In the world of new candies, I think that names are important. They should either be descriptive of the product experience or novel enough creation that it arouses curiosity and the ability to associate that product forever with that name. Last year I tried something called Powerberries at Trader Joe’s. The name certainly doesn’t say much about what the product is, but is evocative enough that I could glean attributes, especially when I got to see the package. I bring this up because I’m now faced with a similar product that doesn’t quite have the naming mojo. They’re called Brookside Dark Chocolate Pomegranate.

Now there’s lots to love about that name if you happen to like a pastoral name like Brookside and the two elements of dark chocolate and pomegranate are also favorites of mine. (But I’m not so keen on eating actual pomegranate seeds, I know they do sell those, but that’s not what these are.) So while it didn’t have the sexy punch of Powerberries, I did actually buy this package.

It’s a stand up pouch that holds 7 ounces of smooth dark chocolate surrounding a sweetened real fruit juice piece made from a blend of pomegranate juice and other select fruit juices. The image on the front actually looks a heck of a lot like the one I shot below. Hooray for accuracy!

The bag certainly smells fragrant, like a bowl of dried fruit. There are notes of blueberry, raspberry and apricots. The pieces are mostly spherical and glossy dark chocolate. Some were more like disks, about the size of an M&M.

Inside each piece were one or two little pods of this fruit juice pieces. It’s a grainy little “not quite jelly” bit. They’re quite fruity, to the point where some actually had a slight bitter note to them, like the membrane of a pomegranate can impart. The chocolate is smooth and has a good woodsy cocoa note that stands up well to the fruit.

As I mentioned in my original review of the Powerberries, these are a little strange but quite compelling. Though the actual name isn’t quite as exciting and the price is slightly higher than Trader Joe’s, they’re still a fun change of pace for chocolate. I wouldn’t necessarily say that they’re a health food, though the package stresses that there are 100 mg of flavanol antioxidants in each 42 gram serving (20% of your vitamin C as well), I’d say eat them because you like them. There are certainly more nutrients in here than the standard M&Ms, but the key is always to practice moderation.

Related Candies

1. Jelly Belly Chocolate Dips
2. Nory Rahat Locum
3. Gimbal’s Honey Lovers
4. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Powerberries
5. Terra Nostra Pocket Bars
6. Jelly Belly Pomegranate

Dove Chocolate which is made by Mars continues its focus on female friendly indulgence and perhaps even positioning their products as low cost therapy to counteract the modern world.

The Dove White and Milk Chocolate Swirl bar is no different, as the copy on the package indicates: bites of chocolate relaxation that create beautifully swirled partings of luscious flavors which taste as amazing as they look.

The bar is a large, narrow tablet (3.5” wide and 5.5” tall). It’s 3.3 ounces, so a little lighter than the standard 3.5 ounces (100 grams). It still has that pesky portion problem that large bars have. The package says that a single serving (230 calories & 42 grams) is 9 pieces. But the whole bar is 20 squares ... so there are two bonus squares. Why not just be honest that a portion is an absolute half of the package (1.65 ounces and 256 calories)?

The swirls are very consistent and make it appear that the blocks are half and half white chocolate and milk chocolate (though the ingredients say that milk chocolate dominates since it’s listed first).

The pieces are nicely formed and rather thick, which presents a wonderful bite. The bar smells sweet and slightly milky, like a vanilla pudding. The texture is like most other Dove chocolate products, a smooth and silky melt. This one has a bit more sticky sugar to it though, it’s also quite strong in the dairy flavors along with some caramel and toffee. The chocolate notes are subdued, it’s like this bar isn’t at all about the chocolate flavors, just the chocolate texture.

If you’re the kind of person who never cared much for white chocolate, this probably won’t change your mind. For me it was far too sweet on its own, but paired with some pretzels or almonds, it took the throat searing pain away.

Dove pretty much sticks to tried and true flavor combinations. While this new swirl line marks a departure for them, veering off into the previously uncharted territory of white chocolate, raspberry is a common flavor in their repertoire. The Dove Raspberry and Dark Chocolate Swirl bar is also a white chocolate bar, with the twist here that it’s colored pink and flavored with artificial raspberry.

Like all of the American Dove and Mars chocolate products, the back of the package has the Mars Real Chocolate seal on it. It’s refreshing to see a big confectionery corp keeping their ingredients transparent like this, especially since cocoa butter can be so expensive. But while they do use real cocoa butter for both the dark and white chocolate, there’s also a bit of PGPR in there (which is an additional emulsifier often used in lower quality chocolate, made from castor beans). There’s also a smidge of artificial colors with Red 40 and Blue 2, which seems unnecessary considering what they’re doing with natural colors these days.

