These are a classic East Coast candy. Made for years by the Goldenberg candy company, they were purchased by Just Born in 2003, which has been gobbling up other Eastern small-maker candies. Just Born is best known for the Easter favorite, Marshmallow Peeps.

I’ve always referred to these as Goldenbergs ... the one part of the old name that is not retained (I think the company is pushing the name “Chew-Ets”) so now I have to call them just Peanut Chews. But the notable thing about them is that they break one of my rules of good candy. They’re fake. There’s no chocolate there. But what they lack in chocolate they make up for in flavor.

The original Chew-Et is a molasses-based chew embedded with peanuts and then covered in a wax that resembles dark chocolate. (Okay, it’s not wax, it’s just not real chocolate.) The interesting part of the chew is that it’s not a caramel. There’s no milk in the original bar at all, so it can’t be a caramel. It’s just a sugary syrup that’s been boiled down to soft-ball state. Maybe you could call it a “soft brittle”. They’re formed into fingers of candy that are placed in a tray and usually sold in a package of six or so, though I usually bought the King Sized ones. For a while I’ve been able to find them here in California at Rite Aid (probably because Rite Aid is based in Pennsylvania). The molasses and peanuts make a good combination of roasted, musky flavors. The dark chocolate stays out of the way and doesn’t really add anything to the party (except trans fats).

Having just said that the chocolate coating doesn’t much matter, it seems to make more of a difference in the milk version. Molasses is a dark flavor and seems to benefit from the dark, slightly bitter mockolate. While the milk chocolate coating is more successful at replicating the feel of real chocolate, it’s a little sweet, a little sticky feeling in the combo.

I’m glad to see that the Chew-Ets will continue to exist, as they are rather unique. They’re small and easy to share and have a flavor combination not found in any other candy bar on the market in the states. Since it’s not real chocolate, they also seem to weather being in my bag better than chocolate candies, so they’re a better bet as a summer candy. I wish they were made with real chocolate, but I suppose I shouldn’t advocate messing around with such a good bar.

Additional Reading: Check out Steve Almond’s Candy Freak which has a whole chapter devoted to his visit to the Goldenberg factory (while it was still Goldenberg’s) in Philadelphia. You can even read a couple of pages on Amazon if you like. Here’s something interesting I learned from the book, Goldenbergs were first developed as ration bar for the Army in WWI and after the war the GIs kept buying them.

Edit: I found this in Mike’s Candy Wrappers, the original wrapper.

UPDATE 8/1/2012: The original name of Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews has been restored on the packages, and an updated but still classic looking package is back on store shelves.

Related Candies

1. Mary Jane & Mary Jane Wicked Mix
2. Eat with your Eyes: Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews
3. Short & Sweet: Summer Bites
4. Candy Trends: Packaging
5. Molasses Pops
6. Look! and Big Hunk
7. Eat-More

Name: Clark Bar
Brand: Necco (used to be made by Clark)
Place Purchased:  Marcel’s at the Farmer’s Market
Price: $.89
Size: 1.75 ounces
Calories per ounce: 137
Type: Chocolate/ Peanut Butter

I finally tracked down a Clark bar (they aren’t that easy to find on the West Coast). Clark bars were originally manufactured by the Clark company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania starting in 1917 (WWI) but were bought a few years back by Necco. I remember when I lived in Pittsburgh one of the best things about it was the huge, lit Clark sign on the factory. What I also liked about the Clark company is that they made one of my favorite gums, Teaberry. 

The Clark bar is very similar to the Butterfinger and the current 5th Avenue bar. (All of these bars have changed hands over the years, Butterfinger was originally made by Curtis and 5th Avenue was by Ludens.) It’s possible Clark was the original peanut butter honeycomb bar, but even if it wasn’t it was one of the few to survive to the present day. The center of a Clark bar is honeycomb peanut butter crisp covered in a chocolate-like substance (I don’t know if it was ever covered in real chocolate).

