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March 2006

Friday, March 31, 2006

Chocolate Disk

On one of my recent visits to Mitsuwa, the local Japanese grocery chain, I found this. Even the woman at the checkout thought it was cool.

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Basically it’s a blister pack of M&M-style candies. The disc is the size of a regular CD with a larger hole in the middle. The candy coated treats aren’t quite real chocolate, there’s a large amount of vegetable oil in there in addition to the cocoa butter, so I knew before I even got them home that they wouldn’t really rival M&Ms or the fantastic seasonal Hershey’s Candy Coated Eggs.

Still, the sherbet colored candies and super-sealed individuality was compelling. My low expectations were completely met. The candies are well made, the shells are smooth and consistent but freakishly slippery. The taste is sweet and crunchy with a mild chocolatey taste, but of course the texture of the actual chocolate is rather lost.

I suppose blister packs for little candies is extra-hygienic, but I found that just as many of the candies wound up bouncing around and onto the floor as I tried to pop them out through the foil. It’s a fun novelty item, but in my mind if you’re going to go through the trouble of wrapping them up like this, at least do it with something of value.

Note: There are 26 candies in the disc.

Name: Nagewa Choco (Chocolate Snack)
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Furuta
Place Purchased: Mitsuwa (Little Tokyo)
Price: $.99
Size: .88 ounces
Calories per ounce: 125
Categories: Chocolate, Japan

POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:46 am    

Nestle Crunch Dark Stixx

A few weeks ago I posted about the darn tasty Milky Way Crispy Rolls from Germany. And of course they’re not available here, but luckily reader TheMatt pointed me to these:

image

I didn’t see them in milk chocolate, though I doubt that’s the version I would have picked up anyway. They were hidden away in the grocery candy aisle all the way down near the mixed nuts. The package hails that each stick has less than 100 calories (90 each, actually) but the small print underneath that says “not a low calorie food.” Yeah, each stick is also less than two thirds of an ounce. I find an ounce or an ounce and a quarter makes a good portion for me when I’m looking for a little sweet. So I’d be eating two of these. Still, at 180 calories that’d be a nice respite and still not the full 300 I budget for a day’s sweets.

Anyway, I digress from the real topic, which is these little crispy sticks. What we have here is a little tube of crispy, bland cookie - think ice cream cone - filled with a firm chocolate cream. The whole thing smells very sweet and a little like cereal. The chocolate isn’t spectacular. It’s sweet but smooth. The real fun is the flaky tube of cookie which is mostly texture and provides a nice crisp and of course acts as a container for the chocolate cream. The center cream is nice, it’s sweet and smooth and a little buttery.

On the whole, this isn’t the same as the Milky Way Crispy Rolls, but they’re certainly nice. If I were to have any chocolate cookie snack I wanted without regard to trans fats, it’d be the Lu Chocolatiers, but these are far superior in their portability. They’re pretty expensive as non-gourmet candy goes, so keep your eye out for sales if you fall in love with them.

Name: Nestle Crunch Dark Stixx
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Nestle
Place Purchased: Ralph's (Glendale)
Price: $2.29
Size: 3.64 ounces
Calories per ounce: 148
Categories: Chocolate, Cookie, United States, Nestle

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:09 am    

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Chocolate Covered Sugar Babies

A long time ago, when I was a little kid, my sister and I would be given two dimes each and were allowed to walk down to the corner store with other children in the neighborhood. (This was back when candy bars were only 20 cents

15 cents each.) But even at the tender age of four or five I realized that there were better values out there in the candy world than the standard candy bar. One of those things was penny & nickel candy. These were either junior versions of regular sized candies or special small morsels, like lollipops, Bit-o-Honey, Jawbreakers, Mary Janes and Tootsie Rolls.

