Pocky, the popular Japanese sweet snack, comes in a wide variety of flavors. One of the more popular versions has been the Almond Crush (which also spawned a tastyCookie Crush version). It only makes sense that other nuts would be tried, so today I have Glico Pocky Chocolate Peanut Crush.

The package is big (and came with a similarly hefty price tag) with six little packages of four sticks in a cool flip top box. The serving suggestion is black coffee served in fine china on a gold tray. I’m going to just eat it out of the cellophane package with some water.

They smell great. It’s a dark roasted scent that’s fresh and reminded me immediately (oddly enough) of a really good Nutty Buddy ice cream cone. The crushed peanuts adhere to the short cookie stick with some middling milk chocolate (it might be mockolate, a chocolate compound with some extra vegetable fat in it). The flavors really are about the peanuts and the chocolate is just there to keep it all stuck together and add a little sweet creamy note.

The cookie stick of Pocky isn’t very sweet and though it’s crispy, I woudn’t really call it light either. It has a light toasted flavor ... think of it as the difference between a biscuit and a scone.

The whole thing is barely sweet, more like a snack, thought’s not salty either. I would definitely buy these again if not for the expense - it was $5.49 for the box which means almost a buck for each little packet inside. But each package was rather filling and satisfying, a good blend of protein, carbs and easy sugar.

I have no idea about Glico’s environmental standing or their ethical sourcing of ingredients. The product contains peanuts, wheat, dairy, almonds and soy. But maybe it’s shellfish and egg free, you’ll have to check with the maker.

Related Candies

1. Glico Pocky Cookie Crush
2. Snyder’s Peanut Butter Pretzel Sandwich Dips
3. Q.Bel Crispy Wafer Bars
4. Almond Crush Pocky
5. Pocky Kurogoma (Black Sesame)
6. Men’s Pocky

The Ritter Sport chocolate company celebrates their 100th year with the introduction of their limited edition 100 Jahre bar. It’s the same 100 gram square we’ve come to know and love.

Though the company is celebrating their 100th year, the Ritter Sport square bar, as we’ve come to know it, is not quite as old as that. The Sport bars were introduced in 1932 ... so in 20 years you can look forward to another centennial.

The bar is a simple one, just milk chocolate with a blend of crushed nuts: almonds, cashews & macadamia nuts.

I picked up my bar in Germany at Kaufhof in December, but they may be available at import shops in North America and airports during the year.

The bar is lovely and really quite tasty. It’s odd, the milk chocolate is sweet and smooth, as usual. The nuts are crunch and plentiful. But the flavor is quite interesting. For a while after munching on the bar I was convinced there was honey in it, it has that same sort of toasted almond and honey flavor that Toblerone has. But there was none in the ingredients, so I can only credit the toasting of the nuts that give it that soft, sweet and nutty flavor.

I would buy this bar regularly. It doesn’t quite dethrone my favorite, the Knusperflakes (Corn Flakes) bar, but it’s terrific in its own right.

When I was at the Ritter Sport factory store I was excited to pick up some of their “not quite ready” test bars. Some of these are out on the market now, or will be later this year. But when I was in the store, they were offering the 100 gram bars in their generic white wrappers for half a Euro.

Ritter Sport Dunkle Pfefferminz is a dark chocolate bar with a peppermint flavored dark chocolate cream center. It also features a dash of alcohol, giving it a creme de menthe sort of blast.

The bar looked great.

The cream center was smooth and had a strong peppermint flavor, but not so strong as to overpower the dark chocolate notes, which were slightly acidic and woodsy. It’s pretty decadent and silky, I didn’t feel the need to eat more than two or three sections at a sitting.

I hope this comes to the United States at some point, it’s a keeper and unlike anything else we have on the market.

One other item I picked up in the back room was a bag of these little bon bons. They were simply called Pfefferminz and in a clear plastic bag. Each individual piece was wrapped in an unmarked aqua wrapper. I have no idea what their purpose was, but the center was not quite the same as the Dunkle bar. They were good, but milk chocolate and a little more fudgy and firm.

The test version of Ritter Sport Kakaosplitter must have gone well, because I saw this one on World in Chocolate as a spring limited edition.

I believe kakaosplitter (kakaokernstuckchen) is the German word for cacao nib. The bar is milk chocolate and features a firm chocolate cream filling studded with crispy cacao nibs.

