I popped into See’s yesterday to see what was new for the summer. The Root Beer Lollipops are back in stock (through mid-August), so if you were a fan of those (mini review here), then pop by for your fix.

I realized that I’ve never reviewed the See’s Lollipops in their classic array. The nice thing about them is that they’re summer-proof but also that they’re pretty cheap.

On top of that, they’re creamy and satisfying, last really long but only 70 calories each. They come in four regular flavors that are available singly (don’t forget your free sample!) or by the box: Vanilla, Chocolate, Butterscotch & Cafe Latte.

Vanilla Lollipop

Vanilla looks like a block of nothing. The color is a creamy white, the texture & tint of glossy trim paint.

It smells sweet and vaguely like French vanilla ice cream. The flavor is like a toasted marshmallow - a sweet vanilla with a little hint of bourbon and butter.

It’s a smooth pop with a slightly oily dissolve, which only supports that feeling that I’m eating solid ice cream. It’s sweet, but doesn’t feel cloying or sticky. The pop lasts a long time, too.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Chocolate Lollipop

The chocolate pop doesn’t look like much. It’s not quite shiny ... it’s not really matte either.

It smells like brownie batter.

The texture starts smooth but quickly degrades to an oddly rich but chalky experience. It’s like the mud at the bottom of the cup of hot chocolate. Not that I don’t love that mud, but in this case the texture is rather rough like a cat tongue. 

It’s rich, and does deliver quite a bit of the chocolatey experience without melting. But the chalky/sand paper never quite thrills me.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Butterscotch Lollipop

The color is lovely, like a rich caramel.

The immediate flavor on my tongue was salt. It was very salty to me, but perhaps that was because I was eating the vanilla one right before that.

The texture is ultra smooth, and has the same creamy & buttery melt. The caramelized sugar notes were good but the strongest flavor by far was salty butter.

I liked how smooth the block is, though this is one that I noticed how awkward the pops are in the mouth. It takes a while to smooth away the corners. Over the years this has been my favorite pop mostly because of its simple & true flavor but also the super-slick texture.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Cafe Latte Lollipop

This was the “softest” pop of the bunch. It was a little sticky from the humidity, which gave it a caramel consistency on the outermost layer.

The scent is like dark roast coffee or espresso, but the flavor is like coffee with lots of milk and some sugar in it. There’s a slight coffee bitterness to it, but for the most part it’s like a Coffee Nip with a stick in it.

I appreciated the silky texture and the stick prevented me from gluing my teeth shut as I often do with Nips or Coffee Rio.

Rating: 7 out of 10

A mixed box is a great addition to a vacation when you need a little pick me up, or something to keep you occupied at the office when wrangling endless spreadsheets of metadata.

Related Candies

1. Das Lollipops
2. See’s Cinnamon (Hearts & Lollypops)
3. Coffee Rio
4. See’s Pumpkin Spice & Root Beer Lollypops
5. Coffee Nips
6. Tootsie Rolls & Fruit Rolls
7. See’s Scotchmallow Eggs
8. See’s Awesome Nut & Chew Bar

One of the iconic candies in Japan are caramels. There are oodles of caramels available, most in the classic style of a hard, short caramel (meaning it’s rather chewy but dry).

Often they come in different flavors, but the classic caramel has endured for nearly 100 years. One line is the Meiji Dice, which are little caramels that come in pairs inside cube boxes that also double as dice.  More recently, as Meiji has acquired the Pokka Coffee company, they introduced the Pokka Coffee Caramel.

The cute packages feature half with icons of the Pokka coffee brand with their logo & seal. The other half are the dice - in this case using little coffee beans on each side to mark the numbers.

The caramels are bigger than the Morinaga ones I’ve had before, or the other, similar Meiji cubes.

They’re about 5/8 of an inch square with a distinct checkerboard texture on them. Each pair is wrapped in waxed paper and tucked into a box. So there are eight caramels total.

