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Mints

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Ghirardelli Intense Dark

Intense Dark Premium Assortment: 72%, 60% with mint or espressoGhirardelli has really expanded their line of chocolate bars over the past five years. Not only that, I see their products everywhere now thanks to the expansion of higher end chocolate into grocery stores and drug chains. They even have a charming chain of ice cream stores.

But I’ve ignored them on the blog for a long time. Probably because my initial impression of them has been that the chocolate bars is waxy and bland. But they’re wildly popular and have been making chocolate since 1852 in the Bay Area, one of my favorite candy destinations, so I needed to put those impressions to the test.

That’s not to say that I don’t use their chocolate chips, I prefer them to Nestle’s Toll House Morsels or Hershey’s Baking Chips and they’re often on sale for a decent price.

So I picked up this assortment of tasting squares after Christmas when they were on sale. They feature the new line of Intense Dark in three different flavors.

Intense Dark: Espresso EscapeThe Espresso Escape wrapper says: dark chocolate with finely ground espresso beans in 60% cacao. As usual I was worried about the bits of coffee beans, but in thsi case they really were so finely ground as they matched the particle size of the cocoa solids.

Roasted brewed coffee flavors mixed with the woodsy taste of real beans. Very little chocolate flavor here, it’s all coffee but with a smooth chocolate texture. Good cocoa butter melt, very silky. Light vanilla overtones. But the cedar and smoke is quite tangy.

While I enjoyed the texture quite a bit, the flavor was just a little too, well, Intense (tm).

Intense Dark: Mint Bliss

The Mint Bliss package says: dark chocolate with natural mint in 60% cacao. What the front of the package doesn’t mention is that there’s also some unidentified “artificial flavor” in this as well.

Nice buttery texture, but an incongruous tangy and musty taste along with the peppermint. It’s more of a fresh peppermint leaf taste, not a pure peppermint oil, which is a nice change of pace from their Peppermint Bark that I had over the holidays. But the combination of flavors still doesn’t quite jive for me.

Intense Dark: Twilight DelightThe Twilight Delight wrapper simply says 72% cacao in big bold, gold letters.

It has a nice buttery melt with a light cool feeling but the flavor is a little thin. It’s a little fruity, on the raisin side of things.

It’s sweet, only the lightest trace of bitterness. Light dry finish.

Ghirardelli has some other versions in their Intense Dark line, including the Midnight Reverie that has 86% cacao, Evening Dream with only 60% cacao and two other flavored 60% called Citrus Sunset & Toffee Interlude. They also have some filled bars that I haven’t tried yet.

Overall, it’s nice stuff, certainly worth the price and a fun little pickup for coffee or after dinner, maybe a mid-day munch. I like the 10.6 gram squares, it’s a good size for a little taste of chocolate.

Note: the Mint Bliss & Espresso Escape have milk fat in them, so are unsuitable for vegans, but the Twilight Delight is milk-free (though made on equipment that processes dairy).

Name: Intense Dark: Coffee, Mint & 72% Dark
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Ghirardelli
Place Purchased: Walgreen's (Echo Park)
Price: $2.50 (on post-Christmas clearance), regularly $9.99
Size: 8.63 ounces
Calories per ounce: 145
Categories: Chocolate, Mint, Coffee, United States, Ghirardelli, Kosher

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:15 am    

Sunday, April 6, 2008

Mint Crisp M&Ms (Indiana Jones)

Mint Crisp M&MsMars has a series of candies coming out with a marketing tie-in to the new Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull movie. (Which is set to premiere in the US on May 22nd.) This is rather similar to the stunt last year with Shrek the Third and the Pirates of the Caribbean movie the year before.

The standard Milk Chocolate & Peanut M&Ms got a new skin: a fun shift in their colors and little Indiana Jones inspired icons on some of them. Then, of course, to really excite candy fans they’ve done something completely new, the Limited Edition Mint Crisp M&Ms.

It’s not like they’re completely new though, there were once Crispy M&Ms in the United States (go to Australia if you miss them) and the seasonal Mint M&Ms.

