ABOUT

FEEDS

CONTACT

  • .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
  • Here are some frequently asked questions emailed to me you might want to read first.

EMAIL DIGEST

    For a daily update of Candy Blog reviews, enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

CANDY RATINGS

TYPE

BRAND

COUNTRY

ARCHIVES

Cadbury

Tuesday, March 7, 2006

Green and Black’s White Chocolate

I don’t know what came over me. I bought a bar of white chocolate. I know there are purists out there who don’t think that white chocolate is chocolate at all. But if the stuff that is called mockolate (cocoa solids and hydrogenated or palm oils) can’t be called chocolate because it’s lacking cocoa butter, then this stuff that has cocoa butter but not the cocoa solids can at least be called white chocolate.

image

Each year, as Easter gets closer, against my better judgment I want white chocolate. I don’t actually like white chocolate, it’s usually so sweet it makes my throat hurt and has some sort of electrical effect on my fillings so as to give me a jolt. But there it is, I get to craving it.

I know it has to do with those molded chocolates that my paternal grandmother used to put out on display at Easter. Little bunnies and molded white chocolate baskets filled with different colored white chocolate lollipops. It always smelled of vanilla, sugar and jelly beans ... far sweeter than anything had a right to be. It was like it was some sort of super-dense sugar confection. I’ve mentioned candy season before, and it’s important to note that Easter is the final holiday in Candy Season - so it’s probably the reason that I felt the need to gorge on the highest sugar content products available to me.

But I’d heard that the Green & Black’s Creamy Vanilla White Chocolate Bar was different. So, I bought one at Whole Foods. Rationalizing the whole time that I was doing it for you, dear readers. I was taking the white chocolate bullet for you, so that you might avoid it.

I opened the wrapper and instead of being greeted by something that looked like paraffin, it was creamy colored and flecked with real bits of vanilla. It smelled milky and sweet, but not sticky. A mix of cognac, butter and honey.

The first ingredient is still sugar (well, organic raw cane sugar), but it boasts 30% cocoa content and 28% milk. If you like the dairy milk flavor of European milk chocolates, like Cadbury, then I think you’ll like this bar. It’s sweet, but flavorful, with a good hit of bourbon notes in the vanilla. The bar melts smoothly and velvety on the tongue and leaves me wanting more.

I ate the whole bar yesterday at work, which is saying a lot. I don’t usually consume something this big in one sitting. (Even an eight hour sitting.) Something about a rainy day makes me want to snuggle up with a nice bar of sugar, dairy and fat. Mmmm.

This bar has done something dangerous, it’s changed my mind about white chocolate. Luckily, I’ve only come to the conclusion that I like Green & Black’s White Chocolate. I can’t give it a ten ... let’s face it, I’m prejudiced ... I just can’t do it. If I cave in and buy another one, I’ll come back here and update the rating. The true test is whether I want it after Easter is over.

Note: Though Green & Black’s is a UK company, the bar was made in Italy. Green & Black’s is now owned by Cadbury Schweppes. This bar is organic, but not fair trade certified.

Name: Creamy Vanilla White Chocolate
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Green & Black's Organic
Place Purchased: Whole Foods
Price: $3.29
Size: 3.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 157
Categories: White Chocolate, Italy, Green & Black's, Organic

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:45 am    

Friday, February 10, 2006

Swedish Aqua Life

When I was in college I would pick up a quarter pound of mixed color Swedish fish at a little coffee shop on campus. They would put them in a crisp white paper bag and I learned that I had some sort of special power that I could pull out any color on demand without looking. It was like I could see colors with my fingers, or maybe my hands had a nose. Anyway, the best part of this trick was that people would like to see me do it, and I would make them provide the bag of fish. I had a rate of about 80% correct guesses.

image

This new Aqua Life set makes my old trick irrelevant as this mix has a different shape for each color. Unlike other red flavors that I don’t care for (cherry), the red Swedish fish is something else, I’m guessing loganberry. Also, there are two new flavors/colors in the fish family: blue and purple.

Yellow (Lemon): Starfish
Red (Berry): Fish
Blue (Raspberry): Dolphin
Green (Lime): Fish (a different shape than the traditional fish)
Purple (Grape): Pufferfish
Orange (Orange): Seahorse

All of the candies were soft and chewy and the flavors were solidly good. They’re smooth, sweet and fragrant without much of a tart bite. They tend to stick to your teeth, but not in a tooth-yanking way. The shapes are also fun and easily identifiable, which makes them fun for kids (as if you really need to do anything to make candy fun for kids).