They smell very sweet and a lot like dark roasted coffee or espresso. There’s very little milk taste to it, though milk is a major ingredient. It’s definitely a sweet black coffee flavor. (Some coffee caramels taste like coffee ice cream.) I liked it much better than the grainy & gone texture of the Chewy Coffee Rio.

The dark, rich flavor and the soft, ample chew was really appealing to me. I found I ate three of the boxes before I was even ready to do this review. They were a bit on the expensive side for a mass-manufactured candy ... and the overpackaging is sweet for the first day or so, but silly and wasteful after that. I’ll likely stick with the Morinaga Caramels I know and love so well, or perhaps try the Meiji Chelsea Coffee if I can find them.

Related Candies

1. Beechies Force Chewy Candy
2. Coffee Nips
3. Japanese Black Sugar & Tropical Chews
4. The Candy Dump 2008
5. Coffee Beat
6. Green and Black Caramels

Just when I thought Mars had done every variation of the Snickers bar, they’ve got another one waiting in the wings: Limited Edition Snickers Fudge.

The simple bar features Fudge with peanut butter nougat & peanuts wrapped in milk chocolate. Like most other limited edition bars, it’s smaller than the standard, this one is the smallest yet at 1.78 ounces.

While the bar may feel a little light, it’s pretty dense and the textures consistent throughout.

I’ve often felt like the Snickers/Milky Way/3 Musketeers nougat is more like a fluffy fudge than a nougat anyway, so this seemed like a stack of dense fudge on top of a layer of light fluffed fudge.

The peanut butter nougat layer has a light creamy color with a distinct salty hit and peanutty flavor. The peanuts studded in the fudge are distinct, a little on the soft side but crunchy and tasty.

The fudge itself has a slight but consistent grain to it, a nice chocolatey flavor and good salty/sweet balance.

The creamy chocolate coating brings it all together.

I missed the chewy caramel, but give this one its due because it is rather different from other existing bars. The salt keeps it from being cloyingly sweet like a Milky Way. Also, I noticed as I was trying to do my bites & slices that there were quite a few voids in there around the nuts. I can’t tell if this is normal or if mine was just an anomaly.

It’s quite a satisfying bar and I can see it being a big success all on its own.

Clocking in at 250 calories, honestly it doesn’t need to be bigger. (Regular bars are 2.07 ounces and 280 calories.)

This bar is supposed to be on shelves in August, but that’s what they said about the Coconut M&Ms which are actually out, so look sharp they may already be available. I’m planning to try another one when I find them.

Related Candies

1. Snickers Nougabot Bar & Transformer M&Ms
2. Snickers Adventure Bar (Indiana Jones)
3. Snickers Rockin’ Nut Road Bar
4. Snickers Charged
5. Snickers Nut ‘n Butter Crunch
6. Snickers Almond Dark
7. Snickers Dark
8. Snickers Xtreme

At the same time I picked up the Trolli Sour Brite Crawlers, I also got a smaller bag of Trolli Sour Brite Crawler Eggs.

While I knew what gummi worms were, I never had these before and wasn’t quite sure what they were.

They certainly look like jelly beans but the ingredients, with gelatin as a key component, read like gummis.

It turns out, after just opening the package and squishing one between my fingers that they’re jelly beans with gummi centers.

(I appreciated that the package on this one had a clear best by date - which the Brite Crawlers did not have.)

Like the Crawler worms, there are three color varieties here:

Red & Yellow = Cherry & Lemon - I loved the look of these when I bit them in half, it’s like tie-dyed candy. The color goes through and through, and the flavor is virtually identical to the worms, a mix of cherry and lemon but with the added texture of the sandy candy shell.

Blue & Pink = Raspberry & Strawberry - for some reason my blue & pink ones were remarkably larger than the two other varieties. Like the worms, I liked this variation best. The woodsy berry & cotton candy with a little tangy pop goes well with the grainy jelly bean coating.

