Sugar Rush: Last Night at Swirl's Dessert & Wine Tasting

Yesterday evening, Swirl's Dessert & Wine Tasting brought together six local chocolatiers, bakers, and candy makers. No one left with anything less than a sugar high... and perhaps a bit of a buzz. Your six sweet hosts:

Roni-Sue's Chocolates: Portly Fig Truffles featuring a bittersweet chocolate ganache center with figs infused in port wine, and The Frida, also a dark chocolate ganache with Kalhua, espresso, and Mexican cinnamon. Ground cocoa nibs & dulce de leche included!

Two of Roni-Sue's assistants recently branched out on their own. First is Michelle Sarivole from Gotham Cookies, who came with Almond Butter Cookies. Super buttery, crunchy, and not too sweet. I also had a chance to sample her Coconut-Lemon Cookie, which was superb and will hopefully be available for sale in the near future.

We also met Liz and Jen of Liddabit Sweets. There we sampled their Dorie Bar, a chocolate sablé cookie topped with salted caramel ganache and sautéed apricots & black pepper. They're also well known for Beer & Pretzel Caramels and just recently introduced a line of hard cider caramels.

Cookies, brownies, and more, after the jump.

WannaHaveACookie brought Chocolate Chunk Cookies and Chocolate on Chocolate Whoopie Pies...

...and Gourmetibles presented a trio of flavors, all based around toffee covered saltines with chocolate and walnuts.

And last but not least, Cappuccino Brownies from Sweet Muse.