Name: Snickers Almond
Brand: Mars
Place Purchased: 7-11
Price: $.85
Size: 1.76 ounces
Calories per ounce: 136
Type: Chocolate/Caramel/Nuts

Why didn’t someone mention that the Mars bar was quietly replaced with the Snickers Almond bar five years ago? I didn’t notice. Mostly because I was never a Mars bar fan. A Mars bar in the States used to be a nougat bar with almonds and a strip of caramel and covered in milk chocolate. A Mars bar in other parts of the world is like a Milky Way is here in the States: a nougat bar with a stripe of caramel covered in milk chocolate. In the rest of the world a Milky Way is like the American 3 Musketeers. I can go on and on, but suffice to say that Mars has a big old confusing name problem on their hands and all I can do is try to make a grid to display it. (Please correct me if I’ve got them wrong.)

USA….............. contents ..................UK/Canada
Mars .........almond, caramel, nougat…........none
Milky Way…......nougat, caramel…............Mars
3 Musketeers ......fluffy nougat ...............Milky Way
Marathon ........long caramel braid ............Curly Wurly
Snickers…...peanuts, caramel, nougat….......Marathon*
*discontinued

You know, there are a bazillion names for these candy folks to choose from, why do they have to confuse the globe-trotting candy lovers so? For some other attempts at disambiguation, have a look at this page comparing the old Mars and the Canadian Milky Way (with cross sections).

But I digress. I’m supposed to be reviewing the Snickers Almond bar.

But I don’t wanna review this bar because I didn’t like it much and it reminded me why I forgot about the bar entirely. It smells good, which is just a ruse. First, the nougat is nothing more than a flavorless grainy sweet blob. Good nougat has a flavor of some sort, an essence of honey or malt or, well, something. This is just sweet. The caramel is also sweet, but has a touch of salt to it which I fully support. The almonds are nice, but scant. The chocolate is sweet and passable as a chocolate cloak. As a whole combination it just didn’t wow me and didn’t satisfy me. I didn’t finish it.

There are other bars out there that do this better. The See’s Awesome Nut & Nougat Bar is one (but probably not a viable alternative as it’s not that easy to get a hold of). Frankly I prefer the plain old Snickers bar to this. There was a Mars Midnight for a while there in the nineties that I was rather fond of but gone now.

Other Reviews: Writers & Artists Snacking at Work gave it a 9/10, Jim at Phoood wasn’t wowed, Candy Critic gave the original Mars an 11/15

Rating - 5 out of 10

Related Candies

1. Snickers Almond Dark
2. More Satisfying Snickers Almond?

Name: Italian Soft Almond Nougat
Brand: Trader Joe’s
Place Purchased: Trader Joe’s
Price: $3.99
Size: 7 ounces
Calories per ounce: 120
Type: Nougat

When I was a kid we got rather eclectic Christmas stockings filled with candy treats that we never got any other time of the year. Christmas candy was unlike any other in our house or for any other holiday, it was a trip around the world in an oversized sock. English hard candies, Swiss & Belgian chocolates and Italian Torrones. I’ve been having a hard time finding Torrones the past few years here in Los Angeles, I used to get them at Cost Plus World Market, but haven’t seen them for quite a while. This is why I was so excited to see that Trader Joe’s had these when I was there last weekend.

Torrones are soft nougat usually flavored Amaretto, orange, vanilla or

lemon. Most European countries have their own version of the Torrone, the French do nice nougats, in both the soft and hard varieties and the Swiss Toblerone bar has hard honey nougat bits in it and the Spanish are well known for their version, the Turron. The European nougat is rather different than what you find in the American candy bar trade. Trader Joe’s has carried nougat in the past in long bars, but I’d never seen these Christmas classics before. They’re individually wrapped pieces in its own little box and gives a little history:

According to legend, nougat was born in Cremona, Italy in 1441. It was during a wedding of a local nobility that the bride and groom were offered a sweed made with honey, almonds and egg white. It was in the shape of the Torrazzo, a 13th century tower, for which the Italian word “Torrone” originated.

