Twizzlers Filled Strawberry Bites have been out for a while, part of the morsel trend. Though Twizzlers already come in Nibs, this version of the fruity twists has a little twist of its own.

Back in 2005 Hershey’s introduced Twizzler Twerpz which were little snips of Twizzlers (orange and strawberry) filled with a sour paste. They didn’t make it very long, but did have some strong fans who continue to post on that review hoping Hershey’s would revive them. More recently Twizzlers brought out Sweet & Sour Filled Twists which were full twist length in cherry and lemon.

In this case, the little Bites, or niblets, are about a half an inch long. They’re cut from the extruded strawberry twist and filled with more strawberry-flavored goo.

The packaging for this King Size bag is a little odd. I understand the goal is to create a candy bowl, but I don’t think it succeeds. The package is gusseted on both the top and bottom and the opening for the package is in the middle of the pleats on the top. That all worked fine when I opened it at first. However, later on I wanted to read the nutrition information, which was covered by a flap, I tried to lift the flap and ended up pulling the whole seam apart.

The packages also don’t sit well on the shelf, they look slumped and hard to read. It’s a great idea, and I really hope they’re able to overcome some of these challenges. I think cookies have really solved this with the snack and reseal flaps.

The pieces smell like strawberry - sweet and floral. The chew is like a regular Twizzler, but a little softer. The filling is lightly tangy and has no chew of its own, really no other properties except that it’s soft (I believe it’s a jelly made from pectin). The size of the pieces is good, it’s easy to eat one or two at a time. The chew has a little bit of a pasty quality towards the end, which is remedied by eating another.

I ate them all, but I don’t think strawberry would be my favorite flavor from Twizzlers. I can’t see them making this in black licorice (what would the filling flavor be?) but raspberry or chocolate might be fun. They’re easy to munch on and are a better format for movie sharing.

Related Candies

1. Twizzlers Caramel Apple Filled Twists
2. Twizzlers Chocolate Twists
3. Halva Finnish Soft Strawberry Licorice
4. Newman’s Own Licorice
5. Mentos Jam Filled
6. Twizzlers Sweet & Sour Filled Twists
7. Cinnamon Fire Twizzlers
8. Twerpz

Wonka Laffy Taffy Caramel Apple (Limited Edition) is part of the new flavor craze for Halloween. The package is loud and strange, as are many Wonka designs. It features the purple Wonka branding around the sides, but the center is a banded swirl of browns on the top and greens on the bottom. It speaks more of wood grain than apples and caramel to me, but at least it did stand out on the shelves.

For those who have never had it, Laffy Taffy (once known as Tangy Taffy) is simply a taffy chew. Instead of the nuggets or rods that come in twisted waxed paper wrapers that you’d get on vacation, Laffy Taffy comes in little bars that form fit the candy. They come in a variety of fruity flavors, but the key aspect of Laffy Taffy is that it’s tangy. Instead of just sweet and flavor, there’s also a tart note to the chew.

For the actual taste of Tangy Taffy ... imagine if you will, a fruit flavored caulk. Add some citric acid. Add some coloring. You’re getting close…
Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America by Steve Almond

The little snack sized bars are larger than a regular taffy piece, they’re really two bites. Each clocks in at about 35 calories and doesn’t take into account the energy you expend chewing. The wrappers feature bad jokes, usually two, depending on how well the wrapper is glued together.

The pieces are soft and easy to remove from the package, though you have to destroy the wrapper completely in order to do so. The color is strange, like hot chocolate and not at all what I would have expected.

It does smell sweet and creamy. The flavor on the tongue, though, is immediately tangy with a rather authentic, if overly tart, apple flavor. The caramel part comes in as the chew goes on and the sour fades as a real caramel note, a sort of toffee/toasted flavor.

What I was hoping for was a stripe of apple taffy and a stripe of caramel flavored taffy, and you’d mix them together as you chewed them. Instead it’s a fully mixed experience, like the kind a baby bird would get if momma birds at caramel apples.

