The world of gourmet candy bars is not limited to North America. The United Kingdom has The Grown Up Chocolate Company which currently makes four upscale and unique candy bars. I was able to procure two of them on my trip to New York City late last year.

They’re packaged well in boldly graphic boxes with fun typography. Inside the box is a rather large candy bar, made with all natural ingredients. The bars are 65 grams, which is about 2.29 ounces. Inside the box the bars are held within clear trays and then sealed in cellophane. Each had expiry dates of late January 2013.

The bar that I found most intriguing was the Crunchy Praline Wonder Bar. The package said: Caramelised wafer enticingly slathered in sumptuous praline encased in real milk chocolate, a true wonder bar!

The package had two of these little bars, which is great for me, because a little over an ounce is a perfect portion especially for something that seemed so decadent.

The little bar has an interesting center. It’s a milk chocolate ganache filled with crunchy, flaky and malty bits of wafer. There’s a little hint of hazelnut paste in the filling, but there’s not much to it. It’s the kind of wafer that would make up an ice cream cone. The cereal taste to the bar and the milkiness of the chocolate makes the whole thing taste an awful lot like a chocolate ice cream cone.

One little bar is extremely filling. I liked this quite a bit and would likely buy it again if I ever saw it, even though it’s about $6.

The Glorious Coconut Hocus Pocus is a rather interesting bar. It’s not merely a retread of an Almond Joy, instead they’ve done quite a bit of work to create something a bit more uncommon. The description is: Creamy coconut ganache luxuriantly topped with an indulgent fruit and nut jumble enrobed in decadent milk chocolate.

The milk chocolate then has a little zig-zag drizzle of dark chocolate as well.

The first thing I noticed after biting into it, aside from the coconut flavors, was the lemon zest. It’s quite a different profile, it’s sophisticated and cuts the sweetness of everything else. The ganache center is dry, it’s not a chewy coconut but has a good balance of milky and coconut luxury. The jumble of nuts and fruits is truly that. I got a lot of almonds and a few pieces of zest as well as a piece of apricot at one point.

It’s odd and inconsistent. I wanted more of the fruit and for the nuts to be chopped up just a little more. Biting into a big almond just made a mess. The milk chocolate is sweet, but doesn’t have enough counterpoint for all the other sweet things. I would have preferred a little dark chocolate contrast and actual chocolate flavor. Still ... it’s a really promising bar. I had to pick the right time to eat it, late in the day the sweetness was overwhelming and made me sleepy. Mid morning seemed to work better for the second half of it.

According to their website they have mini bars, which are probably more my speed. I don’t know much about the sourcing of their cocoa or other ingredients, as they don’t say on their website or the packaging. The bars contain wheat, soy, dairy and nuts and may contain traces of peanuts.

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5. Zotter Candy Bars
6. Ritter Schokowurfel
7. Lake Champlain Five Star Bar

Liddabit Sweets is based in Brooklyn, New York and makes candy bars with a gourmet twist. They’re made by hand with premium ingredients and a bit more flair for decadence than the normal factory churned fare.

They’ve made a name for themselves using locally sourced ingredients and a lot of creativity to the whole genre of candy bars. From the boxes to the innovative combinations, Liddabit feels like more than a handmade version of factory favorites, they’re original from the ground up. I picked up a selection of three from their stall at the New Amsterdam Market at the tip of Manhattan. They’re also sold in stores in New York and if you check their website, at some other gourmet shops around the country. Also, they have a webstore where you can order them to be delivered right to your door.

Liddabit Sweets The Snack’r Candy Bar is their bar that most closely resembles an existing favorite, the Snickers bar made by Mars since 1930. According to the package, This chewy delight features crunchy, roasted peanuts in a golden caramel atop our creamy chocolate nougat, all covered in dark chocolate.

The bar is formidable. It’s sold in a lovely box decorated with white flowers and a diagonal label that shows the premium ingredients (though they do also have gelatin, eggs, dairy, soy and peanuts in them, they’re made in a shared facility with wheat and tree nuts as well). It’s four ounces, almost twice the mass of a Snickers. I already find the Snickers to be too much for one serving, so this was at least three for me.

