Candy Blog

When I was in college at Humboldt State University one summer I house-sat for a friend and as a thank you they gave me some tickets to see Twelfth Night at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. So my best friend and I packed up her rabbit puppet in her yellow Dodge Dart and we hit the road for the journey to Ashland to see the show.

The theatre was in the classic outdoor Elizabethan-style, except for the electric lights and assigned seating. The show was fantastic. In addition they also had an amazing selection of treats and sweets to consume during the show. At an intermission I picked up a roll of Callard & Bowser Licorice Toffee. The roll was long and had individually wax-wrapped pieces. I was ill informed what they were, I was expecting buttery hard candy with a licorice note to it. Instead it was what we call a caramel here in the States and it had a pleasant spicy & woodsy flavor. I ate the whole roll right there during the show.

Over the years I found them here and there but the last time I had some was when I was in London sometime late in the last century.

Callard & Bowser was a British founded in 1837 and the maker of toffees but most notably to Americans are their Altoids mints. They were swallowed up by Kraft, which later spat them back out in 2004 to Wrigley’s ... which in turn was bought out by Mars last year. Somewhere along the way they discontinued the Licorice Toffee. So I no longer look for it. Instead, I’ve been on the prowl for alternatives and found a few promising options to suggest to readers. Today, I present to you the Walkers’ Nonsuch Liquorice Toffee.

Unlike the other Walkers’ Nonsuch Toffees I’ve reviewed so far, these are individually wrapped in twisted paper-backed foil. The wrapper is cute & easy to identify as licorice since it’s a simple black & white design with a checkerboard pattern and red text.

Each little nugget is a little bigger around than a quarter and a lovely lump of sugar, sweetened condensed milk and treacle. It also features real liquorice extract as well as oil of aniseed.

They’re softer than the bar toffees; it’s an immediate stiff chew that softens with heat & mastication. The flavors are buttery and dark - not so much licorice but a soft anise with deep woodsy tones that reminded me of pumpernickel bread and spice cake. It’s smooth and satisfying.

I found the 150 gram (5.3 ounces) package to be completely inadequate (but it’s partly my fault for sharing these with my other licorice loving friends). The good news is that I got them at India Sweets & Spices and have also seen them listed online at The British Food Shop down in Orange County and if I get really desperate I can order online at Licorice International (though more than twice the price I find them locally).

Related Candies

1. Walkers Nonsuch Roasted Hazelnut Toffee
2. Bequet Gourmet Caramels
3. J Morgan Caramels
4. Organic Finnska Soft Licorice
5. Walkers Nonsuch Toffee

Less than 1% of the US population is allergic to peanuts (it’s estimated at .6% actually). But for families that have a peanut-allergic member it means that the whole household has to go peanut free (and sometimes classrooms as well). So finding candy that everyone can have is an issue. And there’s no reason that there can’t be excellent, no-compromise peanut free candy.

Enter the new P-NOT BUTTER flavored Sixlets ... yes, they’re Sixlets but instead of being mock chocolate they’re mock peanut butter.

This little flip top box boasts that it contains 44 pieces peanut butter flavored but peanut free candy.

The little spheres are bright and attractive ... if a little rolly. I’ve got to say that I appreciate M&Ms for their pleasing roundness but ability to stay put after playing with these Sixlets.

I’ve seen another review of these and thought maybe she had a bad batch. And I was curious what a fake peanut product would be like. What’s in there?

Ingredients: soy flour, sugar, dextrose, partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil, reduced protein whey, corn syrup, artificial flavor, corn starch, colors, lecithin, tapioca dextrin, salt and carnauba wax. (may contain gluten)

So it’s soy butter? That’s not so bad. I’ve bought that before for sandwiches.

The shells are strangely crispy & crumble and are cool on the tongue. The insides are soft and pasty, like super-smooth peanut butter.

But oh, after a few chomps on the trio I put in my mouth and I was repulsed. It reminded me of something but I couldn’t quite place.

At first I kept thinking of purses, basements & babies. I thought it was the soy part and it reminded me of strained pea baby food. And then I thought some more and realized that it reminded me of the smell of vomit in a hot car. The initial flavor is grassy and a little milky ... but then there’s this awful acrid tangy note that just hangs there like spit up baby formula. But it’s not like some distant vomit ... it’s something inside my own mouth, it give me the feeling that maybe I threw up a little while ago and forgot about it, except for this awful taste in my mouth.

