A long time ago, when I was a little kid, my sister and I would be given two dimes each and were allowed to walk down to the corner store with other children in the neighborhood. (This was back when candy bars were only 20 cents

15 cents each.) But even at the tender age of four or five I realized that there were better values out there in the candy world than the standard candy bar. One of those things was penny & nickel candy. These were either junior versions of regular sized candies or special small morsels, like lollipops, Bit-o-Honey, Jawbreakers, Mary Janes and Tootsie Rolls.

I was especially fond of a candy called Sugar Mama. It was part of the Sugar family which was headed by the excellent Sugar Daddy and included the wee Sugar Babies. The Sugar Mama was a chocolate covered Sugar Daddy. I often got Sugar Mamas because they were the best of both worlds - the intense caramel flavor plus the chocolatey coating that made it feel more like a candy bar. Sugar Mamas, like Sugar Daddys, were pretty big and because they were softer than a regular hard candy lollipop, they were more interactive. This starts with an impression of the roof of my mouth, then slowly shaving off the chocolate with my teeth and then twirling and pulling the naked, softened caramel into shapes. It was a pretty good way to spend a nickel.

Of course they don’t make Sugar Mamas anymore and Nabisco sold the Sugar family to Tootsie back in the mid-nineties. Sugar Babies, though, continue to be produced and are actually easier to find than Sugar Daddies (there were also Sugar Daddy Nuggets at one time which were divine in their own right). They’re fine little caramel bits unlike anything else on the market because they’re panned - I’m guessing with a layer of sugar or caramel or something to make a smooth shell that turns grainy when you chew it.

I haven’t had a Sugar Daddy in years, and I guess part of it is a fear of losing dental work. I’ve never actually hurt my teeth that way (though I once lost a filling eating scrambled eggs), but it’s a huge fear and I figure better safe than sorry.

My favorite way to eat regular Sugar Babies is to soften them up by putting the package into my pocket or just holding a few of them in the palm of my hand for a while. This is especially important when I get the really stale ones.

Now, on to the product at hand ... it seems that Tootsie is getting into the limited edition racket and has introduced Chocolate Covered Sugar Babies. Now some of you might think that this is the same thing as Milk Duds. First, chocolate coating aside, a Milk Dud doesn’t quite have that caramelized sugar taste to them (they’re more milky) and they don’t quite have the same graininess towards the end of the chew. The thing that surprised me most about these was that they’re actually fully formed Sugar Babies under the chocolate ... I thought maybe the Sugar Baby wouldn’t have the candy shell on it on the inside. This makes the little candy a bit hard and the option of warming them first is kind of gone because of the mess that ensues by holding a piece of chocolate in the palm of your hand for a few minutes.

The chocolate coating is pretty good, much better, in my opinion than a Milk Dud and they’re certainly pretty looking when I dumped them out of the box. There’s a slight cinnamon hint to the whole candy and they combine well once it all warms up. However, I still prefer the plain old Sugar Babies. It was a good effort and I’m glad they tried it, but I don’t need them to add this to the line permanently but if I were going to the movies, this would be a good option (I bet they taste great with popcorn).

Thanks to Joanna at SugarSavvy for pointing out their existence!

I tried to stop buying and posting about Easter candy, but there’s just too much out there. So you can expect more Easter sweets for the next month or so. I picked up two more eggs, both made by Mars but vastly different. The Snickers Egg and the Dove Milk Chocolate Truffle Egg (I looked for a dark chocolate version but didn’t see them).

The Snickers Egg is exactly what you’d think it would be. It’s the familiar Snickers bar, which is a peanut nougat topped with caramel and peanuts and covered in chocolate. They come in a variety of colors of foil wrapping, each with a different sunglass-wearing rabbit on the front. The only real difference between this and a regular Snickers bar, besides the shape is that this is molded chocolate, not enrobed. I know it’s a tiny difference, but in general I prefer enrobing to molding for filled chocolates.

I happen to like Snickers quite a bit, though I don’t buy them very often. This little egg was exceptionally fresh, the peanuts were crunchy, the caramel salty and the chocolate very sweet. Everything was very soft, for some reason I’m used to my Snickers being a little more firm. I suppose the best suggestion for these would be to stick them in the freezer.