The bar is quite milky and has a good nutty flavor overall. The nibs are toasted in a way that seems to have caramelized them. So instead of being chewy or dense, they’re quite light and crispy, but with a sort of uneven chocolate flavor, depending on the bite.

I liked the treatment of the nibs, but I didn’t care for the overall sweetness of the bar. It makes me wish I’d found this hazelnut and nib solid bar.

The last bar I picked up looked just like the others on the outside, a generic white with the simple name of Ritter Sport Kokosmakrone. Honestly, I didn’t know what I was picking up because I didn’t know what Kokosmakrone was, I thought it was another cocoa nib confection.

Instead it’s a coconut cream. How fun! Aside from the Mounds and Almond Joy bars, there’s not much in the real coconut realm in candy bars in the United States.

The bar is milk chocolate again with a white cream filling with both toasted coconut and rice flakes for crunch.

It smells an awful lot like coconut, the chocolate is infused with it to the point that the chocolate flavors are lost. I had to sequester the bar in its own ziploc bag before I finished it because I was afraid it was going to make my 100 Jahre bar taste weird. The filling is sweet and milky with a little salty hint. The coconut is more of a flavor than a texture, the crispies add a new dimension of texture that you don’t really get in American coconut candies.

Mostly I like this because it’s not like anything else you can get for less than $2. But, if I want coconut, I’m probably going to go for a Mounds bar.

In all, I love Ritter Sport’s sense of adventure.

The bars are made in a factory that processes a lot of different nuts, soy, dairy and products that may contain gluten. The Ritter Sport company sources much of their cacao from South and Central American and says it’s committed to ethical sourcing.

Related Candies

1. Limited Edition Ritter Sport Winter Kreation + Factory Store
2. Ritter Sport Espresso
3. Ritter Sport Sommer-Genuss 2010 Limited Editions
4. Ritter Sport Olympia
5. Ritter Sport Fruhlingsspezialitaten 2010
6. Ritter Sport Peppermint
7. Toblerone Single Peaks
8. Kisses Coconut Creme

Europeans have an appreciation for malt beverages. I’m not talking about beer, I mean malted milk. One of the most popular is Ovomaltine, which is sold as Ovaltine in the United States.

Of interest to Candy Blog readers though is the line of confections made by Wander, the Swiss company that makes Ovomaltine. I picked up this 100 gram (3.5 ounce) Ovomaltine Milk Chocolate Bar, called Schweizer Milkchschokolade mit Ovomaltine in Germany.

The front of the wrapper is bold and uncomplicated, just the familiar logo of the drink and some squares of chocolate.

The bar isn’t really that attractive. The squares all bear the logo for the Ovomaltine, but the inclusion of the actual malted milk powder makes the surface of the chocolate bar itself a bit dusty looking. The segments are nicely sized and scored for easy breaking and sharing.

Ovaltine is not just a flavoring for milk, it’s also supercharged with vitamins and minerals. The chocolate bar is no different, though it’s not exactly the same as swallowing a couple of multivitams there are a few B vitamins and minerals in there.

The bar smells just like a jar or Chocolate Ovaltine. There’s a light milky and malty note to it along with that scent of B Vitamins. I don’t know what that smell is, but it reminds me of baby formula.

The bar is grainy, the flavors are bold, the malt is front and center. The milk chocolate is passable, it’s smooth but barely gives a cocoa kick to the bar. There’s a strange umami quality to the whole thing, it’s not too sweet but still tastes like a treat. I would definitely eat this bar regularly if I could find it.

While in Amsterdam in January 2011, I also picked up this bar called Wander Ovolino, though I don’t recall where (I think it was at Jamin). It was a little on the small side but very light. The center was a creamy, malty nougatine. I would have bought more but I never saw them at the stores again on my trip. It had more of a hazelnut note to it instead of the sort of multivitamin flavor that Ovaltine sometimes has.

If you want to know more about the origin of Ovaltine, here’s a good article from Slate shortly after Nestle scooped up the rights to the powdered mix in the US. Also, Wikipedia explains why it’s called Ovaltine in English speaking regions instead of Ovomaltine ... there was a typo on the trademark registration. More importantly, in France they have a version that’s spreadable like Nutella or Speculoos. Please, someone send this to me!

Related Candies

1. Brach’s Fiesta Malted Milk Eggs (2012)
2. Target’s Market Pantry Malted Milk Balls
3. Nestle Milo Bar
4. Trader Joe’s Milk Chocolate Malted Milk Eggs (Plus a Bonus)
5. Villars Swiss Milk Chocolate
6. Mighty Malts

In the past five years it’s gotten a little easier to find ethically sourced candies for the holidays.

