It’s fun to see all the kids candy for Halloween, but sometimes adults want something a little special too. Enter Seattle Chocolates Devil’s Delight Dark Chocolate Truffle Bar with Peanut Butter & Pretzels. It’s described as Salted pretzel pieces and creamy peanut butter in dark chocolate that uses Rainforest Alliance Certified™ cocoa. A devilishly delicious combination!. That definitely sounds right up my alley.

It’s nice to see a seasonal bar using ethically sourced cacao, and in this case, it’s no more expensive than other similar bar on store shelves.

Don’t be disappointed if it’s not your cup of tea, there are two others: Bloody Orange Truffle Bar and Dead Sea Salt Truffle Bar.

The bar is compact and uses the same mold as all the other Seattle Chocolates bars I’ve tried. At 2.5 ounces, it’s a bit too much to eat in one sitting and not quite enough for two portions. Basically, it’s perfect for the stingy sharer ... give one section to another person, eat the rest yourself.

The pieces are thick sections that hold the truffle filling.

The bar smells pleasantly nutty with a woodsy chocolate component. The dark chocolate is bittersweet and has a nice, silky melt. The filling is a little odd. It’s very peanutty, which I enjoyed and had some good salty pops. But the pretzel pieces seemed stale, as can happen when mixing with inclusions. I liked the peanut butter part, very smooth and nutty and offset well by the dark chocolate. I think they mix the peanut butter in with white chocolate, which is genius. Overall, I liked it, though I didn’t finish it in one sitting. One of the things I’ve seen that solves the stale pretzel problem is to give them a quick dip in chocolate before mixing them in.

This bar was sent to me as a sample from Seattle Chocolates, but I did see them for sale at Cost Plus World Market.

Related Candies

1. Revisit Reviews: Pretzel M&Ms, Rally Bar and Snickers Rockin’ Nut Road
2. Jer’s Peanut Butter Bars
3. Russell Stover Kris P. Pretzel Bunny
4. M&Ms Sweet & Salty Snack Mix
5. Snyder’s Peanut Butter Pretzel Sandwich Dips
6. Seattle Chocolates Perfect Peanut Butter

Last 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.

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.

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.

See’s Candies is a classic American confectionery company that makes good quality chocolates. They’re sold almost exclusively at See’s Candies stores, which are mostly found in malls, and mostly in the Western US but they’re also available online and from the occasional educational fundraiser.

Though See’s is known for their chocolates they also make a unique line of lollipops that are like a hard caramel on a stick. Over the past five years they’ve created seasonal varieties with more trendy flavors like Pumpkin Spice and Orange Creme. I wasn’t at all surprised to see the announcement that in additional to their Pumpkin Spice and Orange Chocolate this fall, they were also bringing out See’s Caramel Apple Lollypops.

Their pops are available singly at the stores or in bags of 8 online. If you’ve never had a See’s lollypop, they’re about 3/4 of an ounce block of hard caramel with a stick. The shape is blocky, about 1 inch wide and 1.5 inches tall.

It smells like apples, not the green apples of Jolly Rancher, but more like apple cider.

The flavor is immediately caramel and a little dash of salt with a note of apple peels. There’s no tartness, no tang; the apple flavor is less of a caramel covered apple and more like an apple pie with caramel sauce. The wonderful part of these lollies is that the dissolve is so smooth and it feels a lot more filling that its 70 calories might have you believe.

I enjoyed them quite bit. The items that detracted are the same problems I always have. The paper stick gets soggy and more often than not, the caramel block comes off the stick while the piece is really too big to hold comfortably in my mouth. Often there is a series of holes within the candy running its length which makes sucking on the pop problematic because it’s more like a straw where you suck in air than speed up the dissolve of the candy. See’s makes mini versions of their classic flavors, but not of the seasonal, limited edition ones.

Related Candies

1. Shurms Soft Candy Chews: Caramel Apple and Caramel Coffee
2. Wonka Laffy Taffy Caramel Apple (Limited Edition)
3. Twizzlers Caramel Apple Filled Twists
4. Charms Super Blow Pop Caramel Apple
5. Russell Stover Big Bite Caramel Apple
6. Tootsie Caramel Apple Pops
7. See’s Lollypops
8. See’s Pumpkin Spice & Root Beer Lollypops

Shurms Soft Candy Chews are made in Michigan and gluten free. But that’s not what sets them apart from other artisan-style candies.

