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Germany

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Lindt Gold Bunny Hazelnut

Lindt Hazelnut BunnyLindt Gold Bunny Hazelnut is a new introduction that’s sadly not available in the United States. I saw an announcement about it a couple of months ago and put it on my London shopping list. Not only did I find it, they were on sale, two for £5 ... which is still pretty pricey at $4.25 with the exchange rate at the time.

Honestly, I never read past the name of the product and I was sold. So, I didn’t know quite what to expect, I simply assumed that this was going to be an giandiua product, a sort of milk chocolate with hazelnut paste blended in for an extra rich texture.

The bottom label on the foil covered rabbit explained that it was milk chocolate with hazelnut pieces. It’s actually 20% hazelnuts while the chocolate is 30% cocoa solids and then another 14% milk solids. In addition, there’s a touch of malt extract (I don’t know what that means when it comes to gluten status). There’s no actual allergen statement, just bolded items on the ingredients which include dairy, soy, hazelnuts, and barley plus traces of almonds.

Lindt Hazelnut Rabbit

The bunny looks a little odd, with the variations in the color, but oh, my goodness it smells great. It’s a roasted hazelnut scent that just makes my mouth water. The ears are nearly solid, so the first bite was quite a treat. The chocolate is a bit softer than the Lindt Dark, though their regular Milk Bunny is also on the soft side and also has a touch of malt.

Lindt Hazelnut RabbitThe melt is immediately milky, but it’s not that dried milk flavor that so many Swiss chocolates have, this is much fresher and brighter.

The note of malt is not completely overshadowed by the hazelnut either. It just moderates the sticky sweetness of the Lindt milk chocolate, as do the generous hazelnuts. The hazelnuts are crisp and crunchy with a macadamia or coconut crispness. They’re quite small bits (as they’d need to be for a molded item like this).

This is amazingly good. Easy to eat, filling but not too sweet. It’s expensive ...but really cute and very well executed. I would love to see these introduced in the United States next year. I was poking around online and saw that they may be available in Canada and there’s always a few eBay sellers that do European confectionery imports.

Related Candies

  1. Eclat Chocolate Caramelized Hazelnuts 65%
  2. Poco Dolce Hazelnut Bar
  3. Ferrero Eggs: Hazelnut & Cocoa
  4. The All American Chocolate Bunny Battle
  5. Riegelein Confiserie Hollow Chocolate
  6. 3400 Phinney: Fig, Fennel & Almond and Hazelnut Crunch
  7. Lindt Chocolate Carrots
  8. Lindt Chocolate Bunnies (Dark & Milk)
  9. Dagoba Hazelnut


Name: Gold Bunny Hazelnut
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Lindt
Place Purchased: Sainsbury (London)
Price: $4.25 (£2.50)
Size: 3.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 175
Categories: Candy, Easter, Lindt, Chocolate, Nuts, 9-Yummy, Germany

POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:09 am     CandyReviewEasterLindtChocolateNuts9-YummyGermany

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Katjes Tappsy mit Schoko-Geschmack

Katjes TappsyTappsy is a line of cute candies from the Germany sugar-candy company Katjes. Katjes is know best for their licorice, but also do a great job with jelly and gummi candies, often mixed with a marshmallow texture.

The Tappsy line features a simple Panda face with contrasting ears and often nose. Sometimes they’re done in fruity flavors and sometimes in licorice. This particular version. the Katjes Tappsy mit Schoko-Geschmack are chocolate flavored.

They’re not available in the United States, or at least not easily. I got these from a candy swap with Kristian at CandyBrain.de, but I did notice that Sugarfina (more on them here) posted about them after our small quake last week

Katjes Tappsy

They smell like cocoa, like I just opened a can of Nestle Quik. The shapes alternate. Some faces are cocoa with licorice ears and noses, some are licorice faces with cocoa ears. The marshmallow faces are very easy to bite and chew. It’s soft and mild but ultimately bland. The cocoa keeps it from getting too sweet, but also gives it a sort of cardboard flavor as well. The licorice as ears is so mild, all I could tell was that it wasn’t cocoa.

When it came to the licorice faces, the chew was a little more like a Swedish Fish than the dense cross between a marshmallow and a gummi. The flavor is more intense but not great. There are anise notes and a little deep earthy flavor of molasses and licorice. The ears are good here, just a little light texture and the flavor is completely overpowered.