Ultimately I think that these are a fantastic public service. Give these to children who are allergic to peanuts but have never actually eaten them and they’ll be sure to never be tempted to touch them again.

(For the record, I gave some to Amy-Who-Spits-Things-Out and she was miffed to say the least and wants to give them a negative 4 rating.)

UPDATE 9/22/2009: I heard from SweetWorks who manufacturers & distributes P-NOT Sixlets. They assure me that the product was discontinued (and the package I reviewed was possibly expired - but it had no expiry date marked on it and was only introduced a year ago, so how was I to know?).

Related Candies

1. Sunspire Coconut Bars
2. Beechies Force Chewy Candy
3. Reese Hazelnut Creme
4. Sixlets & Limited Edition Dark Chocolate Flavored Sixlets

A couple of years ago I got a preview of a new line of candy bars from Annabelle’s, makers of Rocky Road. The new Rocky Road Supreme bars didn’t even have wrappers yet when I tried them at the All Candy Expo in September of 2007. They were finally released last year, but it took me another full year to find them on store shelves.

I finally found them at a new shop in Burbank called Rocket Fizz. Though it’s supposed to be a soda pop store - with hundreds and hundreds of varieties of sodas sold in single bottles, it was also a candy shop with hundreds and hundreds of items to choose from. Amongst the mostly classic offerings I found the Rocky Road Supreme Peanut Butter Bar. Though it was a whopping $1.99, it’s also nearly 3 ounces ... so consider it a king sized bar.

The package describes it as Handmade Marshmallow and Peanut Butter with Crunchy Peanuts, Double Dipped in Velvety Milk Chocolate. I stopped eating several days ago in order to accommodate this extra 460 calorie pop.

The bar was a little worse for wear, though I tried to choose carefully from the bars on the shelf. I often have this problem often with Rocky Road bars ... they might benefit from at least a waxed paperboard tray.

The layers are nearly equal strips of marshmallow and peanut butter. Luckily the peanut butter is on the bottom, as it’s the densest. Considering how much peanut butter there is in this bar, plus the peanuts on the top, it doesn’t smell very peanutty. Just vanilla-sweet, a little milky and a little like roasted nuts.

The bar has a nice bite to it. The chocolate is soft and not at all flaky and the marshmallow is firm enough that it springs back easily but is dense enough not to give into the weight of the chocolate shell.

The flavors at first do well. The peanut butter layer has a salty pop and a mellow nutty flavor. The vanilla marshmallow isn’t too sweet and gives a bouncy chew to the whole thing. The chocolate coating is a little lackluster in the flavor department, but also not too sweet. The peanuts give a little crunch. The whole thing is a bit slick & fatty though, it never quite melts.

As I went on, I tried eating the separate elements. The chocolate is satiny smooth, but lacks a real cocoa punch. It’s all about the texture, I guess. The peanuts on top were kind of chewy instead of crunchy. The marshmallow is actually great, mostly because it’s foamy and has a smooth texture without being too sweet. The peanut butter layer though is weird. It’s very firm and has a greasy Crisco texture to it. A look at the list of ingredients reveals why #4 on the list is partially hydrogenated soybean & cottonseed oils ... that comes before #5 which is peanut butter.

Now I’m as much a fan of fat as the next person, but fat has to add texture ... it needs to give a pleasing mouthfeel as well as deliver flavors. This peanutty layer simply doesn’t. It’s like the grease is a cloaking device.

I really wanted to like this, I wanted it to be a powerful combination of textures & flavors. Instead it just left me feeling heavy & unsatisfied. (And I didn’t finish it, so now I get to have lunch!)

Here’s Sera’s review from Candy Addict.

Related Candies

1. Choco-Fudge Mallow Sundae
2. Peeps Chocolate Mousse (Bears & Bunnies)
3. Bubu Lubu
4. Russell Stover Orange Marshmallow Pumpkin
5. Dark Chocolate Rocky Road
6. Rocky Road

It’s odd how I look back into the Candy Blog archives when I pick up a new candy and see how seasonal some of my finds are. Over the weekend I went out to India Sweets & Spices for a tasty & dirt cheap vegetarian Indian lunch. The restaurant (which serves cafeteria-style) is also a grocery store. In their refrigerated section, right next to the yogurt & kefir is where they store their candy. I was pretty pleased to see a large selection of Walkers’ Nonsuch Toffee which I really enjoyed two years ago this week.

