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September 2014

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Cranberry

Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate CranberryAt first I wasn’t sure what these were. The back of the package says real dried cranberries! covered in rich Ghirardelli chocolate!. But the front says that it’s infused with raspberry juice and a touch of freeze-dried cherries.. A quick peek at the ingredients doesn’t show anything else, except that the cranberries have some sunflower oil in them (makes them more pliable). At first I thought they were like the Brookside fruit things, a little jelly center with some dried cranberries thrown in, but instead they’re actually dried cranberries with some other fruits thrown in.

The Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Cranberry are packaged like the Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Cashews I also picked up at the same time, expect this package is pink instead of light blue. The stand up gusset bag reseals after opening with a zip lock, which is common in these morselized treats these days.

Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Cranberry

The ingredients and other packaging don’t say how dark the chocolate is, they call it semi-sweet and it has dairy fats in it. I’d guess somewhere around 55-60% cacao.

They smell very fruity, like cooking jam or a baking pie. It’s alluring ... and they are darling little morsels. The sizes are irregular, but each is wonderfully panned with a glossy shine.

Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Cranberry

The bite is soft, softer than I would expect from a piece of dried fruit. The cranberries are plump (I guess plumped with the other fruit additions and a touch of tapioca syrup). It’s immediately tangy and with that light tannic bitterness that cranberries have. The chocolate is smooth, though not quite silky, it offsets the fruit very well and brings its own dry finish.

I found these very satisfying and preferred the texture of the centers to regular raisins or dried cranberries which can be grainy or overly chewy. Though there’s a lot less fat in here than many chocolate treats, with only 120 calories per ounce, that means there’s also more sugars, though some are obviously from the fruit and not as readily available. There’s also 2 grams of fiber, 10% of your vitamin C and 8% of your RDA of iron.



Name: Dark Chocolate Cranberry
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Ghiradelli
Place Purchased: Target (Eagle Rock)
Price: $4.00
Size: 5.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 120
Categories: All Natural, Candy, Morselization, Ghirardelli, Chocolate, 8-Tasty, United States, Target

POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:25 am     CandyMorselizationReviewGhirardelliChocolate8-TastyUnited StatesTarget

Friday, September 26, 2014

Spangler Candy Corn Circus Peanuts

Melster Marshmallow Candy Corn PeanutsAs if Circus Peanuts weren’t enough of an enigma, now they’re branching out into seasonal varieties.

If you’re not familiar with Circus Peanuts, they’re a fluffy, grainy, marshmallow shaped like a peanut, the same color as an orange creamsicle but flavored like bananas. Every once in a while you see other holiday shapes, like bunnies for Easter. Though I’m only a fan of Circus Peanuts by concept, because once I actually eat one I wonder what I was thinking. They have some sort of hypnotic amnesia field around them, and I often forget I don’t like them and eat them. (I think there’s a genetic component to this, there are some people who are immune to this and know they hate them and can avoid them, then there are others who actually like them so there’s no need for the amnesia.)

Melster Marshmallow Candy Corn Circus Peanuts are basically not banana flavored, but candy corn flavored ... and not just orange, but also yellow and white.

Melster Marshmallow Candy Corn Peanuts

Here are the things that recommend them:
- They’re Fat Free
- They’re Free from Major Allergens (peanuts, tree nuts, milk, shellfish, eggs, fish, wheat and gluten)
- They’re Made in the USA

Melster Marshmallow Candy Corn Peanuts

Here’s the top reason to buy them: You’ve always wanted to like Circus Peanuts but you were turned off by the flavor. Don’t worry, Candy Corn Circus Peanuts have no flavor. (I’m just going to call them CCCP now.)

If you’re a fan of marshmallows in your cereal, like Lucky Charms, these are actually a pretty good version of that as a candy. The original Lucky Charms marbits were Circus Peanuts, but I think these match the flavor better.

Melster Marshmallow Candy Corn PeanutsThese were fresh and do smell lightly like vanilla and sugar. It’s comforting. Rather clean and bright. The bite is soft, but the texture is grainy. They’re like a marshmallow, but much denser ... but not quite a nougat. Really, they taste just like a very sugary marshmallow. If you’ve ever wanted Campfire Marshmallows with more sugar in them, this is for you.

These can’t even muster being divisive like the banana Circus Peanuts, that’s how ineffectual they are. That said, there’s a Peppermint version for Christmas ... Candy Warehouse (who provided these) also sent some of those, I can’t wait!

Related Candies

  1. Brach’s Carrot Cake Candy Corn
  2. Charms Candy Corn Pops
  3. Starburst Original Fruit Flavored Candy Corn
  4. 6 Candy Corn Candies That Aren’t Candy Corn
  5. M&Ms White Chocolate Candy Corn
  6. Melster Peanut Butter Kisses
  7. Circus Peanuts
  8. Brachs Bunny Basket Eggs


Name: Candy Corn flavored Circus Peanuts
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Spangler Candy
Place Purchased: samples from Candy Warehouse
Price: $4.00
Size: 8 ounces
Calories per ounce: 112
Categories: Candy, Halloween, Marshmallow, 4-Benign, United States

POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:24 am     CandyReviewHalloweenSpangler CandyMarshmallow4-BenignUnited States

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Salted Caramels

Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Salted CaramelsThere’s a new term for what happens this time of year, it’s called Pumpkinundation: The proliferation of pumpkin and pumpkin spice products. (I discovered the term on Chowhound.)