It’s interesting to note that the Swedish confectioner, Malaco, that originally made these invented them for the American market. Which explains why the fish have “Swedish” stamped on their backs (instead of Swedensk or whatever the Swedish word for Swedish is). They’ve only been around since the mid-seventies, but it’s one of those candies that has a timeless feel to it.

The reason I was drawn to them in the first place is because of my whale watching trips. I’ve been taking little candies with me (we’ve had a lot of kids on the boats lately) which help to calm queasy stomachs. I was hoping to find something that fit with the sea adventure theme and these fit the bill (I’ve been carrying individually wrapped lifesavers as well). If I can find them in bulk, I might buy a pound and carry them in a little ziploc bag so the kiddies can pick their favorite shape.

The package states that these candies were made in Canada by Cadbury Adams but licensed from MalacoLeaf, Sweden. So, are they Canadian fish?

I would have given them a 10, but there were some manufacturing defects in my bag, with some overstamps and some little bits that didn’t seem to belong (extra pieces of orange hanging off the seahorse). These may be a good candy for vegetarians (as long as they’re okay with traces of mineral oil) since there’s no gelatin, just corn starch.

Name: Swedish Fish Aqua Life
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Cadbury Adams (Canada)
Place Purchased: 7-11
Price: $1.25
Size: 1.8 ounces
Calories per ounce: 93
Categories: Jelly, Canada, Cadbury

POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:12 am    

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Black Jack

Sometimes I wish that candies were made in different flavors. Like, I used to wish that Starbursts came in cinnamon, mint and licorice flavors.

image

It turns out that product already exists. BlackJack is a licorice (actually anise) flavored chew that’s made in the shape of little square pieces that are sold in a roll.

What was dissapointing about them is that they’re slightly tart. I’d expected a smooth, sweet and spicy chew filled with licorice goodness. Instead it’s slightly lemony (citric acid is in the ingredients), with a tart bite and not much of a licorice flavor to it. It smells a lot like anise, but doesn’t really deliver. I like the combination of licorice and lemon, which is done really well in the Lemon Lakritsi from Finland.

Bassett’s, now owned by UK candy giant Cadbury, is well known for their Allsorts, and I was hoping this was a pocket version of them. They may just take some getting used to, but I’ve had this pack for quite a while and after eating about three of them, I have no desire to continue trying to like them. I’m sure they have their fans, but I don’t think I’ll ever be among them.

Name: BlackJack
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Bassett's and Beyond
Place Purchased: Sainsbury's (West Los Angeles)
Price: $1.39
Size: ~1.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: unkown
Categories: Chew, Licorice, United Kingdom, Cadbury,

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:42 am    

Friday, December 30, 2005

Ancient Spiny Anteater Bears a Chocolately Name

An ancient mammal discovered in Australia has been named after the Cadbury chocolate company in a wonderfully twisted tale.
Check out the National Geographic for the full details of how the Kryoryctes cadburyi, an ancient ancestor of the spiny anteater, got it’s unusual name.

Don’t worry, there’s as much chocolate mentioned in the article as paleontology. The bet started when a bounty was offered to the students doing the digging part, a cubic meter of chocolate to anyone who found a mammal bone. Mind you these folks were digging in dinosaur bones territory - a spot where they were finding bones more than a million years old - it was exceptionally unlikely that they’d find such a thing. Even odder, the bones were found but not identified for more than ten years as it was first thought to be a turtle bone.

Once the bone was identified, Tom Rich, the man who offered the bounty, had to make good on the bet. But a cubic meter of chocolate is a lot of chocolate, like a ton of chocolate. Which is not only big, but expensive. Luckily a series of connections led the Melbourne Cadbury factory to donate the chocolate to the then-students. In turn the ancient beast was named for Cadbury.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:39 pm     CadburyNews

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

I Miss: Marathon

When I was a kid there was an amazing candy bar called the Marathon. It was made by Mars and came in a bright red wrapper and was almost ten inches long (the candy was only 8 inches). Inside was a braid of firm caramel covered in chocolate.