They carried the nutted varieties, both Roasted Hazelnut and Brazil Nut plus the Fruit & Nut (raisins in caramel?). I opted for the Roasted Hazelnut Toffee.

The package looked pristine. The last packs I got, and everything I’ve seen on other candy review sites show the bars mushed. This one still had its sections intact - I’m guessing since it was stored in the cooled boxes.

The bar is a big slab weighing 3.5 ounces but only about 4 inches long and 2 inches wide - so it’s a dense mass of boiled sugar and milk. It’s scored into 10 pieces and whacking it on the side of the table seems to split it along those marks ... for the most part. (I hit it one time on one of the nuts and got, well, nutmeal for my troubles.)

The hazelnuts are pressed into each piece - one per piece ... there aren’t more hiding within.

While it’s called toffee in England, here in the United States I consider this caramel. It’s firm but softens easily in the mouth or warmth of your hand and makes a satisfying stiff chew. It stays completely smooth until it’s gone - no graininess at all.

The hazelnuts were roasted to perfection - crunchy, buttery and nutty. The combination of the texture and the burnt sugar notes & butter of the caramel was amazing. I wanted to gobble the bar up, but of course it has a limiting factor on it ... the caramel must be chewed and it takes time.

I wish there were twice as many hazelnuts. But still, pieces without nuts were awesome. No hint of rancid butter or nuts (which I do get sometimes with caramel products). Even better - I got this bar for $1.09 (I paid $1.77 for the last ones I bought). It’s a great deal for a quality product.

If I can’t get this again soon, I might just make my own hazelnut caramels.

Related Candies

1. Bequet Gourmet Caramels
2. Short & Sweet: Hazelnut Bites
3. Ritter Sport White Chocolate with Hazelnuts
4. Grandma’s Caramels
5. Walkers Nonsuch Toffee
6. KitKat Temptations: Hazelnut & Coconut
7. Das French Salted Caramels

Lindt is an iconic name in the world of chocolate. Its founder Rodolphe Lindt invented the chocolate conching machine in 1879 and set the standard for “eating chocolate”. Today Lindt & Sprungli chocolate is a behemoth company which makes both solid chocolate bars, their consumer truffle line of Lindor products & their iconic chocolate rabbits but also owns the American chocolate company, Ghirardelli.

They have a multitude of lines of chocolate bars, each with different profiles. The Excellence line is often found at drug stores, grocery chains & even at airport shops. It’s a nice size & excellently designed package. The paperboard sleeve holds a 3.5 ounce chocolate bar - it’s thin but nicely scored into easy to break & eat portions. (Other lines include Classic Recipe, Les Grandes, Creation, Petits Desserts - at least 50 bars.)

Before I started writing Candy Blog I was a pretty died hard Lindt fan. Their darker bars were one of the first on the market that I was exposed to that gave the cacao content. I was pretty happy at 70%.

My experience with Lindt milk chocolate is rather limited, so before vacation I picked up this bar: Lindt Excellence Toffee Crunch.

It is rather thin and I have to preface this review with the fact that I prefer my bars that have inclusions to be a little thicker.

It smells sweet & buttery.

The chocolate has a nice snap, even in the heat we were experiencing in Southern California. Inside each piece it was easy to spot the little toffee bits.

The chocolate is smooth and milky and though the texture isn’t quite as fine as I would have wanted, I’m not sure it would matter because of all the toffee bits.

The toffee was firm & gave a good little bite of salty burnt sugar and butter.

The effect was great, it was filling & satisfying without being too cloyingly sweet. Still, for my personal preference I might want bigger toffee pieces and a darker milk chocolate. But I can see that this would have lasting appeal for some folks and if I ate it with something to offset the sweetness it’d probably be gone by now. Also, I was a bit irritated that there were artificial flavors in there for a product at this price point - good toffee is not that hard to create and it doesn’t need artificial caramel flavor.

Related Candies

1. Terry’s Chocolate Toffee Crunch Orange
2. Ghirardelli Holiday Squares
3. Moser Roth Chocolate
4. Dove Silky Smooth Milk Chocolate Bars
5. Sconza 70% Dark Chocolate Toffee Almonds