Shurms are unique in the candy world, at least in my experience. The company offered me a couple of samples and I was eager to try their Caramel Coffee candies, but also figured I should try their Caramel Apple because it’s the season for such things.

They came in a 10 piece box (3 ounces), which retails for $4.59. They’re sold on the web and locally in Michigan.

Since this is the season of Caramel Apple candies, I have to say that this is a unique item and deserves attention on its own. It’s amazing to look at, though kind of hard to capture with the camera. The green candy is translucent, perhaps even glowing in the dark. It’s very green (of course those are food colorings doing that) while the caramel part is the color of over-milked coffee.

The Caramel Apple consists of two layers. The green layer is a pectin based jelly candy on a base of traditional soft caramel. It smells, well, lovely. The caramel has a good toffee note to it and a little butter and then there’s the fresh scent of apple.

The candy is soft. There are a few ways to eat it: pop the whole thing in your mouth at once, eat the layers separately or bite through both layers. I opted mostly for the latter. The pectin layer is an fascinating candy in and of itself. It’s firmer than a jelly, chewier than a gumdrop and a bit on the sticky side by itself. The green apple flavor is mild but well developed with both juice notes and a sort of apple peel flavor in there as well. The texture reminded me of Botan Rice Candy. The caramel is soft and has a light salty note and excellent toasted sugar elements.

It’s an interesting textural experience. The sweetness of the pectin layer is offset well by the salt of the caramel. The sticky melt of the pectin is broken up by the fat in the caramel. It’s not a candy I ever would have thought of.

The Caramel Coffee are a little different, since there’s no fruity tartness to cut through the sweetness. However, there is the bitter note of coffee. The pectin layer here is a deep brown and glossy, but not transparent at all. It smells like caramel, there’s no hint of the coffee. The pectin layer is definitely coffee, but very sweet. There’s a light acidic hint to it. The caramel is sweet and salty but also has a rum vibe going on. The whole thing has a satisfying chew and textures, but is missing something for me.

I appreciate how different this candy is, but curiosity doesn’t fulfill me. It’s great that these are gluten free and I do admire the limited but appropriate flavor combinations they have. There’s also a cherry and caramel version. (Gluten free but contains milk and soy.)

Related Candies

1. Russell Stover Big Bite Caramel Apple
2. Sugarfina: The Chocolates
3. Sunkist Fruit Gems
4. Ginger People Spicy Apple Ginger Chews
5. Sweet Earth Bittersweet Chocolate Drops & Coffee Caramels
6. Meiji Poifull
7. Russell Stover Pectin Jelly Beans
8. Coffee Nips

Albanese Confectionery is a small family-run confectionery company in Indiana. They started in 1983 and though their candies encompass chocolate covered nuts, nut mixes and chocolates. But in the past ten years, Albanese has become known for their extensive line of gummis that not only come in a wide variety of flavors, but also in some innovative shapes.

I finally picked up Albanese Rainforest Gummi Frogs at Lolli & Pops, since I was able to select them from the bulk bins instead of buying a 5lb bag on the internet (there were probably other options in between). There are three different flavor combinations: blue raspberry & orange, strawberry & grape and, sour lemon & sour green apple.

The pieces are quite large, about the size of tree frogs I was familiar with seeing in Northern California.  (One lived in the shower of a house I shared in Arcata Bay bottoms.) The gummis weigh about a half an ounce each. They’re two inches long and their armspan is 2.5 inches.

My first little buddy is the blue and orange one. The blue body is blue raspberry with orange legs. The flavor has a wonderful sour bite to it, and a good pliable chew that’s not too tough. The legs are juicy, like an orange gummi should be, and a little more sweet than the body.

The yellow and green one is sour lemon and sour green apple. The green apple legs are absolutely sour, and it seems to emerge the more you chew. The flavor goes on, all the way until it’s completely dissolved. The green apple flavor is very Jolly Rancher. The lemon is equally good, with strong zest notes as well as that metallic Country Time Lemonade powder flavor. (I used to eat lemonade mix as a kid because it was cheaper than Fun Dip.)

The final frog has purple legs and a red body. The red parts are strawberry. It’s nicely tart and chewy, but not too tough. The legs are grape, and those have the same tart note, the flavor takes quite a while to develop and is very mildly “grape soda.”