Mint Crisp M&Ms

The package is one of the busiest known, rivaled perhaps only Pirate Pearls. There are lots of leaves all over the front, which at first I thought were mint, but turned out to be various palm and jungle-y things (I haven’t the foggiest what’s going on with Indy’s arm and that big palm leaf though). We’re encouraged to “Dig New Mint Crisp M&Ms” in the top left of the package and down in the lower right we’re told to “Get M before they’re Lost”.

The Green M&M wearing a pith helmet is looking admiringly at Indy saying, “Treasure is a girl’s best friend.” At first I thought it was a little creepy that Green has the hots for Indy, then I realized that the Green M&M is actually a year older than Harrison Ford. (M&Ms were introduced in 1941, Harrison Ford in 1942.)

Mint Crisp M&Ms

There’s only 1.4 ounces in the bag, but that little bit of air inside each center does wonders to bulk them up.

I was really looking forward to these, though it’s interesting to note that George Lucas has cautioned fans of the Indiana Jones movies not to build up their hopes to unreasonable levels. (And I think I know a bit about how much Lucas can let fans of a franchise down.)

They don’t look so great, some are horribly bumpy and the size variations are pretty extreme, from rather sphere-like ones smaller than a regular M&M all the way up to large ones that could be mistaken for Almond M&Ms.

The little icons are themed shapes that include the letter M. There are pyramids, masks, a compass ordinal and even a hat like Indiana Jones wears. They’re rather irregular as well, but more obvious on the themed Milk Chocolate M&Ms:

But shape and color aside, it’s what’s inside that counts, right?

Mint Crisp M&MsThe crispy shell gives one kind of crunch, then a layer of mostly semisweet chocolate strongly flavored with mint and then a bland crispy center that has a light kick of salt to it.

They’re really easy to keep crunching away at ... a little chocolate, a little mint, a little crisped rice. Kind of like a Girl Scout Thin Mint.

I’d be happy to see these as a seasonal item, though I doubt I’d eat them as often as the Almond M&Ms. I suspect they’ll be a huge hit.

Rebecca already got a hold of these and has a review of the Adventure Bar, too. I’ll have the Snickers Adventure bar review soon. Thanks to Define23 for helping me to find them here in Los Angeles.

UPDATE: Sera at Candy Addict also has a review now & I have the Snickers Adventure Bar. These are also available as a limited edition in Japan, here’s a photo I found by CindyC81 (you too can share photos in the Candy Blog Flickr Photo Pool).

Related Candies

  1. Skittles Chocolate Mix
  2. M&Ms Razzberry - Limited Edition
  3. Cherry Almondine M&Ms
  4. M&Ms Line
  5. M&M Pirate Pearls
  6. Darth M&Ms
Name: Mint Crisp M&Ms (Limited Edition)
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Mars
Place Purchased: CVS (Silverlake)
Price: $.79
Size: 1.4 ounces
Calories per ounce: 143
Categories: Chocolate, Mint, CookieUnited States, Mars, Kosher, Limited Edition

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:16 pm    

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Hot Tamales Spice Jelly Beans

imageThis is one of the most incongruous bits of packaging I’ve seen in a while. Hot Tamales branded jelly beans, in spice flavors ... okay, so far so good. But the colors are all, I don’t know, racy.

Spice jelly beans are far from racy. They’re eaten by little nostalgic old ladies and middle-aged European guys as palate cleansers. These are packaged like they’re supposed to appeal to the NASCAR crowd (not that they wouldn’t enjoy them ... Mike and Ike even have an association with NASCAR).

But still, spice jelly beans are hard to find these days, and it’s even harder to find them made in the USA. (Yes, I get emails from people looking for American made spice jelly beans.)

Just Born is known for it’s jelly bean type products, which are their Mike and Ike and Hot Tamales as well as their lesser known line of Teenee Beanee, a gourmet jelly bean.

What strikes me as especially odd about these (on top of everything else) is that Just Born also has a line of spice jelly beans that Sera at Candy Addict just reviewed yesterday!

image

They’re lovely looking beans, a little bigger than the Jelly Belly everyone is so used to these days, but not as large as the Brach’s Jelly Beans.

The variety has five flavors (the only ones left out of the “traditional” spice mix are licorice and lemon): Wintergreen, Peppermint, Clove, Spearmint and of course Cinnamon.