Green & Orange = Lime & Orange - because I was eating these whole instead of biting one end or the other, the combination of flavors was much more important. Lime and orange make a great citrus combo, so I’d say this one works better than the worm version.

The attention to detail and the readily identifiable flavor combos made this a really distinctive candy. As far as jelly bean shaped gummis, I’m not sure anything could supplant the Meiji Gummy Chocos. They come in a close second though. They’re not really sour as advertised, but that aside, it’s a fun, easy to share candy ... perfect movie food.

Related Candies

1. Spree Jelly Beans
2. Dr. Doolittle’s Pastilles (Lemon, Grapefruit & Wild Berry)
3. Chocolate Covered Gummi Bears
4. Wonka Nerds Jelly Beans
5. Jelly Belly Deluxe Easter Mix
6. Krunchy Bears
7. Starburst and Jelly Belly Jelly Beans

There are a lot of confections I call traveling candies. They’re candies that both deliver that sweet boost as well as some other function. I often use hot cinnamon for long car rides to keep me focused and of course coffee items like Nips or Coffee Rio are great for a teensy caffeine boost without fluids.

I also tend to get motion sickness, so ginger candies are a great way to feed my sweet tooth and soothe my tummy.

Here’s a candy from The Ginger People that combines both the soothing spice of ginger and the kick of coffee: Hot Coffee Ginger Chews.

The chews are just like the other ubiquitous Ginger Chews that are available unbranded at Asian markets or from The Ginger People or Chimes. (They’re all made in Indonesia.)

The soft little translucent chew is coated with a tapioca starch & sugar mixture. They still stick to the wrapper and don’t really look like much when pulled out. Sometimes I can find one that’s still block shaped, but most are smashed.

The scent is rather bland. Just sweet and maybe a little woodsy. But I popped one my mouth and the immediate sweetness gave way to quite a few flavors. There’s a strong root & earth component from the ginger then a very strong spicy warm feeling. The coffee kind of kicks in from the background - it’s rather weak coffee note but not tamed by any milk here like so many coffee candies do. It’s a brewed black coffee flavor.

It makes me wonder why I don’t throw sliced ginger into my coffee. It’s a really nice combination - the sugar is sweet but more like barley sugar with a mellow malty or toasted flavor to it.

The cumulative effect of these after a half a dozen is a strong and lingering warm sensation. (And a few little bits stuck in my teeth.)

The drawbacks to these are, first, that they’re vexing to get out of their wrappers. The plastic/mylar stuff is hard to tear open, and never quite opens the whole way. Not exactly easy to open yourself when driving. (This is what navigators were invented for ... not directing you where to go, but to unwrap & hand you your candy.)

Each piece has about 20 calories and no fat. If there’s caffeine in it, it’s not enough for them to note on the package (it’s a coffee extract so it’s not like some candies where you consume the whole bean). Their website says they’re gluten free (but the package doesn’t). They’re made in a facility that processes peanuts. Should be considered vegan, there’s no Kosher or Halal certification.

Related Candies

1. Compartes Chocolates
2. Mitchell’s Candies
3. Candy Dump 2008 part 2
4. VerMints
5. Anis de Flavigny
6. Sweetriot!
7. Ginger Bears
8. Peanut Butter Ginger Chews

Some candies need no review, no introduction or marketing campaign. They simply are and hopefully always will be.

Spearmint Leaves are such a simple candy. A firm jelly molded in the shape of a mint leaf and flavored with spearmint oil (or a reasonable facsimile).

I don’t how long they’ve been around (earliest mention on Google’s news archive is 1928). There’s no fantastical tale of their historical debut at any World’s Fair or even a county fair. They’re probably just a novelty shape of a traditional spice gumdrop. I don’t know who invented them or even who makes the best ones. Even passably good ones are good enough for me.

They’re sold without any fancy brand names, simply Spearmint Leaves. You can get them in bulk, in tubs at the office supply stores or in peg bags at the drug stores.

