I get a lot of questions about Choxie here at CandyBlog.net. And with good reason ... there aren’t that many places to find out about Choxie. There’s certainly no info on the Target website. I haven’t spent much time with Choxie, but I have to say that the products I’ve tried are always good quality, nicely packaged and feature interesting flavor combinations.

I picked up a few things last week, including the highly rated Champagne-Flavored Truffles. (I actually hadn’t seen them before.) They’re stunning looking little baubles of chocolate. Shiny and dark, the package highlights their gorgeous sheen. They smell rather spicy - of chocolate and a hint of wine. The truffles are about the size of a hazelnut in the shell (smaller than a malted milk ball).

These truffles are panned chocolate. Panning is when you take a solid nugget and tumble it, adding layers of coating on it. Panned candies can range from jelly beans to Gobstoppers to chocolate coated nuts to Lemonheads. Panning is usually done in large turning pans that look like cement mixers and can hold hundreds of pounds of candy. The coating can double the weight of each candy as each successive layer is added and then the final “polish coat” to seal them and give them the high gloss shine. In this case it’s called “confectioners glaze.”

The centers are made of white chocolate (made with real cocoa butter, not hydrogenated oils). The chocolate outside is sweet and smooth, a little on the sweet side but it’s definitely buttery and has a good smoky quality to it. The center is smooth as well and has a raisiny hint to it. Not really a champagne flavor in my mind, just a nice “boosted” vanilla flavor. The small size of them and their glossy appearance makes them easy to pop and of course easy to share.

As Valentine’s gifts go, the Choxie line has some really nice, inexpensive options. At less than $10 a pound for many of their offerings, they’re a really good way of expressing yourself without breaking the bank. The “shareable” nature of them is also a bonus. They also make nice hostess gifts or just a nice treat for yourself. Choxie has done a good job of bringing upscale into the realm of affordable. Their variety is also pretty stunning and it always seems like there’s something new when I check out the Choxie section. The ingredients also appear to be top notch, using real vanilla instead of vanillin and cocoa butter instead of palm oils.

Interesting note from the box: confections made in the USA, packaged in Mexico.

I never thought I’d eat so much white chocolate in my life until I started CandyBlog.net. It’s not that I don’t like white chocolate, but it’s usually so sweet it makes my throat hurt. (I’ve heard this may be because we have some taste buds in our throats.)

While it would be easy for me to just copy and paste the review for Strawberries ‘n’ Creme in here, I have to say that they’re really not the same bar at all.

The bar was very aromatic, with a strong scent of raspberries, fake vanilla and milk. It’s not unpleasant at all and reminded me of yogurt. (I like yogurt.)

Now, I’ve had my share of raspberries in my life. When I was a kid we had a huge raspberry patch and we pretty much ate berries all summer long. When we had our fill we would make them into jam or sauces. I’ve had a lot of berries in my life. For a long time I didn’t even care for raspberries. I find the seeds really annoying and the flavor was a little too floral for me and there wasn’t enough of a textured chew. But of course now that I don’t have an unending supply, and the stuff that I do get is insanely expensive, I like them a lot and eat them at every opportunity. I’m a huge fan of the raspberry and dark chocolate combination and when I make chocolate truffles, I make more of raspberry than any other flavor.

The bar is tart, with a little tangy taste that you might be used to in all Hershey’s milk chocolate. The raspberry taste is pronounced but a little overshadowed by the strong sweetness of the bar. There’s also a very weird aftertaste to the bar that’s hard for me to pin down. I think it’s a dairy aftertaste, that sort of coated feeling you get on your tongue after whole milk.

The bar reminded me of Easter, the smell of the white chocolate and the berry overtones that are a mix of violet and rose floral notes. While I might actually buy the Strawberry bar again (a guilty pleasure, don’t expect me to admit it), I can’t see myself picking this one up unless it’s on sale. But these are limited edition bars and are no longer on the Hershey’s website, so don’t count on them being around too much longer.