I was especially fond of a candy called Sugar Mama. It was part of the Sugar family which was headed by the excellent Sugar Daddy and included the wee Sugar Babies. The Sugar Mama was a chocolate covered Sugar Daddy. I often got Sugar Mamas because they were the best of both worlds - the intense caramel flavor plus the chocolatey coating that made it feel more like a candy bar. Sugar Mamas, like Sugar Daddys, were pretty big and because they were softer than a regular hard candy lollipop, they were more interactive. This starts with an impression of the roof of my mouth, then slowly shaving off the chocolate with my teeth and then twirling and pulling the naked, softened caramel into shapes. It was a pretty good way to spend a nickel.

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Of course they don’t make Sugar Mamas anymore and Nabisco sold the Sugar family to Tootsie back in the mid-nineties. Sugar Babies, though, continue to be produced and are actually easier to find than Sugar Daddies (there were also Sugar Daddy Nuggets at one time which were divine in their own right). They’re fine little caramel bits unlike anything else on the market because they’re panned - I’m guessing with a layer of sugar or caramel or something to make a smooth shell that turns grainy when you chew it.

I haven’t had a Sugar Daddy in years, and I guess part of it is a fear of losing dental work. I’ve never actually hurt my teeth that way (though I once lost a filling eating scrambled eggs), but it’s a huge fear and I figure better safe than sorry.

My favorite way to eat regular Sugar Babies is to soften them up by putting the package into my pocket or just holding a few of them in the palm of my hand for a while. This is especially important when I get the really stale ones.

Now, on to the product at hand ... it seems that Tootsie is getting into the limited edition racket and has introduced Chocolate Covered Sugar Babies. Now some of you might think that this is the same thing as Milk Duds. First, chocolate coating aside, a Milk Dud doesn’t quite have that caramelized sugar taste to them (they’re more milky) and they don’t quite have the same graininess towards the end of the chew. The thing that surprised me most about these was that they’re actually fully formed Sugar Babies under the chocolate ... I thought maybe the Sugar Baby wouldn’t have the candy shell on it on the inside. This makes the little candy a bit hard and the option of warming them first is kind of gone because of the mess that ensues by holding a piece of chocolate in the palm of your hand for a few minutes.

The chocolate coating is pretty good, much better, in my opinion than a Milk Dud and they’re certainly pretty looking when I dumped them out of the box. There’s a slight cinnamon hint to the whole candy and they combine well once it all warms up. However, I still prefer the plain old Sugar Babies. It was a good effort and I’m glad they tried it, but I don’t need them to add this to the line permanently but if I were going to the movies, this would be a good option (I bet they taste great with popcorn).

Thanks to Joanna at SugarSavvy for pointing out their existence!

Name: Chocolate Covered Sugar Babies
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Tootsie
Place Purchased: Dollar Tree (Carson)
Price: $1.00
Size: 5.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 127
Categories: Chocolate, Caramel, United States, Tootsie, Limited Edition

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:58 am    

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Yan Yan

Lisa, a former co-worker and fellow blogger, mentioned some months back that I should try Yan Yan (actually, she wanted me to get the Hello Kitty equivalent). It’s like do it yourself Pocky! Well, in theory, anyway.

image

The little tub is pretty cute and they’ve thought of everything here. You start with a plain cookie stick. It’s not flavored, just a light, crunchy stick like a digestive biscuit. About one third of the little tube is a reservoir of chocolate dip. I thought it would be like frosting.

imageIt’s not quite frosting.

In fact, it took me about a day to figure out what it was. Then I remembered this article I read last summer. It reminded me of American cheese. A soft, super-emulsified chocolate cheese spread.

Reading the ingredients confirmed this: Wheat Flour, Vegetable Oil & Shortening (Palm & Canola Oils), Sugar, Whole Milk Powder, Skim Milk Powder, Cocoa Mass, Cocoa Powder, Leavenings (Ammonium Bicarbonate, Sodium Bicarbonate), Yeast, Cheddar Cheese (contains Milk, Cheese Culture, Salt), Salt, Emulsifier (Soya Lecithin), Artificial Vanilla & Chocolate Flavorings, Natural Colorings (Beta Carotene, E160 & Caramel E150A), Enzyme (Papain).