The color mix is a little odd too, the assignment of colors defies ordinary candy traditions, but I suppose none of that is written in stone either. At least they have a key on the back.

  • Wintergreen = Pink: It’s a pretty pink, a little darker and easy to confuse with the red sometimes. The wintergreen is soft and mellow, almost like a teaberry instead of a Lifesavers Wint-O-Green.
  •  

  • Cinnamon = Red: pretty much what you’d expect, a spicy and zesty cinnamon with a very light burn to it.
  •  

  • Peppermint = White: it reminds me of those Brach’s Ice Blue mints, just a mild peppermint, which is pretty rare these days with all those curiously strong things around. Refreshing.
  •  

  • Clove = Yellow: as a candy purist, the universal color for clove is purple or lavender. Yellow is downright counterintuitive. All that aside, I thought it was nice. It has a good blend of the aromatic elements of clove along with the slight bitter volatile side. I’m not a big fan of clove, but this didn’t bother me when I ate it by accident. (Because they’re yellow!)
  •  

  • Spearmint = Green: the lightly translucent green had only a touch of spearmint, not quite as spicy as a good Spearmint Leaf, but still, a nice mellow bean that’s easy to keep eating.
  • Really, all that’s missing here is Licorice. But the Licorice beans were sold separately ... literally, in their own bag. There’s also a separate bag of Hot Tamales Cinnamon Jelly Beans, but that’s just silly! Hot Tamales are cinnamon jelly beans!

    The beans are traditional pectin thickened, many just use corn starch these days. But they’re not Kosher for Passover (but plain old Kosher). They’re also gluten free. I don’t know if these will be sold year round of if they are just a seasonal offering.

    Thanks to Rebecca on Flickr who helped me find these!

    Related Candies

    1. Hot Tamales Black Licorice Jelly Beans
    2. Gimbal’s Lavaballs
    3. Hot Tamales Ice
    4. Lifesavers Jellybeans
    5. Cadbury Dairy Milk Whispers
    6. Starburst and Jelly Belly Jelly Beans
    7. Hot Tamales and Hotter Tamales
    8. Jelly Belly - Full Line
    Name: Hot Tamales Spice Flavored Jelly Beans
      RATING:
    • 10 SUPERB
    • 9 YUMMY
    • 8 TASTY
    • 7 WORTH IT
    • 6 TEMPTING
    • 5 PLEASANT
    • 4 BENIGN
    • 3 UNAPPEALING
    • 2 APPALLING
    • 1 INEDIBLE
    Brand: Just Born
    Place Purchased: Albertson's (Los Feliz)
    Price: $1.50 (on sale)
    Size: 14 ounces
    Calories per ounce: 99
    Categories: Jelly, Mint, Cinnamon, United States, Just Born, Kosher, Easter

    POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:22 am    

    Friday, February 22, 2008

    Same old things, different flavors

    Since I’m still down with this aggravating illness, I thought I’d do some short & sweet briefs on a few things that I’ve been eating. Mostly it’s stuff that I’ve reviewed but in different flavors & varieties ... so they don’t warrant a full write-up on their own.

    Strawberry Gummy Choco

    I took a little jaunt to Little Tokyo three weeks ago because I was craving the Gummy Choco I had last year. Mitsuwa Marketplace (3rd & Alameda) has an awesome selection, including single flavor packs of Muscat and Strawberry. I opted for the Strawberry Gummy Choco. (Oh, and I got another tube of the mixed fruits.) However, the price seemed to be better at Nijiya Market in Little Tokyo Village at only $1.49 instead of $2.49 ... but of course parking is a little more difficult over there at times.

    They have a milk chocolate coating with an innner coating of real white chocolate. The gummy center is a rich and jammy strawberry. Ultra-soft and combines well with the creamy chocolate.

    They’re still a satisfying candy to eat when you have no sense of smell, the combination of textures and the zap of the tart berry center keeps me amused.

    Rating: 9 out of 10

    Wheat ChocolateI picked up another brand of Wheat Chocolate at Mitsuwa. This bag was a little smaller, but basically the same price per ounce and had the same decent quality chocolate coating.

