Every once in a while a limited edition comes back. This one, the Reese’s Peanut Butter Lovers Cups, came out in 2005 along with its companion, the Reese’s Chocolate Lovers Cups. I spotted them again in stores a few weeks ago and picked them up on sale at Walgreen’s over the weekend.

The package is more peanutty looking than the traditional bright orange wrappers. It was easy to spot on the shelves as a different variety. Unlike some limited edition varieties that other candy companies make, this is a full sized version of the original - the same 1.5 ounces (.75 ounces per cup).  Yes, it’s true that Reese’s Cups have gotten smaller over the years. Brad Kent has the 1.6 ounce wrapper from 1997 and the change made sometime circa 2003 based on Mike’s Candy Wrappers. 

I don’t think I tried these the first time they came around, as I think that the regular ratios of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are ideal. When I opened the package I was wondering if there was any chocolate at all ... even though it said Milk Chocolate right at the top.

Once I pulled the brown fluted paper off the cup I understood the construction. There is a milk chocolate container which is filled with the Reese’s peanut butter center and that’s capped with a peanut butter candy coating.

The cup has a soft bite, slightly crumbly. It’s definitely all about the peanut butter. The chocolate base provides a little cool & creamy sweetness but very little in the way of cocoa notes. The dry and salty peanut butter center has that inimitable texture and roasted peanut flavor. I found it to be much saltier, so I looked around for sodium content for the original and found that has 130 mg per package and this limited edition version has 170 mg. (Just a note, I think everything is salty these days ... my otherwise healthy diet is rather low in sodium.) However, it does have 6 grams of protein versus 4 grams in the classic. More peanut butter means more protein and actual less fat & fewer calories ... a whole 10 fewer calories.

I enjoyed these, and certainly had no trouble finishing the package. But given the choice I’m either going to go for the regular cups or the minis (I don’t think I’m going to touch the once perfect eggs now that they’ve gone mockolate).

Related Candies

1. Reese’s Enigma & Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Eggs
2. Reese’s Crunchy (Limited Edition)
3. Whoppers Reese’s Peanut Butter Flavored Candy
4. Reese’s Pieces
5. Factory Fresh Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
6. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Line

There’s a lot that goes on before our beloved candy hits the store shelves. The same is true with Candy Blog, though it probably looks like all I do is play with candy, take photos of candy and of course eat candy. I also read about what’s going on in the candy business and of course visit trade shows and talk to candy companies, distributors & retailers.

One of the things I always found curious about the American candy business is how some foreign candies are represented in the United States. One such oddity was that the American distributor for Toblerone and Cote d’Or (owned by Kraft) chocolate for two years was Ferrara Pan. Yes, the Lemonhead & Atomic Fireball makers. Well, that deal ended in December 2008. So that left Ferrara free to move into the chocolate bar field without competing with his own interests ... and he’s come up with something that looks familiar yet has its own distinctiveness.

The chocolate is made in Belgium but the rest of the manufacturing is done at the new Ferrara facility in Forest Park, IL. If you like the behind the scenes stuff, you might love this article (which is one of the most blunt I’ve seen about how the candy business is a business and made up of people).

The new Ferrara Imported Belgian Milk Chocolate with Almond Nougat bar has a distinctive shape and a similar construction. It’s an atypical shape (a trapezoidal bar with deep sections) enclosed in a box shaped just like the bar. Yes, it’s a Faux-blerone.

The ingredients are in fact quite nice: milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, chocolate, soy lecithin and natural vanilla flavor), almond nougat (sugar, corn syrup, almonds, honey, egg white, natural vanilla flavor) plus wheat starch as a processing aid.

Inside the box the bar is sealed in a heavy mylar wrap with the Ferrara “F” crest reminding consumers that Ferrara has been making candy since 1908 on it.

It does smell quite good, sweet and milky with just a hint of the promised honey in the nougat.

Biting into it the first thing I noticed was how packed with nuts & nougat bits it was. My issue with Toblerone has long been the lack of enough bits to satisfy me.

The chocolate is quite milky but surprisingly smooth. The milky flavors are lightly caramelized, so there’s a malty & honey undertone to it. The chocolate comes across as rich, but also a little sweet.

I liked the little almond slivers and crunches and the Italian-style nougat which had a hint of honey and toasted marshmallow flavors. The bits are a little tough and sometimes sticky ... I’d kind of like to try the milk chocolate without the nougat & nuts. (Ferrara is planning on making sectioned chocolate balls a la Terry’s Chocolate Orange later this year as well.)