The bar is lovely, though a little bland to look at, lacking the swirls of milk chocolate on the top, it’s a simple enrobing. The bars are over four inches long, 1.25 wide and one inch high.

The star of this bar is the nougat. It’s really unlike any nougat you’ll find in a commercial bar. Unlike the Mars version of nougat, which is fluffed and grainy, the Liddabit is smooth, creamy and light. There’s a chewy pull to it, not quite marshmallow but a little more whipped than an Italian torrone. There’s a note of cocoa in it, which keeps it from being too sweet. The base of caramel is chewy and salty with few peanuts, but those that I did encounter were large and crunchy. The dark chocolate pulls it all together with a smoky note.

The bar had a real boxed chocolate vibe to it, the peanuts were really the only element that brought this back into the snack territory. I started this review with the bar because it’s by far the best example of an upscale bar I’ve had.

The Pecan Pie Candy Bar is actually a chocolate pecan pie. It starts with a flaky pie crust base, a homemade pecan dulce de leche with a bourbon ganache covered in dark chocolate.

The bar is interesting in that it’s actually more like a Pecan Bar Cookie than a candy bar in some ways. The construction is this: a flaky cookie base with a layer of chocolate ganache and pecans covered in dark chocolate. The result is a decadent treat.

The ganache center is quite soft, so it’s an easy bite even though it’s a pretty tall bar. The pecans are well distributed and form a generous ratio of the center. The ganache is interesting, first because it’s not overly chocolatey ... it’s more cheesecakey. There’s a noticeable tang to it, a little tartness that gives it that baked good note of sour cream instead of whipping cream.

As a candy bar, it’s too much. It’s too decadent to eat in several sittings, mostly because the cookie crust can’t take sitting around after it’s been opened. I enjoyed it, but I don’t see myself buying another one. That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t well done, but it’s not what I want from a candy bar.

The Humbug is definitely on the unique end of the candy bar spectrum. It features a cocoa sable cookie, a mint chocolate ganache, a white chocolate coating and crushed organic peppermint candies.

The sable cookie base is salty and sandy and crunchy and not at all sweet. It is a bit of a mess though, often creating a lot of crumbs if I didn’t bite it perfectly. The minted chocolate ganache is just the right texture - soft enough to bite through with a quick melt but not greasy or oily. The cocoa flavors are light with the mint shining through for the most part and the white chocolate coating giving it another little hint of sweetness and milky flavors.

Liddabit makes about a dozen different bars, and some are likely seasonal (like the Humbug). I’m interested in anything that utilizes their excellent nougat and plant to try their other bars, such as The King which features peanut butter and banana. The bars are expensive, $8 each, but they’re also huge. That cuts down on the number of different flavors I can do at a time, but now that I found a local shop that carries them in Los Angeles, I can take my time.

As a side note, I can’t help but think of the song Give a Little Bit by Supertramp whenever I hear or read the name Liddabit. That could be just me ... or maybe this video will also get that stuck in your head.

Related Candies

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2. Double Dutch Sweets: The Ramona Bar
3. Zingerman’s Zzang! Wowza Raspberry Bar
4. Go Max Go Jokerz Candy Bar
5. Trader Joe’s PB & J Bar
6. Zingerman’s Zzang! Candy Bars
7. Trader Joe’s Lumpy Bumpy Bar
8. BonBonBars: Malt Ganache & Scotch

One of the new items at Trader Joe’s candy section is a twist on an old fashioned favorite, a chocolate covered caramel. I’ve always wanted a better Milk Dud and Trader Joe’s as been doing a good job of providing some tantalizing options over the years.

The newest is Trader Joe’s Chocolate Covered Sea Salt Butterscotch Caramels which comes in a 7 ounce gusseted bag with a resealable top. They describe them as Soft and creamy, deeply flavored butterscotch caramels are tinged with sea salt and enrobed in dark, slightly bitter chocolate to offset the sweetness.

I was wondering if these were the same as the Dark Chocolate Tahitian Vanilla Caramels sold in the small, single serving lavender bags. The ingredients are remarkably similar, with one difference: the Butterscotch Caramels use tapioca syrup instead of corn syrup. So these are free of corn (or at least don’t have any stated corn ingredients).