There are 18 of these little individually wrapped packages, boxed together. The torrone is soft and pliable white nougat that is and is sheathed in an edible, tasteless wafer to keep it from sticking. The slice of nougat has a lot of nuts but is not as “fluffy” as some others, in fact, it looks downright flat. The pieces are ample, like one of those big block pencil erasers. The scent is very nice, sweet and with a good

does

dose of honey in there. It’s good and soft, so it’s not going to remove any dental work, sweet and it dissolves quickly and mixes with the delicate almonds. The flavoring is a little odd. Most Torrones are one flavor but this one seems to be a mix of lemon and amaretto. But neither is very apparent so it just ends up being a subtle essence.

Overall, they’re not quite satisfying my jones for a good Torrone, but they are fresh and here so they’ll do for now for the stocking stuffers. They’re certainly cheaper than some others I’ve bought but I miss the fanciful pictures of Italian royalty on the individual boxes. The biggest drawback of the overpackaging (plastic wrap, boxes inside bigger box) is that it’s quite obvious how many you’ve eaten when there’s a huge pile of torrone detritus next to you on the couch.

More about Torrones: Best of Sicily & Wikipedia.

Rating - 8 out of 10

Name: Awesome Nut & Chew Bar
Brand: See’s
Place Purchased: See’s (Glendale Galleria)
Price: $1.50
Size: 1.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 150
Type: Chocolate/Nuts

If you’ve ever had a box of Nuts & Chews from See’s or gone into the store and selected the Dark Nougat, you’ve pretty much had this bar. It’s a dense, chewy honey nougat with almonds covered in dark chocolate. I was reading the November issue of Los Angeles magazine, where they explain this new candy bar. Apparently the staff at See’s had been making these candy bars for quite some time, for their own enjoyment. I guess the See’s higher-ups decided the rest of us might enjoy them. (They’ve been selling the Scotchmallows in milk chocolate for as long as I can remember and to good success as far as I can tell.) The story should be up on their website next month, I’ll link to it then, as it was a great article.

The Dark Nougat has always been one of my favorite See’s candies and I often picked them up when I was at the mall.

This is a beautiful looking bar. Long and with glossy dark ripples of chocolate enrobement. It smells wonderful, chocolatey with a touch of honey. It’s jam packed with almonds. Crunchy, smooth, chewy and sweet with a good pop of semi-sweet chocolate.

Fabulous. Mmm. I wish I’d bought more. You can buy them singly or in a box of eight of them for $7.50, which brings them into the price range of plain old Nestle, Mars or Hershey bars. I think these might end up in some Christmas stockings this year.

Rating - 10 out of 10

Related Candies

1. Snickers Rockin’ Nut Road Bar
2. Nutpatch Nougats
3. Valerie Lemon Hazelnut Nougat
4. See’s Scotchmallow Eggs
5. Snickers Almond Dark

Name: Fast Break
Brand: Reese’s (Hershey’s)
Place Purchased: Long’s Drug
Price: $.33 (on sale!)
Size: 2 ounces
Calories per ounce: 140
Type: Chocolate/Peanut Butter

I’ve mentioned brand extension before. Mars has done this with M&Ms beautifully in the past ten years with the introduction of Almond, Crispy, Mint, Peanut Butter and now Megas. Reese’s is no exception (part of the Hershey family). The base of the Reese’s brand is Peanut Butter. You can’t make a Reese’s product without it, as far as I know.

I bought four of these new candy bars, this is the first of the reviews of them. The Fast Break. Yes, it’s like Breakfast, only backwards and two words. I’)m eating it for lunch. Hey! It does have a lot of protein in it for a candy bar! (5 grams.)

I’m a nut fan, as many of you know (except for walnuts, to which I’m sadly allergic) so Reese’s have always been a huge favorite of mine. The Fast Break bar package says that it has milk chocolate, peanut butter (duh) and soft nougats.