    It’s as simple as can be, just puffed wheat (I think puffed barley, actually) that’s covered in a shiny & thin coat of milk chocolate.

    It’s sweet and kind of earthy and freakishly addictive. I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but I think I prefer the Japan Confectionery brand, if only because each kernel was separate from the others. It seemed like more of these were stuck together. ($1.69 for 4 ounces ... which doesn’t sound like much, but there’s a lot of air in there.)

    This stuff should be sold in movie theaters ... it’s an ideal movie candy.

    Rating: 8 out of 10

    Charles Chocolates Candied Hazelnut Chocolate BarBack in November I visited with Chuck Siegel at Charles Chocolates and saw all the new stuff, including a preview of one of his new bars that sounded right up my alley: Candied Hazelnut in Dark Chocolate.

    What has me so excited (besides the prospect of creamy dark chocolate with perfectly roasted hazelnuts) was that it might be an easier to find version of that wonderful Spanish bar I had last summer: Avellana Caramelizada Chocolate by Mallorca.

    Charles Chocolates Candied Hazelnut Chocolate Bar

    Instead of whole hazelnuts encased in a crunchy sugar glaze, these were bits of hazelnuts. The bits were crunchy and fresh, but didn’t have quite the burnt sugary crust that I was aching for. (But how was Chuck to know that’s what my expectation was?)

    It’s still a great bar, I love his 65% dark chocolate blend. It has an excellent soft and silky melt, it’s a little tangy with mostly mellow flavors that let the other inclusions shine. I would have liked slightly bigger crunchy bits.

    The packaging has changed slightly with the Charles Chocolates bars as well. When I first tried them each bar was wrapped in a microthin piece of foil. Now they’re a metallic airtight pack inside the box. Probably a much better way to keep the chocolate fresh in the stores, but not as easy to reseal if you tear the bag when opening.

    Rating: 8 out of 10

    Lifesavers - New & OldThe last item is kind of a fun thing that I picked up last summer. I noticed that there were two different designs for the same roll of Cryst-O-Mint Lifesavers on the shelves at Walgreen’s, so I picked them up.

    Over the years Lifesavers has changed more than their packaging. The only thing that has remained the same is the shape of their product. The familiar donut shape is here to stay, even if they’re made in Canada now.

    The Cryst-O-Mint is unlike the other mint Lifesavers in that it’s a boiled sugar sweet, not a compressed dextrose candy.

    It’s not an intense mint like an Altoid, just a soft and clean peppermint flavor. The production of the candy is good, the pieces were all intact and didn’t have any voids or sharp spots like some of those Brach’s Ice Blue mints.

    Also a plus, there are no artificial colors in there, because they’re colorless. If they’d just left out the High Fructose Corn Sweetener, they’d actually be an all-natural candy.

    You can read more about the Lifesavers redesign here.

    Rating: 6 out of 10

    Related Candies

    1. Short & Sweet: International Flavors
    2. Candy Dump 2008 part 2
    3. The Candy Dump 2008
    4. Welcome to the Candy Dump
    5. Charles Chocolates Bars
    6. Lifesaver Musk

    POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:55 am     CandyReviewCharles ChocolatesMeijiWrigley'sChocolateCookieGummi CandyHard Candy & LollipopsMintsNutsWhite Chocolate6-Tempting8-Tasty9-YummyCanadaJapanUnited States

    Wednesday, January 16, 2008

    Cocoa Deli Chocolate Heaven

    Cocoa DeliOne of the items that I’ve gotten several notes with recommendations to review is the new line called Cocoa Deli out of the United Kingdom. One of the things that I think some folks will find exciting about these little upscale treats is that they’re made in a “no nuts” facility. It’s pretty unusual to find anything other than a plain chocolate bar that can claim that.

    The unique selling proposition with the Cocoa Deli Chocolate Heaven collection is that they look like little ice cream pops.

    It took me a few months to track down a place that sells them, it turned out to be Walgreen’s. But I really lucked out because this variety package with all four varieties in little tins turned out to be half off. So the original price was $6.99 for 5.1 ounces and I got it for $3.50.