Salted Caramels were also a trend, but apparently every trend either dies out or simply becomes an everyday item. So, it has happened with Salted Caramel and so now they must be trendalized with the newest flavors of the season. These are Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Salted Caramels.

Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Salted Caramels

Trader Joe’s makes a version of these for Christmas with white flake sea salt. They’re sold in the same box with a different design. They’re wildly popular, as they’re returned to shelves for more than six years in a row. Since Trader Joe’s will pretty much make a pumpkin spice version of every product they sell at some point, it was just the salted caramels’ turn. (I could list all of the items, but suffice to say that they’ve done tea, coffee, macaron, granola, ice cream, and actual pumpkin pie spice. Here’s a taste test from Serious Eats from a few years ago.)

They’re described on the box:

Dark Chocolate with a Smooth Pumpkin Spice Caramel Filling Sprinkled with Red Hawaiian Sea Salt

Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Salted Caramels

The ingredients are all natural, but insanely long. The chocolates are made in Ireland (I suspect by Lily O’Brien). The filling isn’t just caramel, according to their list, but actually Sticky Toffee Caramel. There’s no list of what the spices are for their pumpkin spice.

They’re lovely looking caramels, they do well in their package and emerge very shiny and with most of the salt still attached to the squiggle of milk chocolate on top of the 55% dark chocolate.

Though I often find sea salt to be a bit over-hyped, as it’s used in such small quantities that it’s hard to tell different salts apart. In this instance I could tell it was Hawaiian Sea Salt ...and I did not like it. I can’t quite put my finger on it, a friend called it Spaghetti-Os flavored, I thought it was more like carrot, but there’s definitely an additional note to this salt. It was notable enough that for some of the pieces that I ate, I actually scraped the salt off completely.

Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Salted Caramels

The spice smell is quite clove-heavy, even before I bit into it. The chocolate is earthy and sweet with a very good bitter note towards the end. It’s smooth and wonderfully tempered. There were no cracks or oozing spots on any of the caramels. The caramel has a light grain to it, which is probably the spice. There’s also a cereal sort of wheaty flavor to it as well. The other spice notes are earthy, with some ginger and black pepper notes and some cinnamon. Not really the best combination for me, if it were a pie, but it goes well with the chocolate.

In the end, this was not a great combination for me, I didn’t like the plain version of these that much and the addition of the spice doesn’t do much for me either. I’ll stick to the individually wrapped Trader Joe’s Fleur de Sel Caramels or the panned Butterscotch Caramels.

Related Candies

  1. Ovation Mint Filled & Pumpkin Spice Oranges
  2. Russell Stover Pumpkin Pie
  3. M&Ms Pumpkin Spice
  4. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Salted Caramel Truffles
  5. Pumpkin Pie Gourmet Candy Corn
  6. See’s Pumpkin Spice & Root Beer Lollypops
  7. Das French Salted Caramels


Name: Dark Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Salted Caramels
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Trader Joe’s
Place Purchased: Trader Joe's (Park LaBrea)
Price: $6.99
Size: 6.2 ounces
Calories per ounce: 135
Categories: All Natural, Candy, Halloween, Trader Joe's, Caramel, Chocolate, 6-Tempting, Ireland

POSTED BY Cybele AT 12:13 pm     All NaturalCandyReviewHalloweenTrader Joe'sCaramelChocolate6-TemptingIreland

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate Sea Salt Cashew

Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate Sea Salt CashewsAs much as I enjoy innovation and originality, the classics remain the classics for a reason. A simple chocolate covered nut is the epitome of satisfaction.

Ghirardelli is one of America’s oldest chocolate companies, founded in 1852, and is known mostly for their chocolate bars and baking products. I was surprised to see they’re now making panned chocolates, but I definitely snapped up this bag of Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate Sea Salt Cashews at Target. It was on sale for $4.00 for the 5.5 ounce bag, which is a bit steep, but quality isn’t cheap and the costs for raw materials like cocoa, sugar and nuts are going up lately.

DSC_6796rb

The package describes them as whole roasted cashews covered in rich Ghirardelli milk chocolate. Simple. The nuts are, as promised, whole, or at least halves (which are the same shape but a little flatter). The ingredients are all natural and include a touch of tapioca syrup (for the glaze, I believe) instead of something that might be corn or wheat derived (and more likely to cause allergic reactions). There’s more than a touch of sea salt, a whole 125mg per 40 gram serving.

Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate Sea Salt Cashews

They look stunning, they smell great. It’s a sweet, nutty smell with a note of dried milk. The nuts are crunchy and fresh, the salt is mixed into the milk chocolate and immediately pops. (It’s a little much for me, but I’m a known salt-sensitive in my circles.) The milk chocolate is creamy and thick and not too sweet. Overall, it’s a great iteration of an iconic confection.

Chocolate covered nuts are a decent enough treat, nutrition-wise. Yes, there’s a lot of fat in there, but most of it is good fat from cocoa butter and the nuts, plus a dash of cholesterol from the milk in the chocolate. But it does have 4 grams of protein to balance out the 14 grams of sugars along with 6% of your RDA of calcium and 8% of your iron.

If you’re craving a dark chocolate version, Marich already makes those and they’re fantastic as well. (In fact, since this is Ghirardelli’s first outing with panned chocolates, I have to wonder if they subcontracted the production out ... and Marich is nearby.)

Related Candies

  1. Ghirardelli Minis - Sweet Dark Chocolate and Cookie Bits
  2. Gardini Bitter Chocolate and Gianduia with Sea Salt
  3. Trader Joe’s Chocolate Covered Sea Salt Butterscotch Caramels
  4. Superior Nut & Candy Chocolate Covered Cashews
  5. Ghirardelli Intense Dark Sea Salt Soiree
  6. Marich All Natural Holland Mints & Chocolate Jordan Almonds
  7. Vosges Bombalinas - Black Pearl Cashews
  8. Marich Chocolate Sea Salt Cashews
  9. Sconza 70% Dark Chocolate Toffee Almonds


Name: Milk Chocolate Sea Salt Cashew
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Ghiradelli
Place Purchased: Target (Eagle Rock)
Price: $4.00
Size: 5.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 156
Categories: All Natural, Candy, Morselization, Ghirardelli, Chocolate, Nuts, 9-Yummy, United States, Target

POSTED BY Cybele AT 11:06 am     All NaturalCandyMorselizationReviewGhirardelliChocolateNuts9-YummyUnited StatesTarget

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Jolly Rancher Caramel Apple Crunch ‘n Chew

Jolly Rancher Cruncn n Chew - Caramel AppleLast year Jolly Rancher introduced Jolly Rancher Caramel Apple Lollipops for Halloween. They’re back again, along with a version of the more recent Crunch ‘n Chew in the same flavor.

The Jolly Rancher Caramel Apple Crunch ‘n Chew is available in large lay down bags and even this little individual portion size. The individually wrapped candies are quite different from the traditional Jolly Rancher hard candies.

In this case the candy features a hard candy shell in two flavors, caramel and apple. Then there’s a soft chewy filling in a caramel flavor.

Jolly Rancher Crunch n Chew - Caramel Apple

Crunch ‘n Chew were introduced in 2012 and come in the standard Jolly Rancher flavors (green apple, blue raspberry, watermelon and cherry). As I noted in my original review, they’re interesting but lack some of the great features I love about Jolly Rancher hard candies, which is the smooth dissolve without any voids and the light pliability of the candy as it melts. All that Jolly Rancher brings to the table here is the name recognition that basically invented the green apple flavor.

Jolly Rancher Crunch n Chew - Caramel Apple

The image on the front of the package isn’t quite accurate (it’s also enlarged to show detail). It shows that the candy filling is a large portion of the mass of the candy, and that the caramel and apple portions are equal. Cleaving a piece in half showed that the caramel is actually a thin layer on top of the apple (which is fine, really, because that’s the way actual caramel apples are), but it’s the relatively small amount of chewy filling that’s revealed here.

The brown layer is polite and has a sweet brown sugar flavor. The green part is green apple, which is tart and artificial and mostly tasty. The crunch takes a little while. I don’t feel confident crunching right away, I usually let the candy dissolve for about 30 seconds. The filling is quite stiff and hard to chew, though the work is worth it. The center isn’t really much, it’s sweet and has a note of butter flavor to it. But the combination of all the elements chewed together is, well, impressively original.

It’s probably not a candy I would buy in the large 10 ounce bag, but this little 1.55 ounces was fun and I’ll probably finish the bag. Of the three candies I’ve tried now: the classic flavor Crunch ‘n Chew, the Caramel Apple Lollipop and these Caramel Apple Crunch ‘n Chew, I think these are by far the most successful.

Like the Caramel Apple Lollipops, these contain no dairy ingredients, so they may be a good option for someone who wants a caramel experience but is lactose intolerant. (There’s no actual allergen statement though, so check with Hershey’s if you have any allergy issues.) The candy also contains soy and gelatin (so it’s not vegetarian). They’re made in Brazil.



Name: Jolly Rancher Caramel Apple Crunch ‘n Chew
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Hershey’s
Place Purchased: Target (Eagle Rock)
Price: $1.00
Size: 1.55 ounces
Calories per ounce: 109
Categories: Candy, Halloween, Hershey's, Chews, Hard Candy & Lollipops, 7-Worth It, Brazil, Target

POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:36 am     CandyReviewHalloweenHershey'sChewsHard Candy & Lollipops7-Worth ItBrazilTarget

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