The soft nougats part confused me. Nougats? More than one? Apparently. The center of the bar is a crumbly log of salted peanut butter. Good roasted flavor and not too creamy so that it sets off the other textures well. The bottom of the bar is soft, bland, light colored nougat that might have a hint of cinnamon flavor in it (though it didn’t say so on the ingredients). Plain old vanilla nougat. The peanut butter log is on top of that, and then there’s a thin layer (you can’t see it in the photo) of a caramelly nougat that drapes over the two before the chocolate enrobement (I just like saying that word). It gives the whole thing a nice texture that things mix up well when you chew it. It has a little chocolately/caramelized taste to it.

It’s a good bar, really. I like the roasted flavors and how it isn’t too cloyingly sweet like a Snickers or Mars bar can be. It’s a good snack because of the salty taste, like a Payday bar is.

Rating - 8 out of 10

Name: Ritter Sport
Brand: Ritter
Place Purchased: Cost Plus
Price: $3.49
Size: 5.3 ounces
Calories per ounce: 153
Type: Chocolate (Various)

Ritter is a German brand of chocolate that offers these squares of chocolate (large and small) in 18 different varieties. I picked up this mini-assortment at Cost Plus because I haven’t been able to find some of the more obscure ones in the 100 gram size.

The little bars are about 1 1/2 inches square and sectioned into quarters. Overall, their chocolate is smooth, milky without tasting too much like powdered milk and the quality of the ingredients it top notch. They’re mass production candy, not frou-frou high-end stuff, but they offer some good variety to their line.

Here’s what I tried:

Marzipan - well, it’s sad that out of the 10 bars in the box, two of them were marzipan. I’m not fond of marzipan, but the texture was good and the almond paste fresh. The chocolate wasn’t the light dairy milk, but a mild semi-sweet. 6 out of 10

Jogurt - the other sad thing was there were two of these as well. Covered in the dairy milk chocolate, the center was a dense yogurt cream. A little sour, a little odd. Not unpleasant, but not really my thing. 6 out of 10

Knusperflakes - a corn flake crunch in milk chocolate. This is super, I will definitely buy this one again if I see it by itself. Better than a crisped rice bar because the corn actually has its own flavor to add. Rocks my world. You get the picture. 8 out of 10

Vollmilch - milk chocolate, rich, sticky and dairy-rich taste. Sweet and smooth. 7 out of 10.

Knusperkeks - a butter biscuit covered in chocolate. Simplicity. The biscuit is soft and crumbly, but not grainy like a graham cracker. Buttery undertones and lightly crumbly, it works well with the chocolate. 7 out of 10

Nugat - not really nougat in the sense of a whipped sugar, but more of a hazelnut paste. Sweet and very nutty. Not as smooth as a Baci. 7 out of 10.

Haselnuss - crushed hazelnuts in milk chocolate. Sweet dairy milk chocolate with good nutty crunch and flavor. 7 out of 10.

A fun thing to share with people. Each little bar is a nice snack, not as big as a whole candy bar and easy to section and share.

Rating - 7 out of 10 for whole package.

Name: Caffarel (Finissimo cioccolato fondente con croccante gentile)
Brand: Caffarel
Place Purchased: Portland, OR
Price: $2.75
Size: 1.8 oz
Calories per ounce:
Type: Chocolate

This adorable square bar is from Italy with 57% cocoa content. Unfortunately somewhere along the way it was not stored properly and got a bit of a bloom. In fact, this is a good time to talk about chocolate bloom.

Chocolate is make up for cocoa solids and cocoa butter (and sugar). Sometimes if the chocolate is not tempered properly, or stored improperly (variations in heat) the chocolate will become unstable. This will cause some of the cocoa butter to separate from the cocoa solids and migrate to the surface of the chocolate as “bloom”. It looks like some sort of chalky powder or something, but it’s just the fat. It’s not dangerous, chocolate that’s bloomed is edible, though it will probably end up tasting a bit chalky because the cocoa butter is no longer emulsified with the cocoa solids and sugar. Most importantly, it’s not mold, though it often looks like it.

