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October 2008

Friday, October 24, 2008

Haribo Saure Dinosaurier

Haribo Saure DinosaurierA few months ago I picked up some Kosher Haribo Pink Grapefruit Gummis.

I love grapefruit and I love Haribo’s take on them. They’re gummy and chewy and have a nice crisp bite to them. I was curious though what the difference would be like with the Kosher version. It uses a fish gelatin instead of a non-Kosher gelatin that I can only guess is porcine in origin. (Gelatin is the thing that keeps me from being a true vegetarian - I just love gummis more than I love animals right now.)

Anyway, I’ve digressed. The Kosher version seemed gummier, seemed more gelatinous, seemed firmer and chewier. Happily it was also very intensely flavored, stellarly attractive and of course in my belly.

Haribo makes a bunch of other products that they don’t sell in the United States. I found this imported Haribo Saure Dinosaurier. The majority of the packages is in French with some German and a third version of the ingredients is in Spanish. The only thing in English is their tagline “kids and grown ups love it so.”

I’m no French major, but I know that this package contains sour dinosaur gummis.

The front of the package shows a bunch of different colored dinosaurs, but I only found four inside. Each shape came in all colors. The different dinos appeared to be Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Apatosaurus and Triceratops.

Haribo Saure Dinos

The sugar sanding is rather thin and has small grains to it. It’s not sour either, it’s pure sweet sugar.

Green is green apple (in the Haribo gummi bear world green is strawberry, so I had to close my eyes a couple of times to be sure). This was great with some really authentic apple flavors.

Red is definitely cherry. Like a Blow Pop and Kool-Aid.

Clear is peach. I have no idea why. But I liked it! It was kind of like a nectarine, none of that weird fuzzy taste, it was tangy and sweet. 

Yellow is an eye popping lemon. Like eating a concentrated batch of lemonade mix. It doesn’t have a lot of zest to it, but it’s unmistakably lemon.

The sanded gummis don’t have a lot of detail and they all smell rather similar, kind of like a big bag of mixed Jolly Ranchers.

I found the overall level of the sourness to be rather adult, not shocking or blistering but certainly tingly and it got my salivary glands going.

The chew is not like the soft and lingering durability of a gummi bear. Instead these are more like Sour Patch Kids, an easy bite and quick chew. They were on the expensive side, but I’m sure I could find them cheaper if I were in Europe. I’ve noticed that even Haribo’s own Gold Bears taste different depending on which factory they were made in. I don’t know if it’s even possible to get a hold of the German Gold Bears in the United States, but these were made in Germany.

Related Candies

  1. Katjes Saure Ananas (Sour Pineapple)
  2. Lifesavers Gummies Sour
  3. Sour Gummi Bears
  4. Sour Patch Kids
  5. Haribo Fizzy Cola
  6. Haribo Gummi Bears vs Trolli Gummi Bears
Name: Saure Dinosaurier
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Haribo
Place Purchased: Mel & Rose's Wine & Liquor
Price: $3.45
Size: 7 ounces
Calories per ounce: unknown
Categories: Gummi, Sour, Germany, Haribo

POSTED BY Cybele AT 5:03 am    

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Dove Desserts Tiramisu

imageTiramisu is another one of those desserts that I’d always assumed was around forever. That perhaps it originated in Italy, that every valley in Italy had a different regional take on it and every Italian-American grandma put their own twist on it.

Nope, totally invented, perhaps sometime in the 1970s, by a restaurant. But hey, traditions have to start somewhere.

Tiramisu is an odd dessert if you ask me, the recipe reminds me of other strange dessert concoctions torn from women’s magazines that require store bought cookies, flavored gelatins, saltines or pre-made syrups.

The flavors of tiramisu are coffee and sweet creamy cheese with a little cocoa thrown in. So it’s sort of like a mocha cheesecake.

The wrappers on these are more enticing that the day-glo yellow of the Bananas Foster, an attractive bronze with difficult to read gold print.

image

Caramel: corn syrup, hydrogenated palm kernel and/or palm oil, sugar, skim milk, milkfat, lactose, salt, artificial and natural flavors, potassium sorbate.

The Dove Desserts Tiramisu starts with a dark chocolate shell. It has a pleasant cocoa and light espresso aroma.