Divine Chocolate makes Fair Trade certified chocolate using cocoa from the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative in Ghana. For the most part in the United States we just get their bars, but for the past two or three years, I’ve seen some of their holiday items at stores like Whole Foods.

The Divine Milk Chocolate Praline Mini Eggs are described as milk chocolate eggs with hazelnut praline filling. The upright box comes in the palest pearl blue color with some very light icons in the background in the same style as their bars. The box only holds 3.5 ounces, which is about 8 foil wrapped praline filled eggs. At Whole Foods they cost $4.49 per package.

These remind me an awful lot of the fair trade Tony’s Chocolonely Easter Eggs available in Europe. So much that I’m wondering if there’s a common production facility in common.

The eggs are 1.5 inches long and about an inch at the widest. They come in two different foil colors: gold and pale blue. Inside the foil the eggs have an interesting shell pattern that reminds me of crocodile.

Each egg is about 13 grams or .46 ounces, so they’re quite a little morsel. The suggested serving is three eggs and I calculated that they’re about 70 calories each, which means 153 calories per ounce ... a rather fatty little chocolate egg. But there is one gram of protein per egg. The ingredients say that the chocolate is 27% cocoa solids and 20% milk solids. Also, the entire candy is 19% hazelnuts. The chocolate is fair trade certified, but that only makes up 67% of the ingredients.

The milk chocolate shell is filled with a thick and dense milk chocolately hazelnut cream. They smell deeply toasty and nutty. The milk chocolate is sweet and sticky and tastes pretty much the same as the filling. It’s soft and rib-sticking with a good mouthfeel and melt. It’s a little on the fudgy side, but barely grainy (the particles from the hazelnut). They’re really filling and though very sweet, it’s not to the point that it burns my throat.

Many fair trade sweets are more for adults, this one would definitely please children. It’s attractive, filling and well made. The price is a bit dear, but that’s what happens when you pay everyone involved a decent wage.

Related Candies

1. Pernigotti Gianduia: Piedmont Hazelnut Paste
2. Tony’s Chocolonely Chocolate Easter Eggs
3. Milka NAPS Mix (Assortment)
4. Real Eggshell filled with Hazelnut Chocolate Truffle
5. Choceur Nougat Bites & Marzipan Bites
6. Caffarel Gianduias
7. Lake Champlain Hazelnut Eggs

Werther’s Original is known best for its smooth hard caramel candies but they’ve recently ventured into the world of chocolate. Werther’s is made by Storck, a Germany candy brand that also makes Toffifay, Merci Chocolate, Mamba chews and Riesen caramels. It always seemed odd to me that their chocolate brand was under the Werther’s label instead of the Merci one, but perhaps they went with the one with the best brand recognition.

Werther’s Original Caramel Milk Chocolates feature the familiar amber yellow and brown branding of the Werther’s caramels. The bars come in a familiar style of upright, flat bar package. They’re 3.5 ounces and I found them at the 99 Cent Only store for a buck a piece. What was even better though was the the package once I opened it up. There were four little individually wrapped bars inside the easily re-closeable sleeve.

The little bars are about 25 grams each (.88 ounces) and the nutrition facts suggest that two are a serving, but I found one sufficient.

There were three varieties on sale at the store, so I bought all of them. Though the smart little bars are color coded, they’re not actually marked with the name of the variety on them. I found the purple and magenta confusing when not placed side by side.

I tried Werther’s Original CaraMelts before a few years ago, which is some sort of caramel flavored white confection and found it was not suited to my tastes, a little too fatty without much flavor. I was hoping this would have a little more depth.

The little bar is a ripple of that cream confection and a milk chocolate.

The melt is quite nice, extremely smooth and though sweet, it’s not sticky or too thick. The milk and dairy notes are clean, like fresh butter not powdered milk. The cocoa notes are rather faint overall, kind of a malty and toffee note to it, but not much more than that.

The Werther’s Original Dark Cream Caramel Chocolates in bar form are similar to another version that were introduced a couple of years ago called Werther’s Original Dark Cream Chocolates which were sold in bags and individually wrapped and shaped like the Werther’s Original hard caramels.

The difference between the two products, as far as I can tell, is shape and price.