The flavor is very, well, butterscotchy. They taste like a butter flavor, but not an overtly artificial one like some fake popcorn topping can but more like a maple, woodsy flavor with stronger dairy notes. Instead it’s just rich and a little less sweet than the Tahitian Vanilla variety.

The dark chocolate coating is mild, on the semi-sweet side but has a creamy melt with a little smoky and pipe tobacco profile to it, instead of a dried fruit flavor that some darks can have.

I had wondered when the Tahitian Vanilla Caramels came out whether they’d be available in a bulk bag for serving in a bowl (or creating your own snack mix). This is a pretty good value at $3.49 (which is about $8 per pound) and the ingredients are all natural. I hope these stick around after the holidays, they might make a great travel mix with raw almonds, pretzels and milk chocolate drops. For right now they might just be my go-to candy for sneaking into a movie theater.

There is no statement or any info I can find about the sourcing of the ingredients, specifically the ethical sourcing of the chocolate. They also contain palm kernel oil (though very low on the list). They’re made with milk and soy and may contain traces of wheat, peanuts and tree nuts.

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2. Trader Joe’s 70% Dark with Caramel and Black Sea Salt
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5. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Tahitian Vanilla Caramels
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Marshmallows in the shape of Gingerbread Men seems like a natural holiday treat.

The Peeps Gingerbread are a little harder to find than the Snowmen and Christmas Trees. In my case I bought them at the overpriced FAO Schweetz because I was concerned I wouldn’t find them anywhere else. ($3.49 for a package of 6.)

The name pretty much says it all, they’re spiced cookie flavored marshmallows in the shape of a trio or conjoined gingerbread men. The package has two rows of cookies, all in a fancifully designed package that looks like a gingerbread house. I looked over the packages carefully, as they have the expected icing eyes and mouths, but some were not smiling. I chose the happiest looking set I could find.

A serving is a whole row of Gingerbread Men, which is about 1.1875 ounces and only has 120 calories. (They’re gluten free but may contain traces of milk. There’s no statement about peanuts or tree nuts.) Each Gingerbread Man is about 2.75 inches high.

They smell quite nice, like toasted marshmallows. The marshmen are coated with a brown sugar crust that has a light, spicy flavor that might described as “cinnamon.” The marshmallow center is a similar creamy brown color but has less flavor. It might just be a brown sugar flavor, which is fine with me, I like the slight toffee note to the usually overly sweet marshmallows. I wish they were a little more spiced, I’m not getting any hints of ginger or cardamom or even clove. But it’s a Peep, which is the mildest of all candies, so I shouldn’t expect too much from them.

Overall, it’s a great combination of flavor and form and makes far more sense as a holiday novelty than so many other Peeps. The only thing missing are the gum drop buttons and raisin eyes. My next step might be to try them in hot chocolate. (I often put a bit of spice in my hot chocolate, usually nutmeg and cardamom, so this may go very nicely.)

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4. Peeps Peepsters (Milk & Dark Chocolate)
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The Clark Bar is one of the oldest still existing combination candy bars in the United States. It was introduced in 1917 and is now made by Necco. (You can read lots more here.) The bar is a simple layered peanut butter crunch center similar to Butterfinger & 5th Avenue (head to head review) or Reese’s Crispy Crunchy and the Chick-o-Stick.

To expand the line, Necco recently introduced Clark Bites, which as the name would imply, are bite sized, unwrapped pieces instead of a full bar. There’s a strange campaign going on to promote them, called Where’s Zipper, which uses a cartoon character called Zipper the Squirrel based on the Squirrel Nut Zippers candy also made by Necco. There’s a website and a poorly attended Facebook page for it. But there’s lots of info there about the new Clark Bites, the fact that they come in stand up snack bags, individual bags plus these theater boxes.

A while back I reviewed the re-introduced Butterfinger Bites, which I thought were terrible. The coating was greasy and waxy and overly sweet with no chocolate notes whatsoever. The center was too stiff or dense and lacked an easy crunch. Since I prefer the new Real Chocolate Clark Bars already, I had high hopes for these.

The box is interesting, it feels masculine and utilitarian. All the info is there. They’re made with real chocolate, the image on the front shows what the candy looks like and they’re made in the United Sates. The box is a bit big for the contents, there are only 3.5 ounces in there, but I’d say it’s a good value for a buck for an all natural product. Inside the box, the candy is inside an unmarked cellophane pouch.