The appearance of the unwrapped bar is impressive and lovely. However, I didn’t feel like it looked like food. It looked like some sort of plastic stuff that might make nice bangle bracelets or earrings or maybe be carved into a chess set.

The dark chocolate is the same silky smooth texture and cocoa rich taste. The raspberry scent is quite strong at first, but the flavor of it doesn’t overpower the chocolate, which is refreshing. I didn’t taste a lot of the milky notes I detected in the white & milk combo bar. It was sweet, but not cloying or sticky. The raspberry flavor was floral with a strong woodsy note of seeds.

It’s not my favorite bar, it didn’t have the flavor balance that I like, but I do have to say that the texture, melt and smoothness was excellent. I just wish their chocolate flavor was actually nuanced enough to swirl around in that.

Related Candies

1. Wonka Exceptionals: Chocolate Waterfall
2. Divine 70% Dark Chocolate with Raspberries
3. Dove Peppermint Bark
4. Cookies ‘n’ Creme Showdown
5. Hershey’s White Chocolate Meltaway Bliss
6. Askinosie White Chocolate (Plain, Nibble & Pistachio)
7. 3 Musketeers Cherry & Raspberry
8. Dove Caramels & Chocolate Covered Almonds

The final Angell Organic Candy bar in my series is probably the most mainstream, it’s the Crisp Angell Organic Candy Bar. The bar is not only organic but also made with fair trade ingredients, kosher and contains no preservatives, hydrogenated oils or genetically modified organisms.

The bar is milk chocolate with a crispy creamy chocolate center according to the package. The best way I can think to describe it is a creamy milk chocolate fudge with brown rice crispies covered in milk chocolate.

The bar, like the others in the line, is a little small at 1.23 ounces but that also means it’s pretty slim on calories at only 170.

The scent is quite milky and maybe even a little malty. The creamy milk chocolate enrobing is quite nice, though definitely on the dairy side of the milk chocolate flavors, not much of a chocolate punch. The center is, as I mentioned earlier, a creamy fudge consistency. It’s not at all grainy except for those little crispy rice bits. The rice though isn’t as crispy and crunchy as I would have liked though, it was a little on the chewy side - so not quite stale tasting but still not my desired texture. If you’re a lover of the the milky flavors, this is a good bar to satisfy those cravings (it even has 4% of your daily value of calcium).

Like the other bars, this isn’t just an organic knock off of another bar that’s already on the market, it’s an original. It uses some common construction formats, but creates a taste and texture experience all its own. I appreciated that the grain of choice here was rice instead of oats, but the texture was still a problem in creating a wholly decadent experience. In the case of this bar though it’s gluten free, so those folks will appreciate a chocolate bar with some crunch. Still, they’re a bit on the expensive side, I paid $2.69 for mine, but that was at Erewhon, where everything is expensive - you should be able to get these for $2 or so.

Angell Bars website says that they have another bar called Angell Classic coming soon. There’s no description of it, but it does have a few peanuts next to it in the picture ... so I’m hoping for the ultimate peanut butter bar.

Related Candies

1. Snow Angell Organic Candy Bar
2. Dark Angell Organic Candy Bar
3. Justin’s Organic Peanut Butter Cups
4. Askinosie Chocolate
5. 3400 Phinney: Fig, Fennel & Almond and Hazelnut Crunch
6. Zotter Candy Bars
7. Terra Nostra Pocket Bars

Ovation Chocolate Sticks are one of those candies that you’ve probably seen before but rarely thought much about them one way or the other.

I got this box of Ovation Cappuccino Sticks in a box of samples from Sweets & Snacks Expo. They’re made by Sweet Works, the same company that makes Niagara Chocolates, Florida Tropic Chocolate and Sixlets.

The box is a great presentation format for chocolate sticks. It’s hexagonal with a wonderfully colored and folded lid (that would make an excellent hat if done in felt). The colors are great and actually made me rethink my position (or lack of one) on Ovation sticks.

Inside the box are about 44 individually wrapped sticks of chocolate flavored with real coffee.

The sticks are rather small (but also low in calories, about 15 calories each) at 3.33 inches long. The construction is fun, the center is a coffee milk chocolate (with plenty of actual ground coffee in there) covered in bittersweet chocolate. The effect is a strong coffee flavored stick. It’s creamy, a little on the sweet side, but with plenty of coffee punch. It’s a little bitter at times and I’m not that keen on the coffee grounds left over in my mouth. But the flavors are really good - the woodsy and deep roasted coffee, a light touch of milky cream and of course the background of chocolate.

I don’t see myself just eating these as a candy, but they are a nice accent for a dessert tray, with coffee or perhaps stuck into a bowl of ice cream.

