It took me a while to find the new Caramel Apple Sugar Babies, but I have to be honest, I wasn’t really looking forward to them.

I like Sugar Babies, in fact, I love them. They’re just fine the way they are. They don’t need to be improved ... but I suppose if they want to expand the line, that’s fine with me.

Okay, I’ll open my mind a little and at least try them.

The candies are regular Sugar Babies covered in a green, sour apple coating. As you can see from the photo, they’re kind of freaky. The green coating is really green, but it’s also kind of matte, not shiny like Sugar Babies.

They reminded me of Shrek. Like Shrek’s skin ... probably not an appealing association.

The flavor coating is tart and a little crumbly, kind of like the SweeTart Jelly Beans. The green apple flavor isn’t really intense, but a good counterpoint to the sweet, creamy and grainy caramel.

I don’t think they’re an improvement on Sugar Babies, just something different. It’s an interesting take on the caramel application on apples, but doesn’t really capture that experience at all (for one, it’s inside out!). So even though I wasn’t that keen on them, I did end up eating the whole box, so they must be pretty tasty!

I’m very late in getting a hold of these, so if this seems a little familiar you may have read about them before: Sera’s review at Candy Addict, Jeanna at Wisconsin Candy Dish and Sugar Hog.

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Here’s one of those candies that I only saw in my Trick-or-Treat haul: Sixlets. Oh sure, they were probably in stores that I frequented. They come in a variety of packets, including the “changemaker” size that holds eight little candy spheres and used to sell for a two cents.

The big reason I shunned Sixlets was I was never quite sure what they were. Are they like M&Ms? Are they candy coated peanuts? Are they a jawbreaker?

Eating them never really answered those questions. They definitely don’t have nuts in them, but taste a little nutty. They’re not like M&Ms, though there is a chocolate-like center. They’re not jawbreakers, in fact the shell is pretty thin.

Sixlets are currently made by Oak Leaf, who makes bubble gum and other confections in Canada that are usually sold in bulk and dispensed in gumball machines that are sold by the handful. Before that they were made by Hershey’s, which purchased the Ovation brand that made Sixlets under management of Leaf (they also made Whoppers, which Hershey’s kept).

Sixlets are certainly cute. They come in vivid colors: Yellow, Green, Red, Orange and Brown. They’re spherical and consistent looking, with a shiny candy shell. The center is a malty-flavored mockolate. Made from partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil, sugar and milk protein, they’re not really that appealing as a confectionery item to eat on their own. Cocoa powder is way down at the fifth position on the list of ingredients. The candy shells are pretty ordinary, except for the orange one, which has a light orange flavor to it (just as Smarties from the UK do). The mockolate barely has a chocolate taste, and the whole thing is a little grainy and a bit greasy.

What they lack in taste they more than make up for with economy and portion control. What other candy comes in little tubes of 8 pieces? Not to mention the fact that each little tube has only 35 calories!

Why Oak Leaf came out with the Limited Edition Dark Chocolate Flavored Sixlets is beyond me. The regular ones barely taste like chocolate and any health benefits of “dark chocolate” will be ruined by the use of partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.

The package is attractive, the Sixlets mascot is some sort of an insect ... well, maybe he’s an insect, he only has four legs. And he wears glasses ... and wants us to eat one of his segments.

These little packets were unmarked. Just generic clear cellophane tubes with little unbranded spheres inside.

They are similarly attractive to their original counterparts, with a light brown shell in the mix instead of a yellow one. The orange is also orange flavored here as well.

The taste of the “dark chocolate” isn’t really noticeably different from the regular Sixlets. They’re just as disappointing as the regular Sixlets ... except that I paid for this whole bag (I picked the other little guys up at the All Candy Expo).

There are differing stories about why they’re called Sixlets. The current packaging has them in tubes with 8 pieces or 20. Some folks say that they used to come in tubes that had six for a penny. Others say that they came in boxes that had six individual boxes in each package and that’s how they were written up in the wholesale catalogs. It could be that someone just thought it sounded like a good name ... maybe they were into numerology. The number six represents “Reaction/flux. Responsibility” according to Wikipedia. If anyone else has any theories, I’m happy to entertain them.