The pieces are quite large and two is more than a serving as far as I was concerned. I liked the flavor combinations and the molding and design is well done. I can see children and adults enjoying these. They’d also fit well in theme parties or as decorations. It might be fun if Albanese considered wrapping them individually for Halloween treating.

Note, I did not have the nutrition information for the Rainforest Frogs specifically, so I used the Gummy Army Guys. I think that Albanese should include the ingredients and nutritional information on their website, since so many of us buy their candies in bulk bins and do not have access to that information otherwise.

Related Candies

1. Haribo The Smurfs Gummi
2. Wonka SweeTarts Gummies
3. Albanese Chocolate Dipped Gummi Bears
4. Trolli Gummi Bear-Rings
5. Candy Source: Albanese Candy Factory
6. Albanese Gummy Army Guys
7. Flix Sour Gummy Pop Corn
8. All Gummies Gourmet Fruity Fish (Swedish Fish knock-off)
9. Albanese Gummi Butterflies

Warheads Sour Jelly Beans are available year round. I picked up this theater-style box at Target.

I’m fond of sour jelly beans, though I pretty much stopped being interested in other brands after Gimbal’s came out with their Sour Jelly Beans. I like the sourness, but I also enjoy the actual flavors in those beans. But I noticed that Warheads Sour Jelly Beans has a Sour Meter on the front and only rates these as Sour ... which is more than Tart and less than the highest level of Extreme. So, on the 4 point scale with 4 as the most acidic, these are a 2.

There are six flavors in the box: Orange, Watermelon, Lemon, Blue Raspberry, Cherry and Green Apple.

These beans look different, like colorful, rugged pebbles. They have a sort of powdery look to the outside, which I took to be some sort of a sour coating ... which makes my mouth water just thinking about it.

They’re constructed much like regular jelly beans: a jelly center, then a sort of grainy coating and then a hardened shell. Though they look like they’d be soft, like a Spearmint Leaf jelly candy, they’re actually a bit crunchy on the outside.

Blue Raspberry is quite nice, which is good because I had far more blue beans in my box than any other color. It starts out quite sour but then the flavor has a good mix of the floral berry flavors, a note of grassy seeds and then a sweet finish. It’s artificial, but in the comforting way.

Orange is a little less tangy than I’d hoped. It starts well, with a juicy note and then finishes with some good zest.

Watermelon are soft pink and not easy to tell apart from the cherry in low-light conditions (such as a movie theater). The flavor is bizarre and unappealing to me. It’s sour, like a watermelon rind and some fake melon flavors in there, but then it’s just sweet and bland. It’s not that this doesn’t capture watermelon well, it’s that I wonder why anyone really wants watermelon candy as the actual stuff is more about the textures and large amounts of water.

Green Apple is admirably nuanced. It starts out with a good tangy bite and a note of apple juice, then it goes into the fragrant artificial green apple flavor. It’s not very sour, but still well balanced.

Cherry tastes like sour powder on top of some flavored lip gloss. Not my sort of thing and certainly not sour enough to be called Warheads.

Lemon starts out with a nice tangy bite that’s almost salty. That’s the best they got, however, most tasted like vinyl packaging or, worse, something stored under the kitchen sink adjacent to cleaning supplies. I don’t know what went wrong with these, but a sour lemon candy should be the best flavor in any assortment.

The beans are odd, the texture is different enough to distinguish them from the otherwise superior Gimbal’s Sour Jelly Beans (which are hard to find) but not quite the same as the Nerds Jelly Beans. If they’re similar to anything, it would probably be Sour Patch Kids, which have the same sour outside then sweet inside. The flavor assortment was not quite to my liking, though I’m sure others will appreciate the Green Apple and Cherry. They’re good candy, just not good for me.

Related Candies

1. Sour Punch Punchies
2. Gimbal’s Sour Gourmet Jelly Beans
3. Tootsie Sour Dots
4. Warheads QBZ
5. Wonka Nerds Jelly Beans
6. Sour Patch Kids
7. Wonka Sour Nerds
8. Warheads Juniors Extreme Sour

As part of the new trend of morsel snacking (morselization), more candy makers are creating mixes of existing candy to capture consumers. The Haribo Funny Mix is a combination of existing candies into a new variety.

