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October 2011Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Trader Joe’s Milk Chocolate Covered Potato ChipsTrader Joe’s continues its introduction of comfort candies. Recently they released a few licorice items and today I have their new Trader Joe’s Milk Chocolate Covered Potato Chips. The package is easy on the eyes, a soft robin’s egg blue and mellow orange-brown. The package shows the product, which is exactly what you’d think from the name: potato chips covered in milk chocolate. The reality of the candy once out of the bag was a bit different, as you’ll see with my pictures. The ingredients list is short (milk chocolate and potato chips, basically) but sadly enough their list of allergens is long: milk and soy are ingredients but also may contain traces of wheat, egg, peanuts and tree nuts. So this crunchy confection may be off limits to gluten free friends. They are Kosher. I’ll let Trader Joe’s Fearless Flyer do the description here, since they went through so many drafts and have an approval process:
My chocolate covered potato chips were rarely flat and even more rarely single. Most were big, fused lumps of chips. Some were easy to pull apart but sometimes that meant that the chocolate went with the other piece and I ended up with an open faced chocolate covered chip. By far the biggest proportion of my bag was made up of folded chips covered in chocolate. This was an interesting predicament, because it meant less chocolate and more chip. They were also messier, as they were more likely to flake off chip bits (or sometimes have other chips within the fold). The milk chocolate is soft and sweet, very milky and sometimes a little greasy feeling. The chips are thick and have a very strong potato taste to them, they’re crunchy for the most part. There’s a lot of salt taste to the candy, though in reality it’s not that bad at 140 mg per serving. The chocolate is sweet in comparison to the chips, more sweet than it needs to be. I really wanted to like this, as I’m a huge fan of savory and sweet combinations like chocolate covered pretzels. It could be that the potato chips are just a little too greasy for me along with the fat content of the chocolate itself. I might give them another try, when I think that a different lot is available at my store - maybe I just got the dregs - little pieces that got coated and then stuck together. Or maybe I’ll just stick with chocolate covered pretzels, they’re a tried and true favorite. It’s a real shame that these aren’t gluten free. Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:38 pm All Natural • Candy • Review • Trader Joe's • Chocolate • Cookie • Kosher • 7-Worth It • United States • Monday, October 10, 2011
Russell Stover “Day of the Dead” SkeletonsRussell Stover has epitomized Americana for as long as I can remember. They’re a safe and unassuming brand. Their boxed chocolates are dependably sweet and bland but have a nice flair for dependable and fresh holiday themed chocolate novelties. I was a little surprised when I saw these new Russell Stover Day of the Dead Skeletons at the drug store. They have two varieties, one chocolate covered caramel and one chocolate covered marshmallow - but what’s interesting about them is the South of the Border design on the package (bilingual as well). I’ll start with the Russell Stover Caramel Covered in Milk Chocolate (Caramelo Cubierto en el Chocolate con Leche). They’re large skeleton shaped caramel planks covered in milk chocolate, the package features a brightly clad skeleton. There are at least three different designs per confection. For the Caramel I chose this lady skeleton wearing a red blouse with poofy sleeves, a green full skirt, a yellow yat with dingleberries and holding maracas. It’s quite a sight, especially when designed with bright flat colors and accents of purple, orange and silver foil. The pieces are large, about twice the size as the regular Pumpkin products they make. The Caramel was 2.5 ounces and about 4.5 inches long. The design of the actual candy is not quite as impressive as the package. In fact, once I pulled it out of the wrapper, you could have easily convinced me this was a Halloween Saguaro Cactus. But shape aside, it’s a really lovely piece of candy. The chocolate is nicely tempered, it’s shiny and had very few scuffs and no leaks. The ripples were also nice to look at and gave a feeling that this was a piece of candy made by people. The caramel is soft, but not runny. The bite is easy and the caramel has a good pull but not a lot of chew to it. It’s smooth and has a lot of toffee notes and very little grain. The milk chocolate is sweet and has a lot of dairy notes though not much going on other than that. It’s a lot of candy - I couldn’t