Candy Blog

Nestle has wisely decided to up their support for the Wonka brand.

The Wonka brand of candies was launched shortly after the release of the 1971 movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. They were originally made by Sunline but Nestle bought up Sunline (also the maker of SweeTarts and Pixy Stix) in 1988.  At that time the Wonka brand consisted of a combination of candies mentioned in the book, such as Everlasting Gobstoppers but mostly fanciful original creations such as Peanut Butter Oompas (picture here), Super Scrunch (picture here). They later focusing more on profitable and successful sugar candies such as Wacky Wafers (picture here), Dweebs, Runts, DinaSour Eggs (picture here) and of course Nerds.

The early Wonka Scrumdidilyumptious bar was a “chocolately caramel crisp” - the format was rather long, thick and narrow. (See this counter display.)

Nestle is reinvigorating the brand, both the sugar candy side (new gummis like Sluggles & Puckerooms, sour filled licorice like Kazoozles and chocolate popping candy like Tinglerz). Their chocolate line called Wonka Exceptionals capitalizes both on the imaginative side of the Wonka character from the Roald Dahl books as well as the quality aspect which has been largely lacking in previous chocolate products. The launch is with three different bars and foil wrapped pieces: Scrumdiddlyumptious, Domed Dark Chocolate & Chocolate Waterfall.

This new version of the Wonka Scrumdiddlyumptious Bar is spelled slightly differently: diddly instead of didily. It’s listed on the back of the package as Bar No. 17 and described as Milk chocolate with scrumptious toffee, crispy cookie & crunchy peanuts. Sounds good! No one else is making a bar quite like this, so it’s exciting to see them creating something original instead of a different packaging format of an existing product.

The little foil wrapped pieces are cute. They’re 1.25” long, 1” wide and about .33” high. They smell lightly chocolatey, but not as peanutty as I expected. The texture of the milk chocolate is super smooth and silky - a far cry from the waxy stuff in other Nestle products. It’s exceptionally sweet though, so too much of it and it burned my throat. The inclusions were little bits of graham cracker like cookies (digestive biscuits is perhaps more appropriate for comparison), little buttery toffee nuggets and peanut bits.

The variations in the nuggets meant that some pieces and bites were more interesting than others. The toffee had a good crunch to it and a salty note. The peanuts were not deeply roasted and were more grassy but still gave a different chew. The cookie pieces were mild and gave a malty cereal note to it.

The chocolate quality is a huge upgrade from the Wonka Bar (which is now discontinued - these will replace it). I don’t think I’d spend the premium for this in a bar format mostly because the Green & Black’s Peanut bar is truly scrumptious, similarly price but also organic & soon to be Fair Trade). However, foil wrapped pieces are different enough to warrant consideration.

Each piece is less than 50 calories, so if you have trouble controlling portions with a large bar, these are a nice option.

The packaging is fanciful, though definitely cluttered and not that easy to read as most of the colors are the same value. The holographic plastic is a bit of overkill as far as I’m concerned (and probably resource intensive) but I’m guessing the bags without the “Golden Ticket” giveaway will be a bit clearer. I was most impressed with the fact that they were even creative with the bar code on the package.

The product line is expensive, we’re talking Dove or Hershey’s Bliss level, not the ordinary Nestle Crunch prices. The bags I picked up hold 9.5 ounces and were $4.99 each. (The press release from the company said retail is $4.49 and I’m guessing there will be sales where you can find them for about $3 a bag.) The bars are 3.5 ounces and retail for $2.49 each.

Related Candies

1. Wonka Exceptionals Domed Dark Chocolate
2. Wonka Exceptionals: Chocolate Waterfall
3. Wolfgang Skipjacks & Jungle Jacks
4. Hershey’s Bliss
5. Wonka Nerds Jelly Beans
6. Wonka Golden Egg
7. Dove Chocolate
8. Wonka Bar

It’s a dream of some folks to have giant versions of their favorites. I found these Sour Super Gummi Bears. They’re about twice the height of a regular gummi bear, as you can see, pretty huge. (More flat though than three dimensional like other gummis.)

I bought these online last month but when they arrived I was a little disappointed and decided not to review them. They’re not bad, but there are three versions - cherry-orange, cherry-pineapple and lemon-lime. The fact that I don’t like cherry much makes 2/3 of them unappealing to me.