I picked this up on London not really because of the mix idea, but because it was Halal, which means that the gelatin used is not porcine in origin. I’ve had Haribo’s Kosher grapefruit slice gummis before and found they had a slightly different texture and was curious if there was any difference here. The package says it’s made in Turkey, which is where most Haribo candies sold in the US are made. Haribo makes a range of Funny Mixes, which contain different mixes of sugar candy, including a version of jelly candies that are vegetarian.

The mix consists of:
Mini Gummi Bears
Blackberries & Raspberries
Mini Cola Bottles
Mini Gummi Worms
Mini Hearts

There’s nothing new in this mix that I haven’t tried before, but the variety is well done. There’s a good mix between the gummi items and the other novelty pieces like the berries and foam-bottomed frogs. Since most of them are mini sized, they tumble out of the bag well and would do well mixed in with other candies or eaten at the movies or while gaming.

A quick review of each of the items:

Mini Gummi Bears are great. They’re firm but very flavorful and wonderfully consistent in their bouncy texture. There isn’t a flavor I don’t like in the standard mix, which is a huge plus when grabbing from a mix like this, I don’t even have to look.

Cola Bottles are great, they’re a little spicy, lightly tart and just the right size for a single bite.

The Blackberries & Raspberries are my least favorite item in the mix, in fact, I skipped them. Luckily they’re easy to spot either visually or simply by touch if you’re reaching into the bag. The candy beads are simply too sweet, they’re crunchy but grainy and offer no flavor. The center doesn’t pack much punch to mix in with the textural addition and the colorings also give it a weird flavor.

Gummi Worms are not overly large and are pretty much like the Gummi Bears, except they’re a little larger.

The Mini Hearts have a white foam base. I only got one of these, and found it similar to the Frogs that Haribo has made very popular.

I like the minis and in general, all the candies in the mix are great. I like having the mix of fruity flavors plus the cola ... but the berries are a bit of a dealbreaker. This is a very attractive mix, though, so if you’re looking for something fun to put in a bowl for kids or folks coming over to watch a game, it’s a good option since there’s something for everyone (who likes gummis).

Related Candies

1. Wonka Randoms Gummy Variety (and some Rowntree)
2. Morinaga HiCHEW Mini
3. Candy Crush: Mixed Fruit and Sour Gummies
4. Sugarpova: Sporty & Splashy
5. Sugarfina: The Gummis
6. Haribo Gold Bears from Turkey and Germany
7. Storck Mamba Sour Gummies
8. Haribo Ingwer-Zitrone Gummis

Labor Day is kind of the marker for the beginning of Candy Season ... which is the ramp up to Halloween. Candy Corn is inextricably tied with this time of year, for its associations with harvest and, of course, North America is known for its corn.

In order to keep people interested in Candy Corn, Brach’s has been introducing new flavored varieties for the past five years or so, in addition to their classic Candy Corn, Indian Corn and Mellocremes. I was rather interested in the Brach’s Caramel Macchiato Candy Corn because it sounded less sweet. Coffee actually sounds like a natural flavor combination for Candy Corn, and a touch of salty caramel should help it fit in nicely with the fondant flavor profile.

The pieces do a good job of replicating the look of a coffee drink: dark base, caramel orange middle and white top. (Though the picture shows the caramel on the top of the foamed milk.)

The ingredients list real coffee as a flavoring, as well as honey. The ingredients also list sesame oil, which I don’t think I’ve seen on the list before and note that the candy was made on equipment with milk, eggs, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat and soy are present. Brach’s also uses gelatin in their Candy Corn.

The base is a bit salty and a wonderfully sweet, woodsy coffee flavor. It’s a bit of a stale flavor, like coffee powder, but this is Candy Corn, not a high end truffle. The middle section is lightly salty with a note of honey plus a little hint of butter and the continuing coffee flavor. The white top is less flavorful and also a bit on the crunchy side.

I’m finding that I like these. I was surprised, but I also enjoyed the Carrot Cake Candy Corn earlier this year. If you like Candy Corn, you may enjoy these as a little change of pace. If you don’t, these will not change your mind.

Related Candies

1. Brach’s Carrot Cake Candy Corn
2. Brach’s S’mores Candy Corn
3. Starburst Original Fruit Flavored Candy Corn
4. Jelly Belly Candy Corn Jelly Beans
5. Halloween Dots: Bat, Candy Corn & Ghost
6. Milk Maid Caramel Apple Candy Corn
7. Milk Maid Caramel Candy Corn
8. Brach’s Autumn Mix