Last year about this time Toblerone introduced a new version of their classic milk chocolate mountain bar: Toblerone Toasted Corn Crunch. Oddly enough, they were available exclusively at that time at duty free shops in Europe. I never thought I’d run across a bar. But I was strolling the candy section at Cost Plus World Market and not only did they have a stack of them, they were also on sale for 99 cents for a 3.52 ounce bar.

The bar features Toblerone’s Swiss milk chocolate with toasted crushed corn, honey and almond nougat.

The bar format is exactly like all the other Toblerones. This comes in the classic cardboard prism box. Inside there’s a foil wrapped bar made of 12 triangular segments.

The bar looks like any other milk chocolate Toblerone from the sides, but the bottom reveals there’s lots of bumpy stuff inside. The scent is sweet and milky along with a really strong corn note. The corn doesn’t smell quite like popcorn, more like, well, corn or maybe polenta. The chocolate is quite sweet, though smooth, it’s very sugary. The corn bits are like corn nuts, very crunchy though not quite hard enough to break any teeth. (Sometimes I feel like I’m chewing on teeth when I eat corn nuts.)

The combination of the lightly malty, cereal flavor and the very mild chocolate is pretty good. There’s a nice boost of salt in there, which also offset the sugary chocolate. But I never really got the nougat and honey flavors that I enjoy so much in a Toblerone. The only good thing is that I felt like it keep me busy a long time, as I was working those corn bits out of my teeth for about 20 minutes.

It’s an interesting bar but I see no need to consider it as a replacement for a Ritter Sport Knusperflakes (Corn Flakes). It’s hard to be harsh on the bar when it’s so much better than a Nestle Crunch Bar which is half the size and the same price. As far as their new bars, I think the Toblerone Salted Almond is worth seeking out.

Toblerone still does not provide consumers with any information about their cacao sourcing with regards to ethics or sustainability. The bar contains eggs, soy, milk, corn and almonds. It’s made in facility that also handles other tree nuts. There’s no gluten statement on the package.

Related Candies

1. Walgreen’s Good and Delish Milk Chocolate Cornflake Clusters
2. Toblerone Crunchy Salted Almond
3. Poco Dolce Popcorn Toffee
4. Cracker Corn Choco
5. Kimmie Sweet & Salty Corn Bits
6. Toblerone Fruit & Nut
7. Toblerone Single Peaks

The Tasty Baking Company has been based in Philadelphia since 1914. Back in 1930 they introduced a new snack cake called the Tandy Take which was eventually renamed in 1974 to Kandy Kakes (to avoid confusion with the Tandy Company).  These were the snack cakes of my childhood. I’m not sure if I had a Twinkie until I was in college,but Kandy Kakes, I’d had plenty of those.

Their most popular item is the Peanut Butter Kandy Kake (they bake a half a million a day as of 2014), which was also my favorite of their products. The Peanut Butter Kandy Kake is a disk of sponge cake (or maybe angel food cake) with a stripe of peanut butter covered in mockolate. Their second most popular item, the Butterscotch Krimpet is also a curious creation made of a sponge cake (sort of like a Twinkie) but with crinkle cut edges and a butterscotch frosting. (Pennsylvania is kind of known for butterscotch confections, see also the Boyer Smoothie cups.)

When I was growing up there was still regionalism for baked goods, Tastykake was really a local company, though recently they expanded south and also took over production of the Hostess brands including Twinkies. This year Tastykake announced West Coast distribution for their more popular items. (Though it says on their website they’re available at some of my local stores, I still haven’t found them on shelves.)

For those of you just discovering this nostalgic brand, you should catch up with this add for Tastykake, I’d say it’s from around 1975, starring Betty White:

First off, are Kandy Kakes even candy and do they belong on the blog? Well, I’ve debated about this for a while. For the past few years when I travel to Pennsylvania, I’ve usually come back with a box (or two) of the Peanut Butter Kandy Kakes. They fit most of my rules for candy in that they’re sweet, portable, shelf stable and require no preparation to eat. However, they’re also baked (but then again so are Twix). I also have the same problem with chocolate covered pretzels. What pushed me over the edge with this review is the fact that Tastykake offered these new Fall flavors: Salted Caramel Kandy Kakes and Karrot Kake Kandy Kakes.

