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Kosher Thursday, January 26, 2012
Trader Joe’s Milk Chocolate Covered Joe’s O’s
They come in a tub, which is rather light at only 6 ounces as it has lots of the airy cereal in it. They’re really shiny. They smell like milky and a bit like sweet breakfast cereal. The chocolate has a light glaze on it, so it doesn’t melt immediately, but I’m a cruncher so that didn’t bother me. The chocolate is sweet and does have a creamy texture once it starts to melt. The Joe’s O’s are a little malty and not too sweet or salty. It’s a good snack, but it didn’t quite rise to the level of candy for me, even though there was a enough fat in it to bring the calories per ounce up to 131 (more than a 3 Musketeers, not as much as straight chocolate). I’m enthusiastic about trying everything covered in chocolate at least once, but this wasn’t quite it. I’d eat them if you put them in front of me, I certainly had no trouble finishing the tub. But looking back on it, I didn’t find it a notable experience. Maybe some Chex style cereal (especially one of the gluten free varieties) would work better. The ultimate cereal and chocolate is still chocolate covered Corn Flakes. The Joe’s O’s use a confectioners glaze, so are not vegetarian. They may also contain traces of wheat, peanuts and tree nuts plus contain dairy and soy and GMO ingredients. There is no indication of the ethical sourcing of the chocolate or other ingredients on the package or Trader Joe’s website. Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:06 pm Candy • Review • Trader Joe's • Chocolate • Cookie • Kosher • 7-Worth It • United States • Comments (2) ![]() Tuesday, January 24, 2012
SpongeBob Squarepants Mini Chocolate Peanut Butter Filled Snacks
I picked up this box of SpongeBob Squarepants Mini Chocolate Peanut Butter Filled Snacks made by Frankford Candy. They also make Disney licensed candy, including a similar set for the Cars characters. But again, I puzzled over what made these snacks instead of candy. Inside the box are 6 packets, each are .53 ounces each and hold what must be a child’s portion of teensy little milk chocolate character shapes. The ingredients are:
It’s not so different from the ingredients for a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. So, let’s just stop calling these snacks, unless all foods designed to be eaten outside of a meal are deemed snacks. They’re candy. Teensy little bags of candy. They come in three shapes: SpongeBob, Patrick and Mr Krabs. There are about 15-16 pieces in each little pouch. The pouches feature the full ingredients list and calorie count and a large portion of the front of the wrapper is dedicated to the face of SpongeBob. It’s hard to imagine that something this small is actually filled, but they are. They’re about a half an inch across (except for Patrick’s spiky arms, which give him another eighth of an inch) yet still have a thin reservoir of peanut butter in the center.
These have been around for two or three years and Hungry Girl raves about them. My opinion is, if you really need a teensy portion of a snack, buy some really good candy. Even if it’s only a half an ounce, if you’re eating this as a treat, it’d better be good. If you love peanut butter cups, have two of the Reese’s foil wrapped minis - those are 44 calories each or even better, the Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Cups. Or go for something fantastic like a beefy chocolate truffle or a set of very dark chocolate tasting squares. Something that you really pause and enjoy, not this stuff that is only good enough to shovel down your maw without chewing. What I’m left with when it comes to licensed merchandise is the dismal reality that most of it sucks. My guess is that the candy maker spends a large sum of money securing the branding for the product and they don’t have much left for the actual ingredients and quality. There’s also no indication of the ethical sourcing of any of the ingredients. They’re made in the USA, but for those with allergy issues, it’s made on shared equipment with wheat, eggs, peanuts and tree nuts. At least these sea creatures have no shellfish present. Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:48 pm Candy • Review • Frankford Candy • Chocolate • Kosher • Peanuts • United States • 99 Cent Only Store • Comments (1) Monday, January 23, 2012
3 Musketeers Coconut