The caramel center has a light salty flavor, a custardy smooth texture. So the creamy marscapone aspect is missing, as are the spongy ladyfingers.

Does it scream Tiramisu to me? Nope. Caramel mocha is more like it, not that it’s a bad thing.

Related Candies

  1. Dove Silky Smooth Milk Chocolate Bars
  2. Banana n Cream & Red Orange Mentos
  3. Zotter Candy Bars
  4. Dove Promises (Caramel & Almonds)
  5. Elvis Reese’s Peanut Butter and Banana Cup
  6. Chuao ChocoPod Collection
  7. Dove Jewels
Name: Dove Desserts Tiramisu Promises
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Dove (Mars)
Place Purchased: samples from Dove
Price: ~$3.50 retail
Size: 5.8 ounces
Calories per ounce: 142
Categories: Chocolate, Caramel, Coffee, United States, Mars, Kosher

POSTED BY Cybele AT 4:42 am    

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Traveling into the Chocolate State

I’m in Ohio at the moment but will hit the road to traverse Pennsylvania in a few minutes.

While here I’ve had some fun candy adventures so far. My mother and I went to Cleveland to the Malley’s Chocolates factory and watched them make dark chocolate macadamia nut clusters, Christmas Malley Ohs (chocolate covered Oreos dusted with crushed peppermints) and hand paint three foot tall chocolate Santas. I’ve already eaten half of a Dark Chocolate Pretzel Crunch bar and proclaim it fantastic and satisfying.

Later in the day with hit Mitchell’s Fine Candies and were awed by the huge collection of hand made dark chocolate goodies. While there I tried two of their newer creations in The Graecia Collection. A ginger, pistachio and marzipan piece with a Cointreau cured orange peel dipped in dark and a little layered milk and dark gianduia piece with espresso and Ouzo. Fabulous.

We’ve also prowled the local grocery stores and I’ve found some fun items from German company Moser Roth, the Goetze’s Apple Caramel Creams, a grocery store brand of Autumn Mellocremes, sour Smarties, some more Peanut Butter Kisses and candied fennel seeds. My mother also presented me with a huge box of local chocolates called Goumas who do wonderful toffees & caramels (that’s all I’ve tried so far).

I expect to hit Hershey’s Chocolate World and Wilbur’s Chocolate Factory tomorrow.

(I also expect to have better connectivity so hopefully I can post the reviews I wrote on the plane of such things as Dove’s Tiramisu Promises, GoNaturally Organic Hard Candies and some other stuff I can’t remember.)

POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:50 am     CandyFeatured News

Monday, October 20, 2008

De la Rosa Mazapan

de La Rosa MazapanDe la Rosa Mazapan is a dulce de cacahuate or peanut confection. It seems like one of the most common candies to every culture is some sort of sweetened nut paste. Halvah, marzipan and if you throw in a little chocolate, gianduia, and all of their different variations.

I see these little disks of mazapan at the grocery stores all the time in Los Angeles, but this was the first time I saw them with their complete packaging with full ingredients & nutrition labeling. I picture them as something that a mom would tuck into their child’s lunch bag as a special little treat.

The ingredients are pretty simple and two thirds wholesome: peanuts and sugar and artificial flavors.

So first, I’ll tell you what I expected: I thought it’d be a sweet peanut butter disk. I thought it’d be like halvah, a little more crumbly than almond marzipan.

de La Rosa Mazapan

Here’s what it was actually like:

It was crumbly. When I opened the package it cracked into several large pieces easily. It smells wonderful, like peanut butter cookie dough.

But instead of being spiky and crystalline like halvah, it was smooth and cool on the tongue, dissolving like peanut butter flavored icing sugar.

Oh, it’s sweet. It’s absolutely more sugar than peanuts. The peanut flavor is throughout with some little crunchy chunks here and there.

I love the texture, though definitely not the mess. (Someday I’ll compile a list of “not keyboard friendly” candies and this will certainly be on it.) I wish it was just a little fattier, but far be it from me to mess with a traditional candy. Or maybe a little salt added, but again, that’s a personal preference, I like a bit of salt with my peanuts.

It strikes me that this would be a great hiking candy, a good mix of straight and easily accessible sugars and some satisfying protein. But again, it’s so very sweet and far too dry.

