Here are some new confections that are coming in the future or may have already hit stores near you.

Name: Milky Way French Vanilla and Caramel Bar
Brand: Mars
Description: This bar combines caramel, French vanilla-flavored nougat and milk chocolate for a rich, smooth and creamy taste sensation consumers will love.
Introduction Date: February 2013
Notes: Limited Edition. I wonder if this nougat will be like the vanilla nougat they use in the Milky Way Dark. I’ll probably give it a try, but would love to see a Coffee Milky Way sometime in the future instead.

Name: Twix Sugar Cookie Minis
Brand: Mars
Description: With the combination of Twix chocolate and caramel paired with the nostalgic goodness of sugar cookies, the new Twix Sugar Cookie Minis could easily become Santa’s new favorite snack.
Introduction Date: November 2012
Notes: I’m often baffled at Mars for introducing all these limited edition flavors when I hear from so many people that they miss the Cookies n’ Creme variety. Anyway, I don’t see much difference between a shortbread and sugar cookie when it comes to including caramel and chocolate. I’d much prefer a Gingerbread Twix or maybe a SnickerdoodleTwix.

Name: Toblerone Crunchy Salted Almond
Brand: Toblerone (Kraft)
Description: Crunchy, salty and sweet elements combine in Toblerone Crunchy Salted Almond bars, which are new from Kraft Foods, Inc. Containing caramelized almond pieces, as well as honey and almond nougat, the 3.52-ounce bars ship four 20-ct displays per case.
Introduction Date: June 2012
Notes: This sounds like a great idea. Check out Rosa’s early review.

Name: Perugina Baci White
Brand: Perugina (Nestle)
Description: The newest product in Perugina’s Baci line has a “kiss” of white chocolate. Just like traditional Baci, Baci White is filled with with gianduia — a whipped chocolate filling blended with finely chopped hazelnuts — crowned by a crunchy whole hazelnut and then enrobed in a vanilla scented layer of creamy white chocolate made with the finest quality cocoa butter and milk solids.
Introduction Date: September 2012
Notes: I actually tried these in January at the Fancy Food Show and found it all too sweet. I can see that maybe unwrapped these would be better for decorating in some instances. But if you’re a white chocolate and hazelnut fan, this might be the thing for you.

Name: Warheads Sour Coolers
Brand: Impact Confections
Description: Warheads Sour Coolers, a pressed dextrose tablet with sour flavor and a key differentiator, offers a unique cooling effect to combat the summer’s heat. This convenient, small format roll pack contains 24 pieces in five assorted flavors: cherry, blue raspberry, watermelon, green apple and lemon.
Introduction Date: July 2012
Notes: I’m not sure how different they are from SweeTarts, except that they have that “cool” thing ... which may just be menthol. They contain sucralose, an artificial sweetener, so I won’t be reviewing them.

Name: Smarties Taffy
Brand: Ford Gum (Licensed from Smarties)
Description: Taffy has now gotten a bit smarter. In the new Smarties taffy bars, there are Smarties candy bits in every bite. The 6 inch long bars are available in Strawberry and Blue-Raspberry flavors.
Introduction Date: unknown
Notes: This reminds me of the Tangy Taffy that used to have little crunchy bits in it. (And I think some Laffy Taffy bars still do.)

Name: Tic Tac Fruit Adventure
Brand: Tic Tac (Ferrero)
Description: Wild Cherry, Orange, Passion Fruit and Green Apple
Introduction Date: Summer 2012
Notes: I know some folks are huge fans of the orange Tic Tacs, and their fruit flavors in general are rather different from other “mint” styles. So it’s fun to see a mix like this. I haven’t seen this one in stores, but did spot the Strawberry Fields one a few weeks ago. The ingredients also list real fruit juice (in addition to artificial stuff including colors).

Name: Astro Pops
Brand: Leaf Brands
Description: Leaf Brands is relaunching Astro Pops, a product Spangler Candy discontinued in 2004 and they’re making the treat exactly the way people remember it. Known for its long-lasting quality, the candy will be available in its three original flavors of passion fruit, cherry and pineapple.
Introduction Date: May 2012
Notes: There have been a couple of attempts at relaunching this product, but this one is for real, they’re actually available in stores now (though internet seems to have them, I haven’t seen them in brick & mortar retailers). It’s been such a long time since I’ve had one. The retail price is a bit steep at $2.50 each for 1.5 ounces, but of course time traveling through candy is far cheaper than actual time travel.