When they named it Dark Cream, they really meant the cream part. The fat content on this particular bar is through the roof, at 164 calories per ounce with 79 of those fat calories. The second ingredient on the list after milk chocolate (I know, what makes it dark chocolate cream if it’s made with milk chocolate?) is cream powder then whole milk powder. You’d better like dairy.

The Dark Dream looked odd, the color was not quite appetizing. I can only describe it as a faded or dead looking brown, instead of a lively and rich red-brown like many chocolate bars are.

Even though I complained that there was a lot of milk chocolate in this bar, and a lot of milk, it still had a deeper cocoa flavor to it and was certainly less sweet than the Milk Cream version. The melt is very smooth and has a good flavor balance between the actual cream flavors and the toasty, woodsy cocoa notes.

Werther’s Original Toffee Crisp Caramel Chocolates is the final bar and perhaps the most ordinary and probably the most successful because it plays on Werther’s strength.

The back of the package says Enjoy four individually wrapped bars of European Milk chocolate with pieces of crispy Werther’s Original Toffee.

The ingredients are much simpler as well, just real milk chocolate with lots of extra dairy fats and some toffee chips made with real butter.

The bar has the same faintly off color for the milk chocolate. I can only assume that the reason for that is because it’s diluted by all that extra milk and dairy in it.

The toffee chips are well distributed and at a good ratio to provide a lot of texture and flavor. The milk chocolate is smooth and buttery though again, not very chocolatey. The toffee chips have a good balance of crisp texture, easy crunch, salt and burnt sugar notes.

Overall the price was good for this set of bars, and I enjoyed the portion control that’s usually lacking in these large tablet bars. But the chocolate is weird, it’s too much dairy fat and not enough cocoa butter. I can see the appeal for some folks, especially those who like the mouthfeel of super-slick chocolate like Dove. But I want more chocolate punch in my chocolate.

The allergen list on these was long, pretty much the only thing it doesn’t contain and isn’t co-processed with is shellfish.

Related Candies

1. Dove Swirl Bars
2. Kraft Daim
3. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Almond Toffee
4. Storck Merci
5. Werther’s Original Dark Cream Caramel Chocolates
6. Werther’s Original CaraMelts
7. Wonka Exceptionals: Chocolate Waterfall
8. Guylian Twists
9. Werther’s Caramel Coffee Hard Candies

Lately as the artisanal, slow and local food movement has taken hold I’ve been seeing more wholesome candy bars coming to the market. It’s an interesting idea, to take the fantastic flavor and texture combinations made famous and delicious by the mass-manufacture candy companies and tweak them with better ingredients.

But what actually makes a candy bar great. After you get past the concept and the basics of the ratios, what sets a good candy bar apart from a great candy bar? Is it the quality of the ingredients? The freshness? Can the ethical repercussions of your purchase effect your enjoyment?

When I found out that Justin Gold of Justin’s Nut Butter was releasing a version of the classic Snickers bar, I figured if anyone was going to top Mars, it might be a guy who knew and loved peanuts. The new line of bars are called, simply, Milk Chocolate Peanut, Dark Chocolate Peanut and Milk Chocolate Almond.

The press release said “Justin’s All-Natural Candy Bars contain 25% less sugar, 50% more protein and 100% more fiber than the leading conventional candy bar, Snickers.” So I was prompted to take a look at what a Snickers actually had in it and what I’d get out of it nutritionally.

Snickers Ingredients (2012): milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, lactose, skim milk, milkfat, soy lecithin, artificial flavor), peanuts, corn syrup, sugar, skim milk, butter, milkfat, partially hydrogenated soybean oil, lactose, salt, egg whites, artificial flavor.

Snickers Stats: 2.07 ounces - 57 grams - 280 calories 130 calories from fat

Milk Chocolate Peanut Bar Ingredients: organic milk chocolate, organic cane sugar, organic cocoa butter, organic milk power, organic chocolate liquor, organic soy lecithin, organic vanilla), caramel (brown rice syrup, cane sugar, sweetened condensed milk (whole milk & sugar), whey powder, palm oil, salt, sunflower lecithin, natural vanilla flavor), marshmallow creme (brow rice syrup, sugar, water, egg whites, arabic gum, vanilla), dry roasted peanuts, Justin’s classic peanut butter (dry roasted peanuts, organic palm fruit oil), peanut flour, organic palm fruit oil, sea salt.

