spot for chocolate-strawberry anything else. But once you bite into the sorrow that is a strawberry crème given to you by someone who claims to love you, it's safe to say the honeymoon is over. 

Considerate chocolate consumers will consult the map provided and work around these unfavorable flavors, knowing there are better blends to be had straightaway. The less-mature candy fan — myself included — will just push their thumb into the bottom to make sure what's hiding beneath the shell isn't sidestep-worthy strawberry schlock. Thankfully, there's a soft pink hue that immediately clues you into what you've just cracked into, letting you turn the offending chocolate upright as if nothing ever happened. And as far as the unsuspecting next person to raid your Valentine candy knows, nothing has.

Whoever came up with the idea of coating strips of jellied orange-flavored candies in chocolate must have been looking for ways to use up leftover sweets. What else could explain this oddball of an off-putting chocolate with no rival and no equal? The interior isn't the texture of gummy bears; that would be exciting, a welcome addition to the Valentine chocolate world that already shows up in general chocolate shenanigans during the rest of the year. But what occurs in the sweetheart's chocolate box is a boingy, chewy prank that few recipients are likely to find the humor in.

It certainly sounds like a fun time, opening a Valentine chocolate collection to see tidy sticks of milk chocolate hiding tender orange jelly inside. It's a classic flavor mix that should offer nothing but hearts and flowers. But once you bite into one and realize it's all just turning to slush in your mouth, you wish you would have thought better of making such a hasty decision. Surely, there were caramels or truffles left in the box. Surely, you love yourself more than this, even if whoever gave you such a poorly-chosen selection doesn't seem to. If only there were a Valentine time machine you could leap into and head back to 30 seconds ago, before your holiday came crashing down around you.

You would think a lighter-than-air honey-flavored confection filled with airy pockets would make a perfect companion for chocolate coating. I believed the same thing about honeycomb the first time I encountered it. This intriguing creation combines the fun of food science with the elegance of a thoughtfully-made candy ... until it gets wedged in your teeth and won't come out for what seems like days. Even repeated brushings reveal bits of hardened comb still stuck in the grooves of your molars — and you thought your dentist hated Halloween.

The flavor is something akin to a Butterfinger, the other delicious-yet-irritating candy that's prone to becoming a permanent fixture in your dental work. The description makes it sound like a risk worth taking, but believe me, you'll want to steer clear of this trouble-making treat. Since it's somewhat nostalgic and only seems to appear in super-deluxe versions of boxed candies, it's a pretty easy chocolate to avoid. If you happen to find one lurking in the box you receive, drop it in the trash and pretend you enjoyed it. No need to break anyone's heart.

Maple on pancakes? Absolutely! Maple on glazed donuts? You bet! Maple fluff stuffed into a chocolate coating? Not on your life. There's something taboo about mixing chocolate and maple, which is why you don't find the two flavors chumming it up in nature. Only in the overly-calculated world of Valentine's Day chocolates will you see the hybrid occurrence of a maple center with a chocolate skin, usually milk chocolate, which ramps up the sweetness quotient while dialing down desirability. An overly sweet flavor mistake like this is questionable enough to make the origins of chocolate as a Valentine's Day candy seem like an error in judgment.

Maybe it's the archaic nature of maple with chocolate that makes it feel like an idea that's past its prime. By now, chocolate lovers and Valentine's candy consumers alike know that this blend doesn't work, which is why they end up being left like undetonated landmines in the box after all the good stuff has been cleared out. Woe be unto the unsuspecting soul who follows behind with a bite instead of breaking the remaining bonbons in half to see if there's something flavored like sweet tree sap lurking inside. Their Valentine's Day is sure to be a disaster.

Ah, nougat; that mysterious, overly sweet fluff that occurs more often in the candy world than it should. Not only is it a food you shouldn't eat at Valentine's day, but it's also a food you'll want to steer clear of the other 364 days of the year, too. 

It always makes for a nasty surprise when I find it embedded in otherwise-acceptable chocolate. This includes Milky Way and Three Musketeers bars, which are sickly sweet enough to make my teeth ache just typing their names. The caramel and chocolate layers are no trouble, but the nougat makes me regret having taste buds. And when they pop up in a Whitman's or Russell Stover sampler, they're like a nasty trick played by a Valentine who wants to see how far they can push you before you snap.

