Candy Blog

Classic Lemonheads are one of my favorite candies. Even though I have to eat a huge variety of new to me candy for the blog on a regular basis, I still find a bit of room to indulge in Lemonheads from time to time.

There’s nothing else like the line of candies - a hard and mildly flavored candy core covered with a grainy and intensely flavored coating then a shiny coat.

A couple of years ago Ferrara Pan expanded the line with their Chewy Lemonheads. They’re kind of an amped up jelly bean. A chewy jelly center with the same grainy and blisteringly sour layer covered in a light shell. They came in the same flavors we were accustomed to with the Lemonheads and Friends.

Now Ferrara Pan is mixing it up again with new flavors, this time only in the Chewy line with their Tropical Chewy Lemonhead & Friends.

It’s an odd name, and kind of misleading. There are no Lemonheads (there are pink-lemonade-heads though) in here, now the name has become a brand and shorthand for a whole line of candies.

The unique proposition here is that there are two flavors in each piece. The shell is one flavor and the core is another. (Sounds kind of like Skittles Crazy Cores, doesn’t it?)

The flavors are Kiwi-Strawberry, Peach-Mango, Berry-Banana, Cherry-Watermelon and Pink Lemonade-Lemonade. The colors are muted and tropical, definitely different at a glance from the regular Lemonheads which are far brighter.

Berry-Banana

This blue shell is almost aqua and the inside is supposed to be yellow according to the key on the box, but it’s more green to me.

The shell is that blue raspberry flavor that was invented by confectioners and has little relation to any real fruit flavor. There’s no tangy layer between the shell and the jelly center. So it’s a sweet berry outside with a mild banana inside. It’s pleasant enough and did start off the tasting with a tropical bent.

Kiwi-Strawberry

The shell is medium green and the center is a light red.

The outside doesn’t taste like much, but there is a pleasant tangy pop between the layers on most of them (some were just all sweet). The strawberry center is floral and tasted a little like cotton candy. It’s mostly an inoffensive piece of candy. Not intense but just a little more interesting than a standard fruity jelly bean.

Cherry-Watermelon

The red shell on this one has a lighter pink center. (A green shell with a red center would have been rather more like a watermelon though.)

The red is intense and bright and the cherry flavor is strong and medicinal without the robust sour cherry note that I was hoping for. (There was also that bitter aftertaste from the food coloring.)

Pink Lemonade - Lemonade

Pink on the outside and yellow on the inside.

I don’t really know what pink lemonade is, most of the time it’s just lemonade with a dash of red food coloring, though I think classically it’s lemonade with strawberries. In this instance I think it’s the former. The outside is just a little bit lemony and the tangy layer is, well, only slightly tangy. The center does have a little lemon zest to it. All this really does is make me want a Lemonhead. As far as I’m concerned the Pink Lemonade-Lemonade Chewy Lemonhead is for wusses who can’t handle the real thing.

Peach-Mango

The outside is a great peachy orange color. The center is green.

Experience has taught me that I’m rarely pleased with peach or mango flavored candies. It’s not that I don’t love peaches or mangoes, but they’re very hard flavors to duplicate. Probably because so much of their flavor also depends on the texture. In this case the flavors are quite mild but passable. The peach outside is sweet and like canned peaches (lacking that balsam note that some candies try to include). The inside is a little more woodsy and green tasting, a little grassy and a little like pine. I can’t say I loved the, but I didn’t pick around them as much as the cherry.

The flavor variety isn’t quite what I’d call tropical. At the very least I expected some pineapple. Strawberries are definitely not a tropical fruit, nor are those blue raspberries. Watermelon? Nope.

I read a lot of other reviews on these when they first came out (I finally found them in stores here in California earlier this month) and I have to wonder if they punched them up recently. Or maybe they’re just plain inoffensive and I’m not angling for a fight. Because Mr. Lemonhead is my bestest lifelong friend.

Related Candies

1. Short & Sweet: Tropical Flavors
2. Chewy Lemonheads & Atomic Fireballs
3. Starburst Baja California & Tropical
4. The Lemonhead & Fruit Heads
5. Narbles

Go big or go home is kind of a mantra in the snack world. Bigger, bolder, stronger, faster, louder, saltier, fattier, sweeter, higher, longer, brassier, sourer and crunchier all grab market share. They draw our attention because we seek novelty and claiming to be the mostest of something is, well, at least some kind of claim. Things like taste, satisfaction or quality are irrelevant.

