I did a little more shopping this weekend and picked up some good deals since Easter goodies were now 75% off.

Rite Aid (Hollywood) - only 50% off on Thursday night but I was stopping for batteries because the power was out

Target (Burbank Empire Center):
There really wasn’t anything left there. Just a lot of weird plushy Easter baskets and a few odds and ends.

Walgreen’s (Echo Park):

Long’s Drugs (Glendale) - this location is in the basement parking area of a shopping plaza. They had a WHOLE aisle of Easter goodies, all in good condition and with a pretty good selection. They had cases and cases of Mini Eggs left for any of those folks who live in the area

The one thing I’ve found when shopping after holidays is you have to go where people aren’t planning on stocking up on candy. I know this seems like a weird thing to consider, but the Walgreen’s in Echo Park seems to be the best place for me to find a good selection even after the deeper discounts, while the one in Hollywood on Sunset Blvd was cleaned out on Monday. The Long’s in Glendale seemed to be the same way, excellent selection left (and still pretty neatly organized) and great prices. I was on the prowl for Lindt items, but I guess you have to get there early for those (or maybe they ship them out). Cost Plus World Market didn’t have a single candy item left and the Ralph’s and Von’s I stopped at also didn’t have any marked down candies - or perhaps they put them someplace I don’t go, like the meat department.

I’m going to do a roundup review of those things that are new here.

So last night on the way home from work I stopped at Walgreen’s and CVS to see what was still around. Both had 50% off sales. Now, this may sound like a good deal, but this is off of the “regular” price, which they don’t usually sell stuff for anyway. (At least I don’t buy stuff at regular price.)

Here’s what I got:

There isn’t much in online sale land. Godiva hasn’t put their stuff on sale yet, there are a few things at Lake Champlain and See’s never seems to have sales. Pop a note here if you see a great deal though.

Deeper discounts come as more time elapses, but then the selection decreases. The trick, I’ve found, is to shop at a store where people don’t usually stock up on candy. I’m not going to tell you where that is until I’ve plundered their selection yet! (I love you, sweet readers, but not that much!) I’m actually looking for stuff like the Lindt bunnies and Easter truffle assortments I saw a few weeks ago, but no luck yet.

I’m going to do a little deeper digging later this week (I have a bunch of deadlines right now and can’t quite devote as much time to candy acquisitions as I’d like). What have you found so far?

I think it must be Egg Day here at Candy Blog! Russell Stover makes a lot of different Eggs. I covered some last year and was pleasantly surprised.

This egg wins the award for “color of center that I’d most like to have as a cashmere sweater”. It’s a delicate dusty pearl pink. It’s light and fluffy (the cream, not the imaginary sweater) and the first thing that hits me is a little bit of salt, then the sweet floral flavors of the rapsberry. It’s not tangy ... all sweet and berry. Then it starts to sink in ... it’s really really sweet. Even the mild dark chocolate shell can’t cut through it.

It smells good, but it’s just not quite for me (I’ll gladly swap it for a Strawberry though). There are real raspberry seeds in there.

I reviewed the Organic Pecan Delight last month and found it a decent candy. So I thought I’d give the original a try in the form of the Pecan Delight Egg. It has to be good, there’s gold on the wrapper, right.

Well, color me disappointed. Mostly because one of the major elements promised in the name of the candy is missing ... the pecans. While the Organic Pecan Delight had quite a few, it was as if they used the same amount of pecans for this whole egg as they did in those smaller candies. The caramel is nice and smooth with a light chew to it and the chocolate was okay, without the woodsy crunch of the pecans, this just wasn’t my thing.

Peanut Butter Egg is a milk chocolate egg with a peanut butter crumble filling. It’s dark tasting, smoky and nutty.

It’s rough when I eat candies similar to See’s around the same time, because they suffer by comparison. However, I have to say that this is a rather different peanut butter egg and good in its own right. It’s not a Reese’s, not a See’s, it’s a Russell Stover. More roasty tasting, a little salty and really quite good.

I think my fave of the Russell Stover Eggs is still the dark chocolate coconut (which I picked up in Heart form at Valentine’s), but it was fun to give these a go. They’re often on sale for 50 cents each, perhaps a fun change-up from the drudgery of regular candy bars (and because they’re only an ounce, perhaps a little savings of calories).

