Harry & David are known for their fresh fruit boxes & baskets. They also have a pretty good selection of candies, especially seasonal varieties. Like Trader Joe’s, some are made especially for Harry & David and others are just repackaged with their brand name on them.

When looking through their selections I like to spot the items that they carry that I don’t see anywhere else and saw quite a few a couple of weeks ago in their fall selection. Many items aren’t even mentioned on their website. (If you go into the store they’re always sampling things, too.)

Fruit jellies in general are a ho-hum candy. The kind of thing most of us will eat if it’s around but rarely buy. I’m a huge fan of gourmet pate de fruits which are more intense distillations of real fruits and I was hoping that these Harry & David Fall Leaves Fruit Gels were more like that than Brach’s Fruit Slices. Mostly, I bought them because they were pretty.

Each little “hand” is about 1.75” across at the widest. The colors are all vibrant and though they’re rather thick, still translucent. The sugar coating adheres nicely so they’re not at all messy.

Pear (chartreuse)

This color was a little disturbing to me, kind of like antifreeze. Happily it tasted like a crisp pear-flavored jelly. Tart and with that strange melon note that pears always seem to have. The grainy sugar coating even mimics those little gritty bits in pear flesh.

Lime (green)

Very much the epitome of a lime jelly. It has a strong zest to it, even a little bitter at times, a little tangy bite and an overall LifeSavers flavor (you know, back when LifeSavers made lime).

Strawberry (red)

Biting into it, it has a bit more tartness than many fruit jellies, more like a strawberry-lemonade than straight strawberry. But the scent is wonderfully summery - that sweet mix of flowers and cotton candy.

Raspberry (darker red)

It has a nice berry fragrance and an immediate jammy flavor of raspberries. But something went weird toward the end, there’s a strange very sweet aftertaste, as if it has some sort of artificial sweetener in it (but of course it’s not on the ingredients list, which is what has me mystified). I couldn’t really investigate this anomaly as there was only one raspberry leaf in the bag.

Tangerine (orange)

Not as vibrant looking as the other colors, this was a little paler, I’m guessing because it’s tangerine and not orange. The flavor isn’t as intense as I’d like. Mellow and citrusy, but not tart or zesty.

Lemon (yellow)

I picked out a package with a lot of lemon because I assumed that I’d like them. The lemon zest was strong and reminded me of fresh lemon balm that my grandmother grew by her back door. As we’d leave her house after a visit we’d all grab a little sprig and rub it in our hands. The smell reminds me of long car rides on farm-lined country roads in Ohio. It’s only slightly tangy and quite smooth.

The price was steep for jellies that aren’t actually real fruit ($8.95) and I’m not likely to buy these again. But if I had a very specific need for an edible decoration such as cupcakes or as an accent on a dessert tray, these more than satisfy. If I’m going for inexpensive fruit taste, I’ll probably keep going for Sunkist Fruit Gems (only in the larger bags that include grapefruit, of course).

These are vegan (no gelatin and all artificial colors) but not Kosher.

Related Candies

1. Loukoumi Artisan Confections
2. Organic Zootons
3. Sunkist Fruit Gems
4. Fruit Parfaits
5. Chuckles
6. Boule Chocolates and Fruit Pate

Nestle Treasures is a line of little chocolate indulgences, a little more upscale than their more commonly found Nestle’s Crunch. I picked up Nestle Treasures 50% Cacao Dark Chocolate Truffle

Most of the marketing looks directed towards women with a tagline of a sweet break from life. This is probably why I’ve ignored them up until now. I don’t want chocolate that’s a break from life, I want chocolate that’s with me every moment of my life. I want a partner. But hey, it’s not like I’m a normal demographic and I think anyone who markets specifically towards people like me (obsessive candy bloggers) is gonna get fired for incompetence.

I stood in the aisle at Ralph’s debating whether or not to get these.