So that brings me to the World’s Largest Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. It looks like an amped up version of the regular package. Same proportions, just bigger.

Hershey’s has been making variations on the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup for over 50 years. Big Cups, Miniatures ... shapes for different holidays like the Eggs, Trees and Pumpkins. (And of course all the other flavors, chocolate coatings & inclusions.) But this, is obviously different.

The package is 10.5 inches long and 5 inches wide. Inside are two peanut butter cups, each is 8 ounces. So for $9.99 at CVS I was able to buy a pound of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. (Actually, a careful shopper would just buy the 40 ounce “Club Size” bag of miniatures for about $8.99.)

Inside the wrapper is a white paperboard tray that holds the two cups. The cups themselves differ from their un-endowed originals in that they are not contained by a brown fluted paper cup. These are structurally coherent enough to need no containers. (Though they still have the classic fluted sides.)

They’re 4” around on the top and 3” around at the base. As you can already imagine there are some strange proportions at work here when dealing with gigantism. In order to structurally contain the peanut butter I found that they’d fortified the chocolate. I tried biting one but found that the sides and corners were quite thick milk chocolate. Almost a half an inch thick in some places.

It’s really not a product for nibbling on. (Mostly because I simply don’t just munch on pieces of candy that weigh a half a pound. Like giant chocolate Easter rabbits, there’s a sanitary issue.)

This violates one of my primary rules of candy, which is that it requires some sort of tool. In this case it’s a knife to portion it. Most large chocolate bars are scored and can be broken into pieces. There is no other way to eat this other than huge bites ... which pretty much means you’re not sharing or you’re intimate enough with the other folks or so wasted you don’t care.

When sliced though, I have to say it’s rather charming. The triangles are like little slices of pie. Since each cup is 8 ounces, it’s easy to score it into 1 ounce slices ... or just quarter it for hefty 2 ounce pieces. Technically the nutritional panel suggests that a single serving is 1/6th of a cup, but I’ve always found cutting things into sixths harder than quarters/eighths.

The chocolate tastes much sweeter and slightly cool on the tongue than I get from a regular Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. The center peanut butter filling is dry and crumbly with a good salty note and only slightly sweet component.

My issue ultimately that there’s a lot of chocolate surrounding a large bulk of peanut butter. In the end I ate the top & bottom of the slice as well as the dense and grainy peanut butter filling but couldn’t bring myself to eat the super-sweet edge crust of chocolate.

I admit it’s a fun novelty and kind of a no-brainer inexpensive gift for a Reese’s Peanut Butter lover. I see it as a great option for social events, but hard to present as a “real” Reese’s peanut butter cup, since there’s no branding on it. (Maybe a disk to serve it on.)

In the end though it’s no replacement for the tried and true classic. So all it really does in the end is prove that the regular cups are ideal.

From the reports from the dear readers who alerted me to this monstrosity, they seem to be exclusive to CVS ... anyone else see them? (I’m hoping they’ll stick around for Christmas, as I think they’re a fun gag gift that’s actually functional.)

UPDATE December 2010: These are now in much wider distribution. I’ve seen them at 7-11 (for $12.99, I think) plus Target has them along with one pound Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bars.

Related Candies

1. Giant York Peppermint Patties (1 Pound)
2. Snickers Slice n’ Share (1 Pound)
3. Big Tex Giant Jelly Beans
4. Dark Chocolate Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
5. Reese’s Enigma & Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Eggs
6. Elvis Reese’s Peanut Butter and Banana Cup
7. Giant Pixy Stix
8. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Line

On my recent trip to Las Vegas I spent zero time in the casinos (except to traverse them to get to the chocolate and of course scanning the slot machines to find a candy-themed one) and all my time either walking or browsing fine chocolate.

Las Vegas actually has some very nice options for chocolate lovers and thankfully they’re liberally scattered around if you’re not into skipping from one casino-hotel-monstrosity to another. I went up to the Forum Shops at Caesar’s Palace to the Vosges Haut-Chocolat Boutique. Since it was barely a week to Halloween, I picked up a selection of their Skulls. (They’re a variation on their Easter Bunnies, which I attempted to review once before.)

There are three variations of the large skull shaped solid chocolates called Day of the Dead Skulls: Red Fire, Barcelona and Blanca. Each is 2.75 inches high, 1.75 inches wide at the widest and about 1 inch thick.

The Barcelona Skull is made of hickory smoked almonds, Maldon sea salt + deep milk chocolate 45% cacao.