I’d say this is a great addition to a rather open segment of the candy shelf - better than a standard Hershey’s with Almonds and rivaling Toblerone without the price tag. I paid $1.99 for this bar ... on the shelf next to it was Toblerone, for $2.79 each.  The fact that it’s all natural (no artificial vanilla flavor in there) is a bonus.

Related Candies

1. Toblerone Fruit & Nut
2. Ferrara Dark Chocolate Covered Biscotti
3. Lemonhead Fruit Snacks
4. Toblerone Single Peaks
5. Atomic Fireballs
6. The Lemonhead & Fruit Heads

Lindt is well known for their economically priced & widely available Lindor truffle line.

Their line of individually wrapped bites called Fioretto differs from the Lindor Truffles in that it contains no tropical oils (palm, palm kernel or coconut).

These little morsels are more of a cross between Perugina Baci and Ferrero Rocher.

I liked the little stand up bag, it’s simple and not too fussy. What I liked even more is that they sell the chocolates in single flavor bags plus this assortment of all three. To top it all off, Target had them on sale for $2.50 a bag (regularly $3.50). While that sounds like a good deal, it’s not like there’s a lot in the bag - it’s 4.1 ounces and holds 10 pieces.

The Nougat Hazelnut Praline is in a blue wrapper, which may be the universal color of hazelnut.

Inside the cellophane the little candy is further wrapped in paper-backed foil. The pieces are about 1.25” in diameter and barely 1” tall. They’re lumpy affairs with obvious cereal crunchies lurking below the milk chocolate coating.

They smell sweet and milky, and a little like malty rice crispies.

Biting into them is quite a journey of textures. The chocolate shell does have crisped rice bits in it. Then the center is a soft hazelnut cream with crushed hazelnuts in it. The hazelnut aroma comes out quite distinctly once the seal has been broken.

It’s sweet but with a good bit of hazelnut and milk flavor to it. It’s sticky and a bit cloying but the variety of nut & cereal crunches break that up.

Cappuccino was a bit of a mystery, as the package didn’t really have any description. So I was pleased to see it was a milk chocolate shell (not a white chocolate one). It does smell like rich dark espresso with a liberal helping of sugar.

Like the hazelnut, there were crisped rice bits in the shell. The center here, though, had no nuts. Instead it was a creamy coffee, milk & chocolate filling. It’s a bit crumbly but melts easily. It has a strong coffee flavor and even bits of coffee beans in there (not my favorite way to get coffee flavor).

I liked the flavors and the crisped rice covered up some of the bitterness associated with the little crunchy coffee bits.

As I mentioned at the top, there were 10 pieces in my package. As you might imagine there were at least three of each ... and the flavor that got four was Caramel.

The wrapper is a tantalizing burnt orange. It smells a bit buttery and like Stroopwaffles (if you’ve ever had those, you’ll know what I mean).

The consistent element in the Fioretto is the chocolate shell with a moderate amount of crisped rice in it. It’s creamy and sweet, but doesn’t have a super chocolate punch to it, allowing whatever center is there to be the dominant flavor.

The caramel center is smooth and almost like a pudding. There’s a faint cinnamon or mild spice in there, like this is a baked good instead of a chocolate. It’s a comforting sweet flavor and texture, but lacking that bunch of “caramel” that I would expect to have notes of butter, salt and burnt sugar. 

I prefer these over the Lindor Truffle line, if only because they seem more chocolate-based than oily. I would love to see them in a dark chocolate version.

Other views: Candy Addict, Jim’s Chocolate Mission got a dark one (and a lime & white chocolate) and Rebecca at SugarHog.

Related Candies

1. Laica & Caffarel Chocolate Eggs
2. Ghirardelli Luxe Milk Crisp
3. Lindt Chocolate Carrots
4. Lindt Lindor Truffle Eggs
5. Ritter Schokowurfel
6. Ferrero Rocher
7. Baci Bar

A couple of weeks ago I visited a Middle-Eastern market in Orange County called Jordan Market. They had a great selection of hard to find Persian and Middle Eastern confections. They had several brands & styles of Halvah, Turkish Delight and, as the title of this review shows, Persian Nougat.

Anyone who’s been reading along on Candy Blog knows I’m a pushover for nougat. I’ve had Persian nougat before (I get it in little individually wrapped pieces at Mashti Malone’s Ice Cream in Hollywood), but I was attracted to this large box both by the price and the statement on the box: All Natural Persian Nougat - Packed in Flour in the Traditional Way.

I’m accustomed to Turkish Delight being packed in corn starch so figured this would be a similar powdery experience.