This particular version of the Nestle Treasures is also called Renew with Dark Chocolate (though it doesn’t really say that on the package, except on the other side panel. The back, near the flap says Say “I Do” to a whole New You. Really? A whole new me just from a truffle?

The box is a polyethylene terephthalate (PETE - coded 1 for recycling) stand up “bag”. It’s actually rather nicely done. The translucent bronzy brown plastic let me see that it was only half full (there were 14 pieces when I dumped them out and counted). The package could be at least a third shorter and still have lots of breathing room and probably save on material, space & shipping. (At least I can recycle it curbside in my blue bin.)

Inside the little pieces are individually wrapped in orange-gold mylar. They’re nicely molded, every one I opened was perfect and shiny.

They smelled deep and smoky and mostly of peanuts. Yes, roasted peanuts.

The shell is 50% cacao chocolate, so it’s middle of the road semi-sweet. (A little chart on the back reminds me that dark chocolate has naturally ocurring antioxidants which help to maintain health.)

It’s quite smooth and buttery. The “ganache” center is made from chocolate and palm oil and maybe more cocoa butter. It’s not quite the same as a real truffle made with butter or cream, but has a great slippery meltaway texture (not as slippery as a Lindt Lindor Truffle though). It also features a little sprinkling of cacao nibs. Not big bits, more like coffee grounds. They provide a nice crunch but not much flavor. But the peanut notes at the top are distracting for me. (The ingredients list both natural and artificial hazelnut & peanut flavors.)

They also come in two other varieties: Relax (milk chocolate & caramel) and Revive (milk chocolate & cappuccino).

There are lots of things I liked about these and I find myself continuing to eat them. But they don’t satisfy my desire for truffles, just my desire for something chocolate ... and not quite that either. Still, much better than the Hershey’s Bliss I tried recently (though not a one to one comparison as they didn’t really have a dark chocolate meltaway). They’re also quite different from the Dove Promises offerings as well, especially if you’re looking for something with nibs in it.

Related Candies

1. Askinosie Chocolate
2. Scharffen Berger Milk Nibby Bar
3. Nestle Noir
4. Nestle Crunch Cappuccino Stixx
5. Endangered Species: Eco-Rounds
6. The Real Nestle Swiss

Seeds of Change makes chocolate bars that are both organic and donate a portion of their proceed towards sustainable agriculture. Unlike many other niche chocolate makers, they don’t have straight chocolate bars, instead each is an eclectic mix of flavors like blueberries with walnuts or mango, coconut & cashews.

I didn’t have to look very hard to find Seeds of Change, it was at Long’s Drug, along with jumbo Hershey’s bars, Dove, Lindt and Cote d’Or. Happily it was also on sale for $2.69 for a 3.5 ounce bar.

I picked up the Isle of Skye which boasts dark milk chocolate blended with crispy puffed grains. I thought this might be the answer to the gaping hole in my candy life, a really good crisped rice bar.

This one starts with 40% cacao milk chocolate with crisps made from oats, wheat, rice, barley and millet.

The wrapper is beautifully designed with lovely engraved flourishes. It illustrates the origin of the name of the bar, the Isle of Sky is an agricultural area in Scotland that grows the various grains featured in the bar (well, maybe not the ones that are actually in the bar, but you get the idea).

The bar does look pretty dark. It smells deep and smoky and a little like milk and malt.

The crispies aren’t quite as dense as I would have liked, but they’re still plentiful, making up the bottom third or half of the bar.

The chocolate is smooth and creamy, deep and complex. It blends the milky tastes of dairy in a European-style along with some noticeable burnt notes and a little hint of raisins.

The crunchies are crispy and hold up well. They have a distinct cereal taste of breakfast cereal, though not at all sweet there’s a bit of hint of malt and salt.

While I often characterize myself as a dark chocolate lover, this sort of very dark milk chocolate might be my true passion. The more I try these sorts of bars, the more I fall in love with the combination of dairy notes and smoothness with the complex flavors of the cocoa bean. (I do take a little milk in my coffee, so maybe it’s just the way I roll.)