    Cocoa DeliI’ve heard that the variety in the little tubs that they sell year round can vary, but in this case each flavor came in its own color-coded tin with a clear lid. They’re really cute and useful tins that have no actual branding on them, so I could probably re-gift them with other little sweets in them if I felt like it.

    While the package says that each tin is “filled with indulgent mini popsicle shaped chocolates” there were three inside each package.

    Each chocolate is individually wrapped and clearly marked with the flavor. Each package boasts that the chocolate comes from Belgium and in smaller print on the back of the box it says that the whole thing was packaged in China. So, let’s see ... the cocoa beans are grown in the tropics, shipped to Belgium where it’s made into chocolate, which is then shipped to England where it’s made into the little candies, which are then shipped to China to be put into tins and boxes and then shipped to the United States. No wonder they want $7 for twelve little chocolates (about $22 a pound at regular price).

    The little nuggets look like tiny popsicles, though in this version there’s no wooden stick (they do other confections on sticks that are a bit larger ... this one is all edible).

    Cocoa Deli - Vanilla CaramelThe first flavor, Vanilla Caramel was a lovely little piece. The milk chocolate (30%) is very sweet but seems to be offset very well by the caramel filling. It’s a saucy caramel that feels more like it’s about the texture, which is smooth with only the slightest hint of grain. There’s not much of a burnt sugar flavor but a nice saltiness that keeps the whole thing from being cloyingly sticky.

    Citrus Chocolate smelled very orangy right out of the package. The milk chocolate is quite smooth, though also very sweet and a little sticky feeling. It’s a pretty dense milk chocolate, boasting 30% cacao content. But in this case it’s all about the orange flavor. The orange center is a soft, truffle-like thing, though not quite as buttery. The orange notes are all zest and quite strong. It reminded me of what a Terry’s Chocolate Orange should taste like (instead of being grainy and too sweet).

    Cocoa Deli - Raspberry TruffleRasberry Truffle is the only dark chocolate piece in the set. Wow, the center of this was a pretty intense fuschia, but the ingredients only list dried rasperries as an ingredient, so that’s all natural. The raspberry scent is nice, floral and little grassy. The creaminess of the center is interrupted by the actual bits of raspberry. For the most part it’s little tangy bits surrounding seeds. The flavor is nice, but I’m not terribly keen on seeds like this in my chocolate. The dark chocolate is sweet, not terribly complex but stands up well to the berry.

    When I got to the Peppermint Crunch Truffle, I wasn’t sure if it was going to be a milk chocolate truffle center or a white cream. It ended up being the milky former, which was a nice surprise. The crunch part, as you might imagine, is crushed candy pieces (not polenta or nonpariels). I was glad these were not only individually wrapped but also in their own tins, as this one smelled strongly of mint before even opening the wrapper. It’s nice to avoid that cross-contamination of strong flavors. It was pleasant, super creamy smooth with a light and cool touch of peppermint. The crispy crunch of the bitty mint bits brought some nice texture to it.

    I’m curious to try some of their other items in their line but there’s nothing in particular that sets these apart from other comparably priced chocolates (See’s, for one) except for the no nuts part. For someone looking for some help with portion control, each piece has 60 calories (so one of these single-flavor tins has only 180 ... less than most candy bars). As a Valentine’s treat purchased at the drug store, it’s certainly far better than most of the other choices (I’d much rather have these than the Dove Jewels, but at regular price these cost twice as much).  The packaging is cute and I’m glad I have a few tins to put other candies in later on for snacking. I’m just glad I didn’t pay full price for them.

    Related Candies

    1. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels
    2. Russell Stover Heart
    3. Elmer’s Chocolate
    4. Ferrero Rocher
    5. The Rocas
    Name: Chocolate Heaven
      RATING:
    • 10 SUPERB
    • 9 YUMMY
    • 8 TASTY
    • 7 WORTH IT
    • 6 TEMPTING
    • 5 PLEASANT
    • 4 BENIGN
    • 3 UNAPPEALING
    • 2 APPALLING
    • 1 INEDIBLE
    Brand: Cocoa Deli
    Place Purchased: Walgreen's (Echo Park)
    Price: $3.50 (on sale)
    Size: 5.1 ounces
    Calories per ounce: 141
    Categories: Chocolate, Caramel, Mint, United Kingdom

    POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:09 am    

    Monday, January 7, 2008

    Smooth n Melty

    Smooth n MeltyThere are a few candies that I like against my better instincts. Smooth n Melty Mints are just such a candy.