3 Musketeers has been advertising that it has 45% less fat than average of leading candy bars. (This is true because the leading candy bars have more chocolate and/or nuts, which makes them more fatty.) This bar, which is described as Whipped Up, Fluffy Chocolate Coconut Taste says it has 40% Less Fat. This bar is also Canadian. There’s something strange about using our neighbors to the north to tropical-ize an American candy bar. There are two bars inside, each about 2.25 inches long and 1 inch wide. They’re about .75 ounces each (for those keeping track at home, that’s the same weight as a single Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup). The set of bars is 30% smaller than the classic (chocolate flavored) 3 Musketeers. The regular one is 2.13 ounces and this set of small bars is 1.49 ounces. Now, if you need help with portion control, not only does the separate bar format help, but the lighter weight means that this package is only 180 calories (90 per little bar) while the classic is 100 more at 280 calories. So while the value of the bar is in question, the moderation aspect is certainly a selling point. I like the smaller bars, they used this style for the 3 Musketeers Mint. The coating is attractive and has little ripples and swirls on the top. The chocolate doesn’t look particularly dark, not very glossy but still in good condition. It sticks well to the foamed nougat center. The filling is fluffy and sweet but also a little salty. The coconut flavor is there ... but I’m never quite sure where. Is it in the chocolate coating? Is it in the nougat fluff? It’s more of a scent, like a candle is nearby or I’m wearing suntan oil or maybe someone’s baking macaroons. Whatever it is, it’s not in the actual candy bar. No toasted coconut flakes, no creamy coconut milk caramel stripe. Just this vague coconut scent adjacent to my candy bar experience. That’s okay, I like the combination well enough. It’s extremely sweet, but mercifully small. I wish it was a dark chocolate coating instead, or maybe just better milk chocolate. But I actually enjoyed it more than the classic 3 Musketeers. My favorite would still be the Mini version they made about 5 years ago that were Cappuccino flavored. They should bring that back ... after they run out of coconut flavoring. Mars still isn’t ethically sourcing their chocolate for the North American market. There’s hydrogenated palm kernel and/or palm oil in there. Of course vegans can’t eat it because of the milk and the egg whites. There’s no statement about gluten but it does say it may contain peanuts. Related Candies
Saturday, January 14, 2012
Hershey’s Pieces - Milk Chocolate with Almonds
The new Hershey’s Pieces - Milk Chocolate with Almonds isn’t as innovative as some of the other candies, such as the Almond Joy Pieces or the initial Reese’s Pieces. But they fill a void in Hershey’s offerings and I was looking forward to them. The first big stumbling block I had, though, was the price. 8 ounces for about four dollars. Other stores sell them for $4.50. I have a hard time paying 8 or 9 dollars a pound for Hershey’s candy in bulk quantities. They also don’t reinvent the niche with some new quality. They’re not low in allergens, the list on the back says that they may contain soy, wheat, other tree nuts and peanuts. A great selling point would have been a nutty candy that is actually peanut and/or gluten free. The Pieces look like the package illustrates. They come in three colors: dark brown, brown and cream. They vary widely in size, based on the core of almond. Some are as small as a Peanut M&M, others are huge, sometimes over an inch long. They’re a standard construction of a well-roasted almond, a milk chocolate coating and then a colored candy shell. The colors are pleasing. I actually enjoyed their muted tones more than the loud and artificial M&Ms Almond. Of course these are also artificial, with Red 40, Yellow 6 and Blue 1 & 2 ... just less bang for the coloring. The almonds are roasted to a very dark color, roasted in cocoa butter and/or sunflower oil). This is a good choice. I found them all crunchy and fresh tasting, not a single fibery or bitter one in the bag. The shell is thin enough to crunch easily and provide only a modicum of sweetness. The milk chocolate is only marginally acceptable. It has the Hershey’s sour note to it, which I actually like sometimes, especially when mixed with more savory elements. Here it was such a back seat to the large almonds, it worked. I prefer this, by far, to the Hershey’s Milk Chocolate with Almonds bar. But I don’t like it better than M&Ms Almond, because of the difference in the chocolate flavor. What I’d really like to see is a Heath Pieces at this point, that’d really set the Pieces line apart from their current iteration as an M&Ms clone. Related Candies
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
Airheads Pink Lemonade