The ingredients are identical to gum drops. They’re sugar, corn syrup and a bit of corn starch for jelling. Then a little artificial flavor & color to complete the illusion of a platform shoe equivalent of a real leaf of mint.

I picked up my package of Walgreen branded Spearmint Leaves from their 99 cent peg bag selection. I usually look for bags that appear dry and the candies move around easily but that the candies also have a little give when squeezed. Too much moisture is an enemy of jelly candies. It makes the granulated sugar coating sticky and allows their qi to leak out.

I picked a good bag. The color is rather light and oddly on the blue side. The shape of the leaf is a bit narrower at the top than the bottom and has a nice point to it on the end with a little stem. So the molding is nice. The granular sugar coating is good - there’s enough to keep them from sticking but not so much as to overpower the flavor.

The texture inside is smooth. It’s not sticky (at least not as sticky as Dots) and not too sweet. The spearmint notes are dead on - aromatic and kind of sparkly. There are small spots where the spearmint flavor really tingles to the forefront.

It’s a fresh feeling, but not like eating a mint. I can eat a whole bag if I don’t control myself. They’re even still good when stale and a bit tacky.

I know they’re not the sexiest, hippest candy but to be around this long without any sort of marketing support is a testament to their excellence.

Other big candy companies that make Spearmint Leaves are Brach’s & Farley’s and probably others, if you have a favorite, please let me know. It’d be nice to find a company that makes all natural ones (which really shouldn’t be that hard to do) - the closest I’ve come are the fruit flavored gourmet Gum Drops from Whole Foods.

This package isn’t marked Kosher and it says that it’s a product of Canada & USA (I can’t quite figure that one out). They are marked Gluten-Free. (And are probably also considered vegan.) They’re also silly-cheap, so it’s a low risk sort of thing.

Related Candies

1. Jelly Belly Sunkist Citrus Mix
2. Spearmint Licorice
3. Loukoumi Artisan Confections
4. Dots Elements: Earth, Air, Fire & Water
5. Barley Mint Mentos
6. Hot Tamales Ice
7. Chuckles

I like York Peppermint Patties, so I was pretty excited to hear about York Pieces (more here). Especially since I disappointed when Hershey’s discontinued the York Bites, I thought this would be a great “morsel” version of the Peppermint Pattie ... great for snacking & sharing.

The new Hershey’s Pieces line takes classic candy bars and makes them into little lentils covered in a candy shell.

The description from the press release was a little vague: Peppermint Flavored Dark Chocolate Candy in a Crunchy Shell, so I wasn’t sure what they would be like until I got my hands on these sales samples direct from Hershey’s. Would they have the classic fondant center? It begs the question, what is the essence of a York Peppermint Pattie?

It turns out, to my disappointment, that they are exactly as described above. Mint flavored dark chocolate with a candy shell. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but where’s the fondant?

The Pieces come in two colors in this assortment: royal blue and white. The grey package with blue accents and the yellow logo was easily identifiable as York Peppermint.

The shell is pleasant & crunchy, the chocolate inside is quite smooth and has a nice peppermint pop to it. The cocoa flavors come out really well, and is very close to the chocolate flavor profile of the York chocolate coating.

While M&Ms have their holiday Mint version, this year round dark chocolate mint lentil will definitely have a unique selling position. I prefer the naturally less sweet dark chocolate of the York Pieces to the very sweet but a touch salty Mint Chocolate M&Ms. (Though they end up with the same rating.)

All that said, I am confused by the Yorklessness of these little Pieces.

I got to thinking about whether or not it’d be possible to make a fondant centered lentil and then I remembered that the York Mints (and Dutch Mints or Holland Mints) were just that.

So I picked up some York Mints just to compare them. (Luckily I found them at the 99 Cent Only Store ... which means that they’re only three months from their expiry and who knows what conditions they were stored under.)

