You might wonder why my Halloween review is of Bridge Mix. It’s because it’s actually the scariest candy on the market today. Every maker has a different set of what they include in their mix, and because everything is coated in chocolate, it’s a game of Russian Roulette if you’re a picky eater. 

If I were to rank candies according to age demographics, most results would land where I expected. Super sour candies are targeted to tweens, dark chocolate to adult women and sweet and savory candies to men who love sports. And the sales data pretty much bears that out. Then there’s Bridge Mix. First of all, Bridge Mix doesn’t seem to have any sort of marketing campaign associated with it. But if you were to find out how old the average buyer is, I’m going to guess somewhere around 73.

I picked up the Brach’s Bridge Mix because the package made it look appealing and compared to some of the other chocolate bag offerings lately, it seemed like a good value. The package is vague, but it mentions that it’s a mix of all natural milk and dark chocolate. However, there was no listing on the back of the package as to what the actual items inside would be. The front just showed the coated pieces ... the ingredients were so long, all I could say for sure is that I could expect raisins, peanuts, sugar and Brazil nuts inside the chocolate.

My first impression upon opening the bag was good. It’s a resealable bag that holds a 8.7 ounces which makes for a full cereal bowl of candy. The pieces look good, they’re shiny and for the most part distinctive. I thought I could tell which were peanuts and raisins, though the larger spheres were a mystery.

The ingredients listed Brazil nuts and the picture on the front shows a piece that really looks like a chocolate covered Brazil nut. No such item appears in the bag. Maybe my mix was missing the Brazil nuts ... it was certainly not sufficiently randomized for my tastes.

Ingredients: Milk Chocolate (Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Whole Milk, Chocolate Liquor, Lactose, Soy Lecithin, Butter Oil, Salt, Vanillin, Ethyl Vanillin), Sugar, Corn Syrup, Peanuts with TBHQ and Citric Acid (preservative), Sweet Chocolate (Sugar, Chocolate Liquor, Cocoa Butter, Soy Lecithin, Vanilla Extract), Raisins, Sweetened Condensed Skim Milk (Sugar, Nonfat Milk, Buttermilk, Whey Solids), Corn Syrup Solids, Brazil Nuts, Malted Milk (Milk, Barley Malt, Wheat Flour, Salt, Sodium and Potassium Carbonate), Modified Food Starch (Corn), Malt Extract (Barley Malt, Wheat Flour), High Fructose Corn Syrup, Partially Hydrogenated Oil (Soybean, Cottonseed, Palm Kernel), Salt, Pectin, Baking Soda, Citric Acid, contains 2% or less of the following ingredients: Tapioca Flour, Soy Lecithin, Red 40, Natural and Artificial Flavor, Mono and Diglycerides, Hydrogenated Palm Kernel Oil, Gelatin, Confectioner’s Glaze, Acacia (Gum Arabic), Coconut Oil, Calcium Carbonate. [Contains: Milk, Brazil Nuts, Peanuts, Wheat and Soy]

Though it’s all natural chocolate, there are a lot of not-so-natural items in there, too. There’s also gelatin, which was hard to find on the list if you’re vegetarian.

Cherry Jelly Ball covered in Dark Chocolate were one of two that I could reliably pick out of the mix. It’s a big, very strongly cherry flavored jelly ball covered in dark chocolate. I was hoping there would be other flavors, but this was it. The jelly center is nice, dense and very floral. However, there’s a grainy sugar layer in there that messed with the texture and sweetness level. I don’t like cherry candies, but I thought this was a refreshing item to have in a mix ... and it was easy for me to avoid.

White Sugar Cream covered in Dark Chocolate - if you’ve ever wanted a York Peppermint Pattie without the mint flavor, this might be your candy. But the fondant in the center is hard and grainy ... so it’s not really a good texture combination at all. The dark chocolate outside is in a much larger ratio than most other mint candies, which is fine because that’s the only flavor you’re going to get out of this thing. I felt like about 1/4 of my bag was filled with these. I would bite them in half to see if it was a large peanut or something else and then toss the other half when I found it was the fondant ball.