The best way to prevent this is to buy fresh chocolate that’s been stored properly (stable climate conditions) and then treat it right. When you bring you chocolate home, this gets to be a bit of a tougher proposition. I don’t like storing chocolate in the fridge or the freezer because the variations in temperature and humidity when you take it out can be just as bad. So, if you have a cool spot in your kitchen (usually in a lower cupboard or the back of the closet), it should be okay. In my case, I don’t have air conditioning and live in Los Angeles, so you can see how even in a protected location, some of my chocolate is going to get melty on the hottest of days. In that case, stick it in the fridge, inside it’s packaging and inside a plastic bag of some sort. This will keep the fridge odors from being absorbed and keep it from drying out. Even better, devote a plastic container (good) or glass container (better) with a tight fitting lid for keeping your chocolate. You also might consider throwing a plain old charcoal briquet in there (not one that has added lighter fluid) to absorb odors and any excess moisture). Allow the chocolate to come to room temp before opening and consuming. Otherwise if you open it and there’s any humidity around the chocolate will sweat.

The other (best) option is to get a wine fridge. I know, this seems like a large expenditure, but wine fridges are good for more than just wine. You can keep chocolate in there, some cheeses and vegetables. A dorm sized one won’t set you back more than a couple hundred. This is where I’ve taken to keeping my best chocolate. A wine fridge is usually set at about 58 degrees and of course is climate controlled for humidity. A little humidity is okay for chocolate. Really dry air, especially if you have nuts in there will make the chocolate taste chalky, too.

But now, onto the review of the Caffarel bar.

I ate around the bloomed pieces (which was about half the bar). The bar had a very strong vanilla scent to it and though billed as bitter chocolate, I found it much sweeter than many other bars I’ve tried lately. There are hazelnuts and nougat bits, which gave it a nice crackly component and infused the whole bar with a pleasant toasty tone.

The chocolate was smooth, without a trace of grittiness. Overall, a good bar and a nice portion. Not as waxy as other Italian bars I’ve had in the past, and I’m eager to try other Caffarel chocolates when I come across them. I’m a fan of the Italian tradition of pairing hazelnuts and chocolate (Perugina’s Baci).

Rating: 5 out of 10 (hard call because of the bloom, I’m willing to re-review it if I come across a fresh bar).

Name: Milk Nougat
Brand: The Foodstuffs Factory of the Jinji Restaurant
Place Purchased: Chinatown
Price: $1.69
Size: 16 oz
Calories per ounce: 120
Type: Nougat (Nut)

Nougat is tough stuff to define. Some nougat is light and fluffy, others are crackly, sticky toffee-like candy. This is the latter. The little bricks are hard and crack when you smack them on the corner of a table. You can easily bite off a third of it and after it gets warm in your mouth is has a nice give for chewing.

Think of the nougat chips that you have in a Toblerone bar ... these are like that only with a very strong butter flavor instead of honey and peanuts.

I like the consistency and fresh flavor. The Milk Nougats are also wrapped in that fantabulous edible rice cellophane. However, after chewing them down to the last little bit, a very strong and artificial butter flavor erupts. Like the that artificially flavored butter you get in bad movie theater popcorn. It doesn’t go well with the delicate vanilla of the nougat or the hearty peanuts.

I’m a huge nougat fan, I love the stuff from Italy (torrones) and the French nougats (both soft and hard) and was a bit disappointed with the unpleasant butter taste to these. Alas, that’s affected my rating. I’ll give other Chinese nougats a try if I run across the, as everything else, including the packaging and tiny bite size of these is excellent. Also, the price can’t be beat. European nougats are often over $5 a pound.

Rating: 5 out of 10.