Online these look a bit pricey. The box holds 4.4 ounces (about .1 ounces per piece) and looks like it might retail for about $5 a box. For that I might opt for a bit better chocolate bar, but for sharing, especially for a little hostess gift, this is a nice presentation and decent quality item.

Related Candies

1. Sarotti Scho-Ka-Kola
2. Choceur After Dinner Mints: Orange & Peppermint
3. Javaz - Milk & Dark Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans
4. Coffee Rio
5. Caffe Acapella - Coffee Confections
6. Chuao ChocoPods
7. Ritter Sport Capuccino and Rum Trauben Nuss

Angell Bars are a line of organic, fair trade and kosher candy bars. They’re basically classic candy bars made with a little more attention to what goes into them.

The Snow Angell Organic Candy Bar is white chocolate sweet and creamy coconut center. Like the previous bar I reviewed, the Dark Angell, it’s a smallish bar at 1.41 ounces which means that it’s less than 200 calories (190). It’s not vegan like the dark counterpart, but it is free from GMO products, corn syrup and artificial colors & flavors.

The white chocolate coating is real, made only five ingredients: cane sugar, whole milk, cocoa butter soy lecithin and vanilla. The center is made from tapioca syrup, oats, dried coconut, honey and coconut extract along with some other natural flavors and sea salt. (The salt isn’t organic because, well, salt is inorganic.)

The white chocolate coating is soft and creamy, more like a pudding than a chocolate. I really liked the texture and the fact that it wasn’t so sweet. The overriding flavor though is the coconut from the center. The middle isn’t quite white, it’s a little more creamy and well, oat colored. In fact, the texture is more oaty at times than coconutty. While I found the oat flavor in the Dark Angell a bit off-putting, I think the combination of oats and coconut is fantastic. The coconut absorbs any of the pasty or gummy texture that oats can bring and brings all the light nutty flavors together.

If you’ve ever wanted a white chocolate Mounds bar, this might be a good option. The center isn’t quite the same coconut experience as the usual candy store fare though, it’s far more flavorful and less sweet. It’s nice to see a line of organic bars doing their own thing instead of imitating others.

Related Candies

1. Dark Angell Organic Candy Bar
2. Twix Coconut (Limited Edition)
3. Mounds
4. Go Max Go Mahalo Candy Bar
5. Sunspire Coconut Bars
6. Almond Joy
7. Sweet Earth Chocolate Cups
8. Crispy Cat

KitKat candy bars in the United States are made by Hershey’s under a licensing agreement. Everywhere else in the world, they’re made by Nestle. The most vibrant culture for KitKats is undoubtedly Japan, but Europe has their share of KitKat variations.

I found this KitKat Hazelnut Cream at a grocery store called Golden Farms in Glendale, CA. There’s a large Armenian population there, so the local grocers in the area tend to carry a lot of Eastern European and Middle Eastern confections. This particular bar, though in English on the front, was made in Bulgaria. The bar is the single, chunky version of the bar which clocks in at 1.48 ounces (42 grams).

Hazelnuts are much more popular in Europe and Eurasia than in the US, in part, I think, because they do not have the far cheaper peanuts in such ready supplies as we do in North America. Italy has made the chocolate and hazelnut combination world-famous with the innovation of gianduia.

First, I’m not a fan of the big, single finger chunky KitKat style of bar. There ratios are completely off, the chocolate is too thick and the cookie wafers are less delicate. Now, don’t get me wrong, thick chocolate and wafers are still a great combination. They just lack the essential properties that define the classic KitKat, the lightness and balance.

The construction of this bar is a little odd in and of itself. It’s about 4.5” long and a little over an inch wide at the base. There’s a little stack of thick, light wafers in the center with a milky cream between them. Then it’s all topped with another layer of hazelnut chocolate and then encased in milk chocolate. The thick hazelnut topper is what’s odd here, it’s a lot of chocolate flavor and texture and much less wafer.

The bite is, well, thick. It breaks easily, the milk chocolate is well tempered and this was definitely a fresh bar. The three layers of wafer cookies are crunchy and airy, and the cream between then just slightly grainy and cool on the tongue. The centerpiece of this bar is the thick cap of hazelnut chocolate on top of that though. It’s not a pasty giandiua or Nutella style hazelnut chocolate though, it’s more solid, like Milka. It’s sweet but not sticky, there’s a light toasted nutty note to it, but it doesn’t scream hazelnut to me. The chocolate overall is much creamier with more milk flavors than the American version.