The most successful candy I’ve had to date that emulates a caramel covered apple are the Tootsie Caramel Apple Pops - which are an apple flavored lollipop covered in actual caramel.

There’s no statement about gluten, nuts or peanuts, but the wrapper does say that the candy contains soy.

Related Candies

1. Twizzlers Caramel Apple Filled Twists
2. Charms Super Blow Pop Caramel Apple
3. Werther’s Original Caramel Apple Filled
4. Mehlenbacher’s Taffy
5. Wonka Laffy Taffy
6. Tootsie Caramel Apple Pops
7. Bonomo & Doscher Banana Taffy
8. Milk Maid Caramel Apple Candy Corn

As the seasonal flavors hit the store shelves, Caramel Apple seems to be all the rage this year. Hershey’s has introduced Twizzlers Caramel Apple Filled Twists.

The candy comes in a few formats. I saw them in the stores as a full sized bag of Twizzler Twists and saw some photos online of the King Sized package. I found this Snack Size package at the grocery story and liked that they were individually wrapped pairs of twists. Each twist is about 2.25 inches long, and each package is about a half an ounce and 50 calories.

Twizzlers Filled Twists are ready for fall festivities with our take on a seasonal favorite: Caramel Apple. They’re a delicious treat that’s easy to eat.

The color of the candy is quite striking. The pair of short twists are joined together, but easy to pull apart. The green twists are very green but slightly translucent and shiny. The filling is a creamy camel color, not gooey enough to spill out even when the pieces are cut or pulled apart. (So it’s not a real caramel, just a caramel cream filling ... sort of like an Oreo center.)

They smell like green apple Jolly Ranchers. The bite is very soft, the chew is also soft. The flavor is odd. After the smell, I expect a tangy bite to it, but it’s not. It’s sweet and tastes like fake apple with that light note of PlayDoh that red licorice often has ... but there’s no tartness to it at all. The caramel filling is grainy, like frosting with a little buttery toffee note to it.

Overall, it’s not a bad candy. It’s not as artificial as I’d expect, without any overtly weird green apple bitterness or too-much-fake-butter flavor. I question the need for a red licorice version of caramel apple flavors, but I think it’s a nice take on the idea.

Related Candies

1. Charms Super Blow Pop Caramel Apple
2. Jolly Rancher Caramel Apple Lollipops
3. Russell Stover Big Bite Caramel Apple
4. Limited Edition Milky Way Caramel Apple Minis
5. Werther’s Original Caramel Apple Filled
6. Twizzlers Sweet & Sour Filled Twists
7. Milk Maid Caramel Apple Candy Corn
8. Caramel Apple Sugar Babies

Just Born is attempting to make Marshmallow Peeps a year-round treat. I’ve already tried the Vanilla Creme version, so today I’ll review the new Peeps Minis Chocolate Creme.

There are a few ways to approach it. They could just continue making different shapes and colors like they do for the holidays. Perhaps a tech themed array like the Facebook like button, the Twitter bird and the loading animation you get when trying to stream videos most of the time. Or perhaps transportation, like cars, boats and airplanes. Some pets, like cats and rabbits and birds (wait, those are already shapes they make). Maybe happy faces or embrace emoji and go with an array of different symbols.

Instead, Peeps have gone a different way with their marketing plans. They’ve taken Peeps out of the tray, made them smaller and singular. Well, not completely singular. They’re still called Peeps even though they’re no longer conjoined. They’re sold in a stand up bag that reseals with a zip. There are 24 in the bag, even though it only holds 3.4 ounces. (A similar sized bag of chocolate candy holds about 6-8 ounces.)

They don’t look chocolatey, and they don’t look marshmallow. They’re slumped little fellows, they look a little tired and deflated. I understand that they haven’t been coddled inside a tray with a sunroof like most other Peeps, so I’ll have to consider that these Peeps aren’t supposed to be admired for their good looks ... you must buy them for their other qualities.

The bag smells like a cake mix, a little like cocoa, and fake vanilla, and sugar of course. There’s a lot of sugar. It seems like there’s more sugar coating, more grainy sugar in proportion to the marshmallow than a regular tray Peep. I didn’t care for the heavy dose of sweetness here, especially since the marshmallow part was so lacking cocoa. It was like weak chocolate milk.