Dove Eggs and Snickers eggs happen to be made by the same company, Mars. Oddly enough, they also have the same design on their chocolate shells. They’re not exactly the same size, the Snickers is more like a half an egg, the Dove is less than that.

The Dove Milk Chocolate Truffle Egg is quite a little indulgence. The dark purple foil gives it a rich appearance that the contents fully deliver on. It’s milk chocolate, through and through. The milk chocolate shell is smooth and creamy and very sweet and the filling is buttery and dense. Milk chocolate truffles just aren’t my thing, but if you dig Dove milk chocolate truffles, definitely pick a few of these up, they’re really indulgent. I’m going to keep my eye out for dark versions. According to the ingredients label the filling is just milk chocolate and coconut oil.

One of the best things about the Cadbury Creme eggs is the commercial campaign they used to have. It was a white bunny that would cluck like a chicken and leave behind the eggs. The voice over, I believe, was done by Mason Adams who also did the Smuckers commercials. Of course, I loved bunnies (I even had two as a child) so it gave me a special fondness for the idea of the Cadbury Creme Eggs.

For those of you who are new to Planet Earth, a Cadbury Creme Egg is a milk chocolate shell in the shape of an egg filled with a fondant creme of two different colors - the outer layer is white and the inner glob is yellow (so they say).

The reality of Cadbury Creme Eggs is radically different. First, they never look like the commercials or ads. I’ve pulled apart a lot of Cadbury Creme Eggs in my life, and I’ve never found a glossy yellow yolk in the center. What I find is a dark patch in the white fondant. So all nostalgia and effective advertising aside, I have never been pleased by eating one. They’re too sweet. I’ve tried eating just the chocolate, but what’s the point in that? It’s just really sticky, the fondant doesn’t have enough flavor to it, or fat to give it a buttery consistency that I might enjoy. I’m not saying that these aren’t spectacular candies, but I really detest them.

While the Creme Egg has no non-Easter counterpart, the Caramel Egg does. This is a Caramello bar on steroids, a caramel mega-blister, a huge bubble of salty, flowing caramel inside a sweet, chocolate shell. Just as I discussed the aspects of ratio with the Reese’s Eggs, I don’t think that the Caramello bar can withstand so much tinkering with ratios. However, I liked this egg quite a bit more than the Creme Egg ... what I probably should have done is buy some of the mini-eggs, which might have a more satisfying ratio to them. (I’ll probably pick them up at the after-Easter sales.)

I think that these are great candies ... for people other than me. I’m not going to dish them the way I did with the Bunny Basket Eggs ... Cadbury Creme Eggs are a valid confectionery expression, just not one I’m capable of throwing my support towards. However, I would be very disappointed if they went away. I like seeing them, and I like the fact that they have so many fervent fans.

For more positive poetic waxings on the subject of Cadbury Creme Eggs, visit X-Entertainment or see the Writers and Artists Snacking at Work page devoted to the ovoids.

UPDATE: Cadbury has introduced the Cadbury Orange Creme Egg for Easter 2007.

UPDATED UPDATE: This review from 2006 documents the weight of the egg at 1.38 ounces. The 2007 eggs are 1.2 ounces.

Related Candies

1. House Brand Creme Eggs
2. Cadbury Canadian Creme Eggs
3. Cadbury Royal Dark Mini Eggs
4. Peeps
5. Hershey Eggs
6. Cadbury Mini Eggs

I’ve ignored these bars for years. Well, they’re not really bars, they’re lumps. Maybe that’s why I avoided them, they’re just plops, like something you’d make at home.

I can’t say that I see them very often, but after the pleasant Pearson’s Salted Nut Roll experience, I thought I would give these a try. So what is a Bun? It’s a nut and milk chocolate patty filled with a white fudge/fondant (vanilla or maple) or caramel. The Bun bar was originally made by Wayne Bun Candy Company back in the 1920s, which was based, oddly enough in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Later the bar was bought by Clark of Pittsburgh (the Clark bar) but when Clark was ailing they sold the Bun rights off to Pearson’s in 1998, which only makes sense as Pearson’s was already known for their high protein Salted Nut Roll.

The version that appealed to me most was the caramel, so I’ll start with it. The nuts are whole (or halves, actually) so they provide a huge boost of texture to the sweet milk chocolate. The center is a thick and soft caramel. The whole bar doesn’t smell like peanuts or caramelized sugar, instead it smells like coconut. It also has a tangy quality to it that I can’t quite put my finger on that kind of ruined the experience. It’s salty, but not quite in the right balance.