Caitlin at Candy Addict has a great fondness for them and Bad-Candy.com, well, thinks they’re bad.

Like them if you will ... just don’t call them chocolate. They might be good for decorating ... the rest of these are going in the Trick-or-Treat bowl (don’t worry, I’ll give the kids something good and just slip these in while they’re not looking).

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Name: Tootsie Pop Drops
Brand: Tootsie
Description: Fruit flavored hard candies with a Tootsie Roll center
Release Date: Early 2008
Notes: Tootsie Pop Drops will return next year after a long absence from store shelves. This is good news, because it was especially sad that the Blow Pop Minis were on the market (blech) and the obviously superior Tootsie Pop Drops were nowhere to be found.

UPDATE 3/22/2008: They are pretty much like the original, a little smaller but a very good return. Here’s the review with photos.

Name: Reese’s Select Clusters Candy
Brand: Hershey’s
Description: Peanut clusters made with premium ingredients
Release Date: August 2008
Notes: I have no idea how these will be different from regular Reese’s products ... except maybe they’ll improve the quality.

Name: Werther’s Original Caramel Chocolate (Milk & Dark)
Brand: Storck
Description: Rich milk chocolate marbled with smooth, creamy caramel in fine European tradition
Release Date: November 2007
Notes: I actually tried these ... I was hoping for something as rich and satisfying as Storck Chocolate Riesen. Until I can get a hold of the real packaging so I can read the label, I’m not able to do a full review. 

(Images courtesy of the respective manufacturers.)

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They’re the candies that made E.T. famous: Reese’s Pieces. Little sweet nuggets of peanut flavored candy covered in a colorful shell. Loved across the universe, they were introduced in 1978, but didn’t break out as a widely-known candy until being featured as alien-bait in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in 1982.

The story is quite familiar to most movie and confectionery fans. Steven Spielberg approached M&Ms about doing a product placement (not a very common thing in those days) in his new movie about a child who adopts an abandoned alien. M&Ms turned down the project, so Spielberg went to his next choice, Hershey’s and the Hershey’s Kiss. Hershey’s wasn’t keen on that, but did offer up one of their new candies that they’d been trying to launch national since 1980, Reese’s Pieces ... which look an awful lot like M&Ms! Sales improved drastically and the idea of product placement was cemented as a way to increase revenue in feature films and television series.

Are they a Halloween candy? Well, the movie takes place around Halloween and they do sport festive harvest colors.

While Reese’s Pieces may sport the Reese’s name, but they’re really not much like the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, except that they contain peanuts.

It’s a sweet, melty peanutty center covered in a crisp candy shell. They come in three colors: orange, yellow and brown. They also come in an Easter version that has a pastel shell and is larger.

The center is made from a peanut powder of sorts, instead of a peanut butter. Much of the peanut oil has been removed, mostly because of a manufacturing problem with peanut oil ... it’s a liquid a room temperature, so it tends to migrate out of peanut butter via osmosis when coated with lower-fat things like a sugar shell. (Some folks may notice that their Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups get a little shiny spot in the center of the shell when this happens.)

I find that Reese’s Pieces lack a big nutty punch. They taste like peanuts, but don’t have that real peanut taste that a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup has. They’re also really sweet and don’t have that little salty hit that most other peanut things like Payday Bars, RPBC and Pearson’s Nut Roll have. I’ve always noticed a bit of a floral note to them as well, that just doesn’t do anything for me.

I keep thinking I’ll like them, then I buy them and I’m disappointed. The Easter versions, with its thicker shell and more concentrated “peanut butter as cookie dough” flavor pleases me a lot more. I’m wondering as well if I’m imagining that the shells used to be more consistent. These seemed a little bumpier, a little less opaquely colored.

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Since All Candy Expo this year was so close to Halloween, there were a lot of Halloween treats on display. One booth, Zachary Confections, had a huge table with bins holding these little packets of goodies: Indian Corn and Jelly Pumpkins. What sets them apart from other individual packets of ordinary sugar candies for the Trick-or-Treaters is that these have cute little black & white Halloween-themed designs on them: black cats, witches, ghosts, bats and skeletons.