But I can’t really get behind it. Maybe I’ll give out the rest for Halloween. Or maybe try stuffing some into some crescent rolls to see what kind of a treat that makes.

Related Candies

  1. Nips: Butter Rum & Peanut Butter Parfait
  2. Fairhaven Candy Crumblz!
  3. Colt’s Bolts
  4. Reese’s Pieces
  5. Planters Peanut Bar Original
Name: Mazapan
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: de la Rosa
Place Purchased: 99 Cent Only (Miracle Mile)
Price: $.99
Size: 7.9 ounces
Calories per ounce: 130
Categories: Peanuts, Mexico

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:20 am    

Friday, October 17, 2008

Ghirardelli Luxe Milk Crisp

Ghirardelli Luxe Milk CrispI’m still on my quest to replace the Krackel bar and have been finding all sorts of chocolate and crisped rice bars that area actually better than I remember the Krackel ever being.

Not to spoil the ending of this review but I’ll say right now that the Ghiaradelli Luxe Milk Crisp bar vaults to the second slot on that list. Not that there are a lot of bars on the list at the moment. (Seeds of Change Isle of Skye is above it, seeing how it’s similarly priced and organic.)

This bar is new, part of Ghirardelli new expanded line of gourmet bars. It comes at a gourmet price though, I paid $2.99 for this 2.81 ounce bar. It is all natural, Kosher and made in the USA.

Ghirardelli Luxe Milk CrispTheir gourmet-ification of such a simple bar is kind of amusing. Here’s their description of it:

This rich and creamy milk chocolate made from the finest cocoa beans is perfectly complemented with lightly toasted crisped rice. Take in the heavenly aroma and let the ultimate chocolate pleasure linger.

(Bold emphasis theirs, really!)

The bar certainly does look awesome. It was near perfect, without the scrapes and nicks that many of the bars I pick up have.

What pleased me most at first glance was how many crispies there are in the bar.

Ghirardelli Luxe Milk Crisp

So I took a photo of the bar flipped over so you could see it, too. Instead of those little engineered ball bearing sized ones that Nestle uses for their Crunch bar these days, these look like actual crisped rice grains (made with millled rice, sugar, salt and barley malt).

There’s another thing that this photo also shows, how thin the bar is. What I like about the Hershey’s Miniatures and the World’s Finest W.F. Crisp bar was how thick they were, it allowed the rice to be completely enveloped by the chocolate. Here the rice floats almost as a separate layer from the chocolate, not blanketed by it instead just a thin sheet of chocolate.

It smells more like breakfast cereal or toast than chocolate. Kind of like milk or mozzarella and fresh baked bread.

That aside, this crisped rice is insanely crispy and fresh. Rarely do I have a chocolate bar that makes so much noise in my head.

The milk chocolate is exquisitely smooth and creamy with a strong powdered milk flavor (whole milk powder is the only dairy ingredient). It’s hearty and sweet at the same time. Notes of caramel, yeast and malt.

I was all set to give this an 8 out of 10 because of the price, but then I looked it up on the Walgreen’s website and they list it at $2.29 ... which I find much more reasonable. I’d be torn at that price though between eating this and the Ritter Sport Corn Flakes (Knusperflakes) bar. This milk chocolate is better, but I love the malty crisp of the corn flakes. I prefer the thicker bite of the Isle of Skye as well. The other option for the same price is the Wheat Chocolate I found in Little Tokyo. What a happy day to have so many choices!

I do hope that Ghirardelli comes out with these in the little individual squares, since no one else is making a single bite version of a crisped rice & milk chocolate these days.

Related Candies

  1. Scharffen Berger Milk Nibby Bar
  2. World’s Finest W.F. Crisp
  3. Sweet Earth Chocolate Cups
  4. BonBonBars: Malt Ganache & Scotch
  5. Ritter Sport White Chocolate with Hazelnuts
  6. Endangered Species: Peanut Butter Brittle & Rice Crisp
Name: Luxe Milk Crisp
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Ghirardelli
Place Purchased: Cost Plus World Market (Farmers Market LA)
Price: $2.99
Size: 2.81 ounces
Calories per ounce: 142
Categories: Chocolate, Cookie, United States, Ghirardelli, Kosher, All Natural

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:37 am    

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