image

The Marathon bar came along at a time when I would guess I was particularly impressionable and it was a marvelous time in candy. New candies were being introduced that seemed to speak directly to my soul. It was at this time that things like Reese’s Pieces, Sprees & Starbursts came out and Pringles (okay, not a candy, but I’d buy them at the Stop ‘n Go). And let’s not forget Pop Rocks.

imageThe Marathon bar was probably not marketed towards me. The commercial campaign I remember involved a square-jawed, white-toothed and practically perfect looking Patrick Wayne (son of John Wayne) who went by the name of Marathon John. This hero of little commerical stories did everything slow, like eating his Marathon bar. He had a nemesis in the commericals, a wirey fellow named Quick Carl. Quick Carl was careless and jumpy and was, of course, always foiled by Marathon John and his candy bar that you can’t eat quickly. (We didn’t have color TV back then, so the whole “red” thing was lost on me ... it’s not that I’m that old that I remember black & white TV, it’s just that we didn’t get one in my family until 1979).

My guess is that this long candy bar that came with a measuring stick on the back was aimed at adolescent boys. You know how obsessed they are with measuring things. And how often do you find yourself at lunch or hanging out at the park with your little paper bag of sweets and wanna measure something with your buds?

Anyway, the candy bar was introduced in 1973 by Mars and discontinued it in 1981. But of course once you discontinue a candy bar the fans come out of the woodwork. The bar has been gone for more than twenty years and still there are rabid admirers who insist that it be returned to the American Pantheon of candy bars. I suspect that one of the issues with it is its non-standard size. It just doesn’t fit on the shelves the same way and slotting is important for the big candy manufacturers. But Cadbury seems to be doing fine with the Curly Wurly ... but for all I know their biggest market may be the United States and these folks in their forties who insist that there is no other candy bar for them than an eight inch braid of caramel covered with chocolate.

A few years ago Mars resurrected the name Marathon but this time gave it to an “energy bar” type candy. I’ve never tried it.

Links: CS Monitor and the Snickers/Marathon bar, Linda Lee Dobbins muses on her favorite candies, including the Marathon bar and other contemporaneous memory lane items including the Marathon bar

If you’re looking for a fix now that you’ve waxed as nostalgic as I have, pick up the Cadbury Curly Wurly bar. You can find them in the UK or Canada or perhaps in the States at a shop that carries UK imports and of course online. Old Time Candy has a nice page about Curly-Wurly and the Marathon Bar Here’s my review of the Curly Wurly (I gave it an 8 out of 10). The only question that remains (and perhaps you dear readers can help) is who came up with the bar first? Was it a Cadbury product that was licensed by Mars just as Hershey licensed KitKat from Rowntree (well, now Nestle)? Or did Mars come up with it and it was successful enough in the UK to continue?

POSTED BY Cybele AT 12:56 pm     CandyI MissReviewCadburyMarsCaramelChocolateDiscontinuedFun StuffNews

Thursday, November 17, 2005

Dairy Milk Bubbly

Name: Dairy Milk
Brand: Cadbury
Place Purchased: Sainsbury (West Los Angeles)
Price: $1.29
Size: 1.3 ounces
Calories per ounce: 148
Type: Chocolate

I picked this up in the interest of documenting all the UK frothed chocolate bars. For those of you keeping score at home, the most well known is the Nestle Aero Bar (which comes in several flavor variations).

Not as wide or plank-like as the Aero (about a third of an ounce smaller), this is a little bar contains bubbleated Cadbury milk chocolate. Cadbury milk, for those of you that have had it, is distinctive in that it tastes like chocolate and powdered milk. Some people think that’s a good thing. I don’t find it that appealing as it reminds me of that time when I was poor.

But with a little positive reinforcement I’m getting over that and finding the flavor rather intriguing (just like it took me many years to get over the rather yogurty flavor of Hershey chocolate).

The bar is light and melts easily on the tongue. It’s sweet, but not as sticky as I found the Aero bar. As with the Aero bar, the bubbles really help to bring out the toasty nuances of the chocolate (I’m guessing the air allows more aromas to combine and give more “flavor” to the bar).

Rating: 7 out of 10

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:40 am     ReviewCadburyAeratedChocolate7-Worth ItUnited Kingdom

Thursday, November 10, 2005

The Real Jelly Babies

Name: Bassett’s Jelly Babies
Brand: Bassett’s (Cadbury)
Place Purchased: Sainsbury’s (West Los Angeles)
Price: $4.29
Size: 215 grams
Calories per ounce: 335 calories/100 grams
Type: Jelly

I reviewed a knock-off version of Jelly Babies a few months ago, because that’s all I was able to find here in the States and I was lead to believe that Bassett’s are illegal for import because they contain non-FDA approved food dyes. Of course when I saw them at Sainsbury’s a few weeks ago, no carcinogens were gonna keep me from trying the real thing!

