Choco-Oscar Buzz — With Brownies

The ultimate dessert for your Oscar Night party, the same high-voltage chocolate square that the top names in Hollywood will be nibbling, is available in Georgetown. Silver Spring-based Naughty Bits Brownies was chosen for inclusion in the “Everybody Wins at the Oscars” nominee gift bag. This coveted swag of goodies is given to nominees who don’t win in the top five categories.

To celebrate, Leigh Lambert, owner and creator of Naughty Bits, created a limited edition Oscar flavor—The Starlet. (For several years, Lambert and I worked together at The Washington Post food section.) No “bit player” of a brownie, it’s topped with chocolate-covered Pop Rocks and dusted with edible gold. “It’s like eating chocolate champagne,” Lambert says. Starlet will join her other six flavors, which will be given to the celebrities.

Lambert’s brownie creations are worthy of the Tinseltown attention. Some of her flavor combinations, such as the Barista Bar, has chocolate-covered espresso beans sprinkled throughout, and Living in Sin enrobes miniature peanut butter cups and is topped with salted peanuts. Others in the line-up are more daring. Shiksa marries maple-smoked bacon and toffee bits – an unusually successful pairing. Geisha Girl is the “unexpected love child of East meets West,” as she describes on her website. You might not think of wasabi, ginger and sesame being at home with a brownie, but they all work in perfect harmony.

“I love to play with intriguing flavors,” Lambert says. “I never do anything simply as a gimmick. It has to really taste good.” And they do. All the flavors, from the traditional to the more exotic are an inch-thick, generously cut and have a chewy crumb, so hard to find in brownies.

And the award goes to: Naughty Bits.

Available at:

J. Chocolatier, 1039 33rd, St. NW, (202) 333-4111
Society Fair (Cathal Armstrong’s new food emporium), 277 South Washington St., Alexandria. (703) 683-3247

For mail order: www.naughtybitsbrownies.com .

Georgetown resident, Walter Nicholls, is a food critic for Arlington magazine and a frequent contributor to Flavor magazine.