Candy Blog

I bought this package of the new Twizzlers Rainbow Twists as couple of months ago but I just had to wait for the crush of Easter to be over before I could open them up. They are stunning. The colors are vivid and opaque, a little less shiny than the regular Twizzlers.

I’ve always been fond of black licorice and find red licorice passably good. You know, if someone puts one of those tubs on my desk, I’ll eat it. For a while I was obsessed with weird twist flavors. There was a fruit stand I would stop at on the 126 somewhere between Piru and Fillmore that had Root Beer flavored vines.

When I think about it, non-licorice twists are one of the few flour-based candies out there (except for candies like Twix or KitKat that have actual cookies in them).

Each color of the Rainbow is a different flavor.

Grape (magenta) - a little tangy and pretty much tastes like a grape soda.
Blue Raspberry (aqua) - the color is kind of a turnoff for me (but I’m sure kids will love it), it has a little bitter taste to me as well, but a good raspberry scent and flavor to it.
Watermelon (green) - kind of strange. It tastes like watermelon smells but with other melons thrown in, like cantaloupe.
Lemonade (yellow) - just the zesty part of the lemon, without the tang that I might expect with something called lemonade. A little bitter aftertaste, but basically a winner as most citrus flavors are with me.
Orange (orange) - tastes like orange zest but pretty mellow, not quite creamsicle. No bitter taste like the lemon and thoroughly good.
Strawberry (light red) - tastes like a strawberry licorice vine. A little on the artificial side, but pleasant.

I was worried that the fake and plastic appearance of the candy reflected a lack of flavor, but they were all pretty punchy. But almost all of them had a weird metallic/bitter aftertaste to me. As a variety pack, I wasn’t fond of all the flavors, but this is pretty much always the way with mixes. I’m just not keen on them. I’m not alone either, the comments on this Slashfood post echo some of my sentiments.

While I had a good time photographing them (check out Sugar-Bliss-Gnome’s cool use of Twizzlers Rainbow Twists for cupcake decorations), I have no desire to finish any of the twists.

Here’s an alternate review that you might want to read (because it’s funny and does not endorse these).

In my bargain hunting last weekend I was able to secure bags of the M&Ms Peanut Butter Speck-tacular Eggs and the Reese’s Pieces Pastel Eggs at rock bottom prices.

I picked up the M&Ms Peanut Butter Speck-tacular Eggs mostly because folks are still commenting on the Wonka Oompas (currently fruity) post lamenting the loss of the old Peanut Butter Oompas.

First, a rewind to the old Peanut Butter Oompas (see wrapper here) from Wonka. Introduced in 1972 after the film Willie Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, they were larger than M&Ms but the same ovoid shape. The top half was peanut butter and the bottom half was mockolate then it was all covered with a crisp candy shell. (There may have been other flavor varieties.) The separation of the peanut butter and chocolate meant that you could cleave them in half in your teeth if you wanted, or suck the shell off and then melt away the chocolate creme to have only the stiff peanut butter left. I liked them and recall buying them rather often (there was no such thing as a Peanut Butter M&M at the time and Reese’s Pieces didn’t come along until 1978).

I was hoping that the larger format of the Speck-tacular Eggs would be similar to the old Oompas.

The normal M&Ms Peanut Butter have a core of peanut butter and a covering of milk chocolate then a shell. A little larger than a regular M&M, they average about the same size as a Peanut M&M. The Speck-Tacular Eggs are larger still and thus have a larger proportion of the peanut butter center since the chocolate coating seems about the same thickness.

It’s been at least thirty years since I’ve had the old Peanut Butter Oompas, so I can’t say that the Speck-Tacular Eggs are as good or even the same, but the proportions feel better to me. I’m going to say that this is the best modern day equivalent to the old Peanut Butter Oompas.

The other fun aquisition were the equally large Reese’s Pieces Pastel Eggs.

I don’t eat Reese’s Pieces much, though I do recall loving them as a kid. I used to buy bags of M&Ms and mix them with Reese’s Pieces. I could always pick the Reese’s Pieces out on my tongue by feel because their shells were ultrasmooth. (Ah, the ways I used to amuse myself.)

While the Speck-Tacular Eggs were rather uneven in size, the Reese’s Pieces Pastel Eggs are exceptionally regular. The colors are pretty much the same as the Hershey’s Pastel Eggs, though a little more egg shaped (with a pointier end).

The shells on the Reese’s Pieces Pastel Eggs are thicker than the regular Reese’s Pieces and provide a satisfying sharp crunch. The larger mass of peanut butter creme allowed me to really taste it. It has a slight floral taste to it and reminds me a bit of eating peanut butter cookie dough. Sweet with a little dash of salt. Pretty smooth and not as roasted tasting as the M&Ms Speck-Tacular Eggs.

I liked both varieties of eggs equally well. As appearances go, I preferred the Reese’s. But the freak-tacular price of only 52 cents for the Speck-Tacular Eggs is hard to argue with. They are both being added to my repertoire of Easter Candies to pick up at ridiculous prices.