You remember those little cheese and cracker snacks, where you spread the cheese with a plastic stick? This is just like that, only with a chocolate cheese. I suppose the idea of chocolate cheese shouldn’t be that odd. We make a lot of desserts with cheese, like cheesecake or even cream cheese frosting. Using cheese as a base makes it super creamy and thick. It could be more chocolatey and there is a slight cheesy tang to it. It’s a very firm frosting too, with no hint of grainy bits like in some frosting candies.

The little biscuit sticks are cute, my sayings included:
Cat - Say Meow
Snail - Snail Mail?
Chicken - Kokekokko
Squirrel - Your Best Friend
Horse - Gallop Away
Rabbit - Eat More Carrots
Mole - In a Hole
Squid - Black Ink
Zebra - Herbivore

I kind of wondered if the sticks are sold in English in Asia and if they are, are they used for learning conversational English. Maybe you go to a first year English class and they engage you in a nice little talk about moles that happen to be in holes and that horses gallop away? They’re like crib notes for small chat!

While I think the idea is pretty cool, this is obviously a very popular treat in Asia, and I liked the biscuit sticks, I didn’t really like the dip. I’ll eat the rest of the sticks, though. The nutrition label says that there’s 1 gram of trans fat in here ... I’m hoping it’s not in the sticks. The label also mentions that this product contains no pig fat.

On a side note, I got an email from a reader, Chris, last week asking about a similar frosting-type treat that was available in the States (and may still be). He described it as this “It came in a small blue plastic container with a foil top and inside was the mixture with a small spoon or stick to scoop out the yummy stuff.” Does anyone remember this?

UPDATE: It’s probably Dunkaroos from Betty Crocker (thanks Elise!). I saw that there’s a Shrek version of them on Amazon, but they may be all but discontinued. I seem to recall another something similar that was just a frosting type snack but I can’t remember the name of that either.

Name: Yan Yan Choco Cream Snack
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Meiji (Singapore)
Place Purchased: Cost Plus World Market
Price: $1.19
Size: 2 ounces
Calories per ounce: 160
Categories: Chocolate, Cookie, Meiji

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:24 am    

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

KitKat Milkshake

I’ve been so caught up with Easter candy lately that I’ve been neglecting my regular candy. I couldn’t wait until the Easter rush is over to post about the Limited Edition KitKat Milkshake.

image

I’ve been looking everywhere for these and was surprised that they weren’t available at my trusty 7-11 that always seems to have new and limited edition products. Instead I found them at the Dollar Tree, which always makes me nervous that it’s old and skanky candy. How could it be old though, it’s limited edition!

The bar is described as: KitKat Milkshake - Crisp Wafers in Extra Creamy Malt Milk Chocolate (naturally and artificially flavored)

The bar was pretty looking, smooth and glossy, it was definitely fresh. But there was something off about it. It smelled a little musty, like an old, damp closet or something. I had a piece of it and decided it tasted musty too. I threw the rest out and started over with a second bar. This one doesn’t smell as musty, but still has a definitely “off” smell to it. I know that malt can sometimes be considered a gamy scent, but this just wasn’t it.

I decided that this was how it was gonna be and I plowed through to the tasting. First I needed to get past what I wanted the bar to be. I wanted it to be a malted KitKat ... I wanted creamy milk chocolate with malt between the wafers. But that’s not what it is, it’s malt flavor in the chocolate and I think the regular old wafers & cream we’re used to.  What it does taste like is a milkier version of a KitKat ... with a slight buttery taste, kind of like popcorn and kind of like coconut. These aren’t pleasant combinations in my realm of chocolate candy bars, so I wasn’t really enjoying it. In fact, as I got to the last finger, I was really sick of it and didn’t want to finish it.

I wonder if I just got a bad batch: News You Can Eat liked hers and CandyAddict found it acceptable. Suffice to say I was severely disappointed, especially since I loved the Limited Edition Twosomes Whoppers last year.

Name: KitKat Milkshake
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Reese's (Hershey's)
Place Purchased: Dollar Tree (Carson)
Price: $.50
Size: 1.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 147
Categories: Chocolate, KitKat, Cookie, Malt, United States, Hershey's, Limited Edition

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:22 am    

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