Wonka makes a product called Runts, which are little fruit flavored & shaped compressed dextrose candies covered in a hard candy shell. They’re super cute. They’ve recently added a couple of flavors (some sort of blue balls and pink hearts), but the essence of Runts has always been quirky shapes to match the flavors.

The unique item about Runts has always been the banana. Love it or hate it, you can’t argue that it doesn’t look like a banana (but you’re welcome to argue that it doesn’t taste like one).

Enter the holiday version of Runts, the Runts Freckled Eggs. They’re little egg shaped Runts ... with freckles!

These Runts, as you can see, are egg shaped. They’re also spattered in a sassy way in different colors. There are four flavors: Orange, Blue Raspberry, Green Something and Strawberry. The spattering varies from egg to egg, which pleased me.

The candies themselves are fun, they’re kind of like Gobstoppers, they have a hard shell that feels cool on the tongue, it’s ultra smooth and sweet. Unlike Gobstoppers these shells are thin and you can crack open the candies to reveal the compressed dextrose (ala a SweeTart) candy inside. The candy center isn’t a tart as a SweeTart but more mellow. Not very flavorful either, but I could tell the difference between the flavors ... expect the green one. Sometimes I thought it was watermelon, sometimes green apple.

My complaint here is that there’s no banana. But if you approach these without any preconceptions attached to the all-season Runts, these are tasty and certainly a bit different than jelly beans and marshmallow eggs. I kind of liked the box too.

These were made in Mexico.

Related Candies

1. Runts
2. Wonka Nerds Jelly Beans
3. Gobstopper Heart Breakers
4. SweeTart Hearts
5. Gobs of Gobstoppers

You know what surprised me most about this candy? It recognizes that it’s for Easter. There’s only one other product I’ve reviewed (as far as I can tell) in the past two years that actually mentions the Easter holiday on the wrapper. (The bunny is holding a basket that says “Happy Easter”) Strange, isn’t it? Are we all kidding ourselves that all these egg shaped things could easily be for Passover? (Oddly enough, this is Kosher ... though not for Passover since it has corn syrup in it.)

But I guess I digress.

This is the second Cadbury Royal Dark Raspberry Bunny I’ve bought this year. I lost the first one after I took the photo. (So calling out to it does no good ... it’s missing its ears!) It’s probably in the seat cushions in the car or stuck to the bottom of one of my backpacks.

It’s a very pretty bunny. It’s really well made, nice and shiny and with a pleasant chocolate scent. It’s well formed and looks like a bunny, unlike some candies I’ve purchased for Easter. It’s mostly chocolate with only a small reservoir of “Raspberry Creme Center” in it. It’s not very big, so it’s a good chocolate treat that won’t leave you hating yourself.

The only problem is that Raspberry Creme center ... what is it? At first I thought it was a caramel. It’s almost a syrup and certainly not a creme. It’s sticky and drippy and a little tangy. It even tastes a little salty. It doesn’t taste much like raspberry. Smells a little like it, but doesn’t really taste like it.

The chocolate is that Royal Dark chocolate that Cadbury is pushing now (with the Royal Dark Mini Eggs) which is rather palatable. It’s sweet but also has some nice cocoa notes. It lacks a sort of buttery oomph that good dark chocolate can have.

I’m not really that fond of this. It’s fun and of course it’s not terribly big or expensive, so I can’t be that disappointed.

I’ve been rather peeved with Lifesavers for a few years. In fact, you might even call my rant about the Five Roll flavors changing my first Candy Blog post.

But if I was complaining before that the five flavor roll changed to accommodate new flavors, I should be pleased that the Lifesavers Jellybeans actually have all my favorite flavors (well, no tangerine, but orange will do nicely). My other pet peeve is that the colors on their logo no longer match the flavors. If you look at the package it lists the flavors on a different color stripe, but the color of the stripe doesn’t match the flavor. Oh well.

The Lifesavers Jelly Beans are about the size of Jelly Belly, but a little fatter around the middle. The colors are bold and appealing and the quality control was very good - the beans were very consistent.

Grape - has tones of both fake grape and a little smidge of concord in there, just like grape soda.
Strawberry - sweet and floral with a tangy bite.
Cherry - tastes like a cherry Lifesavers ... it’s kind of growing on me ... oh wait, it’s bitter now, never mind.
Orange - zesty and tart like it should be.
Peach - surprisingly round in its flavor, still I pick them out (but they look a lot like the orange).
Lemon - like the orange, a good balanced citrus flavor.
Green Apple - artificial tasting, through and through.
Pineapple - sassy and tart with a good flowery note and a touch of cotton candy ... just like it should be.