Here I go again with the KitKats. But this time I thought I’d give you a domestic comparison. It’s not exactly a head-to-head post, just two reviews in one.

There are whole groups of folks devoted to the various iterations of KitKats and I have to admit I’ve fallen under the spell, too. I picked up the KitKat Strawberry a few weeks ago. It’s a very pretty bar, the Japanese version of KitKats are sold in a box that holds two individually wrapped minibars of two fingers each. They’re also quite a bit pricier. I don’t know how much they sell for in Japan, but $1.89 for a rather ordinary candy bar is kind of extreme.

Everything about this bar screams strawberry. The pink wrapper, the smell and the appearance of the bar. It smells like strawberry waffles or ice cream. The crisp is really good and has its own wheaty flavor. The cream between the cookie layers is also strawberry and the strawberry coating is very smooth. There is no cocoa butter in this concoction though.

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but American confectioners recently came to an agreement that you couldn’t call something White Chocolate unless it has cocoa butter in it. This is good news. While cocoa butter is a fat and contains oodles of calories, it’s considered to be neutral when it comes to our body’s cholesterol level. Cocoa butter is made primarily of three different fatty acids: Stearic Acid, Oleic Acid and Palmitic Acid. While these are saturated fats, they have a neutral effect on serum cholesterol levels. I’m not saying eat chocolate to keep your cholesterol down, but plant derived, natural fats may not be as bad for you as animal fats (like dairy and lard).

I’m not usually a big fan of White Chocolate. I like misty mints, but generally white chocolate is just too sweet and bland for me. This bar has an overwhelmingly berry smell along with plenty of sweet notes and a touch of fake vanilla. I like it. I was really surprised, because I’ve been ignoring this bar for months, but I actually liked it. Once I started writing this and tasting it as I went along, I ate the whole thing.

The berry particles were actually there and give the white chocolate a definitely pink cast with little red bits. They weren’t as big as the berry bits in the KitKat though. They provided a little tart respite from the otherwise sweet and slightly tangy chocolate. It also reminded me of strawberry yogurt or maybe strawberry ice cream. But most Hershey’s chocolate reminds me of yogurt. The strawberry bits also include seeds. So you get fiber with your bar! (They don’t mention any fiber on the nutrition info but they do say that it has 10% of my daily calcium!)

On the whole the bars had a very definite berry taste that eased the usual sickly sweetness of white chocolate that I’ve never enjoyed. I also have a Hershey’s Raspberries ‘n’ Creme bar that I’ll review in a few days. Canada also has a Milkshake (Malt) version of KitKat I need to get a hold of.

Other reviews: Candy Is Awesome - Hersey’s Cookies ‘n’ Creme had some disgusting children and Candy Addict has positive feelings - Strawberry & White Maple. I haven’t even scratched the surface with my reviews here of KitKats, check out Wikipedia.

The Man picked up some new stuff for the stockings this year. Besides the typical hard candies (Brach’s) and Hershey’s Kisses (in red and green foils) we got two new items:

Butterfinger Jingles (Nestle) - you know what’s great about these? They’re made with real milk chocolate. Instead of that waxy “chocolate coating” on the Butterfinger bar, Jingles start with real milk chocolate and then put little crunches of Butterfinger centers. They’re a bit bigger than a Hershey’s Kiss, which is a little too big in my opinion, but I’ll survive with a larger bite.

The other thing is, these made me realize is how clever Milton Hershey was when he decided how to wrap the Kisses with the foil wrapping “up” the Kiss, instead of putting the edges of the foil on the bottom. This is evident with the Jingles because all the foil edges are folded to the bottom of the Jingle so that it doesn’t have a flat bottom ... they wouldn’t sit straight for my photo.

The other new candy for us was the Hershey’s Mint Mix Miniatures. There are three different bars, Milk Chocolate with Mint, Semisweet Chocolate with Mint and White Chocolate with Mint and Candy Bits.

