With regrets to those who don’t eat sweets, we’ve been on a sweet streak over the last week, tasting products for review.

Sundaes Best is a line of hot fudge sauces, specializing in flavored fudge. Apart from the plain dark chocolate Original, the flavors include Cherry, Hazelnut, Java, Mint, Orange, Peanut Butter and Raspberry.

Raspberry is the best-selling flavor, but we preferred Cherry—the flavor of maraschino cherry deftly blended into the fudge sauce. Peanut Butter Hot Fudge is another favorite (PB and chocolate fans will love it), as are Orange and Mint.

While the company uses the finest cocoa, Cabot butter and half-and-half from an award-winning dairy, we preferred the flavors to the Original fudge sauce. It’s less common to find a flavored fudge sauce; and with Sundaes Best, there’s a favorite flavor for every palate to give a special lilt to everything you serve with it.

A box as a gift, a jar as a stocking stuffer.
Photo by Katharine Pollak | THE NIBBLE.

Beautiful hand-painted turkey place setting/
favor from Anna Shea Chocolates.

We also have a tradition of “place settings,” referring not to the dishes, glasses and silverware but to party favors. Our favor of choice is a chocolate turkey that continues the celebration over the holiday weekend.

The prettiest turkey we’ve seen this season is this hand-painted gobbler from Anna Shea Chocolates. They’ll be happy to send you a flock, but you can also look around locally for tempting treats, including chocolate or marzipan pumpkins; or fill individual clear plastic confection boxes with candy corn.

So…why are there a flock of turkeys, a brood of chickens, a gaggle of geese, a brace of ducks and so forth?

Back in the 17th century, when there was little entertainment—often the newspaper was a weekly—a group of literate folks started the list. Take a look at what they created here. It’s more fun than a pod of whales and a murder of crows.

• See last year’s tip for making chocolate place cards.

Ice cream bonbons can be found at cinemas and stadiums, but have never made it big at retail. Around 1992, Nestlé launched a line in supermarkets, including, as our shaky memory recalls, a divine variety with Butterfinger-flavored ice cream.

Today, Dreyer’s is keeping America stocked with Dibs, chocolate-covered ice cream nuggets in Chocolate, Mint, Nestlé Crunch, Nestlé Drumstick and Vanilla. But the chocolate coating and the ice cream are so-so. They’re not so much of a treat.

There’s a far better bonbon in town.

Choco’s Bon Bons are made with premium ice cream and a thick coating of top-quality Callebaut chocolate. To make them even more of a delight, there’s a cookie crust that effectively turns each Choco into a bite of ice cream cake.

Satisfy your sweet tooth with Choco’s ice
cream bonbons. Photo by Katharine Pollak
| THE NIBBLE.

So far, we’ve had the Chocolate, Peanut Butter and Vanilla varieties. Mint, Mocha Java and Strawberries & Cream are the other flavors in the line, and we can’t wait to try them.

Only 60 calories apiece, Choco’s are all natural—nothing artificial, no preservatives, no corn syrup, no trans fats. The ingredients are GMO– and rBST-free. They’re certified kosher by KOF-K.

A box of 12 pieces gives you almost a week’s worth of two-bonbons-a-night snacking. A box in the freezer means you’ll always have something special to serve to drop-by guests. And for a mini dessert after a big dinner party, guests will happily find room for a bonbon or two.

• To find a Choco’s retailer near you, email lt@lapetitefoods.com or phone 1.760.297.1492. For more information, visit the company website.
• Find more of our favorite ice cream product reviews, recipes and information.

Indian pudding. Photo courtesy Tammy
Donroe, FoodOnTheFood.com.

Indian pudding, a New England specialty, is a pudding served hot or warm, made of cornmeal, milk, molasses and spices.

It’s a richer, sweetened form of hasty pudding, a porridge of cornmeal cooked in milk or water. (Remember the song, Yankee Doodle: “Father and I went down to camp/Along with Captain Gooding/And there we saw the men and boys/as thick as hasty pudding.”)

If you like hot cereal and molasses, there’s a good chance that you’ll become an Indian pudding fan. We’ve got a recipe from a great American chef and a specialist in the cuisine of New England.

Take a look at our Indian pudding recipe, courtesy of Boston’s Chef Jasper White, as well as the history of Indian Pudding.

If you need to make a dessert for Thanksgiving, there’s nothing more appropriate: Indian pudding was made by the Pilgrims from cornmeal introduced to them by the Native Americans.

If you like coconut and alcohol, pick up a bottle of coconut rum. You can use it to add a bit of coconut flavor to almost any recipe requiring a splash of spirits.

We like Bacardi Coconut Rum. Some rums are flavored with extracts; Bacardi steeps real coconut in the rum to achieve true coconut flavor and aroma.

COCONUT RUM IN A PIÑA COLADA

A regular Piña Colada requires coconut cream. But you can make a Piña Colada “Light” with just coconut rum and pineapple juice. You also save 195 calories worth of coconut cream.

 
 
DESSERTS

You can substitute coconut rum in cakes and other baked goods requiring brandy, rum, tequila, whiskey or liqueurs. Most recipes that don’t call for alcohol can benefit from a tablespoon or two.

 
 
RUM SYRUP

This simple recipe works for any type of beverage, from cocktails to iced tea and coffee to shakes and floats. It’s essentially a flavored simple syrup.

1. BRING 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water to a boil in a saucepan. Stir constantly until sugar is dissolved. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes.

2. REMOVE from the heat; stir in 2 tablespoons rum. Cool to room temperature before using.
 
 
MEAT & SEAFOOD

Use coconut rum to deglaze the pan and make a sauce for pork, poultry and seafood.

[1] Excellent coconut rum, made with real coconut, not extract (photo © Bacardi).

[2] Fresh coconut (photo © Tijana Drndarski | Unsplash)..