Persian nougat it different from French, Italian & Spanish nougat in that they don’t use honey in it. Instead the primary flavor is rosewater (sometimes orange blossom).

The box was shrink wrapped to keep it fresh. Inside the waxed paper sheets fold back to reveal what at first looks like a box of loose flour. A little shake of the box and the lumps of nougat are revealed.

This is the messy part thought. I took out a couple of “cakes” of the stuff and dusted them off with the brush I use to clean my shooting table. Underneath the plain cake flour are little white irregular pieces that look like raw biscuits. They’re about 2 1/2 inches around and lumpy. They smell rather like flour.

The nougat is pretty firm so biting into them is a little bit tough. (Though they are easily cut into bite size pieces with a sharp knife.)

Once I broke through the powdery outsides, it was easy to get a sense of the personality of the traditional Persian nougat.

It’s liberally dotted with green pistachios and has a smooth chew with a strong rosewater flavor. I happen to like rosewater and of course pistachios have a grassy & floral note to them as well. (I think this nougat also comes in an almond variety.) It’s flowery without being too soapy for me, but Robin from next door did think it was a little too much like grandma’s purse. Amy-Who-Spits-Things-Out came by for seconds today though.

Each piece is a large portion, there are 12 in the box which means that they’re each about 1.33 ounces each. Quite satisfying.

I think next time I’ll go for the individually wrapped pieces because my only real issue with them is the horrible mess ... which probably keeps me from eating the whole box.

Related Candies

1. Loukoumi Artisan Confections
2. Ferrara Nougats
3. Nutpatch Nougats
4. Valerie Lemon Hazelnut Nougat
5. Lifesaver Musk
6. Nougat de Montelimar
7. Halvah and Turkish Delight

Earlier this year Hershey’s provided me with a peek at some new products. I’ve been hanging onto the new Bliss White Chocolate Meltaway until it was closer to arriving on store shelves.

This addition to the Hershey’s line will set it apart from many other chocolate morsels such as the Dove line because instead of going super dark, they went all white.

The good news is that Hershey’s is using real white chocolate made with cocoa butter for their meltaway. Though it’s not a real gourmet product it’s still an excellent option for white chocolate lovers for a less-expensive treat. The ingredients list white chocolate as the first ingredient (sugar, cocoa butter, nonfat milk, milk, lactose, milk fat, soy lecithin, tocopherols, vanillin & salt). The meltaway center is made with a mix of the white chocolate and palm kernel oil. As you can imagine the saturated fat content is through the roof, with 6 pieces completing 45% of your daily recommended allowance of saturated fat but also 10% of your calcium.

The pieces are quite elegant. They’re wrapped simply in gold foil (though these were samples and I would expect that they would have the Bliss name on them like the other products in the line do).

The pieces are a creamy pale color with a little squiggle design across the rounded dome of the square. The smell sweet and milky and pretty much taste the same. The salt give them a little pop that makes the vanilla flavors come out more strongly than I would have expected. It’s like a vanilla pudding. A little bland but also a bit unchallenging in comforting way.

The difference between the white chocolate shell and the meltaway filling is rather marginal, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It felt like a piece of soft and creamy, sweet fat.

I liked the packaging - I thought the light blue, creamy white and gold were elegant and evocative of the product itself. I have a bit of trouble eating too many, so added to a mix of other levels of chocolate would be nicer. My only hesitation with them is that the Bliss line seems a bit expensive (regular price $4.99) for what you get. I’d prefer something without palm oil and with real vanilla. My go to white chocolate is still Green & Black’s.

Related Candies

1. Chuao Chocolate Blocks from LEGOLAND
2. Ghirardelli Holiday Squares
3. Askinosie White Chocolate (Plain, Nibble & Pistachio)
4. Hershey’s Bliss Creme de Menthe Meltaway Center
5. Hershey’s Bliss
6. Ritter Sport White Chocolate with Hazelnuts

I went back to Target over the weekend in hopes of finding more new Halloween goodies. Though it was mostly the same items I found there two weeks ago, the seemed to have a bit more in the way of their Gourmet Candy Corn line.

They have a lot of funny flavors that seem incongruous with candy corn like Tangerine, Green Apple (plus Chocolate Covered Green Apple), Toffee (which I already reviewed) and S’Mores. However, Pumpkin Pie sounded pretty good.

It’s in the same style of stand up black shiny bag that the other gourmet treats were in. They’re all terribly overpriced, but the packaging is nice enough that you could probably bring a bag as a hostess gift for the right occasion.