Justin’s All Natural Milk Chocolate Peanut Bar Stats: 2 ounces - 57 grams - 270 calories - 130 calories from fat

So the ingredient list may look longer on Justin’s, but that’s just because they have to qualify so many of those items with organic. A Snickers bar isn’t really made with horrible things (no high fructose corn sweetener, no palm oil, real milk products and real milk chocolate). But a big selling point is that Justin’s also uses fair trade certified chocolate. But don’t go in thinking that there are fewer calories in Justin’s, just because there’s more protein and fiber, the calories are pretty darn close and the fat is identical.

The bars look great. The wrapper’s not bad either; it doesn’t look like some sort of dog-eared hippie candy bar. So no compromises there. The milk chocolate is quite sweet but the whole bar is about the peanuts and peanut butter. The caramel is chewy and has a nice pull to it, the nougat tastes like roasted peanut butter with a little note of salt. I was missing the crunch of big peanuts though. There were some, but not quite the same thing as a Snickers, which seems to have more distinction between the layers.

Still, a very satisfying experience. Sweet, crunchy, salty and toasty with a light creamy chocolate finish. Is it better than a Snickers? It’s hard to say, I’ve been raised on the ratios of the Snickers (just like I had the same problem with Justin’s Peanut Butter Cups not quite arriving at the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup experience).

Dark Chocolate Peanut Bar has a lot to offer. It’s not an innovative bar, after all, there’s been a Snickers Dark on and off for many years.

The package looks remarkably like the Milk Chocolate Peanut Bar, except the small print that says Dark Chocolate and the coloring of the illustration of the bar is a little darker. If I had one piece of advice about this bar it would be to make it easier to tell them apart.

The dark chocolate that Justin’s uses is quite dark, though has a smooth buttery melt and bitter, slightly astringent finish. Part of the time I actually got a green olive note from it. The peanut and caramel and nougat ratios are otherwise the same but seem a bit brighter by the bitter chocolate counterpoint. Of the two bars, I actually preferred the Milk Chocolate, which is a bit unusual for me. The dark chocolate is just too pronounced.

Milk Chocolate Almond Bar is the analogue to the classic American Mars Bar, now known as Snickers Almond.

It features an almond butter nougat, caramel with almonds all covered in milk chocolate. The bar, like the others, is two ounces.

All of the bars are gluten free but contain eggs, soy, dairy and either peanuts or almonds plus may have traces of other nuts.

My experience with the Snickers Almond didn’t prepare me for this bar, but it’s quite different. It tastes like almonds. The roasted flavors of almonds, not amaretto, are throughout the bar. The nougat is lightly salted and chewy as is the caramel. The nougat has fantastic toasted flavors of almonds and the caramel holds the whole almonds and almond pieces. So there’s a great deal of crunch here along with the smoother chewy textures. The milk chocolate is silky smooth, sweet and has a strong powdered dairy note to it that ties the whole thing in a bow. Of the three, this one tastes like it beats the original in texture and flavor.

The only production note I had for all of the bars was that they had voids in them. Not huge, but enough in each one that I had to wonder about what might cause them during production and how they could avoid it. The other small issue I saw was that the bottom chocolate coating was thin. On the almond bar it was thin enough that I could see the nougat through it. This can let the nougat dry out and of course messes with the flavor ratios.

On the whole, these are great bars. They don’t taste like there’s a single compromise in there. Though the press release boasted about the improved nutrition, I’d say an extra gram of protein is not why you’d choose these bars. The bars are priced at about twice what you’d pay for Snickers. But for that you get ethically sourced, organic chocolate and other organic ingredients. Some of the other hand made bars are five times the price, so when compared to that, I was pleased. The preference between them without that would come down to personal taste. I think the Snickers are more consistent, but the Justin’s bars are new and I’ve only eaten four (two of the Milk Chocolate Peanut) plus the samples I had at the ExpoWest trade show so all were extremely fresh.

Related Candies

1. Bees & Beans Honey Bar
2. Double Dutch Sweets: The Ramona Bar
3. Snickers Slice n’ Share (1 Pound)
4. Go Max Go Jokerz Candy Bar
5. Zingerman’s Zzang! Candy Bars
6. Snickers Dark
7. More Satisfying Snickers Almond?
8. Snickers Xtreme

I found the Russell Stover Big Bite Pecan Delight Egg at Walgreen’s along with the other super-sized Easter classic, the Coconut Cream in the shape of a Big Bunny.

Pecans and Caramel covered in Milk Chocolate

Ah, a pecan turtle. What a fabulous candy. The roasted, maple flavors of pecans with their oily crunch go so well with the burnt sugar, sweet chewiness of caramel with it all encapsulated in creamy milk chocolate.