Milk Chocolate Malted Milk Ball - I’d like to have a long and wonderful commentary here, but that photo of the one bitten in half is the only one I got in this bag. I’ve been searching for Brach’s Milk Chocolate Milk Balls for a couple of years, and found that this Bridge Mix is the only place I can find them ... and I got one lousy one. I didn’t savor it enough to be able to review it.

Dark Chocolate Covered Peanut - excellent. The peanuts have skins on them, which I enjoy. It highlighted the bitterness of the chocolate. The peanut had a light touch of salt, and though not large, they were crunchy and deeply roasted.

Milk Chocolate Covered Peanut - not as good as the dark one, the milk chocolate hides the peanut notes somehow, but after stumbling across so many of those fondant balls, I was happy to have these.

Milk Chocolate Brown Sugar Ball - I have no idea what this is. The center was not grainy, not smooth, not flavorful, not appealing. It tasted sweet, but also dusty. I just have no idea what the point was, except to fool me into thinking that I was going to get a Malted Milk Ball.

Milk Chocolate Covered Raisins - pretty good. The raisins were soft and chewy, not tough or tacky. The raisins dominated, the chocolate was sweeter than the actual dried fruit but didn’t contribute more than texture to the experience.

The one item that was easy to pick out were the little flattened bullets that came in both milk and dark chocolate.

Milk Chocolate Covered Nut Brittle - the chocolate coating isn’t as thick as the other candies, but that didn’t matter. The center of this little morsel is a nicely made, crispy nut brittle. There may be Brazil nuts in there, but definitely peanuts. It’s salty, it’s barely sweet and I’d like to just buy a bag of these.

Dark Chocolate Covered Nut Brittle - the dark chocolate version was even better, as it enhanced the roasted nut flavors.

I’ve come away with an appreciation for people who simply throw caution to the wind and pop a handful of candy pieces in their mouth. I’m not a Bridge Mix person. In fact, this bag of candy made me angry. There were good things in it, but too many horrible things. There’s no listing anywhere that I can find that says what kind of candy is even in the bag ... it’s as if Brach’s is evasive and doesn’t want to commit to what they might put in there on any given day. I ended up with a pile of half bitten candies on my desk after I determined what I did and didn’t like ... I spit out the other halves in the trash. It was, in the end, a bad value for me, since I ate so little of it, though, technically, I finished the bag.

I really just wanted some Malted Milk Balls.

Related Candies

1. Cacao Prieto 72% Dark Chocolate Pecan & Sour Cherry
2. Brach’s Dark Chocolate Blueberry Acai
3. Christopher’s Big Cherry - Dark
4. RJ’s Licorice Allsorts
5. Trader Joe’s Allsorts -a- Licorice
6. Jelly Belly Chocolate Dips
7. Licorice Bridge Mix

The Brach’s Milk Maid Royals candies were always quite special looking. I remember seeing them in the pick-a-mix assortments at the dime store as a kid. I was attracted to the bold foil wrappers that each little flavored caramel rod sported. The looked expensive and sophisticated. The are a lot more caramel choices in the stores now and it seems harder to find the Brach’s individually wrapped candies since the bins of the candy disappeared from many grocery store candy aisles.

Royals Caramels are a layered candy, a flavored center chew is surrounded by caramel. It’s a simple construction that’s helped by the fact that caramel goes with just about everything.

I’ve noticed that Brach’s has recently started repackaging their standard line of candy and sprucing up the flavor assortments to match current tastes. The new Brach’s Apple Caramel Royals come in a stand-up gusset bag and are positioned right next to M&Ms and the new morsel sized candies like York Minis and Snickers Bites.

The package is a lovely apple red but the candies inside are wrapped in neon green waxed paper. It’s kind of an odd, especially because I had two flavors sitting around at one time and I kept grabbing the wrong package. However, Brach’s did use red for their Caramel Apple Candy Corn, so the flavor colors do match on the outside at least.

Unlike the foil-wrapped ancestors, these candies don’t look like much in the wrapper. They’re the kind of candy that would probably sit around with the Tootsie Rolls at the end of Trick-or-Treat until I was desperate.

The look of the candies unwrapped is odd, the caramel looks good - an opaque medium brown color. But the green center is on the blue side, which makes it look a little more like a caramel filled with toothpaste than a green apple candy. Luckily the smell aligns everything again. It’s sweet and with a light apple peel and milk scent. The chew is soft, the caramel and sort of taffy center mix well. It could use a little bit of salt to bring it together. It’s never quite a smooth and creamy caramel, but much more satisfying than the Brach’s Candy Corn Nougats I tried last week.

