Shabtai Gourmet, Sweet Treats Allergen Free
As someone that has multiple food intolerances, I was delighted to find out about Shabtai Gourmet. They specialize in providing sweet treats to individuals following restricted diets that must exclude gluten, lactose, soy, casein, peanuts and dairy. The pictures on their website look very enticing and I was excited to sample their products.
Shabtai Gourmet Bon Bons
The first product that I sampled was the Shabtai Gourmet Bon Bons. The box that the bon bons came in was cute, and they were shrink wrapped in plastic to preserve freshness. The chocolate was rich with a creamy marshmallow filling. What I didn’t expect was the crunchy cookie center. I think I expected more of a soft cake center than the crunchy cookie. The creamy filling combined with the smooth chocolate contrasts too much with the crunchy cookie, in my opinion. One of these was enough to feed my chocolate craving for the week. They are good, but oh so decadent.
Shabtai Gourmet Bon Bons
I thought that these bon bons would be great to serve up at a party. They truly are a gourmet dessert; however the smooth chocolate seemed to stick to the Styrofoam tray they arrived on inside the box. I had a terrible time plating these treats, but I thoroughly enjoyed scraping the chocolate off of the Styrofoam tray. I had some of my co-workers sample the bon bons, and everyone agreed that the creamy filling was delicious. Although a handful said that the cookie center was too crunchy, one person thought that was the best part. I bet those that were hoping for more of a cake would prefer the ring tings instead.
Shabtai Gourmet Swiss Cake Roll
Although the bon bons were good, my personal favorite so far has been Shabtai Gourmet’s Swiss cake roll. What a sinfully delightful treat that reminds me so much of my youth. My grandma always had a brown paper bag in her pantry full of Little Debbie snack cakes, and in that bag I would always grab a swiss cake roll. So reminiscent of the comfort food from my youth, this gourmet chocolate cake with a cream filling has been rolled and dipped in chocolate. I can see myself serving this up at Christmas time, but I think that they would sell better if they looked more like the snack cakes from my youth. Call it comfort food, or call it junk food – people with allergies like to enjoy their favorites too!
I also think the swiss cake roll might sell better as a snack cake because of a problem I encountered when slicing into the cake. The smooth, rich chocolate kept crumbling and falling off the cake when I went to cut a slice. I found this somewhat annoying, but enjoyed eating the bits of broken chocolate anyway. When I would eat those Little Debbie Snack Cakes growing up, I would bite the chocolate off first anyway before I bit into the cake itself. So this isn’t really a big deal, unless you are serving this cake up to impress someone.
Due to a suspected almond allergy, I will not purchase the bon bons again. However I plan to order some ring tings and another Swiss cake roll in the near future. Shabtai Gourmet has some great treats for those of us with multiple allergies. We definitely benefit the most from their mission to provide gourmet treats to people with multiple allergies, but no one would ever know that these products are without allergens. My husband and coworkers also enjoyed these products and the only thing that gave away that they were gluten-free was that I was eating them.
NOTE: Shabtai Gourmet provided samples for these reviews.
UPDATE (4/17/11): Shabtai Gourmet is now selling Baby Swiss Rolls, AKA “Devils Stix”. I imagine they get their name from tasting so sinfully delicious. I can’t wait to order a bunch on pay day.
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