The chocolate on this one was glossier and I have to say, when it’s fresh, it’s a rather handsome looking candy plop. This one has the requisite nut and chocolate smell. The vanilla center is sweet and has a nice vanilla flavor (part artificial and part natural). The peanuts keep the whole thing from being too sweet. It’s not a bar I would buy again, but I appreciate that when it first came out, as a combination bar it’s filling and interesting.

What kind of confuses me about the whole history of the Bun and Pearson’s is that they already have a candy similar to this, called the Nut Goodie. The Nut Goodie came on the market a good ten years earlier than the Bun Maple, yet Pearson’s still continues to make this regional favorite. (I’ll need to get a hold of one and do a comparison.) Anyway, this is definitely the highlight of the Bun line. The center on this is a maple fudge. It’s smooth and soft and has a microfine crystalline structure that melts quickly in the mouth and mingles well with the nuts and milk chocolate. It’s quite a bit saltier tasting than the Vanilla one, but I think that’s what makes the flavors pop. Of the three, this is the one that was consumed first.  I suspect that these are the hardest to find of the three varieties, so I can’t bump up the whole rating for the line.

If you’re looking for Pearson’s candy, look no further than their affiliate website. You have to buy in whole boxes, but their prices are excellent (less than $.65 a bar) and they offer assortments of Pearson’s and even retro candy boxes that include Rocky Road, GooGoo Clusters and Moon Pies.

(click on any photo for a bigger version)

There are currently three varieties of Goetze’s Caramel Creams. Each has a different name, which is kind of confusing. The plain vanilla variety is called Caramel Creams (though people often call them Bull’s Eyes). The chocolate ones are called Bull’s Eyes and the strawberry ones are called StrawberriCreams. I’ve never seen the chocolate or strawberry versions in the tray pack (which is usually how I buy my Goetze’s), but I did find them in the pick-a-mix at Baldinger’s in Zelienople.

They all have the same cool sugar cream center, but the caramel outside is a little different.

Original: The original Caramel Cream is not really what I consider caramel. It’s not buttery and smooth, but more doughy. It tastes kind of like a plain cookie dough with a plain, sweet icing. The caramel itself isn’t particularly sticky, what really sells the candy is the cream center. There really isn’t anything else like a Goetze’s Caramel Cream. The center is cool and soft and melts away almost instantly. I usually turn my caramel creams inside out when I eat them, popping the cream onto my tongue and waiting for that to dissolve before consuming the caramel O.

Chocolate - These are wildly different tasting than the original flavor. The chocolate dough is dark and smoky, not really a creamy chocolate experience, more like a really chocolatey Tootsie Roll. The caramel cream center stands out even more in this candy because of the darkness of the caramel. I would buy more of these as a companion to my beloved originals.

Strawberry - Gah! They smell like fake strawberries and taste like it, too. The dough nature of the caramel doesn’t really lend itself to this flavor, it’s kind of like a poor imitation of strawberry shortcake, a little tart, very sweet. I had to excise these from my pick-a-mix candy as the smell was rather revolting to me. I know some folks will like these (and probably do, since they’ve been around for a while), but I’m not one of them.

All of these flavors also come in a Cow Tales version as well. Generally I prefer to buy my Caramel Creams in the tray pack, as I think they stay fresh better that way than the twisted cello wrapped candies in the pick-a-mix. (I give the caramel and chocolate varieties a 9 ... the strawberri one is probably a 3 in my book.) All varieties contain both Hydrogenated Oils and High Fructose Corn Sweetener.

Related Candies

1. Caramel Apple Kisses & Caramel Creams
2. Cow Tails

I’m not sure why Hershey’s is mucking around with the Take 5 bar, but happily these limited edition bars at least mean that they leave the original alone.

This version of the Take 5 is the first Limited Edition I’ve seen, as the White Chocolate and Peanut Butter are supposed to be permanent additions to the family.

In this iteration of the candy they’ve simply replaced the pretzel base with a chocolate cookie (ala Oreos). This created some balance problems for me with the bar. First, the pretzel was the linchpin of the Take 5 - you can’t have a Take 5 without a pretzel ... anything else in that slot and you’ve just made a Twix type bar. I don’t think the selling point of the Take 5 is just any old five ingredients - the pretzel is the unique selling point. This chocolate cookie is crisp and pretty thick, but it lacks a chocolate flavor of its own, and certainly isn’t as crispy as a pretzel and can’t match the salty hit and bland flavor that a pretzel has.