While I revel in winter in Southern California, because I can buy, store and enjoy as much chocolate as I want, I turned my attention to an item I bought before Halloween. These Pink Lemonade Airheads. Airheads were one of those candies that didn’t exist when I was a kid, and by the time they came out, it was past my sour candy phase and I didn’t pay much attention to them until I started Candy Blog. I gave them out for Halloween for the first time this year, and I was really shocked and pleased at how excited the kids were to get them. The one flavor in the mix that caught my attention was the Pink Lemonade, so I went back and purchased more after the holiday. They’re small bars, a little over a half an ounce per packet. The little plank is about four inches long and a little over an inch wide. Airheads are a strange candy, in a category really by themselves. They’re a chew, but not a full taffy. They’re a bit grainy, but have a smooth melt in the mouth. The Pink Lemonade flavor is pink, but more on the salmon side than a light red. It smells like a tub of Country Time Lemonade Mix. The bite is a little tough, but the bar is flexible and easy to rip apart. It tears in a bit of a grainy fashion, instead of pulling smoothly like a taffy would. The flavor is a straight lemonade - it even has a that slight powdery grain to it in the early part of the chew. The lemon is tart and sweet but not an authentic juice flavor and has only a light zest note to it. It is rather like a chew SweeTart. I can’t see myself eating these a lot, but I like that the chew is clean, not sticky like a taffy or jelly candy can be. It’s somewhere between a SweeTart and a Starburst. It might be fun if there were smaller bites, so I could get more flavor variety. But then I imagine that all I’d want would be lemon anyway. If your New Year’s resolution was to slow down on the sweets, they’re a pretty efficient little treat. There are only 60 calories in a bar, though it’s all sugar and no actual nutrition. They’re cheap, nearly indestructible, portable, Kosher and probably vegan if you’re the kind who eats unnatural things (they don’t say the source of the pink coloring). Made in a facility that processes wheat flour. No other statements about tree nuts, soy, dairy or peanuts. Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:25 pm Candy • Review • Perfetti van Melle • Chews • Kosher • 7-Worth It • United States • Comments (5) Friday, December 30, 2011
Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups
For the past two months these little 3.5 ounce bags of the peanut butter cups have been priced at 99 cents and featured in barrels by the registers in all the Trader Joe’s I’ve been in. It’s hard to resist the sub-buck price for something that’s such a good value. About half the price of a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup per ounce. Not only have I fallen prey, so has everyone else in my office. So once my little supply (I’ll buy two or three bags and put them in a jar on my desk) has dwindled, someone else will come by and plop another bag on my desk to replenish. Inside the simple packet are eight miniature sized dark chocolate peanut butter cups in foil. Each weighs about 12 grams (.42 ounces) and has 60 calories. The ingredients are decent, no partially hydrogenated fats in there. But there are milk products (milk fat in the chocolate and lactose in the peanut butter filling) so it’s not vegan and no good for those with dairy sensitivities. The cups are classic, they come in little fluted paper cups and pull away easily from the candy. While some peanut butter cups will have leakage issues around the sides, the peanut butter was always completely enveloped in chocolate with every one I ate. The chocolate is semi sweet (50% cacao), not terribly dark but still with a strong bitter note to it. It’s smooth and rather fatty, so it stands up well to the fats of the peanut butter center. The peanut butter center is rather sweet and a bit on the fudgy side. It’s smoother than most, but not silken or whipped. It’s sweet but nutty, the roasting gives the peanuts a bit of a bitter and woodsy note to them that stands up to the dark chocolate. The peanut density though is a little thin, it was more like I was eating a peanut butter frosting than actual peanut butter. There’s a hint of salt in there. They’re Kosher but may contain traces of tree nuts, eggs and wheat (so they’re not gluten free). It’s a good iteration of the peanut butter cup, though not my favorite treatment for the peanut butter center. I can’t argue with the price or the portioning. I don’t know if I’m going to pick them up in the big tub, even though it’s probably a better price per ounce, but I’ve got to hand it to Trader Joe’s for their inspired stealth marketing on this one. Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 5:44 pm All Natural • Candy • Review • Trader Joe's • Chocolate • Kosher • Peanuts • 8-Tasty • United States • Comments (0) Thursday, December 22, 2011
Christmas Bars: Hershey’s, Niederegger, Ghirardelli & HachezHere’s a small selection of what I’d call Christmas chocolate bars. I’ve got to eat them up before the holidays - it may be too late for you to get them by Christmas, but there are some special ones that are worth picking up at the after-Christmas sales.