Zachary is one of those candy companies that kind of flies under the radar of most people. They make a lot of “house brand” candies, as Joanna at Sugar Savvy found out, they’re the ones behind Target’s candy corn. But I’ve never been terribly aware of their products as a whole, mostly because so many different companies make candy corn, jellies and chocolate covered nuts in bulk.

After Joanna named Zachary the best candy corn in her taste test, I thought maybe I should give it a try. Unfortunately I didn’t grab any of the traditional candy corn, instead I got some Indian Corn. Indian Corn is usually chocolate flavored on the bottom.

This candy corn wasn’t quite as dark looking as most others I’ve tried. In fact, it looks a little wrong, the orange is kind of peachy and the brown a little watery instead of dark and dense.

But taste? The Zachary candy corn is very smooth. It doesn’t have any graininess at all to it, just a stiffness that melts pretty well after a couple of chews. The flavor is lightly honey ... no different than a regular candy corn, it lacks those toasted notes that the Indian Corn usually has. I liked it well enough to eat two small packets over a couple of weeks. I still prefer Brach’s because I enjoy the slight grain and the stronger honey notes, but this is definitely high quality stuff.

I wonder how many kids like little sugared jelly candies. I have to admit that these are super cute. The little Pumpkin Jelly shapes have a green stem and little fluting on the side like real pumpkins.

They’re lightly orange flavored. Not a vibrant flavor, just sweet and slightly zesty. It doesn’t have any of the tangy elements you’d find in a Sunkist Fruit Gem. I’ve always been a huge fan of Orange Slices (and Spearmint Leaves), so these are a great harvest-themed version. Even better, they fit in my mouth in one bite, instead of Orange Slices that are usually two bites. It’s not easy to find individual packets of Orange Slices, so they get major points on that front.

Zachary is based in Frankfort, Indiana and they have a factory store ... anyone ever been there?

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I’ve been planning another Peeps Mash Up for a while and thought that Halloween was the perfect opportunity for a Monster Mash Up.

I even went out and bought the new Peeps Spooky Friends, thinking it’d be so fun to have the variety of the different shapes. Alas, Peeps Spooky Friends are not terribly mashable. However, the Candy Blog Candy Archives is always prepared, and I was able to pull out my trusty Peeps Yellow Bunnies as a stand in. (They also photograph better than the conjoined Peeps Ghosts.)

If you’ve never done a Peeps Mash Up, the recipe is simple. Pull a Peep apart to reveal the sticky innards. Then press that sticky puff into a dish or package of something ... consume.

First up is Oreos & Peeps which was a combo I wanted to try for a while. Cookies and Cream is a nice combo that seems to go so well with ice cream, how could it be bad with Peeps? I tried it two different ways, the first was crumbling Oreos, as shown and mashing them into the crumbs. What I found is that I didn’t care for the cream part in there ... the closeness of the texture and graininess to the Peep itself wasn’t distinctive enough. Instead, the way to do a Peep & Oreo Mash is to open your Oreo, scrape the cream off with your teeth, then place the whole Peep on one side, replace the cookie topper, mash down and consume.

The darkness of the cookie, the little hit of salt and of course the sandy crunch of the Peep makes an excellent combination. (And completely redeems my opinion of Oreos after last month’s tasting of the new Cakesters.)

I give them an 8 out of 10.

How about more crunchy cocoa for Peeps? I hit upon the idea of breakfast cereals and Peeps. After all, some breakfast cereals already have marbits (marshmallow+bits) in them.

I picked up a mini-mix pack from Kellogg’s (as they seem to be the only company that still makes them). First up, Cocoa Krispies & Peeps.

Cocoa Krispies are ideal for this snack, as they’re small and adhere easily to the exposed sticky marshmallow. They’re lightly crunchy, though a little sweet without enough cocoa contribution. I give them a 6 out of 10.

I was never a big fan of Apple Jacks as a cereal as a kid. I so rarely got to eat sweetened cereals, this was pretty far down on my list. (Cap’n Crunch was my favorite, followed by Froot Loops.) Would Apple Jacks & Peeps change my mind?

The simplicity of the flavors Apple Jacks, a little apple, a little cinnamon, actually sets off the flavorless Peep really well. They larger loops though, don’t hang onto the Peep quite as well, so smashing them a little to break the Os is a big help.