I found them passable, not great. They weren’t strong enough in their licorice flavor and for the cocoa part, I think I would have preferred a true licorice flavor there too, like Griotten. I’ll probably finish the package, and I’ve come to find I rather like them when they’re stale and a little more stiff and chewy.

(If you’d like a review via video and stronger language, check out CandyGurus review of the chocolate and licorice varieties.)

Related Candies

  1. Haribo Hot Sticks
  2. Sockerbit Swedish Candy Selections
  3. Van Slooten Flowers & Butterflies Mix of Sugared Liquorice
  4. Haribo Pearlico Lakritz
  5. 12 European Licorices
  6. Haribo Pontefract Cakes
  7. Katjes Saure Ananas (Sour Pineapple)
  8. Licorice Assortment
  9. Katjes Tropical Gummis & Yogurt Gums


Name: Tappsy mit Schoko-Geschmack
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Katjes
Place Purchased: candy swap with CandyBrain.de!
Price: $1.50 (approximately)
Size: 5.64 ounces
Calories per ounce: 113
Categories: Candy, Katjes, Gummi Candy, Licorice Candy, 6-Tempting, Germany

POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:31 pm     CandyReviewKatjesGummi CandyLicorice Candy6-TemptingGermany

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Haribo Happy Cola Gefullt

Haribo Happy Cola GefulltCola is an American flavor, invented in 1886 as a tonic mixed with soda water to cure a variety of ailments. The flavor is a combination of kola nuts, spices and citrus. (If not those actual ingredients, there are detectable flavor notes of them.) Though the drink is wildly popular in North America, it is rare in other forms. It’s not a common candy flavor, though it makes good candy. However, Europe seems to have embraced it and Germany has many excellent candies that utilize the unique combination of citrus and spice.

Haribo may have made its name and reputation on gummi bears, but there is one place where I think they do a much better job of creating an exclusive line of candies: Happy Cola. The Happy Cola line is a small group of cola bottle shaped and flavored products. They include the classic Happy Cola, Super Happy Cola (larger sized pieces), Fizzy Happy Cola (sour sanded gummis) and now the Haribo Happy Cola Flüssig gefüllt. These are liquid filled cola bottle gummis.

Haribo Happy Cola

I first heard about these from CandyBrain.de and knew I had to track them down. This involved a candy swap with Kristian, as you may have noticed, I’ve had quite a few European candies featured since November and he has been featuring the American candies on his blog.

They’re a little different from the regular cola bottles, they’re a layered gummi. The bottom is a foamy, stiff marshmallow then there’s the honey-like goo and the top layer is the standard Haribo cola gummi. They’re about 1.3 inches high.

Haribo Happy Cola

The effect of all the textures and their variations of flavor work really well together. The gummi itself is soft and chewy, but a bit stiffer than the American-made Trolli or Albanese. The marshmallowy bottom is creamy and has a vanilla note, giving it an ice cream note. The filling has a honey flavor to it with an extra little burst of spice and tartness.

It’s a nice combination and something that Haribo could easily expand to include other kinds of soda like ginger ale and root beer (though I had the root beer Haribo introduced years ago and thought they were horrible, but then again, many Europeans don’t actually like root beer).

Related Candies

  1. Sugarfina: The Gummis
  2. Jelly Belly Soda Pop Shoppe Gummi Bottles
  3. Morinaga HiCHEW Fanta: Grape & Orange plus Cola
  4. Napoleon BonBon Cola
  5. Haribo Maoam Fruit Chews
  6. Eat with your Eyes: Haribo Cola Wheel
  7. Haribo Happy Cola
  8. Fresh Cola Mentos
  9. Ramune & Cola Bubble Ball


Name: Happy Cola Gefullt
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Haribo
Place Purchased: candy swap with CandyBrain.de!
Price: $1.00 retail
Size: 6.17 ounces
Calories per ounce: 96
Categories: Candy, Haribo, Cola, Gummi Candy, 8-Tasty, Germany

POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:21 pm     CandyReviewHariboColaGummi Candy8-TastyGermany

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

Milka Amavel Chocolate Pastry Torte

Milka AmavelIn my candy swap late last year with Kristian of CandyBrain.de in Germany, I got a few unexpected treats. This Milka Amavel Konkitorei Schokoladen Torte was among them.