Overall, with only two flavors I didn’t much care for (cherry & peach), this is an excellent assortment. They’re not quite Jelly Belly (which pack flavor through and through), but for a fraction of the price they’re admirable. I actually liked them much better than the Starburst ones I tried last year. There’s another pastel mix of flavors as well: Red Raspberry, Mango Medley, Cotton Candy, Watermelon, Blueberry, Pina Colada, Strawberry-Kiwi, and Banana which also sounds pretty tasty. (I’ll probably give those a try if they’re sitting around after Easter on sale.)

There are quite a few of these puffed plastic hearts filled with candy at the stores. The shelves are packed with them. You can get plastic hearts filled with Skittles, Kissables, Reese’s Pieces ... anything that comes in little morsels.

I decided to go a bit further afield and chose a product that didn’t contain a big brand name candy. This SpongeBob SquarePants embossed heart holds Yogurt Covered Raisins (and stickers). The little saying that you can’t quite make out there next to SpongeBob is “Valentine ... let’s soak up some smiles!” (I’m sure if they could spell it they’d put his creepy laugh in there, too.)

I have to admit that I don’t watch SpongeBob that often, usually when I’m visiting my niece and nephew. (I like to ask them if each of the characters are called Crabby Pattie ... who is this Crabby Pattie? Is that Patrick’s nickname?) And that’s who I’d be tempted to buy these for.

Inside the heart was a little packet of candies and the stickers. I was pleased that the candy was further wrapped to keep it fresh, however it didn’t look that appealing, as the raisins kind of peeked through the yogurt coating, making them look dirty or scuffed. The smelled like absolutely nothing.

Upon biting into them I found that the yogurt coating was not a soft “chocolate-like” experience, but a crunchy shell. The shell itself had no real flavor, but did have a slight cooling effect on the tongue. There was a strange, gamey/musty aftertaste, which I suppose is the yogurt, but was really off. They were, um, unappealing in all respects.

The candies are under the brand label “NickTrition” which I’m guessing makes it look like it’s healthy. However, here are the ingredients: Raisins, Sugar, Partially Hydrogenated Palm Kernel Oil, Yogurt Powder, Titanium Dioxide, Soy Lecithin, Salt, Vanilla & Confectioner’s Glaze, Artificial Colors.

I will admit that raisins are plenty healthy. But I think the only reason there’s no listing for trans fats in the nutrition facts is because the serving size is only 20 grams. So I guess they’ve achieved the goal of balanced nutrition, because you’re really paying for a plastic box and some stickers and the nutritional benefit or hit is negligible from these candies ... if your kids eat them. I suspect you’ll find them in the cushions of the couch in a month or so.

I’m not sure what’s taken Reese’s so long to come out with a Butterfinger-like candy bar. Maybe when Hershey’s bought 5th Avenue they made some sort of a deal. But here it is, 2006, some 88 years after the introduction of the Reese’s Peanut Butter cup and they’ve done it.

Instead of being a clone of the 5th Avenue, Butterfinger or Clark Bar, this one has both that layered crispy peanut butter crunch in the center, a supposed stripe of peanut butter as well as a liberal sprinkling of crushed peanuts and then milk chocolate.

The effect is a rather creamy and very crunchy bar. The textured center provides that high-frequency crisp and the nuts provide the low frequency crunch. The center has a salty hit to it that also gives it a little zing along with a good dose of molasses, which always pleases me. It also has 5 grams of protein, which is a pretty good density for a bar that’s more candy than nuts.

The crispy center was also lighter than the dense and sometimes inconsistent Butterfinger bar. The biggest drawback here is that Hershey’s has again skimped on the chocolate on the outside and gone for the marginal stuff that has PGPR in it.

If there’s one thing that really turns me off for this bar it’s the promo they’re running with its introduction. You can vote on their website for Crunchy or Creamy? and win a car based on your vote. Crunchy people win a Hummer H3 (blech) and Creamy people are entered to win a Corvette Coupe (meh).

My preference for this type of bar is the 5th Avenue, but those are extremely hard to find. If Hershey’s is planning on making these as widely available as other Reese’s products, this might be a new bar added to my repertoire.