    I was at the grocery store and saw these “petite mint chips” on post-holiday sale. At only $1.24 for a 12 ounce bag, I could hardly resist. Sometimes I find myself spending six or eight dollars a pound for these little beauties in pastels at a candy shop when I get one of those strange cravings. They come in two different sizes, the regular which are the size of a squat Hershey’s Kiss and these that I picked up are the petite size that are like little chocolate chips.

    Smooth n Melty

    What are Smooth n Melty? Sugar, partially hydrogenated oils and mint ... and a few nonpariels thrown in for a little crunchy texture.

    While that doesn’t sound good, they’re simply buttery melting mints. They’ve very sweet but not too minty. There’s a milky component to them, but it’s not an overwhelming dairy flavor. They’re completely unsatisfying in the sense that I have to eat them one after another until the whole bag is gone. (Well, there are a few left in the bag right now.)

    The only thing I didn’t like about this “baking chip” variety over the pastels is that I had that little bitter taste from the red nonpariels (red dye #40 again).

    Smooth n MeltyBack in ‘06 when Hershey’s introduced their Candy Cane Kisses I was so excited. They were Smooth n Melty, only made with cocoa butter instead of partially hydrogenated tropical fats. Sadly Hershey reformulated those seasonal Kisses so they are no longer made with just cocoa butter so I didn’t buy them this year.

    Now if the partially hydrogenated thing puts you off, I did talk to Gary Guittard about Smooth n Melty. He said that they are working on reformulating them to include no trans fats. (But Guittard has no plans to make a real cocoa butter version, drat!) You can also get the mint disks without the nonpariels on them (usually for melting & candymaking) but I prefer the little crunch.

    Related Candies

    1. Jo’s Peppermint Crunch
    2. Craves Chocolate Sticks
    3. Junior Mints Pastels
    4. Head to Head: Cookie Joys vs Cookies n Mint
    Name: Smooth n Melty Petite Mint Chips
      RATING:
    • 10 SUPERB
    • 9 YUMMY
    • 8 TASTY
    • 7 WORTH IT
    • 6 TEMPTING
    • 5 PLEASANT
    • 4 BENIGN
    • 3 UNAPPEALING
    • 2 APPALLING
    • 1 INEDIBLE
    Brand: Guittard
    Place Purchased: Von's (Hollywood)
    Price: $1.24 (on sale)
    Size: 12 ounces
    Calories per ounce: 151
    Categories: Mint, United States, Guittard, Kosher, Christmas

    POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:05 am    

    Thursday, January 3, 2008

    Candy Dump 2008 part 2

    KitKat Peanut ButterI have lots more candy to tell you about that I haven’t done full reviews for. Here’s a half dozen of them.

    First is the Nestle KitKat Peanut Butter from Canada. The format on this bar is the single chunky finger. This is actually larger at 1.76 ounces than the American single finger bar which is 1.59 ounces. I found this bar at Mel & Rose’s Wine & Liquors on Melrose Ave a month ago.

    The bar is thick and chunky but follows the standard KitKat formula.

    Peanut Butter KitKat

    There are wafers with cream filling then a thick stripe of peanut butter all covered in milk chocolate.

    The package smelled strongly of raw peanuts when I opened it. Roasted peanuts have a deep and smoky tone to them, this was that higher octave scent, like freshly snapped peas mixed with peanuts.

    The crunch of the bar was good, but there’s definitely a lot of chocolate in operation here. The peanut butter stripe is great. It’s very flavorful despite being so thin. It’s not sweetened at all, in fact it’s pretty salty. I preferred eating this bar like I eat most KitKats. I nibble off both ends of chocolate, then all the chocolate off the sides. Then I eat the less-chocolatey remains.

    It was really good and I think I’d buy this if I could find it at my local store. Far more satisfying than a regular KitKat (4 grams of protein - one more than a regular) and not nearly as sweet.