They’re far too sweet for me, even when combined with other treats as a sort of condiment for nuts or very dark chocolate.

Peeps are gluten free but may contain milk, even though here’s none in the ingredients. They’re made in the USA.

Related Candies

1. Peeps Minis Vanilla Creme
2. 3 Musketeers Hot Cocoa Marshmallow Minis
3. Peeps Gingerbread Men
4. Kraft Jet-Puffed Marshmallows + Vanilla, Cinnamon Bun, Strawberry, Chocolate Royale, Gingerbread
5. Meiji Creamy Marshmallow Chocolate
6. Peeps Peepsters (Milk & Dark Chocolate)
7. Peeps Chocolate Mousse (Bears & Bunnies)
8. Peeps Spooky Cats & Cocoa Bunnies

For many years I have chronicled the demise of once-great candies that were cultural touchstones for generations of Americans. The usual trajectory of a candy like this is that the company making it compromises too many times with cheaper ingredients and formulas until consumers lose interest in the product entirely and it is quietly discontinued. No one misses it much, because it broke their heart before it died.

It’s rare to see a reversal. I’m glad to be here to tell you about it. Hershey’s Krackel bar was one of the last candy bars that Milton Hershey personally developed before he passed away. It was introduced in 1938 (and had nuts in as well, for a time). When the Hershey’s Miniatures were developed, it was one of the bars chosen to represent the favorite of the Hershey bar assortment. The single-serving bar always stood out at the candy counter, in a bold red wrapper and large letter with a made-up word for the name.

(Hershey’s Krackel mockolate miniatures circa 2008)

In 2006 Hershey’s discontinued the single-serving, king-size and larger sizes of the Krackel bar. It was still included in the Hershey’s Miniatures ... but with a substantial change to the formula, it was now “made with chocolate” but also adulterated with other vegetable oil fillers. (What they were, I can’t say, because Hershey’s would not disclose the ingredients at the time, though later packaging did list each bar separately.) At the same time Mr. Goodbar continued to be produced in all sizes, though they did move to the mockolate recipe.

With some small fanfare Hershey’s announced the return of the Krackel bar, citing shareholders as part of the reason for the return. The change to real chocolate was made in miniatures early this year and the bars returned in May. The current ingredients are:

Milk Chocolate (sugar, chocolate, cocoa butter, nonfatmilk, milk fat, soy lecithin, PGPR, vanillin), Crisp Rice (rice flour, sugar, malt extract, salt, monoglycerides, tocopherols.

I can’t exactly recall the actual Krackel bar any longer. I know I liked it as a kid and I know that I preferred it in the miniature version, because the chocolate was thicker. But other than that, I’ll have to judge the Krackel on its current merits without any comparisons because I don’t have a time machine and if I did, I probably wouldn’t use it to taste old candy recipes.

The bar smells sweet and lightly milky. It’s not like the regular Hershey’s chocolate that has that yogurty tang. Instead it’s just sort of fudgy, like cheap frosting. The crunches are good, they’re spaced out a bit, so it’s not terribly airy, just crunchy. Crisped rice often has malt in it, as this does, which usually gives Krackel a sort of malted-milk-ball-in bar-form vibe. Sadly, there’s not much going on here, though the hint of salt keeps it from being too sweet.

It’s much better than the previous mockolate version, though a far cry from being a good chocolate bar. It’s simply a passable candy bar.

I did pick up a Nestle Crunch bar at the same time, which has gone through a few formula changes over the years as well. The ingredients are similar, they’re both 1.55 ounces, though the Nestle has 10 more calories.

The ingredients on the Nestle Crunch are actually a bit better, with no preservatives or PGPR. When I tried the bar last time, I found it much better than previous versions, but not something I was likely to seek out.

As you can see from the comparison of the bars, the Crunch is on the bottom and has a lot more crisped rice in it. I did prefer the airy texture and crispy rice, but the chocolate flavor was nearly impossible to discern. As a piece of candy, it was passable. As a chocolate bar with crisped rice, it was very disappointing.