I found the colors off-putting. The tip is soft orange, the center is bright yellow but the base is some unworldly fluorescent orange that just makes me think of faded vinyl tub toys. I really couldn’t capture the color in the photo. 

The bag smells sweet and creamy when opened.

The texture is soft and has very little grain to it. They’re sweet and lack that touch of honey that true candy corn usually puts forward. The pumpkin pie here is just a light blend of spices. Cinnamon is the boldest, but it doesn’t rise to the level of spicy or hot cinnamon. There’s a slight twinge of woodsy nutmeg or allspice ... but that’s pretty much it.

I was disappointed. I hoped for some more nutmeg or even a note of clove but instead it was about as bland as generic canned pumpkin pie mix. I think I’m done tasting novelty candy corn, at least when the price is $2.99 per flavor. So if you’ve tried some of the others, chime in with your experience to help out other readers.

Related Candies

1. Toffee Flavored Chocolate Covered Candy Corn
2. Halloween Dots: Bat, Candy Corn & Ghost
3. See’s Pumpkin Spice & Root Beer Lollypops
4. Brach’s Chocolate Candy Corn & Halloween Mix
5. Hershey’s Pumpkin Spice Kisses
6. Zachary Candy Corn & Jelly Pumpkins

While I usually think of September as the time to introduce new holiday themed candies, there’s a lot new everyday candy coming out. Most of the big news is in advance of NACS which is the National Association for Convenience Stores and Petroleum Retailing trade show. (Yes, they show a lot of candy and snack food at that convention.) The biggest news is that Mars has settled on some new products as a result of their years of limited editions. Some people are going to be very happy.

Name: M&M’S(r) Coconut Chocolate Candies
Brand: Mars
Description: Last summer, the country indulged in limited edition M&M’S(r) Coconut Chocolate Candies. Now consumers’ taste buds can escape to a tropical paradise any time of the year. In December 2009, M&M’S(r) Coconut Chocolate Candies will join the permanent line-up for the M&M’S(r) Brand. Consumers can’t resist the coconut-flavored M&M’S(r) Brand milk chocolate coated in a white or brown candy shell.
Notes: It’s odd to see these rolled into the regular product line so quickly, they must have flown off store shelves. (I think the fact that it was the suggested item at Walgreen’s for a month might have had something to do with the wide sampling.)

Name: M&M’S(r) Wildly Cherry Chocolate Candies
Brand: Mars
Description: In February 2008, consumers went wild for M&M’S(r) Wildly Cherry Chocolate Candies. Now fans won’t have to fret their favorite treat will go out of season - it will be a permanent addition to the offerings from Mars Snackfood in December 2009. M&M’S(r) Wildly Cherry Chocolate Candies feature smooth milk chocolate surrounded by a crisp candy shell with rich, delicious cherry flavor.
Notes: I tried these and thought they were okay. Honestly I think they’d be better as part of the M&Ms Premiums line because I wasn’t fond of the raspberry version there.

Name: Jots (Halloween)
Brand: Brach’s (Farley’s & Sathers)
Description: Jots from Brach’s are colorful candy coated morsels of milk chocolate.
Notes: Jots come and go from Brach’s. I really don’t have any info, except for this photo which was featured in a holiday candy announcement around All Candy Expo. I wish I could find them in stores but other than the Candy Corn and Mellocremes, I’m not seeing much Brach’s in the stores in my area.

Name: Color Me Candies
Brand: Russell Stover
Description: Delicious Russell Stover chocolate covered in a sweet candy coating. Available in eleven colors & color mixes. These large candy pieces are perfect snacks for parties, team outings or just snacks to keep around the house.
Notes: Another entrant into the single color candy covered lentil, Russell Stover has 11 colors competitively priced at $2.99 per 8 ounce bag, a fraction of the price of M&Ms Colors (which are $6.99 for 7 ounces). Right now they’re available on the Russell Stover website and probably their owned & operated stores. I’m waiting for Los Angeles to cool off before placing an order.

Name: MILKY WAY(r) Simply Caramel
Brand: Mars
Description: With delicious caramel surrounded by real milk chocolate, the new MILKY WAY(r) Simply Caramel Bar gives consumers more of what they crave about the Milky Way(r) Brand—rich, creamy caramel.
Notes: I believe that these were tested in a seasonal mix of regular Milky Way, Milky Way Dark and then this Simply Caramel in miniatures. I never found them on shelves to try them myself, but I can only imagine what this bar would be like ... very, very sweet. Hopefully it will be chewier to set it apart from the current chocolate/caramel offerings like Caramello.