The ingredients list actual apples plus buttermilk as an ingredient in these, which really makes them one of the closest candies on drug store shelves to actual caramel apples.

The Brach’s Sea Salt Caramel Royals come in the same style of gusset bag. It’s a more sedate design, as the colors are more subdued.

While caramel apple candies are quite trendy right now for fall, the general salted caramel rage is a year round thing and still going strong. It only makes sense that Brach’s, now owned by the Ferrara Candy Company, would expand into some of these mainstream trends.

While they say sea salt on the front of the package, the ingredients list only salt. The nutrition panel shows that there are 180 mgs of salt per serving of 6 pieces. As a point of reference, the Apple Caramel Royals have only 75 mgs.

The Sea Salt Caramel Royals are, well, quite nice! The chew is soft with a little difference between the caramel outside and the sort of pasty chew inside. They’re definitely salty, but it does highlight the brown sugar notes of the caramel. I wouldn’t be likely to buy these again, especially at the price when I can get some really good sea salt caramels from Trader Joe’s or just some Sugar Babies ... but I will finish this bag.

These candies are made in Mexico. The contain milk, soy and egg ingredients. There’s no notation about nuts or gluten, though.

Brach’s Milk Maid Royals have been made since the late 1920s (though I’m sure the wrappers have changed over the years). The flavors are probably also cyclical with changing tastes. The last time I had them I enjoyed the extra-sweet Maple and Butter Rum, but didn’t care for the sherbet flavored Orange. The Chocolate is softer than a Tootsie Roll but didn’t have the reliably long chew.

Related Candies

1. 15 Caramel Apple Candies I’ve Reviewed
2. Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate Sea Salt Cashew
3. See’s Caramel Apple Lollypops
4. Pearson’s Sea Salt Caramel Nut Goodies
5. Trader Joe’s Chocolate Covered Sea Salt Butterscotch Caramels
6. Werther’s Original Caramel Apple Filled
7. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels

Dove Chocolate, a Mars brand, often skirts a line in their marketing and products between being a healthy indulgence and pure decadence. The new line of chocolate covered fruit goes for the former but still accomplishes the latter.

Mars sent me some of their new products, including this amazingly large bag of Dove Whole Dried Cranberries in Dark Chocolate. It’s 26 ounces of chocolate covered sugared dried cranberries.

The package makes it look like these are plump cranberries, but they’re the ordinary dried variety. There’s a little bit of sugar added, which is fine, because I’ve had unsweetened cranberries before and they were too puckery,even with a chocolate coating.

The pieces are quite large, and cutting them in half reveals why. They aren’t strangely large cranberries. Instead they’re covered with a lot of chocolate. Often chocolate covered cranberries are flat, but these are very appealing looking. These a plump and a little chew reveals that they’re pretty moist, not leathery. They’re tangy and have a sort of bitterness to them that cranberries are known for, but it’s offset well by the chocolate.

I often find Dove’s chocolate a little bland, but dark chocolate here has a lot of flavor. It’s a rich chocolate pudding vibe, a little woodsy. It’s creamy without being too slick, though Dove does use dairy fats in their dark chocolate, so this is not vegan. (There’s 5 mg of cholesterol in here, which serves as an indication of the level of dairy fats.)

They’re expensive. But there aren’t that many higher quality choices at grocery stores for chocolate covered cranberries. I did find Ghirardelli’s new Dark Chocolate Cranberries are just as good as these but are likely to be harder to find. Steer clear of the Nestle version in their Raisinets line as they’re just terrible.

Related Candies

1. Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate Cranberry
2. Simply Balanced Dark Chocolate Mixed Berry (Target)
3. See’s Holiday Pie Truffles
4. Trader Joe’s A Very Merry Mingle
5. Nestle Cherry Raisinets
6. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Powerberries
7. Nestle Cranberry Raisinets
8. Dove Silky Smooth Milk Chocolate Bars

On the Halloween flavor trend meter, Pumpkin Spice is right up at the top this year. It’s an odd sort of synergy, since pumpkin pie isn’t really for Halloween. The pumpkins we associate with Halloween are for Jack O Lanterns and are not grown for eating. The closest I can come to a true Halloween pumpkin tie in would be pumpkin seeds, which are a seasonal item for folks who do their own carving and toasting of the pepitas. Here are ten of the pumpkin spice flavored candies that have hit store shelves that I’ve tried in recent years.