It’s an admirable bar and has a lot more flavor depth with some richer caramel notes and of course the light touch of hazelnut. But my hopes were rather above that, I wanted a powerful punch of hazelnut in there, thick ribbons of cream inside those wafers. But for folks looking for a more decadent KitKat, this is actually much better than the plain KitKat Chunky bar. It’s been around for a few years, so it shouldn’t be that hard to find if you’re in the right area.

See review from Rosa at ZOMG Candy.

Related Candies

1. KitKat Otonano Amasa (Adult Taste)
2. Milka NAPS Mix (Assortment)
3. KitKats: Royal Milk Tea, Ginger Ale, Bubbly Strawberry, Kinako Ohagi & Milk Coffee
4. Ice Cubes
5. KitKat Temptations: Hazelnut & Coconut
6. Nestle Experiencing KitKat Slump
7. Caffarel Gianduia 1865

I have a hard time resisting pretty candy.

This is a Haribo Pearlico drop. It’s a grainy licorice center covered in large, pearly nonpareils.

Mike and Ike are jelly bean rods sold in different fruity flavor combinations. The classic version, introduced in 1940, contains cherry, orange, lime, lemon and strawberry. They’re sold in boxes or little single serve bags. They’re, well, ordinary candies but comforting and dependable. Over the years there have been different flavor varieties introduced.

The twist today, is an actual twist. They’re called Mike and Ike Fruit Twists and instead of being a jelly candy, these are a wheat-based chew. That’s right, this is red licorice. The twist on the classic strawberry licorice twist is that these are filled.

Just Born has been making candy in Pennsylvania since 1923 but sometimes they outsource licensed products like this. So this one is made by a company called CandyRific in Spain. So its relationship with Mike and Ikes is pretty distant.

The Mike and Ike Strawberry Fruit Twists come in a green package with a bold Mike and Ike logo across the top. The branding is nicely done to fit with the existing Mike and Ike product line.

The king size package contains six twists. They’re formatted into two bars - each with three conjoined sets of twists that pull apart easily.

The twists are soft and pliable and rather shiny. The scent is a good imitation of strawberry, it reminds me of that strawberry glaze stuff you can get to make pie. The bite is good, not too chewy but still firm. The center of the red tubes is not quite creamy, but soft, like a paste made of Pixy Stix. It’s a little tart and has a mild strawberry punch flavor.

The combination of the two is a satisfying candy. I didn’t care for the artificial coloring aftertaste, which is kind of metallic and bitter.

Mike and Ike jelly candies come in at least eight different varieties and each is color coded. The orange package is my favorite version, Tangy Twister, so I was hoping that the Fruit Twists orange package would be similar.

The orange package is Mike and Ike Green Apple and Watermelon Fruit Twists. Like the Strawberry variety, the package heralds that they’re made with real fruit juice, are low in fat, contain 0 grams of trans fats and are a good source of vitamin C (that’d be 5% of your RDA per twist).

This package contains no conjoined triplets, instead it has six rectangulated twists neatly lined up inside. The red ones are Watermelon, and aside from not having any seams on the side from where they were joined to their brethren, they look exactly like the Strawberry. They smell like, well, ice cream. Not like any flavor of ice cream, just more like the muddled sweet smell of an ice cream shop. The flavor is mild and does actually taste like watermelon flavor. The tangy paste center is a little chalky but passable. The whole thing tasted a bit like modeling clay, there was something rather doughy about it, which could be the wheat flour.

The green ones were Green Apple which had the light scent of apple juice. The flavor was much more like actual apple juice than the Jolly Rancher fake apple flavor most candies go for. The tartness of the center helped out with juicing up the flavor profile. But again, the chew was a bit doughy and pasta like at times.

Overall, I found these lackluster. If you want a less-sour filled red licorice twist, well, this is probably what you’ve been looking for. They do fit well with the Mike and Ike brand, which is basically a mild jelly bean anyway. This product is coming to market kind of late. Twizzlers/Jolly Ranchers already has a version (and has had several iterations over the years) and Wonka has their Kazoozles.

I feel like they’re missing some real Mike and Ike-ness - maybe if they were little bullet shapes and sold in a box and actually came in an array of five flavors.

They’re not listed on the Mike and Ike website under the licensed products. I found these late last year at a wholesale store and then finally found them at retail at Walgreen’s. But I still can’t find much mention of them online, and Mark of Sugar Pressure noticed the same lack of marketing.

Related Candies

1. Candy Tease: Just Born 2010
2. Mike and Ike Fruit Flavored Bubblegum
3. Wonka Kazoozles: Cherry Punch & Pink Lemonade
4. Twizzlers Sweet & Sour Filled Twists
5. Mike and Ike Alex’s Lemonade Stand
6. Peeps Chick & Bunny Candy
7. Mike and Ike Tangy Twister