The Milk Chocolate with Mint is positively blasted with mint. Seriously minty. Not Altoid-level, but for a chocolate product, I’m surprised it was brown it was so minty. I had to sequester these bars from the rest of the stocking mix because they were contaminating the Jingles. No one wants minted Butterfinger Jingles. The dark one was nice, nothing to write home about and maybe a little sweet but I did actually enjoy the White Chocolate one. I know, white chocolate, most people go, “ew.” But I do have a fondness for misty mints and let’s face it, that’s all this is. The good news is that Hershey’s uses actual cocoa butter in their white chocolate, so at least it’s not jam-packed with trans fats. They are actually the best thing in this mix, smooth, not too sweet and not too artificially vanilla tasting.

If you see any of these on sale after Christmas, they’re well worth picking up to keep around for snacking. I really don’t care what my candy is dressed in, as long as it’s good.

Rating - 7 out of 10 (but if you can find them for 75% off, then it’s a 10 all the way)

Name: KitKat Orange & Cream
Brand: Hershey’s
Place Purchased: 7-11 (Hollywood)
Price: $.85
Size: 1.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 147
Type: White Chocolate/Cookie

I think Hershey introduced these first for Halloween in miniatures. I shyed away from them then because I didn’t really want to buy 14 ounces of something I might detest. (Well, I suppose I could have given them to the kiddies.) I’m glad I restrained myself and waited for the full sized bar.

First, the bar looks weird. It’s a creepy orange, like a bad jell-o mold or maybe I’m associating it with hospitals (I can’t figure why). It smells like a cross between orange sherbet and aspergum. Very sweet and oddly artificially orange.

The taste isn’t bad. The white chocolate is infused with orange flavor which diffuses what is often a “too sweet” taste for white chocolate. The crisp of the cookie part is nice and balances well, good texture and crunch and it adds a bit of vanilla hit to the whole escapade. I’m pleased to see that Hershey is using real cocoa butter for their white chocolate instead of trans fats but it’s just not my style of a bar. I can see other folks liking it - it has a good texture and smoothness.

I have higher hopes for the mint bar (I hope to get to that next week) and if you’re really into orange and chocolate, go the extra mile to get a hold of the Candian/Euro Orange KitKat. You can see all the KitKats I’ve reviewed so far here.

Rating - 5 out of 10

Some folks have written or commented that I try other candies and ask why some haven’t been covered here. With only a few exceptions this blog contains candies that are new to me. But I recognize that not only is the world a finite place but that I’m also excluding a lot of fine candies that you may not be familiar with on the blog.

So, I’ll try to catch up with some tried and true candies or just new iterations of old favorites with this new feature: Short & Sweet. Just a brief on the candy and my rating and hopefully a photo.

Name: Caramello
Brand: Cadbury
Place Purchased: 7-11
Price: $.85
Size: 1.6 ounce
Calories per ounce: 131
Type: Chocolate/Caramel

After the recent introduction of the Nestle Crunch with Caramel and the Hershey’s with Caramel, someone suggested this bar. I hadn’t had one in years, so it was back to the store. The bar is a European style milk chocolate with four creamy caramel filled sections. The chocolate is very sweet and milky and the caramel has a good burn sugar/salty taste to it. Not a true chewy caramel, it’s a good balance for the sweet chocolate.

Rating - 6 out of 10

Name: Mega M&Ms
Brand: Mars
Place Purchased: 7-11
Price: $1.25
Size: 2.87 ounce
Calories per ounce: 139
Type: Chocolate

Just a larger sized morsel of chocolate, the Mega M&M also sports a different range of colored shells. The oddest part about these candies is that the colors reminded me of 1986. I don’t know why, I’m not sure that they were fashionable colors then or not, but they remind me of college. My college colors (they were Green & Gold) aren’t even among these, so it doesn’t even make sense.

Aside from that they’re just big M&Ms. Imagine a Peanut M&M without the peanut and you’ll have a mega. The thing I miss in these megas is the ability to cleave the shell off with my eye teeth. Maybe I just need more practice.