First off, Kandy Kakes is a strange name. Substituting letters in a standard word is usually an indication of lesser quality, just like chocolatey denotes something not-quite-chocolate. Not only that, Tastykake and their product line has a lot of Ks in it. A lot. It’s like they’re going for something wacky (this all predates the Kardashian ownership of the letter).

Words with a k in it are funny. Alka-Seltzer is funny. Chicken is funny. Pickle is funny. All with a k. Ls are not funny. Ms are not funny.
Willy (The Sunshine Boys by Neil Simon)

So, the name might be a bit juvenile, but maybe it’s also supposed to be delightful. Betty White said some nice things about the ingredients in her commercial in Tastykakes, but for reference here’s what’s in the Salted Caramel Kandy Kakes (yes, I transcribed all this, so forgive any spelling errors as many of these ingredients don’t come up in spellcheck):

Confectionery Coating (sugar, hydrogenated palm kernel oil, cocoa processed with alkali, cocoa powder, whey powder, soy lecithin, salt, artificial flavor), Sugar, Enriched Bleached Flour, Vegetable Shortening (soybean oil, palm oil and hydrogenated cottonseed oil), Corn Syrup, Water, Nonfat Milk, Eggs, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Contains 2% or less of each of the following: egg yolks, salt, modified corn starch, butter, leavening (sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bicarbonate, monocalcium phosphate), caramel color, soy lecithin, corn starch, mono- and diglycerides, natural and artificial flavor, propylene glycol, mono- and diesters of fats and fatty acids, xanthan gum, brown sugar, lactylic esters of fatty acids, calcium sulfate, caramel, molasses, cinnamon, nutmeg, lactic acid, sorbic acid and potassium sorbate.

The Salted Caramel are described as cakes with chocolate flavored coating and salted caramel filling (naturally and artificially flavored).

The large box (a half a pound) holds 6 of these packages of twin cakes. They’re actually a little weird out of the box because there’s no indication of which flavor it is. (So if I had the Peanut Butter version out of the box, I wouldn’t know ... that little BN initial on the package, what does that mean?)

There’s 90 calories per cake, so the pair is only 180 ... for 1.3 ounces, so not really a low calorie product, just its size helps with portion control.

They smell sweet, but not like anything in particular. The chocolatey coating is noticeably thin and fake. The bite is nice, the cake is soft and a little dry but that’s balanced pretty well by the caramel stripe on top. The caramel is quite salty, though there are only 95 mg per pair. The mockolate is terrible, far more noticeably terrible on the salted caramel version than the peanut butter. There’s no cocoa flavor and certainly no creamy cocoa butter experience. There’s not even any milk in that fake milk chocolate.

It’s pretty dreadful. Maybe I’m not a good judge of pastries, or petit fours or whatever category these should be in, but they’re not actually good candy.

The Karrot Kake Kandy Kakes sound good in theory. But in reality the white coating is suspiciously white. It’s not milky white, though at least this white konfectionery koating has nonfat milk in it. The coating has more titanium dioxide in it than soy lecithin.

However, they do smell good. They smell like a nice spice cake ... a little nutmeg, a little cinnamon, maybe a touch of clove and sweet milk. The bite is soft and a little more substantial than the Salted Caramel as this cake is actually carrot cake ... there’s actually carrot in there and even some raisin paste, orange puree and coconut. The white coating is filmy and there’s another creamy layer in there that’s kind of like cream cheese or perhaps unscented foot balm.

It’s a great idea but the coating completely ruins it for me. (Now, a salted caramel stripe in there and maybe an actual white chocolate coating ... but then we’re into actual petit four world, not cheap snack cakes.

The cakes are made on shared equipment with peanuts and tree nuts and contain milk, soy and coconut.

Related Candies

1. Russell Stover Lemon Cake Egg
2. Russell Stover Cake Assortment Chocolates
3. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Salted Caramels
4. Party Cake Peeps
5. Russell Stover Eggs: Carrot Cake, Birthday Cake and Wedding Cake
6. Brach’s Carrot Cake Candy Corn
7. R.M. Palmer Cake Batter Cup
8. Cupcake Bites

There are two new flavors of M&Ms out for fall this year. M&Ms Milk Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Latte is a Target exclusive and M&Ms Milk Chocolate Pecan Pie is a Walmart exclusive.