Name: Dark Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Salted Caramels
Brand: Trader Joe’s
Place Purchased: Trader Joe’s (Park LaBrea)
Price: $4.99
Size: 6.2 ounces
Calories per ounce: 135
Type: Chocolate/Caramel
Review Rating: 6 out of 10
In Short: This is a new twist on Trader Joe’s annual favorite. They don’t improve on the original, but do make a nice themed hostess gift.

Name: Pumpkin Seed Brittle Dusted with Sugar and Pumpkin Pie Spice
Brand: Trader Joe’s
Place Purchased: Trader Joe’s (Park LaBrea)
Price: $3.49
Size: 10 ounces
Calories per ounce: 121
Type: Hard Candy/Nuts
Review Rating: 7 out of 10
In Short: This is the only candy in the roundup that integrates actual pumpkin ingredients (even if it is just the seeds) and the pumpkin spice.

Name: Pumpkin Pie
Brand: Russell Stover
Place Purchased: Walgreen’s (Studio City)
Price: $.50 (on sale)
Size: 1 ounce
Calories per ounce: 140
Type: Chocolate/Cookie
Review Rating: 7 out of 10
In Short: Russell Stover has a lot of pie and cake themed seasonal shapes; this one goes for more of the uncooked pie crust texture combined with the spices.

Name: M&Ms Pumpkin Spice
Brand: Mars
Place Purchased: Target (WeHo)
Price: $2.66
Size: 9.9 ounces
Calories per ounce: 142
Type: Chocolate/ Cinnamon
Review Rating: 7 out of 10
In Short: Mars has come out with quite a few seasonal flavors for their classic Milk Chocolate M&Ms over the years, and these keep returning. They’re the best of their spiced varieties (Cinnamon and Gingerbread) so it’s a keeper, though still not the best limited edition they’re ever done.

Name: Pumpkin Spice Kisses
Brand: Hershey’s
Place Purchased: Target (Santa Monica & LaBrea)
Price: $2.99
Size: 10 ounces
Calories per ounce: 152
Type: White Chocolate (it really isn’t though)
Review Rating: 5 out of 10
In Short: Hershey’s does capture a lot more of the experience of a pumpkin pie filling with their spiced sweet paste covered in white confection (which is then colored orange).

Name: Pumpkin Spice Orange
Brand: Ovation
Place Purchased: samples
Price: $3.99 retail
Size: 6.17 ounces
Calories per ounce: 147
Type: Chocolate
Review Rating: 7 out of 10
In Short: This seasonal orange is very well made, which is part of the joy of the sectioned oranges. The spices are well balanced which makes the whole thing a good choice for a holiday product, but not really for Halloween.

Name: Pumpkin Pie Truffles
Brand: See’s Candies
Place Purchased: See’s (Glendale Galleria)
Price: $20.40 per pound
Size: 2 ounces
Calories per ounce: 135
Type: Chocolate
Review Rating: 6 out of 10
In Short: My opinion on these doesn’t matter much, they’re already sold out on the See’s website (though I’m sure they’ll get more in before Thanksgiving).

Name: Pumpkin Pie Candy Corn
Brand: Target
Place Purchased: Target (Eagle Rock)
Price: $2.99
Size: 9.9 ounces
Calories per ounce: 106
Type: Fondant
Review Rating: 4 out of 10
In Short: Zachary makes novelty flavored candy corn for a variety of stores. I couldn’t find this particular version at Target this year, but I know that Brach’s also makes a version now.

Name: Naked Chocolate Malt Balls: Pumpkin Spice
Brand: Naked Chocolate (Philadelphia)
Place Purchased: gift (thanks Susan!)
Price: unknown
Size: unknown
Calories per ounce: unknown
Type: Chocolate/Malt
Review Rating: 5 out of 10
In Short: Koppers makes these fancy, jumbo, multi-layered malted milk balls. They lack the simplicity of the malt and chocolate, which is really all I want in my malt ball, but if you go into the experience with your mind open, they’re a fun seasonal candy that looks great in a candy dish.