Given the choice when it came to peanut crisp bars, I usually opted for the Zagnut, which is a coconut covered peanut crisp bar (now made by Hershey’s). So my recollection of the real Clark bars is a bit dim. But what I can tell you about the one I tried is that it’s very dense. It’s not crispy like a Butterfinger and it lacks the complex toasted flavors of the 5th Avenue. (Look at the photos on the head to head review to see the difference in the centers.) However, the fake chocolate is much better than most, it’s sweet and smooth without being waxy. The crisp ends up becoming rather chewy and finally gives up a little more molasses flavor, but still doesn’t have the pop that 5th Avenue gives me.

(Related nostalgia - Clark wrappers, Clark bar memories, Clark sign on Flickr, two more shots of the same old sign, story about classic sign on North Side.)

Rating - 5 out of 10

UPDATE April 21, 2010: Necco has updated the Clark Bar, it’s now bigger and has a real chocolate coating. They’re also available in dark chocolate. Check out the new reviews as well as a full head-to-head comparison of Butterfinger, 5th Avenue and Clark Bar.

Related Candies

1. Head to Head: Clark, Butterfinger & 5th Avenue
2. Clark Bar (Get Real - Milk & Dark)
3. Hershey’s Website Inaccuracies
4. Chick-o-Stick
5. Head-to-Head: Butterfinger vs. 5th Avenue

Name: Almond Roca and Cashew Roca
Brand: Brown & Haley
Place Purchased: Cost Plus
Price: $.99 each
Size: 1.26 oz
Calories per ounce: 159 (Cashew) 161 (Almond)
Type: Toffee

Almond Roca is cool. It’s the perfect hostess gift when you only have time to dash into the nearest drug store. Everyone likes it, it isn’t expensive, but feels like it is. It comes in a frighteningly pink tin, which is easy to slap a premade gold bow on. People who bring me Almond Roca don’t come off as cheap at all, I consider it a treat. (For the record, I don’t think anyone has ever given me Almond Roca, though I’ve been offered it at other people’s houses, no doubt someone else brought the host it as a gift.)

Almond Roca is a simple little invention - a small log, like a chubby pinky finger of crispy toffee is covered in chocolate and rolled in crushed almonds. (Sorry, it kinda looks like something you’d find in the cat litter but that’s probably why they wrap it in that sassy gold foil.) Cashew Roca is the same thing, only rolled in crushed cashews and wrapped in an even more luxurious cobalt blue foil.

Honestly, I couldn’t tell the difference between the two, the nuts are crushed into such small bits and their proportion to the overall mass of the toffee and chocolate is minute. The almond one has more calories, but besides the swap of nuts on the ingredients, they’re the same but maybe the cashew one is a bit creamier.

The coating is a bit disappointing though, it’s always a bit greasy, sometimes comes off in clumps. It’s not real chocolate, but a pretty good grade mockolate.

Still, it’s dang tasty.

Ratings - 7 out of 10

I know that the 5th Avenue is a lesser known bar, but it’s quite similar to the Butterfinger. Though they’re both a peanutbutter crunch center with a chocolate(y) coating, they do have some differences. I’m doing this head-to-head in part to introduce Butterfinger fans to what I think is an exceptional bar. But in order to do that, I had to see them side by side again:

Both are massive bars. The 5th Avenue rings in at exactly 2 ounces and the Butterfinger at 2.1 ounces. The main difference, as far as I can tell between the two is that the Butterfinger coating is not chocolate but a chocolate-like substance where the 5th Avenue has a creamy milk chocolate enrobement.

The 5th Avenue bar of my childhood was not a Hershey product but made by Ludens (yes, the cough drop people). Also made in Pennsylvania, the 5th Avenue bar may not have had the wide distribution of the more well-known Butterfinger. When I first got to college I was forced to eat Butterfingers and developed a taste for them, but now that I’m back in an area that offers both, I’m a 5th Avenue girl. Of course, I seem to have a vague recollection of there being a couple of almonds on top. Does anyone else remember that?

The center is a crispy, crunchy peanutbutter crisp. Kind of like a flaky toffee. It has some peanutbutter between the layers, as far as I can tell. It also has a distinct molasses flavor to it, which brings out the roasted flavors of the nuts.