It’s a really tasty bar and for an organic bar the price is pretty stunning, about the same price as many other mid-range brands and socially and environmentally responsible to boot. (They’re only $2.45 on the Seeds of Change webstore.) I’m accustomed to paying about this much for Ritter Sport’s Knusperflakes (Corn Flakes) bar. I wish it came in a single serve size, it could definitely out-compete Nestle Crunch even at twice the price.

Made in Italy and Kosher.

The bar is not 100% organic (the label is pretty clear about this) the soy lecithin is the only item in the ingredients that isn’t.

Related Candies

1. World’s Finest W.F. Crisp
2. Hershey’s Miniatures
3. Nestle Crunch (Now Even Richer Milk Chocolate)
4. Wheat Chocolate
5. Palmer Nest Eggs
6. Endangered Species: Peanut Butter Brittle & Rice Crisp
7. K Chocolatier

I’ve gotten a couple of notes from readers about their experience writing to The Hershey Company about the changes in their favorite products.

So I’m curious what Hershey’s is saying to consumers when they write in. (I’ve had my own experience that I’ve documented.)

You might be curious to read about another blogger who noticed the changes in Kissables earlier this year and what she was told.

So, if you’ve written to Hershey’s, tell us here what their response was! (And if you haven’t, give it a try.)

Related Candies

1. Today Show Interview: What Wasn’t Covered
2. Rising Cost of Candy - A Brief Study of Hershey Prices
3. Kissables (Reformulated)
4. What Made Hershey’s Want to Change Chocolate?

It’s the first day of fall, so my thoughts turned to harvest.

Brach’s is pretty much the gold standard for Candy Corn for me. There are other good quality makers out there too, like Jelly Belly and Zachary, but I prefer the Brach’s stuff because I can actually taste the honey and that’s what I prefer.

Brach’s has a pretty extensive line of candy corn products and they’ve returned to shelves for fall. I’ve seen the Autumn Mix, Indian Corn and regular Candy Corn on shelves. I picked up this newer version called Milk Maid Caramel Apple Candy Corn this year. I tried the other flavor introduced last year as well, Milk Maid Caramel Candy Corn which I found tasted more like buttered popcorn than caramel.

The pieces are fun and feel like fall and harvest. They’re a medium brown on the bottom, a milky red in the middle and have white tips.

Unlike my experience with the Caramel Candy Corn, this didn’t smell at all before opening the package. Once I did, I found it a pleasant mix of apple, sugar and vanilla - exactly what I would have expected from the name.

Most of the pieces seem pretty big and dominated by the red center.

Like most candy corn, this bag had its assortment of not-quite-ready-for-primetime players. These were shorter pieces that were missing one or more colors. I rather like the variation and ability to eat just one of the flavor layers if I want, so I don’t hold it against them.

The red center has a light apple flavor, rather like apple peels not the sour green apple candy flavor. The brown caramel layer at the bottom has a light salty hit to it and a butter flavor that bugged me when I just at the brown bits alone. But as I’ve noted before, confections that use Red 40 tend to leave a bitter aftertaste in my mouth. So I enjoy these for about five minutes and then I regret eating them. Then I toss them in a drawer in my desk, go away for the weekend and come back and it’s like I’ve completely forgotten about the aftertaste (maybe it has some sort of short-term memory wiping properties?).

As a novelty flavor, I like these better than most. I wouldn’t mind it being added to the Autumn Mix, but I still prefer Indian Corn. Brach’s also makes a Milk Maid Chocolate Caramel Candy Corn which isn’t even mentioned on their website but I saw on ebay. I’m still looking for it.

This candy corn has gelatin in it, so it’s unsuitable for vegetarians and isn’t Kosher or Halal.

Related Candies

1. Zachary Candy Corn & Jelly Pumpkins
2. Candy Corn Kisses
3. Jelly Belly Deluxe Easter Mix
4. Gourmet Goodies Candy Corn
5. Brach’s Autumn Mix