 

What these Jelly Babies offer that the others don’t is personality. Each of the little babies has a name and a different persona. The pink (according to the package) is Baby Bonny who is sitting with a diaper on. Black is Bigheart, who has a little heart shape on his chest. The orange is called Bumper and has some sort of innertube or fanny pack around his middle to keep him from hurting himself. I think I’d like to see a helmet too. Brilliant is the raspberry one with a big B on his middle. Bubbles is yellow and has a little bead necklace on. Boofuls is the light green lime one who is crying.

(You can see a full detail about them and what they supposedly look like here.)

While the Bassett’s is not as grainy as the Norfolk Manner I tried before and the Bassett’s do have a bit more flavor, I still find them a little perfumey, a little bland. The best one to me, suprisingly enough, was the raspberry one (I’m not overly fond of fake raspberry candy). I don’t think I could eat very many of them in a sitting, which is what makes sweets “candy” in my book. It has to be positively difficult for me to NOT keep shoveling them into my mouth if they’re sitting around. For pure addictive jelly-type candy I will always prefer Swedish Fish, Gummi Bears, spearmint leaves/orange slices, gumdrops or plain old Jelly Beans.

Rating - 5 out of 10

POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:08 am     CandyReviewCadburyJelly Candy5-PleasantUnited Kingdom

Tuesday, November 1, 2005

Barley Sugar Candy

Name: Barley Sugar
Brand: Pascall (Monkhill Confectionery now part of Cadbury)
Place Purchased: Sainsbury (West Los Angeles)
Price: $3.99
Size: 185 grams
Calories per 100 grams: 380 calories
Type: hard candy

Some folks look down their noses at hard candy. Like it’s not candy or it’s a last resort. What’s great about hard candy is that it’s incredibly portable and comes in huge varieties and is generally pretty cheap. And for the most part it’s pure sugar. While I don’t buy a lot of hard candy, I do enjoy it for particular tasks, like high-velocity noveling, whale watching excursions and long car trips.

When I was a kid we used to get barley sugar pops. They were lollipops shaped like old fashioned toys like trains, teddy bears, little dollhouses and animals. The flavors were delicate, not like a Charms sweet & sour pop, but more like a dreamy honey flavor with a touch of lemon or orange. Some have no flavor at all, like the Valentine’s hearts pops. For some reason most barley sugar candy seems to come in lollies. I have no idea why.

Barley Sugar is kind of like molasses, it’s a rather raw syrup made from germinated grains (usually barley) and is often used along with cane sugar and corn syrup to both add flavor and color to boiled candies.

These little sweets look a little like Clementine orange slices, a rich amber orange hard candy. The flavor is sweet with a nice touch of orange essence and no hint of sour. The candies are very solid and smooth with no voids or bubbles in them. The dissolve evenly and have a nice crunch if you’re one of those (I am, I can’t just let a candy dissolve in my mouth, I will chew it up).

They’re a little ordinary, but sometimes I like that ... sometimes I don’t want screaming green apple or supersour lemon drops. Sometimes I want a cup of Earl Grey tea and a few demure sweets. They’re not attention grabbers, but they’re a wonderful background music for my other pursuits.

Rating - 8 out of 10 (a little pricey for sugar)

Related Candies

  1. Regennas Clear Toys
  2. Hard Candy: Juntsuyu

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:24 am     CandyReviewCadburyHard Candy & Lollipops8-TastyUnited Kingdom

Page 6 of 7 pages ‹ First  < 4 5 6 7 > 

Meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world. And the occasional other sweet adventures. Open your mouth, expand your mind.

 

 

 

 

Facebook IconTwitter IconTumblr IconRSS Feed IconEmail Icon

COUNTDOWN.

Candy Season Ends

-2538 days

Read previous coverage

 

 

Which seasonal candy selection do you prefer?

Choose one or more:

  •   Halloween
  •   Christmas
  •   Valentine's Day
  •   Easter

 

image

ON DECK

These candies will be reviewed shortly:

 

 

image