I appreciate how easy to find and inexpensive Milka is, but for my tastes it’s too sweet and relies too much on tropical oil laden fillings than actual cacao content. Fun for kids, but not necessarily the decadent treat I’m usually willing to pay the import premium for.

The Milka Amavel, if Google translate is to be trusted, is Loose cocoa cream on fine chocolate cake, covered with delicate Milka Alpine milk chocolate. I’m going to guess that loose cocoa cream (Lockere Kakaocrème) is actually something along the lines of a chocolate mousse (going with the alternate meaning of fluffy instead).

DSC_4188rb

Inside the box are two individually-wrapped pieces. They’re 60 grams each (about 2.12 ounces). They’re thick, chunky squares of about 2.5 inches. It’s a weird size, because it’s more than a single portion, but less than two.

The domed pieces are nicely made, nicely molded with six sections and some little drizzly effects on them. They do smell rich and cakey, like brownies.

DSC_4195rb

The bite is soft, inside is a base of a sort of dry cake base and a chocolate cream. There’s an immediate note of rum; I did notice the ingredients listed Alkohol, so I wasn’t surprised. The effect of the different textures is great. The cream of the filling makes up for the dryness of the cake and the rather fudgy Milka chocolate, with its note of hazelnut, does a good job pulling it together.

So, even though I said one piece was more than one serving ... I ate it in one sitting.

Nicely done, Milka. I have no idea if these are available in the United States, but you may see them in airports as Kraft (or Mondelez) is doing a pretty good job of getting these into gift shops in larger metro airports.

Contains milk and lactose, eggs, nuts, gluten, soy plus alcohol. No statement about other allergens like peanuts.

Related Candies

  1. Milka Milkinis
  2. Liddabit Sweets - Candy Bars
  3. Godiva Cake Truffles
  4. Milka Bars, Milka Drops and some Li’l Milka
  5. Milka L’il Scoops
  6. Bubble Chocolate (2010)
  7. Milka Alpenmilch
  8. Recipe: Peppermint Stick Layer Cake


Name: Amavel Konkitorei Schokoladen Torte
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Kraft
Place Purchased: candy swap with CandyBrain.de!
Price: $4.00 retail
Size: 4.23 ounces
Calories per ounce: 139
Categories: Candy, Kraft/Mondelez, Alcohol, Chocolate, Cookie, 7-Worth It, Germany

POSTED BY Cybele AT 12:05 pm     CandyReviewKraft/MondelezAlcoholChocolateCookie7-Worth ItGermany

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Ritter Sport Winter Edition Coconut Macaroon

Ritter Sport Winter Edition Coconut MacaroonThe final bar in the trio of seasonal bars from Ritter Sport that I wanted to review is the Winter Edition Coconut Macaroon. As I mentioned in the review of the Caramel-Orange and Caramelised Almonds, the Ritter Sport seasonal editions are becoming much more readily available in the United States now.

I found mine at Cost Plus World Market, they were priced up at $2.99 a bar, instead of the usual $2.49.

I was most interested in how different this bar is from the Ritter Sport Coconut bar that debuted earlier this year. Like many of the Ritter Sport bars, this one is a cream filling, which means the first ingredients are sugar and palm oil. The Coconut Macaroon bar is filled with a milk creme and pieces of coconut macaroons and crispy rice. So the filling is a bit more textured. (I also recognize now that I tried a test market version of this a couple of years ago at the Ritter Sport factory.)

Ritter Sport Winter Edition Coconut Macaroon

The milk chocolate is soft and the bar is easy to break. The coconut scent really permeates the whole thing, giving it a tropical note. The chocolate is smooth and creamy and milky. It might have been fun to see a dark chocolate used on this one to differentiate it from the Coconut bar.

The filling is light and has lots of crispy coconut bits and little rice flakes. The rice gives it a malty note, which balances out the sweetness a bit.

Overall, the cream bars are not a huge favorite of mine, they’re not greasy or heavy, but not really satisfying for some reason. The balance here is good, but I’d like to see Ritter Sport go for some more dark chocolate options for their seasonal bars going forward.