I picked up the Pumpkin Spice Latte, though I admit I was a little confused about how different this was from the Pumpkin Spice Milk Chocolate M&Ms from 2013.

It’s always a little odd to pick up “seasonal” items when I live in Los Angeles. The package here shows the brown M&M all bundled up with steamy drink. It was 96 degrees in the shade when I got back to my car with the purchase (it’s also hot in a lot of other places around the country, it was still August when these hit the shelves).

The pieces are large, as all of the specialty flavors lately have turned out to be. They come in orange, cream and dark brown. (The earlier 2013 Pumpkin Spice were orange, green and dark brown.)

The ingredients list no specifics about the flavors, there are no lists of spices and definitely no actual pumpkin or coffee. What I expected to be different about this variety is more of the latte beverage experience. So, I’m hoping for creamy milk notes, maybe some espresso and of course the spice mix known as pumpkin.

The flavor combination here is immediately cinnamon with a touch of coffee and chocolate. The spices are warm, but not very evenly balanced, it’s almost all cinnamon and not much in the way of nutmeg or ginger. The coffee notes keep it from being as sweet as some others, though it’s a little inconsistent. The chocolate itself is grainy and not terribly creamy. In general the chocolate quality on M&Ms is disappointing as a chocolate item, but fine as a candy.

I’m a little confused how this whole coffee craze can come about and there are no coffee M&Ms, but some how a beverage that includes coffee can actually get the M&M treatment.

Related Candies

1. Birthday Cake M&Ms
2. M&Ms Milk Chocolate Gingerbread
3. Limited Edition M&Ms Cinnamon Milk Chocolate
4. M&Ms White Chocolate Candy Corn
5. Bosco Milk Chocolate
6. Limited Edition Strawberried Peanut Butter M&Ms
7. Mint Crisp M&Ms (Indiana Jones)
8. M&Ms Razzberry - Limited Edition

The new Hershey’s Dark Chocolate Caramels were introduced this summer with a large advertising push. I’ve seen commercials and large displays at convenience stores.

The Hershey’s Dark Chocolate Caramels (and their Milk Chocolate siblings) are a rather pedestrian extension of the Hershey’s brand. They’re sold in either a pair of caramels in a single package or a stand up bag of something less than a half a pound. The price point makes you think that this is a premium product, I paid $4.29 for 7.2 ounces.

The packaging looks nice and does a good job of protecting the freshness and attractiveness of the product, but it’s maddeningly hard to open. Each caramel is individually wrapped and of the 13 or so pieces in the bag, I was able to open two without the aid of scissors. I can only assume that this is to either help with portion control or help the consumer work off some extra calories wandering around the house trying to figure out where the good scissors went.

My frustrations with the wrappers were ameliorated by the fact that every single caramel was gorgeous. They’re lovely rounded squares with a lightly domed top of thick dark chocolate. (Well, I don’t know how dark it actually is, the ingredients only call it semi-sweet and it contains milk fat.)

They smell nice, a mixture of brownies and hot chocolate. The bite is easy and soft, but not a runny caramel like the Cadbury Caramello bar. The caramel has an excellent smooth texture and good stringy pull, but it’s not quite stiff enough to satisfy me. The chocolate is passable, smooth and not chalky, and not too sweet.

The whole experience is lacking something, perhaps I’m spoiled by my comparably priced Trader Joe’s Butterscotch which strike me as a far better deal both because the price is better, the ingredients are a bit clearer and of course they taste fantastic or the far easier to find Storck Chocolate Riesen. I don’t see Hershey’s new product line surviving in the long run, they’re just not distinctive enough.

These caramels are made in Mexico and are made on equipment that also processes macadamia nuts, almonds, hazelnuts and peanuts. Contains soy and milk. There’s no mention of gluten.

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1. Droga Money on Honey Caramels
2. Russell Stover Big Bite Caramel Apple
3. Hershey’s Air Delight Aerated Milk Chocolate
4. See’s Double Caramel
5. Milky Way Simply Caramel
6. Reese’s Select Cremes
7. Hershey’s Cacao Reserve

Mars has been teasing quite a few new candy items lately, the first one to hit store shelves will be their Milky Way Marshmallow with Caramel Bar. The press release says it delivers a magnificent combination of fluffy marshmallow nougat covered with a layer of smooth caramel, enrobed in creamy milk chocolate.