There are no preservatives in the candy, so it’s all natural. It’s a milk chocolate coating and there’s a confectioners glaze on it, so it’s not appropriate for vegans or even strict vegetarians. (There’s also soy, peanuts and milk in it for those with allergies and processed in a plant that also has tree nuts, egg and wheat.)

The nuggets are well proportioned. They vary in size, some are sort of square shapes, other are more rectangular versions. They’re between three quarters to almost an inch long.

The center is light and crispy with lots of layers. The flavor isn’t strongly peanutty and the chocolate coating is rather thick. So the whole thing is pretty sweet though there is a small touch of salt in the center. The flaky crunch has a little bit of rustic peanut butter in it, but mostly notes of molasses.

One the whole, they’re quite poppable. They’re a lot lighter and crunchier than the Butterfinger version and of course the chocolate is real. There’s no partially or fully hydrogenated oils in here, but plenty of real chocolate, milk products, sugar and peanuts. A serving is a half of the package (1.75 ounces) which comes in at 240 calories but does have 4 grams of protein and even 4% of your calcium and 2% of your iron.

I really hope these become more widely available. I was so optimistic after reading the label when I bought them that I picked up three boxes and I’m glad I did.

Related Candies

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2. Treat Trip: Bevan’s Own Make Candy - Peanut Butter Sticks & Molasses Chips
3. Clark Bar Wicked Mix
4. Nestle Butterfinger Snackerz
5. Head to Head: Clark, Butterfinger & 5th Avenue
6. Clark Bar (Get Real - Milk & Dark)
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As a kid, a Toblerone bar was a special treat reserved for holidays, partly because they were expensive and partly because they were difficult to find year round. The bar was different from anything else on the market from the shape of the box and the exotic name to the interesting combination of flavors and textures.

The Toblerone company was bought from Jacob Suchard in 1990 by Kraft and is still made in Bern, Switzerland. The bars are much easier to find now, and easily located any time of the year. Their newest bar released in the United States is the Toblerone Crunchy Salted Almond and features Swiss milk chocolate with salted caramelized almonds and honey and almond nougat.

Rosa at ZOMG Candy gave the bar pretty high marks, so I was eager to find one in the wild. I spotted them at Walgreen’s over the weekend, though not on sale. It’s $2.99 for the 100 gram (3.5 ounce) bar, which is what I’d expect to pay for something from Kraft that’s in their Green & Black’s range of ethically sourced and all natural chocolate.

The serving size is 1/3 of the bar, and it would be nice if they just said how many peaks that is (there are 12 in the bar, so 4 is a serving). But I did like the packaging. The snug triangular box protects the bar, even though it’s just in a thin foil wrapper inside. I liked the color and the bold, simple design. The nutrition panel, otherwise, is really easy to read. 

The look of the bar is the same as the classic milk chocolate bar. Inside I expected to see more almonds, as they’re both in the nougat bits and included as the salted pieces as well. The bar smells milky and sweet. The bite is soft and has a lot more crispy bits in it than I was accustomed to. The chocolate is fudgy and has a lot of milky flavors to it, mostly it holds together the inclusions. The nougat pieces are crispy ... unless they’re a little bigger which may mean that they’re a little tacky if chewed. The almonds are a little larger and have a nice, fresh crunch to them. As for the salt promised, I didn’t really taste it. There’s only 55 mg per serving, so it’s not a liberal dose. Though I can’t say that I perceived it, I will say that this bar seemed less sweet than the standard Toblerone. I actually prefer this to the Classic.

Kraft and Toblerone have scant information on the sourcing of their ingredients except to say that the chocolate is not Fair Trade on their website in the FAQ section and the the cocoa is sourced from around the world (well, at least it’s Earth chocolate). The bars contain milk, soy, almonds and eggs plus are manufactured on shared equipment with other tree nuts.

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2. Milka NAPS Mix (Assortment)
3. Ferrara Milk Chocolate with Almond Nougat
4. Toblerone Fruit & Nut
5. Terry’s Chocolate Toffee Crunch Orange
6. Toblerone Single Peaks
7. See’s Awesome Nut & Chew Bar

As I mentioned in some recent reviews, I’ve been chewing more gum lately. It’s hard to find gum that’s doesn’t use artificial sweeteners, but the market has expanded in the past few years as consumers have searched for alternatives to aspartame.