Related Candies

  1. Ritter Sport Coconut
  2. Nestle Crunch Girl Scout Cookie Candy Bars: Peanut Butter & Caramel and Coconut
  3. Ritter Sport 100th Anniversary Edel-Nuss Mix + Bonus Previews
  4. Dove Milk Chocolate Coconut Creme Eggs
  5. Ritter Sport Sommer-Genuss 2010 Limited Editions
  6. Limited Edition M&Ms Coconut
  7. Russell Stover Coconut Wreath


Name: Coconut Macaroon (Winter Edition)
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Ritter Sport
Place Purchased: Cost Plus World Market (Farmers Market)
Price: $2.99
Size: 3.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 149
Categories: Candy, Christmas, Ritter Sport, Chocolate, Coconut, 7-Worth It, Germany, Cost Plus

POSTED BY Cybele AT 11:08 am     CandyReviewChristmasRitter SportChocolateCoconutLimited Edition7-Worth ItGermanyCost Plus

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Ritter Sport Winter Edition Caramel-Orange

Ritter Sport Winter Edition Caramel-OrangeThe Ritter Sport Winter Editions are more prevalent in the United States than they used to be. Webstores like German Deli and Chocosphere have been stocking them and I even found the complete set of the three special bars at Cost Plus World Market.

They’re $2.99 each, instead of the $2.00 or so that the regular non-seasonal bars go for. The Ritter Sport Winter Edition Caramel-Orange is a milk chocolate bar is filled with an orange cream. Like most other Ritter Sport bars, it’s 100 grams or 3.5 ounces and formed as a square with 16 individual sections.

Ritter Sport Winter Edition Orange-Caramel

Even though the bars travel pretty far and are packaged minimally, they’re always in great shape. I enjoy the format of the bar, as I like a thick piece, because of how long the melt may take, but I appreciate the deep trough sections that allow them to be broken into easy to eat pieces.

The milk chocolate in the bar is 30% cacao and 18% milk, so it’s a very milky but kind of chocolatey bar. The cream center is made of palm oil, sugar, milk products and actual orange powder (a mix of orange juice and orange pulp). It sounds kind of weird, but this also means that it’s different enough for all the other pumpkin spice and peppermint bar versions on the market right now.

Ritter Sport Winter Edition Orange Caramel

The cream center is a bit darker and though not quite smooth or light enough to be a cream, it’s not grainy enough to be a fudge either. It’s orange, it tastes like orange juice - a little tart note now and then - and a bit like orange zest. There’s a slight grain to it, but it has enough fat in it to have a good mouthfeel without a greasy cling. The milk chocolate is robust enough to give it a cocoa note.

I’m finding that the more I have these cream filled bars, the less I like them. I love nuts and nut butters; I love crunchies and cereal bits; but emulsified palm oil and flavors just isn’t doing it for me any longer. These come in at 164 calories per ounce, which is a lot when those calories are not coming from cocoa butter, but from palm oil. Half a bar has 50% of my daily saturated fat intake. I think I’ll stick to the solid bars or the ones with nuts, but it’s nice to see oranges in a winter confection every once in a while. I’d like to see them do more with their marzipan bars, I liked the orange version they did as a winter edition and think that merits a revival.

Related Candies

  1. Ritter Sport Winter Edition Caramelised Almonds
  2. Limited Edition Ritter Sport Amarena Cherry
  3. Limited Edition Ritter Sport Winter Kreation + Factory Store
  4. Divine 70% Ginger & Orange Dark Chocolate
  5. Choceur After Dinner Mints: Orange & Peppermint
  6. Ritter Sport Peppermint
  7. Niederegger Marzipan Orange


Name: Caramel-Orange (Winter Edition)
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Ritter Sport
Place Purchased: Cost Plus World Market (Farmers Market)
Price: $2.99
Size: 3.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 164
Categories: Candy, Christmas, Ritter Sport, Chocolate, 7-Worth It, Germany, Cost Plus

POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:33 pm     CandyReviewChristmasRitter SportChocolate7-Worth ItGermanyCost Plus

Friday, November 22, 2013

Ritter Sport Winter Edition Caramelised Almonds

Ritter Sport Winter Edition Caramelised AlmondsRitter Sport has been creating limited edition seasonal bars for a few years. More recently these are available in the United States at specialty retailers. I found my Winter Edition bars at Cost Plus World Market as imported bars (the packages are in multiple languages, but not English).

The Ritter Sport Winter Edition Caramelised Almonds is a returning flavor, I reviewed it as part of set of minis back in 2011 (as Ritter Sport Gebrannte Mandel). Toasted, sugar coated almonds are a common treat at the Christmas Fairs in Europe, kind of like Kettle Corn is here. It plays on may of the strengths of Ritter Sport’s product line, such as the solid milk chocolate and nut inclusions.