The bar is simple, it’s just milk chocolate with lots of whole roasted almonds in it. It differs from the Hershey’s Milk Chocolate with Almonds bar as it’s supposed to be better quality chocolate. The ingredients do not differ from the Hershey’s standard milk chocolate which includes PGPR but is at least made in the United States and not Mexico as the other supposedly upscale Pot of Gold line is. The bar is wonderful looking, it’s thick and has a great snap. It’s about 1.7 inches wide, 4.75 inches long and a beefy half inch high. There are some almonds in there though not as many as I feel are promised but they look like they’re fresh and of good quality. The chocolate looks a little darker than the standard Hershey’s but smells like I’d expect. It’s sweet with a slight yogurty tang to it. The texture is smooth and fudgy, with a sticky melt and a light caramel and woodsy chocolate flavor. It’s not complex and it’s not extraordinary. But if you like Hershey’s chocolate and enjoy the decadence of a thicker piece, this is a good bar to choose. I liked the nostalgia of an actual foil wrapped bar, which is so rare these days. If there’s someone on your list that loves Hershey’s, this is a little bit more elegant way to give them what they desire. Size: 2.8 ounces
I found this seasonal bar called Niederegger Marzipan Weihnachtsschokolade at the Niederegger cafe at Marktplatz in Lubeck. The front of the package says Saftiges gewurz marzipan mit vollmilch-schokolade. So it’s a spiced marzipan in milk chocolate. The image shows almonds, cinnamon sticks and star anise. The ingredients don’t specifically list anise, just “spices” though cinnamon is a separate item. Inside the paper wrapper there’s a stiff card (advertising the company and their website) and the foil wrapped bar. The packaging did a great job of protecting the bar. It was glossy and unscuffed. The milk chocolate is very light in color (33% cocoa solids and 14% milk solids). The bar smells like milky chai, a little spicy and very sweet. The marzipan is moist and a bit like eating Snickerdoodle cookie dough. The chocolate is smooth, but doesn’t contribute much in the way of cocoa to this, it just nicely encases the marzipan. The texture of the marzipan is a little more rustic than the French style fondant type that’s used for creating figures and shapes. Niederegger is meant for eating and enjoying. The ratios on the 100 gram bars from Niederegger favor the chocolate more than the enrobed little classic loaves. (I’ll get into that more in my master post.) If you’re looking for a starter marzipan that’s more about the texture and celebrates almonds as the source ingredient, Niederegger really can’t be beat. It’s not too sweet and doesn’t have any fake amaretto flavors to it. I would prefer a version of this with dark chocolate, but I can’t argue with the traditional recipe they have. It’s a great balance of subtle spice, sweetness, milk and almonds. Size: 3.5 ounces
I found this set of bars at Target last month on sale for $2 each. They’re heralded as limited edition and come in milk chocolate and dark chocolate. I’m not actually a fan of barks. I like my inclusions fully immersed in the chocolate. So the bar version of Peppermint Bark is perfect for my strange fondness for things being hidden in the chocolate. Unlike most Peppermint Barks, which combine white chocolate with crushed peppermint candies (like candy canes or starlight mints), the Ghiradelli version uses minty, artificially colored corn flakes. I haven’t the foggiest why they did it that way, but honestly, they created something unique enough to be a new genre. The milk and dark vary a little bit in their coloring. The milk version is sweet and has a lot of dairy notes to it from both the milk chocolate base and the white chocolate top (made with real cocoa butter). The mint is clean and bright, the little cereal bits are crunchy and a little salty and keep it all from being too cloying. The dark version has two kinds of bits, the red bits and some little dark brown bits, which I think are little chocolate cookie pieces. The dark chocolate has a little smoky note to it which overshadowed the minty layer a bit, which I enjoyed. There’s a definite difference between the Ghirardelli Peppermint Bark and the Dove Peppermint Bark, which can also be found for comparable prices at similar stores. Personally, I prefer the Dove version, because it’s a bit butterier. This one is about the crunch, a grown up sort of crunch. Size: 3 ounces
