See's Scotchmallow Bar: An appropriate last dance

It had to be big.

It had to be sweet.

And it had to be chocolate.

When selecting my last post-lunch dessert prior to Lent, See’s Scotchmallow Bar seemed an obvious choice. While I was somewhat dismayed that the 190-calorie-bar only comes in milk chocolate – not the dark chocolate that is reserved for the confectioner’s smaller Scotchmallow pieces – I still felt it would be a worthy indulgence. The one-and-a-half-inch wide, four-inch long bar is a behemoth compared to my usual post-lunch dessert – a couple sections of a dark chocolate bar. Plus, with the weighty milk chocolate layer, it was sure to induce a state of sugar overload, which is exactly what I was hoping my second-to-last-dessert-dance would do.

In my mind, the best way to prepare myself for another 46-day dessert hiatus was by overdosing on something so sweet and so chocolaty that I wouldn’t be able to even look at a piece of chocolate the next day without feeling nauseated. I was priming the pump, so to speak. Priming the pump for deprivation. Or, perhaps more accurately, gorging before a long dark period of hibernation.

As I suspected, See’s Scotchmallow Bar was the perfect choice for the gorge. It’s almost toxically sweet with its thick robe of milk chocolate and hearty interior layers of fluffy marshmallow and buttery caramel. I was ready to stop half-way through, but pushed on – cognizant that the next day I would be drinking green tea for “dessert.” My head and stomach ached by the time I took my last bite.

“How does this only have 190 calories?” I thought.

Suspicious nutrition information aside, See’s Scotchmallow Bar is the perfect way to prepare for a 46-day abstinence from dessert. But for everyday indulgences, I think I’ll stick to the dark chocolate Scotchmallow pieces in the future… approximately 38 days from now.