Rating - 8 out of 10

Name: Orange Cream Kisses
Brand: Hershey’s
Place Purchased: found them on my desk
Price: unknown, but probably the same price as other Kisses
Type: White Chocolate

These are quite the little cuties and fill a niche that I’ve not really seen before in mass-consumer candies. You know, flavored white chocolate. The only other flavored white chocolate candy I can think of are those pastel misty mints. They smell a bit like aspergum (I’m sorry, I compare a lot of orange flavored things to aspergum, I blame my mother for giving me the dastardly stuff when I was a kid), but have a good approximation of a creamsicle - creamy white chocolate with a hint of orange essence.

I think they’d be fun to eat with cookies or within a mix of other Kisses, but I can’t imagine eating a whole bag of them.

Rating - 6 out of 10

Name: Aero Peppermint
Brand: Nestle
Place Purchased: London Drugs (Vancouver, BC)
Price: 3 for $2.00 (Canadian)
Size: 45 grams
Calories: 237
Type: Chocolate/Mint

I reviewed the regular Milk Chocolate Aero bar a few months ago and while I found it pleasant and rather novel, it didn’t really compel me to buy another. However, many folks urged me to try the Aero Mint so when my husband called from the drug store in Canada and listed all the candies he could see (we have free mobile-to-mobile minutes), this was one I was curious about trying.

The first thing that surprised me was that the center was green! I thought it was a milk chocolate bar that had a touch of mint flavor to it and that famous fluffy Aero bubblyness. Instead it’s a white (well, green) mint bar covered in milk chocolate. Because of the lighter color the bubbles were much easier to photograph for you. Yes, it looks like some sort of styrofoam but melts quickly in the mouth and is very minty. Like one of those pastel smooth & melty mints ... or maybe like an Andes Mint.

Oddly enough the label advertises that the bar is a source of calcium. The nutrition information lists that it provides 7% of the daily recommendation. Hurray, I only need to eat 13 more for my full day’s supply!

As there are few minted chocolate bars out there, this one is right up there at the top (well just about everything is above that Cup-O-Gold Peppermint). I liked it a bit more than the regular milk chocolate bar but not as much as the Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Mint.

Rating - 7 out of 10

Name: Twirl
Brand: Cadbury (UK)
Place Purchased: India Sweets & Spices
Price: $1.49
Size: 43 grams
Calories per ounce: unknown
Type: Milk Chocolate

I think someone needs to start keeping a list of candy bar names that would also make good names for cats.

I posted earlier this month about the Flake bar, which I only kinda liked. I’ve decided that one wasn’t particularly fresh. The Twirl, as near as I can figure it, is just a paired version of Flakes. Only slightly smaller in diameter (about the size of my finger ... I have no idea how big your fingers are) than the Flake, they’re about an inch shorter. Think Twix bars - but with a different center.

Inside are curled flakes of chocolate, then they’re dipped in more milk chocolate to hold it all together. What you end up with is a lot of air, which means that it all melts much quicker and seems to emanate a chocolately aroma. It’s basically more fudgy than creamy.

Name: Flake Snow
Brand: Cadbury (UK)
Place Purchased: India Sweets & Spices
Price: $1.49
Size: 37 grams
Calories per ounce: unknown
Type: Milk Chocolate/White Chocolate

Revisiting the Flake, this version is filled with white chocolate curls coated in milk chocolate. I’m so glad it wasn’t coated in more white chocolate. Upon opening it I could definitely smell the sweet white chocolate and then a hint of the milk chocolate. It all had a dried milk tinge to it. The bar was much fresher than the one I got from Cost Plus, so that’s a plus. But it was sweet enough to make my throat hurt. It wasn’t really chalky, but it wasn’t really smooth. For some reason the Twirl bar was much more creamy. This one was definitely not old and the store kept them in the fridge ... so I’m guessing that this bar is just like this.

Ratings - Twirl - 7 out of 10
Flake Snow - 5 out of 10