Name: Pumpkin Spice Lollypops
Brand: See’s Candies
Place Purchased: gift from Russ (thanks!)
Price: $4.80
Size: 5.6 ounces
Calories per ounce: 100
Type: Hard Candy
Review Rating: 6 out of 10
In Short: These have a wonderful texture, but are far too mild in flavor for something with the word spice in the name.

BONUS: Actual Pumpkin KitKat
Name: KitKat Pumpkin
Brand: Nestle
Place Purchased: gift from Santos (thanks!)
Price: unknown
Size: unknown
Calories per ounce: unknown
Type: Chocolate/Cookie
Review Rating: 7 out of 10
In Short: These Japanese KitKat feature real pumpkin cream filling ... but no spice. And yes, it pretty much tastes like sweet squash, but the crispy wafers and milk chocolate really work well.

Related Candies

1. 15 Caramel Apple Candies I’ve Reviewed
2. Candyology 101 - Podcast Episode 1
3. 10 Underrated Candies
4. Amsterdam on Foot: Three Chocolate Shops
5. The 110 Essential Candies for Candivores
6. Candy Blog Photography

I’ve often wondered why these isn’t an organic version of Candy Corn out there. A few years ago I got a mellocreme mix from Marich, but I haven’t seen in at Whole Foods for at least two years. You can get organic, fair trade peanut butter cups ... you can get M&M knock offs made with natural colors and less sugar ... why no Candy Corn?

Well, Sweet’s Candy Company of Utah has come through with an American-made, Kosher, non-GMO and gluten free Candy Corn.

The bag for Sweet’s Naturally Flavored Candy Corn certainly looks festive. But the little window reveals a bit of weirdness, which is fine if weirdness is what you like in your Halloween treats. The candy corn comes in three different colors. Not three layers in a single piece, three different colors. Yellow, white and orange.

The ingredients are as complex as they are simple:

Ingredients: Cane Sugar (non GMO), tapioca syrup (non GMO), corn syrup (non GMO), invert sugar (non GMO), egg whites (cage-free), coconut oil (expeller pressed, extra virgin), colored with fruit and vegetable extracts (pumpkin, carrot and apple), titamium dioxide (for color), honey, natural flavors, salt, carnuba wax, confectioner’s glaze.

Though they’re using all natural colors and flavors and plenty of sourcing information about the ingredients, the Candy Corn is not vegan since it contains egg whites, honey and confectioners glaze.

The pieces are normally sized and very well made. I guess when you don’t do the layering, there are fewer weak points on the candy, so there was no pile of the white caps at the bottom of the bag at all.

The Candy Corn smells sweet and pleasant, but more like orange sherbet than honey. I tried a few pieces and noticed right away that they were different from each other. Whether intended or not, the different colors are different.

White is nice, pleasantly mild with a sort of vanilla marshmallow note. It didn’t have the honey flavor that I’d expect from my candy corn, and was also missing that little note of salt I was craving.

Yellow is similarly mild, but has a sort of, well, root flavor to it, like a vague sort of boiled carrot thing going on in the background.

Orange is ever so slightly tangy and has an orange note.

I really missed the layers, I like eating each layer as a separate bite, as I imagine they taste different or sometimes have slightly different textures. The candies had a high gloss on them, the glaze kept them from being sticky but did mean that it took a moment for them to start dissolving unless I chewed them. The yellow one was the only one that seemed like it didn’t belong, the white and orange were perfectly acceptable as a natural alternative to the convention version.

Even though these are all natural and gluten free, they’re made in the same facility with peanuts and tree nuts. There’s no statement about dairy.

Related Candies

1. Spangler Candy Corn Circus Peanuts
2. Brach’s Caramel Macchiato Candy Corn
3. Brach’s S’mores Candy Corn
4. Jelly Belly Peas & Carrots Mellocreme Candy
5. M&Ms White Chocolate Candy Corn
6. Marich Halloween Mellocremes
7. Toffee Flavored Chocolate Covered Candy Corn
8. Zachary Candy Corn & Jelly Pumpkins