As a kid I would eat brown sugar straight from the bag. I loved finding chunks of the stuff in my oatmeal. As an adult I discovered muscovado sugar and love finding new ways to use it in everyday food.

As a candy, this molasses rich sugar is quite popular in Japan, where Japanese prize their Okanawan Black Sugar. It’s mostly found in hard candies but sometimes used in caramels. I was excited to see the Meiji Chelsea line of hard butterscotch candies came out with a variety pack based on flavors of Kuro Sato called Chelsea Kokutou Black Sugar. The flavors are milk, black sugar and ginger.

The packaging is always charming. A stark black background with little calico inspired flowers dot the wrappers. In this case each wrapper is a different muted pastel with black flowers on it.

The candy comes in two different packaging styles. There are little flat boxes that hold foil wrapped pieces of butterscotch, then there are the bags, which often have assortments instead of a single flavor. The sealed wrappers are great because they keep the candies from becoming sticky. However, the candy is expensive. I think I paid 3.99 for this package that holds only 2.5 ounces. I’ve seen other packages for sale online for over $5 a package as well.

The light purple wrapper holds the Milk flavored piece. It looks like ordinary butterscotch but tastes like sweet, creamy rum. The texture of Chelsea is extraordinary. It’s smooth. The pieces always look and sound like glass. If you like to let your candy dissolve, these last a long time with consistent flavor all the way through. If you’re a cruncher, these are crispy and buttery.

The milk flavor mellows the strength of the black sugar, which can have bitter components to it. It’s fresh tasting, like a very mellow black tea.

The light red wrappers hold the best of all, the Black Sugar flavor. The pieces are very dark brown, glossy and hard. The flavor is dark and complex. It’s like that charcoal-like flavor of a toasted marshmallow. It’s more earthy and cereal-like than just molasses. It’s creamy and smooth, woodsy with a hint of toffee and coffee.

What’s so amazing about black sugar are all the flavors and nuances. It’s like chocolate, coffee or wine in that way.

The lightest looking piece of the set is the Ginger. This is less about the black sugar but an interesting combination of flavors. The ginger is woodsy and smooth with a warm component to it. The flavor is less of the tangy fresh juice flavor and more of the dried ginger with milk profile. The black sugar is lost, so the sugary notes are more like maple than molasses. Still, a great ginger candy, far and away better than most other toffee style gingers.

This was a great mix and I found it hard not to eat them all right away. I even tried going back to Little Tokyo to find more, but couldn’t find a single grocer that carried them still. I’m very sad, but hoping that Meiji will bring back the Black Sugar at least as a single flavor in the boxes at some point and I will stock up.

Related Candies

1. Zeke’s Butterscotch
2. Mandy’s Old Fashioned Confections: Butterscotch & Caramel
3. Molasses Pops
4. Japanese Black Sugar & Tropical Chews
5. Japanese Black Sugar Candy Finds
6. Green and Black Caramels

Early this year Katrina Markoff of Vosges Haut-Chocolate spun off a new mass-market brand called Wild Ophelia.

The idea was to be able to reach more consumers with Markoff’s taste creations without sacrificing the artisan scale of the original Vosges but still reach more consumers. (Source) I have trouble believing that Vosges is truly artisan any longer since they’re a $30 million company. The Wild Ophelia website feature a hokey story about this mascot for the brand that dipped beef jerky in milk chocolate instead of the traditional lemonade stand as a kid. The story reads like a non-traditional innovator’s checklist:

I was nicknamed “Wild Ophelia” following a few smart plans I hatched during my childhood years, while running the sweet stand at our summer garage sales. Instead of the typical, boring lemonade, I decided to serve beef jerky dipped in molten milk chocolate that I melted in the hot sun. From there, my little side-street menu swiftly transitioned to other chocolate experimentations… fresh peaches and hibiscus, sweet cherries and pecans, BBQ potato chips.