eat more than a third in one sitting, so it’s not an easy piece to have a little and then put it away. It’s not an innovative piece, they make a similar product for Easter, but it’s fresh and I really loved the package. The Russell Stover Marshmallow Covered in Milk Chocolate (Malvavisco Cubierto en el Chocolate con Leche) has an equally vibrant package design. I chose a skeleton wearing a sombrero and bright poncho beating on a magenta and yellow drum. This piece is only 2.25 ounces, missing a quarter of an ounce because the marshmallow is so fluffy, but probably about 50% thicker than the Caramel version. The shape is similarly blocky and poorly defined, but still has glossy rippled milk chocolate enrobing. The Russell Stover marshmallow is always moist and smooth, fluffy but not too foamy. It doesn’t have much flavor, no honey notes but a good vanilla extract finish. It’s a clean tasting candy - everything tastes real - real sugar, real milk, real vanilla. It’s comforting and homey. The Day of the Dead celebrations of Mexico are vibrant, social and life-affirming. It’s fun to see a confection here in the United States that feels like it’s appealing to those who want to join in the celebration without feeling like it’s exclusionary or pandering. I don’t know if these are going to be sold everywhere, I picked them up in the Echo Park neighborhood RiteAid, one of the denser areas of Mexican-Americans in the country and over 6 million people of Mexican descent in the Southern California metropolitan counties. Next, I’d like to see the inclusion of some real Mexican confectionery traditions. Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:06 pm Candy • Review • Halloween • Russell Stover • Caramel • Chocolate • Marshmallow • 7-Worth It • United States • Rite Aid • Thursday, October 6, 2011
6 Candy Corn Candies That Aren’t Candy CornCandy Corn is a sugar confection made by depositing different colored layers of fondant into the shape of a narrow triangle. The flavor of candy corn is muted but often bears notes of honey, marshmallow and occasionally butter. It’s created with starch molds and the most common color layering puts yellow as the base, orange as the center band and white as the small tip. It’s an American candy, originating in the 1880s with dozens of manufacturers now in North America. The molded fondant confection is generically called Mellocreams and can come in a variety of shapes, often lightly flavored and colored. The first thing I noticed as a trend was Candy Corn appearing out of season with other names or color variations. As a kid, I remember there were two kinds of Candy Corn. The standard yellow, orange and white and then the Indian Corn variety that was brown (a little cocoa flavor), dark orange and white. But later on came Reindeer Corn which comes in red, green and white. There’s Bunny Corn that comes in pastels and sometimes I see Cupid Corn for Valentines that’s red, pink and white. More recently Gourmet Candy Corns have come along. They’re not really superior in any way to classic Candy Corn, they’re just different color varieties and flavored like Egg Nog, Candied Apples, Green Apple, Tangerine, Cherry, Pumpkin Spice and Toffee. But more importantly, Candy Corn has come into its own as a flavor and is now spinning off its own set of candies. Here are a few candies that are Candy Corn flavored, but not actually Candy Corn. Mars makes M&Ms White Chocolate Candy Corn. They’re white chocolate centers with a light, sweet flavor covered in candy shells in three colors: orange, white and yellow. Level of Candy Corn-ness: 5 out of 10 Jelly Belly introduced Jelly Belly Candy Corn Jelly Beans earlier this year. Too bad they couldn’t get the stripes on them. Level of Candy Corn-ness: 5 out of 10 Vidal, a maker of fascinating gummis in unusual shapes, created a rather unique take on Candy Corn with their Puffy Candy Corn. It’s a foamy gummi that’s actually more fruity flavored than generic sweet fondant is. Level of Candy Corn-ness: 8 out of 10 For several years Hershey’s issued Hershey’s Candy Corn Kisses, a butter flavored white confection. The shape was a natural for Candy Corn treatment, too bad they didn’t go with the honey flavors and real cocoa butter. Level of Candy Corn-ness: 8 out of 10 Last year was the first for Whitman’s introduction of the Candy Corn Marshmallow. It’s a large triangular marshmallow covered with “white confection” in two colors. Level of Candy Corn-ness: 4 out of 10 Dots, made by Tootsie, have been a bit edgier and hipper lately. Their Halloween offerings are spot on, with Ghost Dots and Blood Orange Bat Dots. Of course their Candy Corn Dots also make this list. They’re just vanilla Dots, but cute as buttons. Level of Candy Corn-ness: 9 out of 10 The level of Candy Corn-ness is evaluated on the basis of the following attributes: stacked color, colors, flavor, scale, and shape. Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:06 am Candy • Halloween • Highlight • Featured News • Wednesday, October 5, 2011