The shell on the York Mints is thinner than the York Pieces. But the York Mints, with their not-quite-soft-and-crumbly fondant are quite minty ... enough to be called breath mints. The York Pieces, on the other hand, do not freshen the breath to the point where I’d think it was perceptible by others.

The point though is that a lentil version is possible, at least in my eyes, but for some reason (perhaps the fact that they sell 1.35 ounces for more than $2.00) they decided to go with a much easier to produce product: the York Pieces.

That said, I think I prefer the York Pieces anyway. They’re certainly different from most other minty lentils, which are usually mockolate or milk chocolate.

Candy Addict also previewed these last week and found them to be nice.

These won’t be hitting shelves until December 2009. (I didn’t have nutrition info on them either and there was no Kosher status on the package but it did mention that it was processed on equipment that handles peanuts, tree nuts, egg & wheat ... plus they contain milk & soy.)

Related Candies

1. Hershey’s Almond Joy Pieces
2. Marich Easter Select Mix
3. Manhattan Chocolates Dipped Mint Cremes
4. M&Ms Premiums
5. Mint Crisp M&Ms (Indiana Jones)
6. Smooth n Melty
7. 3 Musketeers Mint with Dark Chocolate

Since the introduction of chocolate covered espresso beans sometime in the seventies not much has changed. Oh sure, sometimes they’re milk chocolate covered ... sometimes dark chocolate and even white chocolate.

At the Fancy Food Show in January I did get to try what I thought was one of the best revisions of the classic caffeinated confection: JAVAZ.

First, they’re all natural and use organic, fair traded coffee beans. Second, they use good quality chocolate. Third, they have a candy shell. But most of all, they actually roast the coffee for eating. That is, instead of roasting it for optimal brewing, it’s roasted with the idea that someone is going to crunch & consume it.

They come in two varieties: Milk and Dark.

JAVAZ Milk are much larger than most chocolate covered coffee beans, so it’s a goodly dose of chocolate. I threw some coffee beans into the photo to show the scale.

They’re even larger than Peanut M&Ms.

They look like little bird eggs: a faint tan color with brown speckles.

The shell is thick and crunchy and the milk chocolate is sweet and has a strong dairy/milky flavor to it. The coffee bean at the center is crispy and light, I wasn’t getting the fibery, woody bits that some coffee candies seem to leave behind. The coffee beans don’t have that acrid, oily taste to them.

The whole thing tastes like coffee ice cream with crunchy bits.

Though there’s obviously caffeine in here it’s not as much as you might think: a 55 gram bag has about the same amount as a cup of coffee.

JAVAZ Dark are decorated in the reverse of the milk ones. The shell is brown with beige speckles.

The chocolate layer here is dark chocolate, though not “pure” in the sense that there’s some dairy in there (sorry vegans, but the confectioners glaze spoiled these for you anyway).

The chocolate is quite sweet and the punch of the coffee bean is nice and balances that sugary-ness quite well. I might have preferred a little more coffee flavor.

They’re substantially crunchy, I can’t say that these are a quiet way to get a caffeine boost.

I like how thick the shells are and how easy it is to hold them in my hand or just throw a few in my jacket pocket without the protection of the bag. As long as they stay dry, they do just fine. (Okay, maybe that’s not the most sanitary thing, but I’m just being honest about my road-testing of the product.)

The coffee is sourced from Indonesia and uses only Arabica beans and benefits the Indonesia Relief Fund.

They’re made in the USA and are Kosher. The packages are a little expensive ($3.00 for 1.94 ounces), but I expect that’s because they’re just starting out ... volume usually helps to even these things out and they’re only sold in the small package. Right now I can only find them on Foodzie, though they’ve been at some food trade shows so might be in cafes and gourmet delis as well.

Related Candies

1. Trader Joe’s Espresso Pillows
2. M&Ms Premiums
3. Crackheads
4. Starbucks Chocolate
5. Caffe Acapella - Coffee Confections
6. Pocket Coffee
7. Coffee Beat
8. Bali’s Best Coffee & United Coffee Candy