    Rating: 7 out of 10

    Das  Caramelini - Ginger & CoffeeDas Caramelini has a couple of new flavors. Most of the other candy bloggers also go free samples from Katie Das and covered it far quicker than I did, so I didn’t put down my thoughts right away.

    She sent me Ginger & Pistachio which I already reviewed and loved last spring. The new-to-me flavor was Cafe Cortado. It’s a vanilla caramel with coffee.

    Unfortunately I’m not keen on coffee beans in my food. It might be that I have a problem with caffeine or it might be that I don’t care for the texture, but these just didn’t do it for me. I tried a few, but I was very aware that I needed to eat them before noon (as I don’t drink coffee after that) which always made me feel pressured.

    The great news though is that the wrapping of the caramels has been changed to a heavier waxed paper. They no longer stick to the paper and are far easier to keep popping in your mouth. The box looks deceptively small but holds a quarter of a pound of rich, boiled sugar & butter. You can order direct on their website for about $6.99 a box (less if you order more).

    Rating: 8 out of 10

    Kaon CitrusI ordered these Meiji Kaon Citrus from JBox.com last fall. I wasn’t quite sure what they were, but citrus and gummi combined with a brand like Meiji and I figured I could take a chance.

    They’re not a transparent gummi, instead they’re opaque and matte. They’re still very soft and bouncy. They have a distinct bite, not a rubbery as a German gummi. The thing that was most clear was that this is a real fruit product. The texture feels a bit like pear, there’s a slight grain to it. Then there were a few bits of zest in there.

    The flavor is predominantly tangerine with a little dollop of grapefruit & lemon in there for good measure. Completely addictive, I ordered two bags and ate both. They’re small bags though at only 35 grams each. I can’t remember how much I paid for them and of course JBox doesn’t have them on their site right now. (Here’s the official webpage.) See Sera’s review.

    Rating: 8 out of 10

    HalvaI picked up these little beauties at the All Candy Expo as samples, but I still haven’t found them in stores.

    The Traditional Halva bars from Sultan’s Finest Foods are little .71 ounce bits of plain halva. They’re smooth and creamy with a strong sesame flavor to them.

    It’s the perfect portion size, if only I can find them somewhere. These are made in Tunisia, and may be the first Tunisian candy mentioned on the blog! They’re imported by Agora International and come in a sugar free version as well. I think these sorts of sesame snacks are ideal, especially for hot weather. It’s creamy and filling, not too sweet and of course does better in hot weather than chocolate.

    Rating: 7 out of 10

    Sencha Green Tea MintsI’ve seen the Sencha Green Tea Mints at stores for years. I just couldn’t get my brain around them for the longest time. I like a mint that has some zazz to it, and the idea of green tea in a mint seemed to defeat the purpose.

    These were sample packages that I picked up at ExpoWest which is for natural products. They’re usually sold in little maroon or dark colored tins with a clear top. These compressed candies are made from xylitol & sorbitol, which are natural sugar alcohols. They have a cool feeling on the tongue (and shouldn’t be consumed in large quantities because of some digestive troubles they can cause) and a subtle flavor.

    The three flavors I got were: Delicate Pear, which is just slightly fruity and sweet. Green Tea was subtle and while fresh tasting, didn’t leave that minty burn.
    Lively Lemongrass was, well, lightly lemon, but not quite lively.

    The tea ingredients are fair trade and xylitol is supposed to be a pretty good base for gum & mints (not bad for your teeth, but bad for dogs). It’s hard to find sugar free mints that don’t have artificial sweeteners in them, so if you’re looking for something that fits that niche, these might be for you.

    Rating: 5 out of 10

    Stained Glass Candy

    I’m very late with my write up on Stained Glass Candy. I ordered it online about a year ago. I expected it to be pretty little hexagonal disks of candy (about the size of a quarter), but the photography on their website didn’t prepare me at all for how lovely this stuff was.

    Though it’s expensive for hard candy at $12.95 a pound (when you order 2 pounds), I figured I’d give it a try. The cool thing is that you can custom design your flavor mix, so I chose one pound of herbs & spices: cinnamon, hot cinnamon, wintergreen and anise. The second pound I did as fruits: banana, orange, lemon and pineapple.