Ritter Sport Winter Edition Caramelised Almonds

The chocolate is smooth and creamy, but exceptionally sweet. The almonds are also sweet and crunchy with a hint of a cereal taste to it. The bits are quite small, not full almonds, so it’s hard to really discern the almonds from the crunchy coating on them.

I love the idea of this bar but found it achingly sweet, perhaps even more sweet than the first time around. The textures are exemplary, the ratios are perfect, the chocolate is wonderfully smooth, the nuts are fresh and crunchy. But it’s all overpowered by the sheer amount of sugar covering up the cocoa flavors and nuances of caramelized sugar. Now ... do this in the dark chocolate or a dark milk, and I think I’d be howling about the unfairness of the limited edition.

Ritter Sport has published quite a bit about their cacao sourcing and plans for sustainability. Though I found it sweet, this bar is a far better value and much better quality than a Toblerone.

Related Candies

  1. Eclat Chocolate Caramelized Hazelnuts 65%
  2. Limited Edition Ritter Sport Amarena Cherry
  3. Toblerone Crunchy Salted Almond
  4. Ritter Sport 100th Anniversary Edel-Nuss Mix + Bonus Previews
  5. Limited Edition Ritter Sport Winter Kreation + Factory Store
  6. Ritter Sport Fruhlingsspezialitaten 2010


Name: Caramelised Almonds (Winter Edition)
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Ritter Sport
Place Purchased: Cost Plus World Market (Farmers Market)
Price: $2.99
Size: 3.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 149
Categories: Candy, Christmas, Ritter Sport, Chocolate, Limited Edition, Nuts, 7-Worth It, Germany, Cost Plus

POSTED BY Cybele AT 11:03 am     CandyReviewChristmasRitter SportChocolateLimited EditionNuts7-Worth ItGermanyCost Plus

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Werther’s Original Soft Creme Caramel

Werther's Original Soft Creme CaramelsI picked up Werther’s Original Soft Creme Caramels on sale at Rite Aid, suspicious that I’ve had these before even though it says new on the package.

Werther’s does an excellent hard caramel (or toffee) and the parent company, Storck of Germany, makes one of my favorite mass-produced caramels, the Storck Chocolate Riesen. But I was a little confused how these were different from the other caramels that Werther’s already sells.

Werther's Original Caramel Creme

The pieces are small, narrow and wrapped in waxed paper with a foil label around the center. They were easy to twist open and didn’t stick to the wrappers.

Werther's Original Caramel Creme & Chewy Caramel

So, I also purchased the Werther’s Original Chewy Caramel for comparison. The bag looks nearly the same, and inside, the candies are wrapped identically. Opening them, though, it’s clear what the difference is.

The Chewy Caramel (on the right) is stringy and chewy, smooth and pleasant with a balanced milk and caramelized sugar flavor. The Caramel Creme (on the left) is what I would call a “short caramel”, a caramel where the sugar has been caramelized, but allowed to create a bit of a crystallized matrix instead of a silky but stiff chew. It’s sort of like penuche, or like the Krowki Cream Fudge from Poland.

Werther's Original Soft Creme CaramelThe flavor is fresh, not like some fake buttery flavored toffees. The texture is chewy but still a little gummy. It dissolves well and though there’s a detectable grain, it’s not crystallized or gritty.

It’s pleasant, and I enjoyed eating them, but I preferred the Chewy Caramel version, especially since the bag I purchased for this comparison was especially fresh and chewy. I do prefer this to the flavor profile of Kraft Caramels, though I can’t attest to how they would perform in recipes.

Related Candies

  1. Werther’s Original Hard Candies
  2. Eat with your Eyes: Cows
  3. Storck Merci
  4. Krowki: Polish Cream Fudge
  5. Storck Toffifay
  6. Dots Elements: Earth, Air, Fire & Water
  7. Werther’s Original Chewy Caramels


Name: Werther’s Original Soft Creme Caramel
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Storck
Place Purchased: RiteAid (Studio City)
Price: $1.50 (on sale)
Size: 4.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 119
Categories: Candy, Storck, Caramel, 7-Worth It, Germany, Rite Aid

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:11 am     CandyReviewStorckCaramel7-Worth ItGermanyRite Aid

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