I’ve reviewed a few different versions of these in the past. The first one I tried was the Organic Pecan Delight, which were sold individually wrapped and bagged. They were good, but lacked a lot of pecans. The second one I tried was the traditional Easter favorite, the Pecan Delight Egg ... well, that one was even more parsimonious with the pecans. Then most recently I tried the non-organic version of the Pecan Delight and was similarly underwhelmed.

So, would scaling up make a difference?

They weren’t kidding about it being a big bite. It’s two ounces, so of course it’s big, but that’s the same size as a Snickers bar. It’s packed with 290 calories as well. What it’s not packed with is pecans. Those little lumps on the outside ... those are the pecan pieces. That’s it. No hidden nuts inside the caramel center.

I can sit around being disappointed that there aren’t more pecans in this. (I can also call it false advertising.) But the reality is that it’s still a good piece of candy if you adjust expectations. The milk chocolate is passable - it’s sweet and milky and though a bit fudgy and grainy, it still has a pleasant melt and mouthfeel. The caramel center is salty and though sweet, not overly cloying or syrupy. The caramel is smooth, without the slightest bit of grain. It’s pretty gooey, but not chewy. The small bits of pecans gave it a roasted nutty flavor, but not much texture overall.

Would this have been better with more pecans? Absolutely. Would it have cost a dollar? No, not possible. It was a bad year for pecans, the price went way up. The solution to this is for Russell Stover to not offer this candy at this price point, or to adjust our expectations by not saying that it’s the Pecan Delight.

Related Candies

1. Trader Joe’s A Very Merry Mingle
2. Russell Stover Assorted Wrapped Chocolates
3. DeMet’s Turtles: Pecan & Cashew
4. Fannie May Pixie
5. Sweet Earth Chocolates
6. Russell Stover Eggs (2009 edition)
7. Russell Stover Organic Pecan Delight

Easter is the time of cream eggs. There are so many different versions and Russell Stover makes about half of them. From caramel and peanut butter to raspberry whip and strawberry cream, they go for variety. This year their newest introduction is not another egg, but a reshaping of one of their classic eggs into a different format. Behold the Russell Stover Big Bunny Dark Chocolate & Coconut Cream.

The package design is nice, I liked it quite a bit, with its bold illustration style. Though the wrapper is a bit flimsy, it seems to do a good job of protecting the contents. It says that it’s made with 100% real chocolate, which is great news and that it’s made proudly in America. They were on sale for $1.00, which is a pretty good deal for a 2.25 ounce candy bar these days.

The bunny is large, just as the package promised. It’s a little over 5 inches tall (though one of my ears was a bit broken off because I fumbled with it when I took it out of the wrapper).

The shape is only vaguely rabbit. I’m not even sure if it’s just a giant rabbit head or supposed to be a whole rabbit body. It’s enrobed though, which is my favorite kind of chocolate coating. If you’ve ever seen a chocolate enrober, you’ll understand part of my fascination with the technique. A center is pushed through a curtain of melted chocolate, which coats it and hardens as it moves along a conveyer that cools it. (Watch it here, it’s kind of mesmerizing.)

The chocolate is thick enough to create a bit of crunchy break when I bit into it. Because of the irregular shape of the rabbit, it also meant that the ratio of chocolate to coconut would change. The center was thick and had a large density of coconut cream. The cream is light and airy with a smooth sugary grain to it and not too much coconut. The coconut is in very small pieces, less like a Mounds or Almond Joy. There’s even a light hint of salt in there.

It’s a nice product, easier to eat, oddly enough, than the egg version that’s a classic. However, it’s quite large. The package says that it’s one portion, which is 280 calories. I’d prefer to consume it in two or three sittings, as I did. The package was pretty easy to open and fold over and tape closed between those portions.

It’s a good addition to the Russell Stover line of Easter goodies. It’s not overwhelming as a huge chocolate rabbit, but a little more precious than the chocolate covered coconut cream egg.

Though it’s made with dark chocolate, there’s plenty of dairy in there and may contain traces of nuts.

Related Candies

1. Russell Stover “Day of the Dead” Skeletons
2. Mounds
3. Russell Stover Giant S’mores Bar & Mint Dream
4. Ferrero Prestige (Ferrero Garden)
5. Russell Stover Eggs
6. Russell Stover Eggs (2007 edition)
7. See’s Egg Quartet
8. Russell Stover Cream Eggs