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March 2008

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Peeps inside a Milk Chocolate Egg

Peeps Milk Chocolate EggThis is another one of those cool idea novelty Easter candies that just doesn’t have a name. Marshmallow Peeps inside a Milk Chocolate Egg just does not roll off a whiny child’s tongue in a desirable way. There is a little ribbon on the top of the box that says “Just Hatched”, so I think if they’d gone for something like Peeps Chocolate Egg Hatchlings or something, it might be a smidge more compelling.

Names aside, it’s pretty easy to figure out what this is. It’s a solo yellow Peep inside a milk chocolate egg.

The egg is wrapped in gold foil with a life-sized Peep in yellow. The egg has a little flat spot on the bottom of the larger end so it sits up rather easily, even without the clear plastic packaging.

Peeps inside a Milk Chocolate Egg

What I find rather fun about the Peep inside is that it’s an only child. Peeps in the larger broods always have at least one little joint where they’re in the row with their siblings. This one has no conjoining scars.

The Peep is a little softer than I’m used to, perhaps the moist and nutritive atmosphere of a milk chocolate egg keeps it factory fresh. Still, it’s a Peep.

The chocolate shell is thick and firm. It’s not great chocolate and includes real vanilla but PGPR. The chocolate is passable, not as good as the Russell Stover Bunny, and certainly not the See’s Hollow Eggs with Novelty or Lindt. The chocolate and Peeps combination is kind of fun, Peeps need a little something with them, if you ask me, but I’d like a stronger milk flavor to my chocolate in this case or something darker to offset the sugar crust.

The foil is pretty thick and makes it easy to save at least half of the shell for later (the package says there’s two portions ... I’m not sure if they mean that you eat half of the Peep for each portion or not.

It was a bit pricey at $2.99 for mediocre chocolate ($1.00 an ounce). I think you’re better off getting the classic Lindt Gold Bunny (and you get to choose milk, dark or white these days usually for about $1.00 an ounce) for about the same price and then just get a whole tray of Peeps.

However, as a learning experience, if you have kids and want to talk to them about where birds come from, this is actually a pretty accurate little candy ... you know, there’s a tiny baby bird inside a chocolate shell. It’s absolutely better than giving live animals to a kid for Easter. (Don’t forget the Make Mine Chocolate campaign.)

Related Candies

  1. Peeps Mash Ups - Savory
  2. Wonka Golden Egg
  3. Peeps Monster Mash Ups
  4. Peeps Mash Ups
  5. Peeps Spooky Cats & Cocoa Bunnies
  6. Peeps
Name: Marshmallow Peeps inside a Milk Chocolate Egg
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Peeps (Just Born)
Place Purchased: Target (Glendale Galleria)
Price: $2.99
Size: 3 ounces
Calories per ounce: 140
Categories: Chocolate, Marshmallow, United States, Just Born, Peeps, Easter, Novelty

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:27 am    

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

See’s Hollow Eggs with Novelty

See's EggsOkay, this probably one of the saddest names for a fine Easter confection I’ve ever seen: Hollow Eggs with Novelty. See’s has gone through the trouble of naming every last one of their 102 boxed chocolates. Okay, some of them are ordinary names, like Buttercream, but others are original like Scotchmallow, Chelsea, Bordeaux & California Brittle.

Naming aside, everything else is spot on. The little carton holds the chick-egg-sized, foil-wrapped hollow chocolate eggs just like a half a dozen eggs you’d buy a the grocery store.

See's Hollow Eggs with NoveltyThe foil is nicely applied (you’d be surprised at how hard it is to find foil-wrapped eggs where you can actually read the lettering on them). The blue, magenta and pale green colors are pretty sedate but match really well with most of the other Easter offerings at See’s. Each foiled egg has an interesting little rattle to it when shaken. There’s definitely something in there, and my guess is it’s a novelty. (It does sound kind of like the whole thing is plastic, but trust me, it’s chocolate.)

The outside shell is milk chocolate, the interior chick is white chocolate. The ingredients label is a little vague about that chick but the ingredients are still pretty pure: Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Milk, Chocolate, Soy Lecithin, Vanillin & Salt. The shell has a geometric pattern on it ... kinda like an eggshell looks when you roll a hard boiled egg around.

The price isn’t bad, especially when you buy the batch of 6. At $5.60 each is less than a dollar and are a little less than an ounce each (26 grams).

Hollow Eggs with White Chocolate Chick

The first egg I opened I carefully sliced through the seam with an exacto blade. Now that I’ve eaten several, I can tell you the trick if you want to split it open cleanly ... hold the egg firmly and press along the seam at the widest part of the egg very gently. Most times it will split cleanly. Sometimes you end with your thumb through the egg ... just like when you play with real eggs!

The milk chocolate is nice. It’s sweet and has an mellow dairy component, not very malty or dark ... just a nice middle-of-the road chocolate flavor.