    Each piece came sealed in a little clear plastic sleeve with the name of the flavor printed on it. This was helpful as I’d ordered both cinnamon and hot cinnamon (definitely a difference!). The shapes were lovely, the colors clear (except for banana), distinctive and tasty. I loved the pineapple and anise especially.

    The downside is that they’re a little softer than some hard candies, so they either need to be stored in a fridge to keep them from losing their shape eventually or just eaten quickly. The softness also means that they stick to teeth and can’t be crunched. But I kind of like slowly shaping them to the roof of my mouth.

    I probably wouldn’t order these again unless I had a special need for them like a party or something. They’d make nice wedding favors or for a shower or something. But at five times the price of regular hard candy, it’d have to be a very special occasion or a very special flavor.

    Rating: 6 out of 10

    Related Candies

    1. VerMints
    2. Shigekix Aha! Brain (Citrus)
    3. St. Claire’s Organic Mints & Tarts
    4. HiCHEW Yuzu & Valencia
    5. KitKat Caramel
    6. Halvah and Turkish Delight

    POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:09 am     All NaturalCandyReviewMeijiNestleCaramelChocolateCinnamonCoffeeCookieEthically SourcedGingerGummi CandyKitKatMintsNutsPeanuts5-Pleasant6-Tempting7-Worth It8-TastyCanadaJapanUnited States

    Tuesday, December 18, 2007

    Hershey’s Mint Truffle Kisses

    Mint Truffle KissesAs I tried to document back in October, there are about 100 different varieties of Hershey’s Kisses, all issued this year in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Kiss. Some are inventive new flavor combinations, some are rather poor executions of good ideas and still others are just different wrappers.

    While it appears that Hershey’s has not reintroduced their seasonal favorite, the Mint Kisses, they did do a wide release of the Mint Truffle Kisses. They’re obviously a winter or holiday item with the snowflakes on the package. While I’ve been looking around for the vexingly hard to find Malt Crunch, I’ve had no trouble finding the Mint Truffle, so I waited to buy them at the best price.

    image

    The Kisses come in either a silver foil with green writing or green foil with silver writing. Inside there’s a minted dark chocolate shell with a light green minted truffle filling.

    As with many of the other filled Kisses, these are a little greasy on the outside. (The Coconut Creme were huge offenders on this front.) They feel a bit cool on the tongue, that could be the huge dose of peppermint going on there but they also melt pretty easily as well. The truffle center isn’t super smooth, it’s more like a really soft and creamy mint frosting. It has a bit of a salty note to it, much more noticeable than the chocolate shell, this cuts through what would probably be a super-sweet Kiss. I like the little pop it gives it.

    There are no partially hydrogenated oils in here but 40% of your RDA of saturated fats in just 9 Kisses. This bag also seems to be more generous than some. It has 11 ounces in it, most recent bags of limited edition Kisses are 8.5 ounces (of course that could just be the size that the other stores I frequent choose to carry).

    Related Candies

    1. Candy Corn Kisses
    2. Kisses Coconut Creme
    3. Kisses Chocolate Truffles
    4. The Mint Kisses: Chocolate Mint & Candy Cane
    5. Peanut Butter Kisses
    6. Cherry Cordial Creme Kisses
    7. Head to Head: Rolo vs Caramel Kisses
    8. Short & Sweet: Caramello /  Mega M&Ms / Orange Kisses
    Name: Limited Edition Mint Truffle Kisses
      RATING:
    • 10 SUPERB
    • 9 YUMMY
    • 8 TASTY
    • 7 WORTH IT
    • 6 TEMPTING
    • 5 PLEASANT
    • 4 BENIGN
    • 3 UNAPPEALING
    • 2 APPALLING
    • 1 INEDIBLE
    Brand: Hershey's
    Place Purchased: KMart (Torrance)
    Price: $2.00 (on sale!)
    Size: 11 ounces
    Calories per ounce: 145
    Categories: Chocolate, Mint, United States, Hershey's, Christmas, Limited Edition, Kosher

    POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:29 am    

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