You can consider this a mini-review of the Klik Double Crunch bar from Israel. It’s a milk chocolate coated cereal bar with nougat and almonds. (Package photo here.)

What it felt like to me was a mass of loosely packed crunchy cereal spheres lightly coated with a nougatine/cream and then covered with milk chocolate.

The effect is that the crunch has powerful grain taste to it, but it’s not overly sweet. It’s a little nutty, more on the hazelnut side of things than almond. It’s quite light ... the bar looks huge but is really only 1.42 ounces and 210 calories. I’d definitely buy it again. I picked mine up at Munchies, a Kosher candy shop on Pico Blvd.

Drug stores are clever, they put huge bins of tasty candy on sale and right next to the line at the registers. I couldn’t resist picking up a bag of Cadbury Mini Eggs.

You can check out the review from the archives.

Easter is the season for foil wrapper chocolate, probably more than Christmas. So I thought I’d include these Florida Tropic Milk Chocolate Balls here now.

I have three varieties, which are all small foil-wrapped milk chocolate balls in a fruit flavor. Key Lime, Raspberry and Orange. The flavors are familiar to those who have had the Florida Tropic Oranges (which come in far more flavors).

The little stand up bags are nicely formatted, cleanly designed and compact. Of course they’re color coded - raspberry is hot pink, orange is orange and lime is green. (They’re also bilingual, half is in French.) There’s 5.3 ounces in there, so it’s enough to share, but not quite enough to fill up an ample candy dish like a bag of Hershey’s Kisses might.

Each 3/4” ball of milk chocolate is wrapped in matte foil keyed to the flavor. While they’re not quite Easter eggs, they colors, the fact that they’re individually wrapped & ready to nestle in some basket grass makes them an ideal choice. Especially since there really isn’t much out there like this.

The first is Florida Tropic Milk Chocolate Key Lime. Key lime is an interesting flavor. While it’s tempting to call all lime flavors the same, there is a perceptible difference between key limes (sometimes called Mexican limes) and the larger Persian limes that are found in most grocery stores. Key lime juice isn’t clear, it’s rather milky and has a more zesty and chalky flavor to it.

The flavor profile is softer than the Persian lime notes, which are a dichotomy of bitter zest and sour juice but little in between. In this case the slightly floral notes and powerful zest goes well with the milk chocolate. It doesn’t immediately call to mind cleaning products like Persian limes do. The aftertaste is strong though, strong enough to make me want to either eat more or something else.

The milk chocolate itself isn’t particularly notable - it’s smooth enough, better than the Terry’s Chocolate Orange I was once accustomed to. The milk and dairy notes are good, and give this a bit of a yogurty note.

The Florida Milk Chocolate Raspberry smells strongly of floral berry notes right away. Raspberry is a tough flavor to do, it’s strong and can be cloying and put off some folks who actually like the fresh berries. This one is pretty close - there are strong flowery odors along with some good deep woodsy components. There’s a slight aftertaste again, the lingering flavoring. The chocolate combines well and the natural tang of the milk in there gives it a bit of a chocolate cheesecake vibe.

The Florida Tropic Milk Chocolate Orange is probably the crowd pleaser in the set. The chocolate is sweet but has a passably creamy melt, milky texture and well rounded orange zest flavors. I liked the texture better than the orange shaped one, and oddly it didn’t seem as orangy (maybe it’s just that they’re smaller morsels). There’s a little salt in the milk chocolate, which keeps it all from tasting too sickly sweet. It’s far better than any of the novelty-flavored Hershey’s Kisses I’ve tried recently.

I don’t have a price on these, but judging by the prices of the Oranges they make, I’d expect a bag to be tagged at less than $4 for the 5.3 ounce bag. A little more than Dove or Hershey’s but offering something they don’t ... a little fruity note.

Related Candies

1. Eat with your Eyes: Orange Dark Chocolate Shells
2. Divine 70% Dark Chocolate with Raspberries
3. Choceur After Dinner Mints: Orange & Peppermint
4. Florida Tropic Oranges
5. Regional Flavors: Key Lime, Pina Colada & Huckleberries
6. Frey Supreme: White, Lemon & Lime and Citron & Poivre
7. Short & Sweet: Caramello /  Mega M&Ms / Orange Kisses