Chocolate Olive Oil, Handmade Marshmallows and Orange Blossom Beer in Our Easter Basket, Please!

By Wynter Holden Fri., Apr. 22 2011 at 10:44 AM

Categories: Top Lists

Most kids love getting chocolate bunnies and Peeps in their Easter baskets. But come adulthood, you start resorting to making things like Peepshi (Peeps sushi) and mole rabbit with leftover chocolate bunnies instead of bittersweet chunks just to make things interesting.

So what would make for better grown-up Easter treats? Here are the 5 local products we wouldn't mind seeing in our Easter baskets this Sunday:

Gina's Homemade
"All About Me" Chocolate-Dipped Fudge Biscotti from Gina's Homemade: This sweet shop's namesake (yes, there is a real Gina) managed to combine two already amazing things -- crunchy Italian biscotti and soft, chewy cookies -- into one noshable product that we like to think of as a "Biscookie." Effing brilliant! And far less messy than a gooey chocolate bunny. Get them online for $8.99 per bag or pop by the Old Town Scottsdale Farmers' Market tomorrow.

Orange Blossom Wheat Beer from Papago Brewing: Who cares that it's the wuss of local beers, at less than 5% alcohol? The stuff tastes like bottled Arizona springtime, and is conveniently offered in a take-home growler for just $19 ($11 for future refills). It could be difficult to smush the big-ass glass container of creamsicle beer in amongst jelly beans and chocolate treats, but really, once we down a few pints we won't mind that the Peeps became roadkill to fit this sucker in.

Chocolate-covered Espresso Beans: Screw jelly beans! We don't need no stinkin' sugar high when we can have a real, honest-to-goodness caffeine buzz. Candy Addict on Mill Avenue has 8 oz. tubes of snackable java on tap, in addition to other adult-friendly treats such as marzipan fruit baskets and Cocopotamus truffles. Buy a container and get your legal high for the day, sans prescription.

Queen Creek Olive Mill's Chocolate Flavored Olive Oil: Yes, you read that right. At this year's Scottsdale Culinary Festival, Queen Creek dished up samples of their latest crop of olive oil flavored with the essence of chocolate. It has the savory qualities of pure cocoa without the sweetness of added sugar -- and it was good enough on its own that culinary fest guests were happy pounding shots of it straight from the bottle.

Tracy Dempsey Marshmallows: Move over, sparkly fluorescent Peeps! There's a more sophisticated (and less hydrogenated) marshmallow in town. Local culinatrix Tracy Dempsey is known for her sugary treats-on-a-stick, which recently showed up in a brown bag o' cookies dessert served at the inaugural Cycle. The sticky mallows are fun, festive, and brulee a heck of a lot better than Peeps -- trust us, we know. Get some at Smeeks for less than five bucks a bag.

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