I picked up this package of Glee Gum Sugar Free Peppermint before a recent plane trip but then forgot to take it with me. So I’ve been munching on it at the office.

Unlike sugared gums and other sugar free gums, chewing gum made with xylitol has an amazing cool feeling on the tongue. The candy coating on the Glee chiclets only enhances that.Glee is also made with all non genetically modified ingredients (including sunflower lecithin) and a natural gum base made from real chicle.

The flavor is a mild peppermint, it’s clean and not too overpowering but also lasts quite a long time. The chew is smooth, and while I’ve had problems with the chicle sticking to my teeth before, I don’t have that issue with the sugarless version (it could also be that I’ve had some of my fillings replaced since I started Candy Blog).

Sometimes I find sugar free gums have a strange, metallic flavor, but in this case I got no strange notes. It was refreshing and simple. Xylitol is not a no-calorie sweetener, it’s a sugar alcohol that has a fraction of the calories of sugar. But mostly it has either no effect on the bacteria that cause cavities or, in some studies, can effectively combat it (but it takes more than just a couple of pieces of gum a few times a month). Xylitol, like most sugar alcohols, can cause stomach distress when consumed in large quantities by some people. Gum is usually not an issue, unless you’re chewing more than one package a day if you happen to be one of those sensitive people.

This is pretty much my go-to gum now. I still prefer real Chiclets because of the satisfaction of chewing the sugar out and then going for three more pieces. But this is probably better for my oral health, the flavor lasts longer and is made with all natural ingredients. Now I’m hoping they’ll come out with more flavors, like cinnamon.

Glee Gum does come in little single-serving boxes for Halloween treating, however, the sugar free varieties are not available yet. As far as I can tell, this would be the perfect item for folks who are nut-free, gluten-free and sugar-free to give out without seeming like stick-in-the-muds. (But it would help if it also came in the bubble gum flavor, too.)

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3. Wee Glee Gum
4. Three Pink Bubble Gums
5. Roca Buttercrunch Thins
6. All Sugar Free Week (May 5-9)
7. Glee Gum: If You Like Stuff Stuck to Your Teeth

Poco Dolce is a small confectioner based in San Francisco known mostly for their lovely toffee tiles (really, take a look). A few years ago they started making specialty chocolate bars as well.

The one I picked up in San Francisco was one I was particularly looking forward to. It’s simply called Hazelnut Bar made with bittersweet chocolate. The ingredients are exceptionally simple, chocolate, hazelnut butter and sea salt. Since it’s a dark chocolate, it’s also vegan (though processed where it may have come in contact with milk proteins, other tree nuts or peanuts and there’s no statement about the sourcing of the sugar).

Poco Dolce sources their chocolate from nearby Guittard Chocolate Company, choosing from their Rainforest Alliance certified chocolate. The hazelnut butter comes from Oregon.

The bar is not that large, though the box makes it seem like it would be close to one of those 3 ounce tablets. Instead this one is 1.763 ounces ... or what I’d consider a very generous single portion.

The dark bar is nicely tempered and the smooth hazelnut butter is well integrated. The texture is smooth, no hint of hazelnut bits but a strong hazelnut flavor. The bar is bitter, but in a roasted way. The melt is good, though a little firmer than a regular dark bar at first, but has a lighter feel on the tongue than a straight chocolate. It’s lightly sweet and lightly salty, deeply chocolatey and nutty. It’s also exceptionally filling. About two pieces were a great pick me up. So while the bar was expensive and small, I felt like it lasted a long time.

One of my complaints about hazelnut paste (gianduia) as I’ve gotten older is that it’s too sticky and too sweet. This bar has none of those issues, yet still remains decadent.

Related Candies

1. Poco Dolce Popcorn Toffee
2. Pernigotti Gianduia: Piedmont Hazelnut Paste
3. William diCarlo Perle di dolcezza
4. Eat with your Eyes: Poco Dolce
5. Guittard Akoma Fair Trade Chocolate Chips
6. Ice Cubes
7. Caffarel Gianduias
8. Scharffen Berger Gianduja