Though I’m most at peace watching the sun set from my front porch swing, I also have an itch for the open road. I’ve crossed this great country a number of times, usually without an agenda and primarily on 2-lane roads. Through my adventures, I’ve befriended a number of like-minded American farmers and food artisans who have inspired my creations.

Welcome to my world of chocolate with a flair for the unexpected. (source)

But again, it’s all just made up. The real story of someone wanting to extend their brand isn’t good enough, yet with this pure fiction they want us to also come on board with the real stories of the artisans that provide some of the key ingredients in the bar flavors.

The Wild Ophelia line features bars that cost one third less than the Vosges bars, but of course are about one third smaller in size. That’s fine with me in principal at least, since I often find the 3 ounce bars a bit too much for me and my short attention span. The new line of bars feature flavors like Beef Jerky, Southern Hibiscus Peach, Salted Chowchilla Almond, New Orleans Chili, Sweet Cherry Pecan, Mount Sequoia Granola, Smokehouse BBQ Potato Chips and the final one, Peanut Butter & Banana is what I picked up.

The Milk Chocolate Bar Peanut Butter & Banana is made with a dark milk chocolate of 41% cacao. Then it’s mixed with pieces of dried Williams Banana, which is grown on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. Peanut butter is mixed into the chocolate.

It sounds great, though I wish I knew as much about the chocolate and the origin of the peanuts as I now do about the bananas.

The bar is soft and has a smooth break. It looks like the pieces are quite small and well mixed in. It has a strong scent of roasted peanuts and a little note of maple or sweet hot cocoa.

Though the bar has a peanutty aroma, the chocolate, it tastes of both chocolate and peanut butter, like someone melted and mixed together a peanut butter cup. It’s a little grittier and fudgier than a standard milk chocolate bar. The heartiness is then highlighted with bits of dried bananas. They’re soft and chewy, but still kind of tough. They’re sweet and have a strong banana flavor with a fair bit of tanginess.

I found the leathery and sticky banana bits a little off-putting, they’d get stuck in my teeth. But the overall ratios and the fact that it’s not a sweet bar but still has that satisfaction of a sweet snack is really quite good. There are little bits of salt in it as well, and though it tastes like a lot because they’re little granules, it’s actually only 30mg for a serving.

Now for the transparency part. The company says “Wild Ophelia is a uniquely American chocolate brand that features all-natural and often organic ingredients sourced from small farms and artisans to tell an American story. All Wild Ophelia products are made with 100% renewable energy and packaged in 100% recycled board. Proudly, the Wild Ophelia line is developed by a certified women’s business enterprise.” Nowhere could I find a statement about the sourcing of the chocolate (none was listed as organic, the only organic ingredient in this bar was the peanut butter). So I can’t say anything about the ethics of the sourcing of the cacao and at $5 for a 2 ounce bar of chocolate, I’d prefer that the dairy products in it also be organic.

Wild Ophelia is gluten free, but their facility uses dairy, soy, peanuts, tree nuts and sesame. I love many of Vosges products, but have had to stop eating them because of walnut contamination issues (which is fully disclosed on the packages). I did not have any problems with this bar and none of the Wild Opheila products have walnuts in them (my only allergy).

For a more complete rundown of the line of bars, check out Jess at Foodette Reviews.

Related Candies

1. Vosges Bombalinas - Black Pearl Cashews
2. Dove Desserts Bananas Foster
3. Christopher Elbow: No. 6 - Dark Rocks
4. Elvis Reese’s Peanut Butter and Banana Cup
5. Chuao ChocoPod Collection
6. Limited Edition Marshmallows
7. Chuao Chocolatier
8. Trader Joe’s Chocolate Covered Banana Chips

One of the classic chocolate bars around the world is the milk chocolate with almonds. Probably one of the most popular in Spain is the Valor Chocolate version: Milk Chocolate with Marcona Almonds.

Most bars are the standard tablet of 100 grams (or 3.5 ounces) but several years ago Valor came out with this handier single serving version. It’s thicker and easier control portions with only 1.59 ounces in the bar.

