I mention summer candy every now and then and this past weekend with sweltering June heat I figured it was time to start concentrating more on it.

Annabelle Candy makes a few good summer candy bars, ones that are exceptionally tolerant of the heat. The Abba Zaba is probably one of the best known, perhaps because of the name and whackable bar.

The Look! bar isn’t summer friendly, but the Big Hunk is. For a long time I though that the Look! bar as just a chocolate covered Big Hunk.

The Look! is a narrow and flat bar of rich chocolate covered nougat with peanuts and if that sounds like a Snickers without the caramel, it’s a bit more simple than that. Basically, as the package announces, it’s Chewy Good!.

It’s about 6 inches long but only a quarter of an inch high.

I’ve never had one of these. Though the appealing wrapper tells me to Look! and I do, I never buy.

And what a fool I’ve been! It’s everything I love about Bit-o-Honey plus real chocolate and even a hint of molasses.

The golden nougat center isn’t easy to bite, so I’ve found peeling back the wrapper and nibbling off a little bite is best (not as big a picture, please, spare yourself that drama of “will it pull out my teeth!”).

The dark, creamy and smokey chocolate melts quickly into a buttery chocolate mess just as the peanut molasses chew starts to warm and soften. As the chocolate taste drifts away the lightly salty, woodsy and nutty chew comes forward. It’s smooth and pliable, reminding me a bit of Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews (except for, you know, that real chocolate part).

The only thing I wish was that it was easier to eat. I need to find the snack size version.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Big Hunk is exactly that. It’s 2 full ounces of chewy nougat studded with peanuts. This bar is about 7 inches long and about a third of an inch thick.

Unlike the Look! bar, Big Hunk contains no molasses.

Like the Look!, the Big Hunk were first made by another San Francisco-based-confectioner called Golden Nugget Candy Company. Annabelle Candy took them over in 1972 and helped to expand these regional bars to larger national prominence via placement at drug stores and discount retailers. I’ve found, though, that they’re easiest to find on the West Coast.

I like to whack the bar to break it into pieces, though this isn’t always easy.

It’s studded with peanut & peanut pieces, the nougat itself is a bit lighter in color than the Look!, a bit on the yellow side, I’m guessing from the peanuts. It’s easy to bend, or if you bend it very quickly it also breaks. The wrapper also suggests microwaving for 5 to 10 seconds to make it super soft, but I don’t believe that candy should ever require preparation ... that’s veering into recipe territory. However, leaving on the dashboard of the car in the summertime can have the same result. It can actually become rather stringy this way, depending on how long you leave it in there and how hot it is.

It softens up quickly in the mouth, even at room temperature. It’s smooth and has a light honey flavor but mostly it tastes like dark roasted peanuts. It has far more flavor than the Abba Zaba and is a winner in my book. Besides chewing, you can suck on it to disslove it. It reminds me of Cap’n Crunch cereal milk - sweet, a little hint of malt perhaps and of course a creamy background.

I’m not as fond of it as the Look!, but it’s still very appealing and as mentioned earlier, this is an ideal summer treat. No melting but still a satisfying creamy experience along with the little boost of protein from the peanuts (3 grams). It’s also promoted as a low fat bar, and the fat that’s in there comes from the peanuts ... but that also means that it’s full of carbs ... which, you know, makes it pretty darn appealing in my book.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Related Candies

1. Tootsie Rolls & Fruit Rolls
2. Mary Jane Peanut Butter Kisses
3. Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews
4. Annabelle’s U-No
5. Rocky Road

Long Boys Coconut were once just a regional favorite, enjoyed by kids and adults around the south. Made in New Orleans, they were a simple coconut caramel sold as a long thin 3 inch roll. The packages have always been a yellow waxed paper with a very tall boy and yellow accents.

Today they’re made by Atkinson’s Candy in Texas (which seems to have taken over many regional and specialty favorites from all over the south and southwest).

They’re a rather light looking caramel, with a sweet scent and a soft texture.

Biting into them, it’s like the flavor of Sugar Babies and Coconut Neapolitans (or Coconut Slabs) all in one but with a distinctly salty hit at the front. The chew is not sticky, but soft and creamy with tiny bits of coconut. As the sugar dissolves away it’s more coconutty.