The Hershey’s chocolate texture was a bit better, but that could be that there was just a slightly higher chocolate ratio, since there were fewer crisped rice bits.

Neither comes out a huge winner, really. I like both package designs. Both are made in the United States. Neither Nestle or Hershey’s are using ethically source chocolate yet. (Though Nestle does have a “Cocoa Plan”, its little seals are just to direct you to information about its plan, not as a notation that this bar is actually using traceable cacao.)

You can see more examples of classic Krackel wrappers here.

I’m still going to say that the Trader Joe’s Crispy Rice Milk Chocolate is my favorite. Though the ingredients don’t differ that much, there are no preservatives and no PGPR and it has 18% cacao content (about 1.5x the amount of Hershey’s). Still ... even though it’s made with Belgian chocolate, I don’t know the sourcing of it, but would like to see Trader Joe’s give some assurances about the ethical sourcing in the future.

In the category of licorice-free extruded starch gels, Twizzlers are at the top of the heap. Though they’re known mostly for the standard hollow Strawberry twist, Twizzlers come in a vast array of flavors, color and formats. One of the newer versions Twizzlers has been expanding is the Pull n Peel varieties. Pull n Peel is basically the old fashioned laces, but formatted in a way that makes them easier to portion and package.

I picked up this king size version of Twizzlers Mixed Berry at Walgreen‘s, mostly because it came in the king size instead of the big nearly-a-pound bag. There are six twists in the package, a mix of three flavors: Cherry, Black Raspberry and Strawberry.
Each serving is two twists, so the package contains three servings - which isn’t bad for a king size package. However, the pricing for king size versus the full sized bag is never in your favor. (In this case, a quick check of the shelf meant knowing I was paying twice as much per ounce over the large bag, even with this on sale.)

The twists look kind of like a swollen version of what you’d find if you stripped the insulation off a phone cable. There are nine different colored “wires” in each bundle. The effect is quite appealing, as they twist gently and stick together lightly in the package. It’s kind of like a wheat-based package of mozzarella cheese sticks.

The texture is much more smooth and pliable than the regular Twizzlers, which I find a bit on the stuff and crumbly side of the plastic realm. My twists stuck together quite a bit, so it was hard to just pull off a single lace to eat separately. Cherry was the most discernible of the flavors. It had a deep medicinal note. It was smooth, not too sweet but also had a hint of salt to it. Strawberry was very mild and more sweet than Cherry. It didn’t have any tangy note, which I didn’t expect, but was also missing that fresh floral hint that usually evokes cotton candy in many other strawberry candies. The Black Raspberry (the blue strand) didn’t do much for me, it wasn’t distinct as a raspberry flavor on its own, but it definitely wasn’t the same as the other two.

Eaten as a whole bite of multiple strands, it works well. None of them stand out, it’s just a generic fruity-berry flavor. There’s a bitter note towards the end though, which I’d guess are the artificial colors or flavors.

I could say that one twist is satisfying enough (about .7 ounces), since I didn’t want to eat another after that. But if you’re the kind of person who misses that period of life known as kindergarten when it was socially acceptable to eat PlayDoh, then the Twizzlers Pull n Peel are probably right up your alley. (I’m not making that up, either. The ingredients of Play Doh are also largely starch based, though it’s not sold as a food item and Hasbro dissuades people from eating it, it’s really the salt that might make that a bad idea and the fact that it contains wheat so it’s not gluten free.)

Related Candies

1. Twizzlers Chocolate Twists
2. Limited Edition Twizzlers Pull ‘n’ Peel Grape
3. Crazy Candy Co Candy Laces
4. Sour Punch Bits - Tangerine-Lemonade
5. Twizzlers (Strawberry)
6. Red Vines
7. Cinnamon Fire Twizzlers

In the list of candy holidays, Easter ranks at the top by creating more Candies You Can Play With than any other. The product name, Creamy Lemonhead and Friends JuJu Flowers, actually sounds weird. A lot of those words don’t seem to go together. The Lemonheads and Friends as a brand doesn’t work for me, as I don’t think that the friends are that identifiable. The word creamy before Lemonhead is absolutely jarring and the idea of Jujus are anachronistic enough but then adding the shape of them just makes for a string of “I don’t think I’ve had that before, have I?”