The white chocolate is very sweet but milky and mostly smooth. The appearance of them varies. Some are pristine little chicks, others are a little smudged up from rattling around in the chocolate shell (well, I’ve been rattling them around). It’s a nice couple of bites, I probably wouldn’t want more, but white chocolate is inextricably tied to Easter for me, so I enjoy it for the nostalgia alone.

They don’t sell these as solo treats, just in the half dozen box or in other pre-mixed baskets. Though I think they’re great, I just don’t see myself buying these when I can have the Scotchmallow Eggs (except those aren’t individually wrapped for nestling in baskets so someone will have to put a whole box in mine) at the same price. But if you’ve got a group to please, this is a good way to go.

Each egg has about 145 calories each.

Related Candies

  1. Wonka Golden Egg
  2. Godiva Easter Eggs
  3. See’s Egg Quartet
  4. See’s Scotchmallow Eggs
  5. Kinder Egg
Name: Hollow Eggs with Novelty
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: See's
Place Purchased: See's (Glendale Galleria)
Price: $5.60
Size: 5.4 ounces
Calories per ounce: 150
Categories: Chocolate, White Chocolate, United States, See's, Kosher, Easter, Novelty

POSTED BY Cybele AT 12:12 pm    

Princess Marshmallow Eggs

Princess Marshmallow EggThis one is just for UK readers who have access to the Princess line of confections from Tangerine Confectionery: the Marshmallow Egg.

Princess is currently known for their marshmallows and Tangerine is known as the company who manufactures the Anthon Berg line of filled chocolates, so it seems natural that they’d combine these skills for an Easter egg. At about the same size as a Cadbury Creme Egg, they’re still a little lighter. (The package didn’t say, but I’m guessing this is less than an ounce.)

The pastel foil wrapper holds a very pretty chocolate egg with a swirl on both sides. Mine were pristine and without the usual dings and scrapes that most of the eggs get at the store because they were sent right from the PR folks handing the Princess account. (Yay!)

Princess Marshmallow Egg

It smells lightly of milky chocolate and a little like raspberry. In fact, I wasn’t sure if it was a flavored marshmallow until I bit into it.

The marshmallow doesn’t quite fill the hemispheres, there’s a little gap, as it’s apparent that they fill the halves and then join them together. The marshmallow is pleasantly plump and foamy, a little dry and very pink. It’s a little grainy at times, but not in an unpleasant way. The raspberry flavor is just an essence, a whiff, no hint of tangy berry overtones.

It was sweet, but not too sticky or overwhelming like I find the CCE. Though I think I still prefer the Russell Stover Marshmallow & Caramel Egg, this one is pretty tasty too, and of course cute and hefty enough to impress any child if it were in the Easter basket on a Sunday morning.

I couldn’t read the little print on the foil wrapper, but the press kit emailed to me heralded that “Princess Marshmallow Egg contains only natural colours and flavours, no added salt and no hydrogenated fats.” (They actually do have all that stuff on their website, so few American companies actually do that.) There’s actual real vanilla in there too ... I’m kind of jealous that the Brits get to have real chocolate with real vanilla in it for less than a dollar.

UK readers can pick these little gems up for about 40p in corner shops, garage forecourts and Somerfield supermarkets.

Related Candies

  1. Peeps Mash Ups
  2. Melster Marshmallow Eggs
  3. See’s Scotchmallow Eggs
  4. Cadbury Orange Creme Eggs
  5. Kinder Egg
  6. Littlejohn Caramel Marshmallows
Name: Marshmallow Egg
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Princess (Tangerine Confectionery)
Place Purchased: samples from Tangerine Confectionery
Price: retail 40p
Size: unknown
Calories per ounce: unknown
Categories: Chocolate, Marshmallow, United Kingdom, All Natural, Easter

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:08 am    

Monday, March 3, 2008

Russell Stover Eggs

imageA couple of years ago I was pleasantly surprised by the Russell Stover Cream Easter Eggs. Though I’ve never been much of a fan of the Cadbury Creme Eggs, I wasn’t surprised to see that Russell Stover is now making a similar product and knowing that they did nice things with the other eggs, I thought I’d give this array a try.

There are some striking similarities between the CCE and the Russell Stover. First, they’re all 1.2 ounces (yes, the Cadbury’s used to be larger, back in 2007 they were changed from 1.35 to 1.2). The Cadbury’s currently come in the classic Creme Egg, Caramel Egg and the newest version is the Orange Creme Egg.

The Russell Stover Eggs do not duplicate any of these flavors. Instead they’ve gone with slightly different versions.

image

The most promising in my mind was the Russell Stover Dark Chocolate Creme Egg. One of my major complaints with the CCE is that it’s far too sweet and lacking in flavor. I figured a dark chocolate egg with a chocolate creme might provide some, I dunno, flavor to balance the sugar.