It’s nice, I prefer it to the more rustic Neapolitans (which are also a bear to bite in half most of the time). They’re a great summertime candy because they don’t melt but still have a creamy texture, which can satisfy some cravings without melted messes.

They also come in a short version, about the length of a Tootsie Roll, but narrower. They’re called Long Boys Coconut Juniors. (Nope, not Short Boys!)

The other version is Long Boys Chocolate which, as you can guess, is a chocolate caramel. There’s no coconut here. At first I thought it was going to be like a Tootsie Roll, but it’s oh, so much better. It’s not quite the dreamy chewy chocolate caramel of the Storck Chocolate Reisen either, but it’s still wonderful in its own right.

It’s more of a short caramel, not a sticky chew. It has a bit of salt and mellow cocoa flavor with some coffee overtones. They don’t stick to the teeth at all, either.

It’s satisfying. I have no idea where to find them in stores, though there are a few places to order in quantity on the internet.

The format of these means they’re probably found either in bulk or in “changemaker” tubs (at I’m guessing 5 or 10 cents a piece). A nice little after lunch pick-me-up.

Related Candies

1. Regional Flavors: Key Lime, Pina Colada & Huckleberries
2. Crispy Cat
3. Theo 3400 Phinney Bars
4. Atkinson’s Peanut Butter Bar
5. Chick-o-Stick

Now that I’ve covered the classic Twizzlers, the newish Rainbow Twizzlers and the fantastically hot Pull & Peel Cinnamon Fire Twizzlers, I thought I’d go off the beaten track and try the Twizzlers Chocolate Twists.

The package is actually pretty, a maroon colored background with a big window to peek in at the shiny brown ropes. A little logo splash advertises that they’re made with REAL Hershey’s Chocolate. Turning over the package, the ingredients do list both chocolate and two different kinds of cocoa.

I admit going into this that I have my doubts about how good these could possibly be.

They’re attractive. They’re also soft (and don’t get as stale as the regular Twizzlers when you leave the bag open next to a fan for several days as I did in the Candy Blog Labs over the weekend).

Instead of having pinched ends like Twizzlers, these are open ... perhaps with the addition of chocolate they’re not as pinchable?

They’re a much softer chew, less like a plastic dough than Twizzlers. More like a brownie batter.

But the chocolate flavor is watery, lacks any creamy component to buoy the fakeness of it.

The only thing these are good for ... actually they’re fantastic for ... is as straws. Chocolate milk, plain milk ... even soy milk! They don’t have the crimps in the end, so they’re ready to use, right out of the bag. They do get a little soggy if you leave them in the drink, but a little nibble off the end and you’re ready to go. (I tried them with coffee, actually, not as good.)

Think of the environment benefits! No more plastic drinking straws ... instead these are edible and probably biodegradable. (Though a lot more expensive, there were 14 straws in this package for $1.25 and $1.25 would probably get you a bag of 50-100 straws.)

So there you go, good for decorating (try clipping them with scissors to make little “cogs” to decorate cupcakes or maybe a really chocolatey cupcake basket.)

Related Candies

1. Twizzlers Chocolate Twists
2. Black Licorice Twists & Snaps
3. Whoppers Milkshake Strawberry
4. Kenny’s Licorice Pastels & Root Beer Twists
5. Tootsie Rolls & Fruit Rolls
6. Twerpz

There are so many mid-range chocolate bars available these days, just going into Target presents a whole aisle of upscale chocolate choices that go far beyond the traditional Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar or Nestle’s Crunch.

One European manufacturer that’s becoming ubiquitous is Cote d’Or. It’s Belgian chocolate, which has a certain cache. Cote d’Or was named for the Gold Coast of Africa, which is now Ghana and a prime cocoa growing area. The company was founded by Charles Neuhaus but is now owned by Kraft Foods (which owns many European chocolate companies, including Toblerone, Terry’s Chocolates of Whack-&-Unwrap-Orange fame, Milka & Marabou).