Feine Vollmilch-Chocolade mit Zimt, Mandeln und Nussen My German was getting pretty good, even though I’d only been listening to German podcasts for a week and was only there for a day. The front of the package said Fine milk chocolate with cinnamon, almonds and nuts. The little image also showed all of the above -cinnamon sticks, milk chocolate blocks, almonds and a hazelnut in its shell. So I was very excited when I got it home and put at the top of my list to photograph and review before Christmas. I took it out of the wrapper, snapped it in half ... it looked and smelled so good: The bar was glossy and showed no ill effects from the long journey (about 750 more miles on a bus at that point then the 5,700 mile plane ride). I broke off a little piece of it to try after the photo, I was greeted by wonderfully smooth and milky chocolate and amazingly fresh, crunchy and crushed nuts and a hint of cinnamon. I could taste the hazelnuts and something else ... it wasn’t pecans, it was walnuts. What I didn’t realize was that while Nussen might be a generic word for nuts, it usually meant walnuts. (Walnusse is the more specific word.) So technically, I didn’t eat any of the bar. I had to spit it out and rinse out my mouth (I still ended up itchy and with a sore throat all evening - my allergy has not developed beyond this irritation stage). But I’m going to go out on a limb after eating many of the other Hachez products in the past week (which I’ll have reviews for) and say that this really is a good bar. Size: 3.5 ounces Do you have a favorite winter flavor combination? Anything regional or something from long ago that they don’t make any longer? Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:49 pm All Natural • Candy • Review • Christmas • Ghirardelli • Hachez • Hershey's • Niederegger • Chocolate • Cookie • Kosher • Limited Edition • Mints • Nuts • White Chocolate • 5-Pleasant • 7-Worth It • 8-Tasty • Germany • United States • Target • Comments (2) Wednesday, December 07, 2011
McIlhenny Co Tabasco Brand Spicy Chocolate
One of the classic hot pepper sauces is McIlhenny Company’s Tabasco sauce, made in Louisiana from tabasco peppers. Tabasco sauce was first produced in 1868, so it’s a wonder that it’s taken this long for it to be combined with chocolate. (Though I do recall a strange hot pepper chocolate fudge someone gave me in the 90s.) I picked up this little tin of McIlhenny Co Tabasco Brand Spicy Chocolate that holds 1.75 ounces at Cost Plus World Market. Right now they’re featuring it in their Christmas area with the stocking stuffers, but I think they carry it year round. Like other Chocolate Traveler products, it’s a disk of chocolate divided into eight “slices”. The circle of pieces is about three inches in diameter, so each little slice is about 1.5 inches long and about one inch wide. The portioning is great, each piece is only 30 calories and less than seven grams. The pieces are thick, easy to grasp and pull out of the tin and bite. The chocolate is semi-sweet (55% cacao), not terribly smooth and any graininess I noted was probably from the peppers. There are no milk products added, so this can be considered a vegan product (though it’s processed in a shared facility with dairy, peanuts and nuts if it’s an allergy issue). The sweetness is a little distracting, but gives way to a well rounded woodsy chocolate flavor. The spicy burn of the red pepper comes in slowly but is quite noticeable, especially as a cumulative effect over several pieces. The pepper has a distinctive and notable Tabasco note to it, as there is a little bit of distilled vinegar in there. As someone who’s not overly fond of Capsaicin heat, this was probably about as hot as I can take. So if you’re craving something really hot, this is probably not going to do much for you. The tin is absolutely lovely and would probably be useful to hold small things like jewelry, maybe some earphones or sewing items. It’s a great gift item for less than $5 mostly because of the packaging, but since Christmas can be a hard time for gift giving, this might fit the bill for a gift basket for a pepper fan or a stocking stuffer. Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:59 pm All Natural • Candy • Review • Chocolate • Kosher • 7-Worth It • United States • Cost Plus • Comments (3)
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Meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world. And the occasional other sweet adventures. Open your mouth, expand your mind.
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