The bar is pretty and one of my favorite formats. For bars with nuts, I enjoy a thicker bar that’s not too wide so it’s easy to snap off a piece or bite it without mess.

The Valor bars, being from Spain, use Marcona Almonds. Marconas are a cultivar of almonds that are not as common in the United States. Here in California we grow about 80% of the world’s almonds, and nearly all are the nonpareil variety. Marconas are more rounded, rather flat and usually quite smooth. They’re also quite crunchy and less fibery than nonpareils.

The nut distribution was a little off. The first section had one almond (shown). The middle two sections had six almonds. The last section had none at all.

The milk chocolate is rather high in cacao, at 34%. There’s a little whey in the ingredients list way down at the end, which is forbidden in US chocolate by labeling standards (it’s really just a harmless filler). The chocolate is barely sweet, has a deep rich and malty flavor to it and has an almost salty note to it. It’s missing complex vanilla notes, which is probably because they don’t use real vanilla in the bar. It’s a very firm bar, even in this heat (I kept it in an air conditioned room though it’s still often 80 degrees in there) but I still found that it took longer in my mouth to melt than the standard Hershey’s, Cadbury or Dove.

The nuts go really well, they’re a more delicate flavor and that superb crunch is satisfying. The milk flavors are less sticky and more fresh tasting than the Swiss or British style, but almost goaty.

It’s a great bar when you want a less sweet chocolate that’s not too overpowering and difficult like a dark bar. The almonds make it much more filling, but I wanted a few more in there. This is something I’d definitely chose over a Cadbury Fruit & Nut or Hershey’s with Almond. I don’t know what the source of the cacao for Valor is, their website is vague (“all over the world”) so I can’t comment on the ethical policies of the company.

Related Candies

1. Trader Joe’s Almondictive Bits
2. Niederegger Marzipan Classics
3. Ferrara Chocolate Candy Coated Chocolate Covered Almond Eggs
4. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Almonds
5. Sconza 70% Dark Chocolate Toffee Almonds
6. Dove Caramels & Chocolate Covered Almonds
7. CocoaBella “World’s Best Box”

I wrote that Storck was introducing a new flavor of Werther’s Original caramels back in May, and finally found some in stores.

They’re called Werther’s Original Caramel Apple Filled Hard Candies and are a bit of a curiosity to me. They’re a green apple filling covered with a hard shell of the famous Werther’s butter toffee candy.

The objective is to emulate a caramel coated green apple.

The ingredient list for this strange candy creation is, well, long. Here’s another example of a European candy (like the downscale version of Panda Licorice) that uses glucose-fructose syrup, which is the same as High Fructose Corn Syrup, except it’s made from something other than corn. There are other fun things in there like artificial colors though it does use actual concentrated apple juice.

As much as I was turned off by the idea of the candy, and the idea that they cheaped out and used glucose-fructose syrup instead of just sugar I actually enjoyed them.

They look like a nice candy from the outside. They were in good shape, no crushed or sticky pieces. They’re hard and glossy and smell buttery-sweet. The candy shell is exactly what I’d expect a Wether’s candy to taste like. It’s silky smooth and sweet with a hint of salt. The shell is thin and the center is soft. It’s easy to just chew up the candy, which I ended up doing most of the time. The center is a soft goo with an apple flavoring, kind of like apple juice instead of a Jolly Rancher candy. It’s sweet and flavorful but without an artificial sourness to it.

Overall, it’s an interesting take on the apple and caramel combination. Sweet, salty and a little fruity. I ate the whole bag (which wasn’t hard considering that the fact that for a buck there were only 12 pieces in it. I don’t think I’d buy them again, but I do think they’re better than I gave them credit for in the concept stage.

Related Candies

1. Werther’s Original Caramel Chocolates
2. Ginger People Spicy Apple Ginger Chews
3. Tootsie Caramel Apple Pops
4. Caramel Apple Kisses & Caramel Creams
5. Milk Maid Caramel Apple Candy Corn
6. Caramel Apple Sugar Babies
7. Werther’s Caramel Coffee Hard Candies
8. Werther’s Original Chewy Caramels
9. Storck Chocolate Riesen