Though they’re made by Kraft, they’re imported and distributed by Ferrara Pan ... you know, the Atomic Fireball and Lemonheads folks. (But it makes a certain amount of sense, they don’t do chocolate candy but have a huge distribution network.)

I’ve never really given Cote d’Or much thought, I always put it in the same category as Ghirardelli or even Lindt - a very nice brand, but just not quite my bag. Or is it? Candy Blog is supposed to make me open my mouth and expand my mind, so I should be trying new things. So when a bunch of bars Cote d’Or 70% Cacao bars showed up in my All Candy Expo samples box, I had to give it another look.

Rating: 7 out of 10

I started with the Intense 70% Cacao. The boxes are smart looking, just a paperboard box, great for protecting an unfinished bar. They’re 100 gram tablets (3.53 ounces), so it’s about 2.5 servings. There are 10 squares, each with the trumpeting Elephant icon of their logo.

The tempering is good, they have a great snap, if a little soft. The bar doesn’t look shiny like many others, but this is because of a texture in the mold that makes it matte. I think it makes the bar look a little dull. What sells it though is it smells wonderful - fresh and woodsy and of course chocolatey.

What struck me as odd about these bars is that they’re called Belgian Dark Chocolate Confection ... not just chocolate but they qualify it as a confection. Flipping over the box it shows that even though this is high cacao chocolate, it also has milkfat (though listed on the label right above soy lecithin, so not in very high proportion).

It melts quickly, it’s smooth and not too intense, no matter what the name says. It has a very buttery, nutty tasting base. It’s a little fruity, not acidic but has some raisin notes. For a dark, it’s very approachable.

The bar that pretty much made me squeal with anticipation is the new Cocoa Nibs 70% Cacao. I’m a huge fan of nibs and this one promises caramelized cocoa nibs in DARK chocolate confection. Unlike the other 70% bar, this one has no milkfat, so is suitable for vegans.

It’s easy to see the nibs in the cross section. They’re the perfect proportion of chocolate and nibs. The caramelization is what makes this bar so nice. It’s not like they’re toffee coated, they’re just crips and crunchy, kind of like chocolate infused macadamia nuts.

The flavor is a bit more intense, but the variations in texture and the delivery of so much chocolate in each bite makes this bar a winner. I haven’t tasted it side by side with the Hershey’s Cacao Reserve, but since I expect them to be similar price points, I definitely say give this a try.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Related Candies

1. Ghirardelli Intense Dark
2. Pop Rocks Milk Chocolate Bar
3. Theo 3400 Phinney Bars
4. Scharffen Berger - Cacao Nibs
5. Noir au Grue de Cacao

After the recent Bananas n Cream Mentos, I figured the next on my list of dairy-inspired Mentos should be some of the yoghurt ones.

There are a few yoghurt flavored Mentos out there, including Lemon Yoghurt, but Santos was kind of to bring me a huge tube of 6 rolls of Strawberry Yoghurt Mentos last week.

The package is easily distinguished from the regular Strawberry (photo here) but could be mistaken for Pink Grapefruit Mentos (photo here) except for the blue dairy product wrapped around a strawberry at one end.

The dragees look like any other Mentos - a nice medium pink. They simply smell sweet.

The taste is, well, like Strawberry Yogurt. There’s the berry flavor, which is that mix of sweet and sour, slightly floral and then there’s the yogurt kick, which is a bit of a dark tangy bite. It reminds me a bit of the Berries & Cream Starburst.

They’re not particularly creamy (and have no dairy in the ingredients) but do feature 3% strawberry juice.

The new kinds of Mentos no longer use gelatin in them, so they’re safe for vegetarians ... in this case though this version uses the coloring Carmine, so it all depends on where you draw your lines.

Related Candies

1. Mentos - Pine Fresh (Pineapple)
2. Mentos Xtrm: Mint & Spearmint
3. Skittles (Fruits, Wild Berry, Tropical, Smoothies & Sour)
4. Starburst Berries & Creme and Fruit & Creme
5. Mentos Ice Pomelo
6. Dalandan & Juicy Ponkan Mentos
7. Pink Grapefruit Mentos