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Albert's

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Ice Cubes

Ice CubesAs a kid I loved Ice Cubes. They’re little squares of hazelnut mockolate. Their unique selling proposition included the fact that they were individual pieces that sold for 10 cents a piece and had a wild, cool feeling on the tongue when they melted instantly.

I remember buying them at the student union on the Kent State University campus when I was a kid waiting for my mother to be done with classes or my father to be done with work. (I usually panhandled to get the money to buy them, I was pretty shameless in the lengths I would go to get my fix.) Later when I was in college on my own I would use my meal points at the Jolly Giant Commons to buy these by the tub.

The little candies have been around since the mid-thirties, made in Germany by a small company called Nappo and sold by Albert’s in the States. They’re similar to the Caffarel Gianduia, except for the fact that they’re made with partially hydrogenated coconut oil instead of nut paste and chocolate.

Ice Cubes Stack

I was really excited to find these looking so smart and crisp at The Candy Store in San Francisco on Friday. I see them every once in a while, but they always look sad and melted. The Candy Store had a whole jar of pristine looking Ice Cubes in both wrappers (they’re switching to a gold wrapper from the traditional blue and white so there’s a crossover right now).

They don’t smell like much, a little sweet, a little nutty, but nothing like chocolate. They have a soft bite and an immediate hit of cool on the tongue. They melt quickly (as partially hydrogenated coconut oil has a melting point of 76 degrees F) and have a decent mix of nutty flavors, a little milkiness and a little hit of cocoa. A little grainy, they’re not quite as good as I remember.

Now, for the sobering part. Read the ingredients: partially hydrogenated coconut oil, sugar, low fat cocoa, dried sweet whey, soy flour, hazelnut paste, soy lecithin, artificial vanilla flavor.

There is no nutritional info included with these, but this page tells me that just one of them is 22% of my daily value of saturated fat (65 calories).

So while I enjoyed this little trip back in time to taste those little cubes of obsession and trans fats, now that I’m all grown up and have found good sources of candy, I don’t think I’ll ever eat these again now that I’ve found Caffarel Gianduias. (The traditional ones are perfect, the novelty shaped ones are fun & make a cute stocking stuffer.) In fact, at The Candy Store the price for Caffarel and Ice Cubes was identical ... 75 cents each. I bought a handful of Fig and Chestnut ones ... something I’ll feel a little less guilty about eating.

Related Candies

  1. Milka Alpenmilch
  2. Nutpatch Nougats
  3. Ferrero Mon Cheri
  4. Lake Champlain Hazelnut Eggs
  5. Scharffen Berger Gianduja
Name: Ice Cubes
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Albert's (made by Nappo)
Place Purchased: The Candy Store (San Francisco)
Price: $.75
Size: .39 ounces
Calories per ounce: 168
Categories: Mockolate, Nuts, Germany, Albert's

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:36 am    

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Marpoles

So Easter is over and your supply of Peeps are gone and there’s no hope of more until Halloween. Where do you turn?

image

I thought Marpoles, which are long twists of pastel colored marshmallow, might be a good subsitute.

imageThe twists are soft and flexible and covered in starch, instead of colored sugar. They’re also lightly flavored. I think it’s strawberry, but it’s hard to be sure. They smell kind of like cotton candy.

It was soft without being too foamy. Most of all, I had a good time playing with them: tying them in knots, rolling them up into discs and braiding them together. I even put one in the microwave, which made it puff up really big and become sun-surface hot on the inside. I didn’t really taste any different but it made the microwave smell like strawberry Pop-Tarts.

These aren’t really a fair replacement for Peeps, but they’re passably tasty. I can’t really see myself eating these as a treat, but they might be fun for decorating other sweet edibles.

There might be some creative applications like decorating cupcake trees or creating summer dessert kebabs. You could probably cut them smaller and dip them in chocolate or use them for chocolate fountains. They’re a nice treat for kids, as they’re only 40 calories each but look really big, if I were doing a kids party, they might be a nice favor. If you’re decorating your dessert table you could use these as napkin rings and tie them around the napkin and fork. At 10 cents each, there are a lot of possibilities.

Name: Marpoles
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Albert's
Place Purchased: 99 Cent Only Store
Price: $.99
Size: 3.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 114
Categories: Marshmallow, China

POSTED BY Cybele AT 5:55 am    

Monday, May 9, 2005

Crunchy Pixies!

Name: Neon Lasers
Brand: Albert’s
Place Purchased: 99 cent Store
Price: $.99
Size: 5.6 oz (101 sticks)
Type: Sour

I had high hopes for these, though I’ve steered clear of pixie stix and smarties for some years. I love the pure sugar rush, but of course hate the crash. I consider pixie sticks and smarties to pretty much be candy cocaine.

Pixie stix are notoriously expensive, which baffles me. They’re sugar and some sour stuff, probably citric acid or malic acid. That’s it. Maybe they’re hard to produce, stuffing them into those little paper tubes.

These Neon Lasers are in plastic tubes and are they ever tough to open. If you’re lucky, you get one that opens when you crack the seal at one end by pressing the little seal the opposite direction that it’s flattened. Otherwise, just keep some scissors handy.

Upon pouring about a third of a laser into my mouth, I found that it was not power, but little grains, well, really large grains. A cross between sea salt and kosher salt. The crunchy part is just sugar and the little grit around it is the flavor. Will seemed only slightly more pleased with them than I was, but given the opportunity to take them home, he declined. I’d venture that meant a low rating from him too. 

I’m wholly unpressed. It’s not really that they taste bad, they just aren’t worth the trouble.

Rating: 3 out of 10.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:44 pm     CandyReviewAlbert'sSour3-UnappealingUnited States99 Cent Only Store

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