Note: both products are certified Kosher.

Related Candies

1. Reese’s Whipps
2. Trader Joe’s Mini Peanut Butter Cups
3. Peanut Butter Kisses
4. Reese’s Pieces with Peanuts

I’ve been puzzling over this candy bar for years. It’s called the Eat-More and is sold in Canada. It was originally made by Lowney but later Nabisco took them over but since 1987 they’ve been made by Hershey’s.

The description of Dark Toffee Peanut Chew sounded to me like the inside of a Goldenberg’s Peanut Chew (now Chew-ets), which I find pretty spectacular and the prospect of having that without the mockolate made me want one.

Amber brought two for me direct from Canada, and in the King Size to boot. I have to say that the bar isn’t that attractive out of the package, which is probably

The King Sized bar is huge - 8.5” long. The slab is soft and chewy and has a pleasant smoky and roasted peanut scent. It’s not a caramelly chew exactly as the bar contains chocolate, which gives the toffee a bit of a stiff crumble.

It’s actually really satisfying and not at all sticky sweet. The 75 gram bar contains 8 grams of protein from the peanuts, so it’s a pretty satisfying snack. I wouldn’t say I wanted to eat more after about half the bar, but it was easy to just eat more later. As for the comparison to the inside of a Goldenberg’s, it’s not as smooth and doesn’t have that molasses kick. But the dark and robust flavors will probably appeal to Goldenberg’s lovers.

Since there’s nothing else in the States to compare this to, I have to recommend anyone who has been looking for a dark chewy toffee with nuts and chocolate to seek out this bar. It’s odd that something that I consider an “all weather” bar comes out of Canada. Since there’s no chocolate coating, it should travel well and stand up to temperature extremes.

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.

I’ve been madly typing away on an editorial for the LA Times for the past week. Honing it, submitting it, editing it.

And I’m feeling pretty good. I’m taking a stand, getting the word out. Because I was feeling like this topic was neglected in the mass media.

So I ran into my neighbor this morning, who happens to work at the LA Times (no, she’s not the one who spits things out) and she said, “Did you see the LATimes this morning?”

I said I saw it, but I didn’t read it (because it was in an opaque wrapper that was an ad for Sprint and I couldn’t see the headlines). I had stuff to do and got up early and headed out.

She said I should read it because there is an article on the front page about the cocoa butter substitution proposal.

(Sigh. So my editorial is a no-go at the moment. Maybe some retooling.)

Here are some highlights of the article with my commentary:

A pound of chocolate contains more than 4 ounces of cocoa butter, at a cost of about $2.30, said Guittard Chocolate, based in Burlingame, Calif. The same amount of vegetable oil was 70 cents.

Think about that for a moment. So a quarter of what we’re eating when we consume chocolate is actually cocoa butter. And replacing that huge proportion with an ingredient that doesn’t make it taste better also isn’t going to improve the nutritional profile of chocolate. It’s going to make it worse. Sure, chocolate is high in fat (hello? it’s 25% fat) but it has been found to be neutral when it comes to our cholesterol profile (that’s just plain cocoa butter, chocolate itself as a combination of both cocoa solids high in antioxidants and the neutral butter lowers bad cholesterol and raises good cholesterol). The fats they want to put in place of cocoa butter are nasty. They contain higher levels of saturated fats and can even contain trans fatty acids.

By adopting the proposal, the FDA would be providing “flexibility to make changes based on consumer taste preferences, ingredient costs and availability and shelf life,” said Kirk Saville, spokesman for the Hershey, Pa.-based company.

Saville said it could be years before the FDA issued a decision.

That flexibility already exists. Hershey is free to make products without cocoa butter in them right now. In fact, they do. They put a vegetable oil based coating on the current version of the 5th Avenue Bar. I’ve had it. And as a consumer with taste, I prefer the old version. I resent the fact that if this proposal goes through they can take the current mockolate formulation and put a big banner across the front of the package that says “Now with Real Chocolate” without changing a thing in the actual ingredients. Tell me they’re doing it becuaseof my preference and I will laugh in your face.

Oh, and it could be years? Yes, but the open comment period for the public to respond is now, so that sort of mollifying comment is like saying, “don’t worry your pretty little head about it. We’ll do what’s right for you. Look at how much we have your interests at heart, because we’ve already publicly stated that customers may actually prefer a version of chocolate that don’t have cocoa butter in it.”

Gary Guittard believes that in proposing to change the rules, the food industry is overthinking what he believes should be one of the simple joys of life.

“Why add ingredients to something that is just fine the way it is?” he asked.

Honestly, this sums it up so well. Industry is overthinking this. It’s a simple thing that we want, we just want chocolate. Keep it real, guys. Don’t mess with out chocolate.

Note: Jerry Hirsch’s article also appeared in the Seattle Times.