It helps that Apple Jacks had a pretty good jingle. (A is for apple, J is for Jacks, Cinnamon-toasty Apple Jacks! You need a complete breakfast, that’s a fact. Start it off with Apple Jacks. Apple Jacks! Apple Jacks! Ten vitamins and minerals-that’s what it packs. Apple-tasty, crunchy, too! Kellogg’s Apple Jacks! Apple Jacks, Apple Jacks ...)

I give them a 5 out of 10.

While Frosted Flakes & Peeps may sound like a pretty mundane treat, I have to say ... they’re great!

Even though the large flakes don’t stick well, the little bits do cling and still provide a good crunch. The thing I like best about this combo is that Corn Flakes have a wonderful dark, malty taste to them, and that sets off the lightly toasted sugar flavors of the marshmallow.

There’s also a little hit of salt in there, which mellows the more overt sugar. I think I might prefer an unfrosted Corn Flake in this case. But plain Rice Krispies are probably a good bet as well.

I give them a 7 out of 10.

It’s not illustrated here with a photo, but I also tried Corn Pops & Peeps. Once Corn Pops are removed from their packaging, even in a desert they immediately become sticky and tacky, so they’re an ideal item to Mash. Though they’re very sweet, their flavor profile matches Peeps really well. They have that lightly toasted flavor, but none of the malty, salty tones of the Corn Flakes. I give them a 7 out of 10.

They make a nice combo, though they don’t really have much of a visual appeal (but then again, neither to the Corn Flakes).

Froot Loops & Peeps has to be the Mash Up I was most looking forward to. Like the Apple Jacks, these loops are a little too big for good stickage, but a little crunching in the bowl helped.

The one thing that disappointed me though, was that Froot Loops have changed so much since I was a kid. Back then we only had three flavors ... Orange, Lemon and Cherry. They went together really well and looked like food. The modern Froot Loops, well, I just can’t get behind blue food. And I don’t like all my flavors mixed up, I just wanted some light citrus fruit flavors, not a whole jumble of a world-traveled fruit stand.

The fruity flavors, though, stood up very well to the sugary sweetness of the Peep.

In the future I’ll probably go with the generic brand of fruity loops that have more limited flavors ... because I’m a fuddy duddy.

I give them a 5 out of 10.

I couldn’t ignore the wonderful advice on the last Mash Up post when I went looking for other mashable items.

The idea of wiping peanut butter on my Peeps wasn’t quite in the cards, but Reese’s Pieces & Peeps sounded like the perfect Mash Up. I heard that Reese’s has put out minis, but I can’t seem to find them. The larger Reese’s Pieces didn’t stick well to the Peeps, but the flavor combo of the lightly sweet peanut butter, the crunch of the shell and grainy sugar was a solid combo.

The colors also went really well. You’ve gotta give props when it comes to the appearance.

I give them a 8 out of 10.

The photo there at the top of this page is Sixlets, which are mockolate spheres covered in chocolate. Sixlets and Peeps also had a great deal of visual appeal with the muted fall colors and shiny shells. Sixlets have a natural coolness on the tongue, but not a very strong chocolate flavor. They stuck well to the marshmallow, but the overall effect was too sweet and not flavorful enough. I think I’ll stick to the original idea of M&Ms Minis.

I give them a 4 out of 10.

Since the nuttyness of the Reese’s Pieces went well, I thought maybe some Boston Baked Beans & Peeps would be a fun change of pace.

It’s been years since I’ve had BBB, and if you aren’t familiar with them, they’re candy coated peanuts. The candy coating is pretty thick, so some of them at first seem like jawbreakers. So the mixing of two vastly different densities has an odd and scary feeling to it. I’m afraid of chomping down too hard, lest the hardness of the BBB be too unyielding, but I also felt like I was practically gumming away the marshmallow and losing the texture and flavor combo.

I give them a 4 out of 10.

Finally, even though this is a Christmas item, I was too tickled to contain myself when Pop Rocks sent me some new flavors to try.

Candy Cane Pop Rocks & Peeps seemed like the perfect Mash Up. Peeps is coming out with Peppermint Star Peeps later this year, but I so loved my Pop Rocks and Peeps earlier this year, I thought, what could be better than peppermint Pop Rocks and a nice mellow Peep.