M&Ms White Chocolate Candy CornMars has introduced a limited edition, limited distribution of a new variety of M&Ms for Halloween. M&Ms White Chocolate Candy Corn are appearing in WalMart stores exclusively across the United States. Since I’m not able to easily shop at WalMart (really not many in the Los Angeles area), some folks at Mars were kind enough to send me a bag for review. It’s tempting when I hear about candies like this to write the review before I even get a hold of the candy. That would not only be a horrible disservice to the readers, it’s really unfair to the candy. I’m supposed to have an open mind. Luckily I kept mine open for this one. (In reality, I thought it sounded like a dreadful idea, and I blame the Hershey’s Candy Corn Kisses and Jelly Belly Buttered Popcorn candies for my predisposition.) The M&Ms are larger than the regular M&Ms Milk Chocolate, though they vary a little bit in size and shape. They’re thicker and have a larger diameter. They come in three colors: white, bright yellow and bright orange. (The orange and yellow are actually different from the standard colors. The orange is darker and not as shiny and the yellow has a matte caste to it and a slightly neon note.) Mars has marketed White Chocolate M&Ms before, in 2006 they introduced M&Ms Pirate Pearls in conjunction with Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. Unlike the other limited edition version of Dark Chocolate M&Ms (tie in with Star Wars), they were never added to the regular or seasonal offerings. Mars has stuck to their Real Chocolate pledge here, it’s real white chocolate made with oodles of cocoa butter (cocoa butter is the second ingredient - sometimes white chocolate products have milk fat before the cocoa butter). There are no other filler oils. The candies smell a bit like strawberries or cotton candy, very sweet but not in an artificial way. I was fully expecting the liberal use of diacetyl. Happily that was not the case. Candy Corn M&Ms on the left and classic Milk Chocolate M&Ms on the right The shells are crunchy and seem thicker than the standard Milk Chocolate variety sports. Some of the shells were cracked, I don’t know if that was because this was sent to me and got shaken up in transit or if they’re particularly vulnerable. The center is soft and yielding. It’s sweet and buttery smooth, like a well made buttercream frosting. The flavors are only slightly milky, the sweetness is rather clean and again reminds me of Cotton Candy. I was hoping for the honey notes that good Candy Corn has, but this was all a pleasant surprise. They’re quite rich, both in fat and in sugar, so I found that I couldn’t eat more than about a dozen without feeling a little overwhelmed by the sweetness. Ultimately though I didn’t feel like they rose to the level of an actual Candy Corn flavored candy. Still, they’re nice, and for white chocolate fans who have so few choices for real cocoa butter white chocolate, you might be pleased. Now I’m waiting for Egg Nog M&Ms .... mmm, nutmeg white chocolate would be dreamy. One other note I have about this packaging. I noticed on the nutrition panel that they’re giving better information. In the serving size it gives the portion in variety of formats. A serving size is 1.5 ounces, 42 grams or about 1/4 cup. So you really get a sense of how much they mean. The new green what’s inside block also breaks it out very clearly. One portion is 220 calories and 11 grams of total fat (17% DV) and 7 grams of saturated fat (35% DV). UPDATE 9/11/2012: White Chocolate Candy Corn M&Ms are back for 2012. They’re available in all stores, in both the large bags as well as 1.5 ounce individual serving bags (with a variety of different designs on the front). Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 11:42 am Candy • Review • Halloween • Mars • Kosher • M&Ms • White Chocolate • 7-Worth It • United States • Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Candy Tease: October 2011Name: Angry Birds Fruit Snacks and Gummies Name: 3 Musketeers Coconut Bar Name: M&Ms Mint Dark Chocolate Name: Name: Sun Cup Caramel Name: Sun Cup Mint Name: Ritter Sport Espresso Bar Name: Red Velvet Cupcake Bites images courtesy of the respective manufacturers Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:15 pm Candy • New Product Announcement • Highlight • News • |
Meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world. And the occasional other sweet adventures. Open your mouth, expand your mind.
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