It looks good, I have to admit. The dark shell holds a thick and glossy creme. It doesn’t smell like much, but the textures are pretty good. The shell is crisp and easy to bite but doesn’t shatter into a gazillion bits. The creme center is rather like a gooey frosting, it’s not very deep in chocolate-ness, but still pleasant. When eating around the edges and getting more chocolate than creme, it was pretty good. But the proportions towards the center began to make my throat burn it was so sweet.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

image

Russell Stover Chocolate Creme is the same as the dark chocolate egg, only with a milk chocolate shell. It’s not an overwhelmingly milky chocolate, so it doesn’t really do much to add a different flavor to the whole thing.

I found it much sweeter overall than the dark chocolate version. Still pleasant if you’re the type who eats frosting by the spoonful (which I admit to doing at times). The fudgy-ness of the creme center is more noticeable in this one.

Rating: 5 out of 10

image

I know you’ve probably wondered how they make these. Here’s what I think they do (and I’m just guessing):

Russell Stover Vanilla & Chocolate Creme

  • The hollow chocolate shell is molded in two pieces.
  • After the shell hardens they fill it with the egg “white” material. Then they deposit the “yolk” in one side of the egg. Both are not flowing goo like it is when you open the eggs, instead it’s a near solid material like fudge. An enzyme is added to it just before filling the eggs that creates a reaction that makes the goo into a viscus liquid in several weeks. (This is how cherry cordials are made.)
  • While they’re still solid the two hemispheres are joined (perhaps a hot iron is used to heat the chocolate shells around the edges and they’re pressed together. They’re wrapped in foil and sent off to stores.
  • If anyone actually knows how this actually happens, please pipe up in the comments!

    The Russell Stover Vanilla & Chocolate Creme was the egg that I least wanted to eat. Milk chocolate with a white creme and a dollop of chocolate cream in the center, the most similar to a Cadbury Creme Egg. I’ll admit that I only ate half of this. The creme did have a strong vanilla flavor (though it verged on coconut sometimes). The chocolate shell was pleasant, but I really couldn’t tell when the chocolate creme kicked in.

    It was better than my previous experiences with the Cadbury Creme Egg, but still not something I’m interested in eating again (or even finish the last bite of).

    I give this one a 5 out of 10.

    image

    The Russell Stover Marshmallow & Caramel egg is a milk chocolate shell with a marshmallow center with a little dollop of caramel for the yolk. This one is actually lighter than the others, as you might guess, and only clocks in at .9 ounces.

    The marshmallow is very moist and has more of a “fresh pie” meringue texture to it. It wasn’t very sweet, instead it was just a little foamy. The caramel had a little salty and buttery taste to it that set off the marshmallow and very sweet milk chocolate well. It’s not at all like a Scotchmallow, but had it’s own wonderful qualities.

    This was a very different sort of egg from all the others that I’ve had and the one I enjoyed the most.

    Rating: 7 out of 10

    Overall, they’re interesting, and certainly attractive and compact. But none of them fit the bill as something I’m interested in indulging in. I’ll stick to what I think they do best, their enrobed eggs. Alicia at The Girl Tastes also found the full line and split them open and displayed their gooey glory as well.

    Related Candies

    1. Cadbury Canadian Creme Eggs
    2. See’s Egg Quartet
    3. Melster Marshmallow Eggs
    4. Wonka Golden Creme Egg
    5. Cadbury Orange Creme Eggs
    6. Kinder Egg
    7. Dove Truffle and Snickers Eggs
    Name: Various Filled Eggs
      RATING:
    • 10 SUPERB
    • 9 YUMMY
    • 8 TASTY
    • 7 WORTH IT
    • 6 TEMPTING
    • 5 PLEASANT
    • 4 BENIGN
    • 3 UNAPPEALING
    • 2 APPALLING
    • 1 INEDIBLE
    Brand: Russell Stover
    Place Purchased: Walgreen's & RiteAid (Echo Park)
    Price: $.44 & $.50 depending on store sale
    Size: 1.2 & .9 ounces
    Calories per ounce: unknown
    Categories: Chocolate, Caramel, Marshmallow, United States, Russell Stover, Easter

    POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:21 am    

    Sunday, March 2, 2008

    All Egg Week

    eggweekThat’s right, I’ve got all my eggs in one basket known as “this week”.

    Related Candies

    1. Nestle Creme Eggs
    2. Lindt Lindor Truffle Eggs
    3. Peeps inside a Milk Chocolate Egg
    4. See’s Hollow Eggs with Novelty
    5. Princess Marshmallow Eggs
    6. Russell Stover Eggs
    Don't worry, there will be no egg puns in any of the reviews.

    POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:12 pm    

    Page 6 of 7 pages ‹ First  < 4 5 6 7 > 

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