These pretty morsels aren’t shaped like eggs or rabbits, but simply like little six petal flowers. (For the record, I looked up jujubes, they’re in the same order as roses and do actually have five petals or multiples of five.)

The flavors sounded interesting: marshmallow creme, orange creme, strawberry creme, lime creme and banana creme. The last one, banana creme was the one that really got me. Banana is not a common flavor, so this pretty much was why I plunked down my dollar.

Marshmallow Creme is pretty much flavorless. Not that there’s anything wrong with sugar flavored candy. It was very clean with a light vanilla note. I liked using it as a palate cleanser between the other flavors.

Lime Creme has a rather interesting flavor profile. The creamy background gives this a key lime note, though there’s no tart note to it like actual citrus fruit.

Orange Creme is refreshing. It’s like a creamsicle without the zap of the orange juice. It’s just sweetness with the creamy smoothness of the jelly chew and a hint of zest.

Strawberry Creme , unfortunately, has some red dye flavors that just ruin it for me. It’s more strongly flavored that the other pieces, the strawberry is rather fake instead of clean and fresh, which is too bad. Since there’s no tangy component, a candy like this should taste rather like cotton candy, not a vinyl inflatable beach ball.

Banana Creme was not what I’d hoped. Instead of a creamy, sweet tropical banana flavor ... it really tasted like a bland lemon creme to me. It tasted do much like lemon that I have to wonder if the packaging label was a mistake. Now, as a lemon creme, it’s passable, actually good. It’s like the marshmallow but with the slightest hint of lemon.

All the flavors were mild, but the whole thing was, well, simply pleasant. They’re like Dots, except they don’t stick to my teeth quite as much (but they still stick).

I wouldn’t buy these again for eating, but they are really great looking. Their outside texture is smooth and dry, so they don’t stick together at all. The colors are bright enough that they could be used for something other than Easter, as well. I could see these as a nice jar of candy for a candy buffet for a wedding or shower. They’re certainly inexpensive, at $2 per pound, if you wanted to sort them to use only particular colors, that would be a viable option for many budgets. They’re not gummis, so there’s no gelatin in there. They’re made in a facility with peanuts, tree nuts, milk and soy.

Related Candies

1. Brach’s Carrot Cake Candy Corn
2. Lemonhead & Friends Jellies
3. Ferrara Chocolate Candy Coated Chocolate Covered Almond Eggs
4. Ferrara Pan Chicks & Bunnies Jelly Candy
5. Eat with your Eyes: Easter Dots
6. Lemonhead & Friends Jelly Beans
7. Christmas Dots
8. Marich Easter Select Mix
9. Dots
10. Jelly Belly Deluxe Easter Mix

You would think that a candy as special as Sour Patch Kids, first introduced in the 1970s in North America, would be available all over the world by now. Sour Patch Kids are basically sour sanded Swedish Fish (also introduced originally by Malaaco but now made by Cadbury/Adams, now part of the global Mondelez/Kraft snack empire) and have become a sort of genre of candy all on their own. There are a dozen different varieties, from single flavor (watermelon), fruit & berry shapes and odd flavor combinations.

Back in 2012 Mondelez introduced Sour Patch Kids to the United Kingdom under the brand Maynard‘s, which was already known for its kid-friendly sugar candy lines. They weren’t a straight-up import though, the flavors were tweaked to include blackcurrant and instead of being a jelly candy, they were made with gelatin ... now they were gummis.

I actually wasn’t aware of this history before I went to London. All I knew was there were some new Sour Patch Kids flavors not sold in the United States: Maynard’s Sour Patch Kids Soda Popz. The flavors are Cola, Orangeade, Cherryade, Tropical and Apple Fizz. They were easy to find but rather pricey for the 160 gram bag (5.64); they retail for £1.48 or about $2.50.