This is why its important to identify the nougats in the box before touching any of the chocolate. That way, you don't leave fingerprints on the surface to incriminate yourself. Use the diagram provided by the chocolate maker to work your way around the nougat-filled nuggets, leaving them for whoever might try to sneak a treat out of your treasure trove. Then, watch for interlopers cringing and grimacing as they chew. You'll know straight away they've taken the nougats without realizing it. Happy Valentine's Day, candy thief ... try again next year.

Has there ever been a chocolate candy messier or less appealing than cherry cordials? How many times have you bought a package to thrill your betrothed, only to find the bonbons in the box either waxy and whitened or leaking sugary goo that locks the chocolate onto the decorative paper wrappers? For me, it's an all-the-time deal, which is why I avoid these unpleasant morsels entirely. The fact that they show up in drug stores and dollar marts just makes it easier to recognize they aren't prime Valentine chocolate.

Even in the best of all possible cordial situations, the structural strangeness of the candy is off-putting. The hollow shell that holds what seems like a raw egg with a Maraschino cherry yolk violates practically every advisable practice known to chocolate. And when the repulsive syrup breaks free of the chocolate husk, there's a mess to be dealt with, one that tastes like sugar and sugar only. I imagine there could be some enchanted Wonka-like chocolate store somewhere in the world where a Valentine's Day shopper can pick up dependable cherry cordials for the chocolate fan in their life without feeling like they've wasted their holiday cash. But I also imagine myself flying down the freeway in a Maserati after having the only ticket in a billion-dollar Powerball drawing, and that's not likely to happen, either.

Sure, giving someone chocolate in the shape of a rose sounds like a grand Valentine's Day gesture ... if you're 7, maybe, and your Valentine is your mom. Even if you indulge in the poorly chosen floral confection arrangement as an adult, you are only setting yourself and your special someone up for heartache once the wrapper comes off the bloom — and after the first bite, the bloom comes off the rose. You may have been given a chocolate rose, but you're knee-deep in thorns now.

There's more than one reason no one really wants to eat a chocolate rose. Primarily, the quality of chocolate used to make these faux flowers is usually poor quality and loaded fillers that help retain the shape. And because the rose shape is so dimensional, there ends up being more chocolate than anyone can break off in a single bite without risking TMJ or mashing the whole piece of candy into oblivion. Handing your special someone a chocolate rose may seem like a sweet gesture. But inevitably, the presentation of what appears to be a beautiful chocolate flower ends up being a chunk of subpar candy on a stick. Nobody wants to bite into a bouquet of that.

Of course, marshmallows are wonderful; where would s'mores and hot chocolate be without them? But when candymakers get creative and start draping chocolate over heart-shaped marshmallows, you can practically smell the desperation wafting through the air. They come wrapped individually, so you can scatter them about to all your boos and baes like confectionery confetti, and there are premium versions made by top-notch candy crafters that come close to causing a certified commotion. But there's no way around the rubbery reality of what a marshmallow heart has to offer, which is a heartache in and of itself.

Why is it that whatever constitutes marshmallow in a marshmallow heart is vastly different from the bouncy-foamy fluff we all know and love? Is it because a regular marshmallow will melt when coated with warm chocolate? And if so, isn't that the whole point? There's no sense in sinking your teeth into a chocolate-coated marshmallow in any shape unless it's going to virtually dissolve from the first bite. Sadly, marshmallow hearts just coat your mouth with a foamy strangeness that lingers long after the last bite. If you happen to find marshmallow hearts in your stash, your Valentine's Day chocolates are probably from this state — the state of misery. Time to find a new Valentine.

Valentine's Day isn't the only holiday to be peppered with chocolate treats from Palmer; this candy-creating operation hauls out its wares for the Easter, Halloween, and Christmas chocolate seasons as well. But receiving Palmer treats on those occasions seem less egregious than receiving Valentine's Day chocolate bearing the cursive logo with the rabbit-headed capital P. Grabbing a unicorn or frog holding a heart from this lesser brand to give to your sweet baboo is like shopping for your anniversary at a QT. Neither of those scenarios end in romance.

But the company creates so many cute molded chocolates. What could possibly be so wrong with them? Well, when chocolate gets as cheap as Palmer, you can feel the waxy subpar texture coating your teeth, which is never a great set-up for an enjoyable candy experience. And if you check the label carefully, you might find that this cheap chocolate isn't chocolate at all; some selections are described as "milky and chocolatey" instead of just "milk chocolate." A Valentine's Day candy that dances around what it's really made of is for showing, not for sharing. You're better off grabbing a few Lindt bars from the candy aisle to express your adoration instead.