The balance is just all off and the crunchiness is gone, the variation in textures is missing ... it’s just lost its vibrancy and interest. The caramel doesn’t even seem as chewy or even noticeable (I did a double take after eating the first piece to make sure that there’s still caramel in there.)

Hershey’s is also planning a marshmallow version of this bar later this year. Or maybe they’ll read this and realize that there’s nothing wrong with the original Take 5 and just move on to adding different cookie bits to the Hershey’s Milk Chocolate bar or devising new KitKat flavors (may I suggest a peanut butter KitKat?).

I think it might be marshmallow day here at CandyBlog.net.

Last week I was at the Farmers Market at Third and Fairfax to meet up with some other bloggers and I knew I had to stop at Littlejohn’s Candies because a reader told me they had the best toffee. Of course once I got there my eyes were drawn to these plump caramel kisses - soft caramel drenching a puffy marshmallow. I completely forgot about the toffee.

So, I got two, one in chocolate and one in vanilla. (And a pecan praline which was divine and I ate before I could take a photo of it.) I figured I can always go back for more toffee ... and another pecan praline.

Once I opened the wrapper it was obvious that these caramels were made with lots and lots of butter. They were creamy, very smooth and exceptionally sweet with a slight hit of salt to it. The marshmallow center was smooth and light without being too foamy. The center also wasn’t very sweet, so it gave a nice backdrop to let the caramel dominate the flavor stage. The chocolate caramel wasn’t as tasty to me, there wasn’t enough chocolate to set it apart from the regular caramel and I plan on sticking to the vanilla in the future.

These are messy candies. They stuck to the cellophane wrapper and to my fingers as I held it. They’re too big to put in your mouth all at once (about the size of a squashed golf ball), so eating them posed a challenge. I ended up with sticky fingers. In the future I think I’ll leave them in the cello and scrape them off with my teeth.

Since the Farmers Market and the adjacent Grove shopping center are such a tourist destination in Los Angeles, if you do come to the city be sure to seek this place out for something a little different from the tourist fudge that you find at many places. (Though they certainly have fudge.) It’s a classic, working farmers market and they actually make the candy right there with big plate glass windows so you can learn all of their sugary secrets.

There are a lot of new Hershey’s Kisses out. Some of them are natural progressions of the classic milk chocolate morsel. Dark Chocolate and their sassy purple foils are one of those and of course Hugs with their almond centers. Some of the new Hershey’s Kisses sound like pre-existing products in the Hershey’s repertoire. When I heard about the Caramel Kisses, I thought, “Aren’t those just Rolos?”

Rolos have been around in the United States since 1971 and I think I remember their introduction. I also remember some of the other advertising campaigns, including the Rolo song (You can roll a Rolo to your pal/it’s chocolate covered caramel ...  you can roll a Rolo to your friend/it’s chocolate covered caramel from end to end). They’ve never held much interest for me, I enjoy eating them with other things, like pretzels or apples, but not just as a treat by themselves.

The Caramel Kisses are soft, flowing caramel in a molded chocolate shell shaped like a Kiss. Rolo is a soft but chewy caramel in a molded chocolate shell shaped like a tall disk.

The chocolate on the Caramel Kiss is sweet and likable, with a fair amount of grain and that inimitable Hershey’s tang to it . The caramel is flowing and sweet with only a slight toasted sugar note to it. The vanilla is rather chemical in nature. They’re a good size and have a good proportion to the elements.

The Rolo has a very sweet chocolate outside, with a fair amount of grain and a sort of “graham” taste to it. The caramel inside is pleasingly soft but not messy and flowing. It’s chewy without pulling on the teeth. It doesn’t have much flavor to it, not much of a toasted sugar note, but it’s smooth and milky. They smell of sugar and fake vanilla.

Frankly, neither of these candies float my boat. I know that in a Head-to-Head the battle is supposed to be fierce and the winner takes a huge prize, but I’m just not fond of either of these candies enough to purchase them again. Instead it’s one of those board games that you start and it gets so complicated or boring that you just agree to wander away.