The Butterfinger bar was also not originally made by its current owner, Nestle. It was invented by the Curtiss Candy Company based in Chicago (a great candy town) that also made the Baby Ruth (also made by Nestle now). It predates the 5th Avenue, and frankly, has a much better name. It’s buttery and resembles a big finger and of course the play on words of being a clumsy person is kind of fun. The Butterfinger was always known as a great candy buy when I was a kid. Because the bar was so huge, you were sure to be satisfied. The center has similar crunch peanutbutter toffee-like layers that seem a bit crumblier (in a good way) than the 5th Avenue. The overwhelming taste in this center is buttery. A good hit of peanuts and a smooth, sweet and salty buttery taste. I’ve always loved the inside of Butterfingers ... it’s the fake chocolate coating that’s always bugged me. It’s waxy, overly sweet and just not milk chocolate.

So, if the fake chocolate doesn’t bother you and you’re looking for flaky, crunch buttery experience, pick up a Butterfinger. If you like your crunchy peanut flakes with real chocolate and a good robust hit of molasses, 5th Avenue is for you.

UPDATE 2/21/2007: I just found out via the comments that 5th Avenue no longer uses real chocolate ... such a shame. It was such a good bar, it’s sad that Hershey’s has now taken away the unique position it had in the market as the only chocolate covered peanut crispy bar. They have, however, introduced the Reese’s Crispy Crunchy bar, which has peanut butter and crushed peanuts in it. Not the same, but at least real chocolate.

Name: DiDo
Brand: Ulker
Place Purchased: India Sweets & Spices (Los Feliz)
Price: $.99
Size: 29 grams
Calories per ounce: haven’t a clue - the printing is teensy-tiny
Type: Chocolate/Crisp

Does this candy bar look familiar to anyone? I picked this up because it looked like a KitKat bar on the package and found that it looked just like it inside too. However, instead of four little bars, there were three. Unfortunately this is no match for KitKat - the first ingredient is sugar, and after opening the package and that sweet smell, it was obvious. The second ingredient is not milk chocolate or even cocoa butter but hydrogenated oil. That means this isn’t real chocolate on the outside? Nope, it’s not. It even gives you a hint to that in the description - “wafer fingers in milk compound chocolate.” Think “cheese food.”

However, the wafers were wonderfully crisp and the chocolate compound ratio to the wafers was nice. There was also a nice hint of hazelnut to it. If I found myself in Turkey and really wanted a candy bar, I might actually seek this one out, if only for its familiarity.

So, as far as DiDo goes, I’ll keep buying her albums, but she can keep her candy bar. 

Interesting note - Dido is the Queen (and founder) of Carthage.

Rating - 6 out of 10 (but if they were made with real chocolate it’d be an 8)

Name: Coffee Crisp
Brand: Nestle (Canada)
Place Purchased: Bristol Farms (Pasadena)
Price: $.79
Size: 1.76 oz
Calories per ounce: 148
Type: Chocolate Candy

Nestle’s known for the Nestle Crunch bar. This one is a bit of a twist. This huge, light block of a bar has layers of crisped cookie alternating with creamy coffee coated crisp. It’s all covered in a light layer of milk chocolate or more likely a waxy chocolate-like product.

It’s very sweet, but though the bar is large, it’s very light and crunchy. The ingredients list such artery-clogging items like palm and shea oils and hydrogenated soy oil. But I’m doing this for the good of science so I tossed aside my usual embargo on trans fats and wolfed this down.

The scent of coffee as you bring the bar to the mouth is quite evident, but the taste really isn’t there. The bar has lots of good textures, the crunch was crunchy without being dangerous like Cap’n Crunch or anything. But the whole thing was just too sweet and oily feeling. It’s a satisfying bar in that you don’t even feel you need to eat the whole, but it’s not one I’d probably buy again.

Rating: 5 out of 10

(Note, since this review the Coffee Crisp is now distributed widely in the United States by Nestle and was reformulated to contain only a trace of trans fats.)

Related Candies

1. Nestle Crunch Cappuccino Stixx
2. Cafe Select Chocolate Coffee Trios
3. Pocket Coffee
4. Coffee Beat