Limited Edition bar should hit shelves in July or August ... when they’re gone, they’re gone. (Though sometimes Mars will bring back a limited edition item.) The Impulsive Buy readers have already spotted them in the wild.

The bar looks good. The fluffy white nougat is definitely different from the normal Milky Way nougat. The scent is also a change from the traditional Milky Way, it’s less malty, less milky smelling. There’s a slight vanilla note to it, even before biting.

It’s a very sweet but clean tasting bar. There’s no lingering malty notes, not as much of a salty hint either. It tastes fresh. So if the concept of the Milky Way bar appealed to you, but the fact that the nougat was malty was holding you back, this might be the bar for you. Is it marshmallowy? No, the texture of the nougat is not smooth, not as fluffy as actual marshmallow. However, if you’re a vegetarian, the fact that it’s a nougat (made with egg whites) and not a marshmallow (made with gelatin) might be a selling point.

The bar contains soy, egg and milk and also may contain traces of peanuts. There’s no statement on gluten.

Related Candies

1. Milky Way Simply Caramel Bites
2. Revisit Reviews: Pretzel M&Ms, Rally Bar and Snickers Rockin’ Nut Road
3. Milky Way Unwrapped Bites
4. Limited Edition Milky Way French Vanilla
5. Russell Stover Marshmallow & Caramel
6. Zingerman’s Zzang! Candy Bars
7. Head to Head: Milky Way & Mars (Canada & UK)

It’s been a while since Mars has done something new with the Snickers bar. Sure, they miniaturized it, and brought back the Snickers Rockin’ Nut Road Bar, but nothing innovative has come along in a few years.

Mars announced last month that they’re releasing a new limited edition bar in November nationwide. It’s called SNICKERS Mixed Nuts Bar. They bill it as a satisfying mix of peanuts, almonds and hazelnuts combined with SNICKERS® Brand caramel and nougat, all coated with creamy milk chocolate.

Mars sent me some samples of their new candy bars, so I thought I’d give a preview. I think it’s an exciting concept to include so many different kinds of nuts in one bar.

This is a strange bar, because of its mixed status there’s not quite enough of any of its elements. It smells a bit like peanuts, but not as peanutty as a regular Snickers. The nougat is salty and the caramel chewy, all the nuts are crunchy ... the almonds are especially bold and I do recall at least two hazelnuts. If I sound disjointed, that’s the bar right there. It’s a stop and a start, I kind of got going with a nice almond and then there were some peanuts. I’m more mellow than Snickers, more bold than Snickers Almond.

In addition to the milk, eggs, soy, hazelnuts, almonds, and peanuts, the bars may also contain traces of other tree nuts. There’s no statement about gluten.

Related Candies

1. Candyology 101 - Podcast Episode 9 -  House Brands
2. Revisit Reviews: Pretzel M&Ms, Rally Bar and Snickers Rockin’ Nut Road
3. Limited Edition Milky Way French Vanilla
4. Liddabit Sweets - Candy Bars
5. Snickers 3X Chocolate
6. Demet’s Hazelnut Turtles
7. Revisit: Take 5, Sunkist Fruit Gems & Snickers Almond
8. Snickers Almond Dark

Trader Joe’s makes little fanfare with their new products, they just quietly appear on the shelf and perhaps get a mention in the Fearless Flyer. There are rarely announcements of upcoming products, they just show up. However, the same day that the email announced the new Trader Joe’s Ts & Js Sour Gummies, I wanted some for myself. (Sadly, the first location I tried didn’t have them yet, just a blank space.)

The new sour candy pieces are shaped like the letter T or J and come in four flavors: Key Lime, Tangerine, Meyer Lemon and Grapefruit.

As I mentioned last month in a long profile about the difference between gummis and jellies, this is another case of jelly candies called gummies. It’s kind of sad that Trader Joe’s did that, because their ingredients are quite clean and vegetarians would probably be more likely to pick them up if they weren’t called gummies.

So, if there’s an analogue to this candy in the big brand world, these are all natural, citrus-flavored Sour Patch Letters. Sorry, I think Trader Joe’s buried the lede ... because this is an incredible concept. It’s everything I already like in Sour Patch Kids, with flavors I prefer and ingredients that shouldn’t interfere with the intensity of the flavors.