Well, the main problem with this idea is that the Candy Cane Flavor Pop Rocks aren’t actually peppermint!

Say what? Seriously, what would you think if someone handed you this package? If you opened it and dumped out the contents and saw the above pile of pink and white Pop Rocks ... what flavor would you expect?

Would you expect Strawberry?

Yeah ... they’re strawberry. I have nothing against strawberry Pop Rocks and thought they rocked my Peep ... but I wanted Peppermint Pop Rocks and I’m completely annoyed that someone out there not only thinks that any pink flavor can be considered candy cane flavored, but that they wouldn’t actually SAY that on the package if it was so.

I give them a 3 out of 10 ... not because it was bad, but because I’m irritated.

The next Mash Up Round Up will focus on Savory & Spicy!

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Just Born has been adding lots of new products lately. Usually it’s just a different color or shape on the regular Peeps line, but the Spooky Friends add a new element to the Peeps marshmallow line.

What’s so different about them is that they’re individually wrapped. Oooh .... you know what that means? They’re not conjoined. There’s no little sticky spot where they’re separated from their row of quadruplicate siblings.

It also opens up the possibility for some diversity in a single package. This bag of 54 individually wrapped Peeps has three different shapes: Googly-Eyed Green Mummy, Purple-Eyed Jack ‘o Lantern & Shrugging Ghost. (There are other mixes that have skeletons, bats and spiders.)

While I love the idea of being able to give out fun little sugar puffs to kids for Halloween, I feel like they may think it’s a practical joke when they try to get the little packets open. Let’s hope their parents let them have scissors, because that’s what I resorted to.

I thought these would be the same as regular Peeps, and I happened to have some regular Easter Peeps around for comparison. Here’s what I found:

The main thing that detracted from any recommendation for Spooky Friends is that they’re not as puffy and therefore do not work with Peeps Mash Ups as well. I rather liked the light vanilla flavor, but I missed the springly-lofty texture. They also didn’t seem to get stale as easily, but I’ve only had them for a week ... poking holes in each package in order to let them get dried out isn’t really that practical either. They have their selling points but they’re still not going to get a better rating than the original.

At about 9 cents a marshmallow, they’re cheaper per item than the Frankford Marshmallow Pals, but they’re more expensive per ounce. Since they’re both made in China, I can’t see why you wouldn’t go for the more detailed Frankford Marshmallow Pals ... unless you don’t like coconut flavor.

The package notes that Peeps are Gluten Free.

UPDATE 10/31/2008: It does not appear that Just Born continued this product. I have not seen it for 2008.

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I puzzled over the Orange Marshmallow Pumpkin at the store for quite a while. Was the marshmallow orange? Was the coating orange? Or was it orange flavored? The small print gave me a clue, “Naturally flavored,” it said. “Covered in milk chocolate,” it said.

“Okay,” I said. “Into the basket you go!”

Opening it up at home I still didn’t smell the orange. After biting through the chocolate shell, the orange flavor became more apparent, as did the color.
This is that cautionary orange, you could strip the chocolate off of this and use it as a fluffy, sticky signal puff if you were stranded somewhere.

The marshmallow is super soft, moist and a little sticky. The light kiss of orange essence really changes this from a ho-hum marshmallow product to something I ate all of without complaining that my candy blog makes me eat these things (okay, that really doesn’t happen). The milk chocolate, though sweet, was rich enough to set off the sweet marshmallow and add some nice creaminess to the whole. I enjoy these sorts of seasonal products from Russell Stover because I know they’re fresh.

I don’t know if I’ll buy them again, unless perhaps they’re 10 cents in a sale bin in November, but I’ll keep an eye out for an Easter version of them next year.

The allergy notice on the package mentions that they’re made in a factory with tree nuts, peanuts, wheat and eggs. It also contains gelatin, so is unsuitable for vegetarians. The orange filling also has artificial colors in it (Yellow 6), so folks looking to stay away from those should opt for the regular unflavored Marshmallow Pumpkin.

Rebecca posted on the Hershey’s orange pumpkins last year and Joanna did both orange flavored ones last year.

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