What originally interested me was the cola. There are Haribo sour sanded cola gummis, but no vegetarian options as far as I knew. Well, if you read closely above, the Maynard’s version contains gelatin (though it’s bovine, so if you avoid pork products, you can still eat these though they’re not marked Kosher or Halal).

Cola was definitely the star here. It’s quite tangy at the start and though I was thinking these might have some sort of fizzy component, they’re just sour sanded. The cola flavor is well rounded with some spicy notes as well as a good lemon and lime zesty citrus bite. The flavor seemed a little more intense than the Haribo Happy Cola, but still didn’t quite rival the excellent Cuba Libre gummis I got last year from Sugarfina.

Orangeade was going to be my second favorite by its description, because I used to like orange soda. But this was strange. The sour start was good, but the flavor got strange after that. It’s sweet but not very orange and there’s a darker note in there, almost like there was a mix up and some tropical flavoring was dumped in there.

Cherryade is weird. At first it tasted like a medicinal cough drop, then it was pleasantly sour, then it went back to the cough drop. It’s almost like a Dr. Pepper, the cherry flavor is that far off from the wild cherry of Life Savers. Of course I’ve never had British cherry soda, so this might be a great imitation.

Apple Fizz is interesting, but only in a disappointing way. At first it tastes like a sour Jolly Rancher, with a little note of actual apple juice ... but then it tastes like I’m chewing on a vinyl children’s wading pool. It’s pretty awful.

Tropical actually tasted like blackcurrant, if that’s possible, with some guava thrown in for soupy sweetness. Definitely distinctive, definitely one I avoided.

For a late entry into the sour sanded gummi, these aren’t good enough to compete, at least in the US. Now, if Cadbury/Adams wanted to make a jelly version of these for the US, I’m absolutely interested. The flavors, however, should be more like our popular sodas: Cola, Cherry-Cola, Root Beer (or Grape if the sourness is an issue), Lemon-Lime and Dr. Pepper (or whatever that flavor is).

Maynard’s Sour Patch Kids Soda Popz are not gluten free.

For a local opinion, hop over to Grocery Gems for a review.

While I was pondering Sour Patch Kids, I saw at the store that there’s actually a new flavor in the current mix. Thankfully they didn’t boot a flavor out of the standard berry, lime, orange and lemon mix, instead they’ve just added in blue raspberry.

I picked up a box, mostly to compare the texture of the gummi version to the jelly version. But I figured I’d give the old blue a try, too. My initial impression without trying them was that blue raspberry was going to be too close to the Swedish red flavor and wouldn’t be distinctive.

The sourness of Sour Patch Kids is distinctive - it’s tart, it’s sandy, but the powder is actually less grainy in the North American version than the UK. It’s immediately sour, but not such a thick crust that it doesn’t dissipate quickly. Mostly I was tasting this for the new blue flavor, but I reminded myself why Sour Patch Kids are fantastic.

Blue is a light raspberry flavor, there’s a strong sweetness to the center with a light floral flavor ... but this is pretty much the profile of the red one (Swedish Fish flavor). It’s not quite as intense, but if you gave these to me with my eyes shut, I don’t think I could tell the difference. In fact, I separated out a pile of blue and red mixed, and at them without looking and really didn’t know the difference. The lime, lemon and orange are easy to pick out, even though they’re all citrus.

There’s no problem, as far as I’m concerned, to simply have another berry flavor in the mix, even if it’s not distinctive. I’ve always wondered why they didn’t have grape though. My favorite will always be orange, it’s zesty and soft and sour. All the right things in all the right proportions.

Related Candies

1. Haribo Happy Cola Gefullt
2. Sugarfina: The Gummis
3. Jelly Belly Soda Pop Shoppe Gummi Bottles
4. Morinaga HiCHEW Fanta: Grape & Orange plus Cola
5. Kanro Pure Lemon Cola
6. Napoleon BonBon Cola
7. Haribo Ingwer-Zitrone Gummis
8. Fresh Cola Mentos
9. Haribo Fizzy Cola