Name: 3 MUSKETEERS(r) Truffle Crisp Bars
Brand: Mars
Description: The new 3 MUSKETEERS(r) Truffle Crisp Bars offer a unique twist on the brand consumers love—a lighter, crispier way to enjoy chocolate. At only 170 calories, this delicate treat features a whipped up chocolate truffle on a crisp layer.
Notes: This looks an awful lot like the Fling bar that was a product in Australia and was recently test marketed in California. (Reviews here.) If it is, I certainly appreciate the toned-down packaging & gender-neutral sales approach.  There’s no indication whether it will come in a dark chocolate version.

Name: ICEE Gummy Candy
Brand: Koko’s Confectionery
Description: ICEE Gummy Candy is a new treat from Koko’s and is based on America’s favorite frozen carbonated beverage, ICEE. These sweet and chewy candies are shaped like iconic ICEE images such as the cup and bear. Flavors include cherry, blue raspberry, green apple, and lemon.
Notes: The flavor array is a little odd, in my mind it should have a cola flavor in there. Possibly even a cherry cola. I’m wondering if there’s anything that will give them that Icee note, like a burst of menthol like Sour Patch did with their Chillerz.

Name: MEGA Candy Buttons
Brand: Stichler Products, Inc
Description: A gigantic twist on the classic candy. Paper strips are a full 5 inches wide and 14 inches long. Colorful candy dots are flavored orange, lemon, cherry and raspberry. (Kosher)
Notes: They’re supposed to come off the paper easier than the Necco dots, so that’s a plus. And some flavor might be nice, though I’m thinking the appeal of these is still that they’re pretty. I do appreciate candies that play with scale.

Name: ICEE Popping Candy
Brand: Koko’s Confectionery
Description: ICEE Popping Candy is a new treat from Koko’s and is based on America’s favorite frozen carbonated beverage, ICEE. Dip the ICEE cup shaped lollipop into the Popping candy to experience an explosion on crackle in your mouth! Flavors include cherry, blue raspberry, green apple, and lemon.
Notes: I’m quite sure how this came about, but I’m glad they didn’t stick a straw in it and have kids inhale popping candies.

Name: TWIX(r) Java
Brand: Mars
Description: Coffee lovers can enhance their coffee breaks with a great TWIX(r) Brand twist featuring coffee-flavored caramel paired with irresistible chocolate cookie and covered in delicious TWIX(r) Brand chocolate. Back by popular demand to “bring the flavor back,” TWIX(r) Java Chocolate Cookie Bars are moving from a 2008 limited edition to a permanent offering.
Notes: I loved this when it first came out and have found that it’s really the only Twix bar I do like. I’m actually looking forward to the minis, as I find that’s usually the best balance of chocolate & crunch for my preferences.

All photos courtesy of their respective manufacturers.

Related Candies

1. Brach’s Indulge Almonds: Coconut & Caramel
2. Limited Edition M&Ms Coconut
3. M&Ms Premiums
4. Java Twix
5. Head to Head: M&Ms vs Koppers Milkies
6. Head to Head: Milky Way & Mars (Canada & UK)

Trolli Little Green Men are one of the newer novelty gummis from Trolli, which is owned by Farley’s and Sathers. They’re just as inventive as other gummi makers like Haribo, with a variety of shapes & flavor assortments.

The package looks like it’s geared towards kids. There’s a flying saucer behind the logo with a little bulgy-eyed alien at the steering wheel.

The bag comes with just one shape & flavor. In this case it’s a little green alien with a bulbous head and Cosmic Star Fruit flavored.

For the unfruity, Star Fruit is also known as Carmbola. It’s a strange looking creased/segmented fruit that looks like a five pointed star when sliced. The texture and flavor is something like a cross between a crunchy apple and the flavor of cataloupe and pears.

The gummis are rather startling looking. They have huge green heads and teensy little potbellied bodies. The heads are about 3/4” around and the whole fella stands only 1.5” high.

They smell fresh, a bit like melon and citrus. They’re soft and pliable, but not sticky or very greasy to the touch. The flavor is immediately lightly tangy but an overall mild berry or pear flavor.

They’re nice in that they’re a big bite of gummi. The flavor is different enough to seem distinct, but not too exotic to seem weird.

Related Candies

1. Puffy Candy Corn
2. Trolli Sour Brite Eggs
3. Trolli Sour Brite Crawlers
4. Wonka Sluggles
5. Brach’s Gummi+Plus & Tropical Gummis
6. Starburst GummiBursts
7. The Simpsons Fruit Snacks
8. Haribo Gummi Bears vs Trolli Gummi Bears