Ingredients: Cane Sugar, Tapioca Syrup, Modified Corn Starch, Dextrose (Corn), Malic Acid, Natural Flavors (Key Lime, Meyer Lemon, Tangerine and Grapefruit), Citric Acid, Colored with Fruit and Vegetable Extracts (Pumpkin, Carrot, Black Currant), Sodium Citrate, Spirulina Extract (Color), Palm Oil. MANUFACTURED IN A FACILITY THAT PROCESSES PEANUTS AND TREE NUTS.

The colors are muted, with the lime and grapefruit a little hard to tell apart ... except for the fact that I liked both and didn’t care after a while. All are similar to the structure of Sour Patch candies, a sweet jelly center with a mild flavor and an intense sour sanded exterior. Each piece is a mere bite, not too big and pretty clean to eat with minimal mess.

The red ones are Tangerine: the sour coating is tangy and textured, but melts away easily or provides a bit of crunch if you can’t wait. The center is less flavorful, more zesty. The orange notes definitely veer off into authentic tangerine with quite a bit of orange peel flavor.

The light orange are Lemon: the combination of the sour sanding and lemon peel notes of the center give a good approximation of Meyer lemon, which is more mild than the common Eureka lemons.

Clear is Grapefruit: such a great tangy coating with a very strong bitter zest component. Definitely a winner.

Light green is Key Lime: These have a bright lime flavor that’s pretty generic but really refreshing in a too green apple world. It’s pretty good Key lime notes, which have a little creamy component to them instead of the straight acid of Persian limes.

They’re vegan, there are no artificial colors or flavors ... Kosher and priced pretty well. Really, my only complaint is the fact that they call them gummis.

Related Candies

1. Trader Joe’s Candy Coated Licorice
2. Sour Patch Kids Berries
3. Glico Pocky Cookie Crush
4. Gimbal’s Sour Lovers
5. Trader Joe’s Jelly Beans & Citrus Gum Drops
6. Tootsie Sour Dots
7. Trader Joe’s Gummy Tummies
8. Sour Patch Kids
9. Pink Grapefruit Mentos

The newest flavor from Jelly Belly is Pancakes & Maple Syrup.

Though the name of the new flavor is a little trendy, the idea is pretty solid. Maple is a great, distinctive but mild flavor. It’s an ideal addition to Jelly Belly’s line because it can be combined with other flavor beans. Though I didn’t have any on hand to try out, I would think that Banana and Strawberry would go well.

The packaging is fun, an aqua gingham motif on the bag gives it a homespun feel. The image on the front, though is not of Vermont maple trees with running sap and buckets, like I might have imagined, instead it’s more in line with what I see any neighborhood diner, a plate of pancakes with butter and a little pitcher of syrup. (Now, I love my little diner I go to, but I highly doubt they use actual maple syrup because their menu just says syrup.)

The beans are uniform looking, a medium caramel color, kind of like Sugar Babies. The bag does smell a lot like maple syrup, which is a sweet smell with notes of bourbon and vanilla with a little molasses or pipe tobacco.

The interesting things is that these are not just maple flavor but also pancake, so there are other flavor notes to the actual beans. Though the primary flavor is definitely, and perhaps over-the-top maple syrup, I also caught sort of buttery notes. It’s not the overwhelming buttered popcorn flavor, just a sort of salty and creamy flavor to it. (There are 25mg of salt per serving.)

So, there’s lots of maple-y flavor and buttery notes, but no actual pancake, which is fine, because just a jelly bean that tastes like pancake topping is good enough.

The fun part for many candy fans is that Jelly Belly are gluten free and peanut free. So if you can’t have actual pancakes because you’re gluten intolerant, you can have these.

I think the trendiness of these makes them appealing in the short term for buzz, but maple should stand the test of time. Of course the Honey jelly beans introduced a five years ago didn’t do so well and I think those did better in combination with other flavors than Maple.

Related Candies

1. Suss Pecan Maple Caramels
2. Jelly Belly Draft Beer Beans
3. Russell Stover Santas: Gingerbread, Peppermint and Maple
4. Jelly Belly Peas & Carrots Mellocreme Candy
5. Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans by Jelly Belly
6. Maple Ice Mints
7. Jelly Belly Chocolate Dips