The eyes are also filled with coarse Black Hawaiian sea salt to give them a bit more impact. They each weigh 2.2 ounces, so it’s more chocolate than a regular single serve bar, but it’s a hefty lump. They’re not really that easy to share, as biting into it is messy and difficult and once it’s cut up with a knife the allure of the skull shape is ruined.

Barcelona is available as a regular bar from Vosges, so I thought it would be fun to try in the novelty shape anyway. The color is quite deep and rich looking and I could actually make out the little almond bits near the surface.

As a milk chocolate it’s an easier bite than most dark chocolates. The deep milk chocolate is creamy with strong woodsy notes that are amplified by the mineral notes of the sea salt and the buttery crunch of the Marcona almonds.

I enjoyed the deep bites of the chocolate (yes, I just gnawed my way through the whole skull) more than I think I would a flat bar.

The Red Fire Skull is deep and shiny. It smells fruity and also very peppery. Like a bottle of Tabasco sauce, a hardwood smokebox and some other spice notes like cinnamon.

I was a little worried about the spice level. I’m good with horseradish, wasabi and curries, but capsaicin (the active ingredient in chili peppers) is unpleasant for me pretty often. Thankfully I think the chocolate is exceptionally well balanced. It’s hot (at least to me) but not uncomfortably so.

The woodsy notes have a definite tangy bent to them, like smoked peppers that have been re-hydrated there’s a bit of a spicy raisin feel. The cinnamon notes are also quite apparent. The bite of the chocolate is quite firm, there’s a distinct snap, but it is hard to just bite right into this thick skull.

The chocolate flavors aren’t overwhelmed by all of this, which is refreshing compared to some flavored bars. I felt that it was a good blend of flavors and intensity. The spices themselves lent a little grain to the chocolate which reminded me of the traditional stone ground Mexican hot chocolate I’ve had. I found the salt reservoir of the eye sockets to be far to intense and I felt really creepy digging out the salt from the second one.

This Skull was different from the Vosges bar, the Blanca is just high quality white chocolate, featuring 36% cocoa butter. (Catch me on a good day and I’m also about one third cocoa butter.)

The scent is rather odd, a little milky but not as sugary sweet smelling as some others and lacking a vanilla pop that I’ve had from Green & Blacks White.

The texture is a bit softer than the dark chocolate. It’s not quite as silky smooth, but still quite fatty with a good melt. The milky and dairy flavors are rich and thick and a bit on the sticky side. The vanilla has a good presence but not so much that it takes the center stage here. The Black Hawaiian sea salt, in this instance, is a wonderful counterpoint to the sweetness.

Still, it’s hard to just eat straight white chocolate. I found it was a nice way to offset the lingering throat burn of the Red Fire chilies.

They are rather expensive. The set of three is $21 and individuals are sold for $8 each. At 2.2 ounces they’re more expensive than the bars ... which are also on the pricey side (3 ounces for $7.50). If you’re looking for a more upscale and dependably tasty hostess gift for The Day of the Dead, well this will do the trick nicely. Part of me wanted more packaging (the Easter bunnies get little boxes) but then again this is spare and does the job.

Related Candies

1. Compartes Chocolates
2. Stainer: Peru & Bianco
3. Mori Ex Cacao Gift Set
4. CocoaBella “World’s Best Box”
5. Vosges Truffles - Fall 2006
6. Vosges Haut-Chocolate
7. Vosges Exotic Candy Bars

Last week I attended the NACS show in Las Vegas. It’s about convenience stores and though there are 1,200 exhibitors, only about 75 deal in candy. Still, it was just a 4 hour drive so I went for two days to see what was new. Let me just say that there are lots of exciting things coming out. Here are a few highlights:

Name: M&Ms Pretzel Chocolate Candies
Brand: Mars
Description: Combines sweet and salty in every bite size piece. M&M’S(r) Pretzel Chocolate Candies feature a crunchy, salted pretzel center covered in delicious milk chocolate and coated in a colorful candy shell. It’s a fun new way to get that sweet and salty flavor you enjoy.
Notes: I’ve tried these and thought they’re quite tasty. They have a bit more of a salty/savory hint to them than the old Crispy M&Ms but they’re also far more crunchy. The packaging is great and it speaks volumes of Mars confidence that they’re launching these without the middle step of limited edition. (Though remember, they also did Chocolate Mix Skittles.) Look for these sometime around

April in Walmart and wider distribution in June..

Review here

Name: Life Savers Gummies Sweet Strings ‘N Sour Rings
Brand: Life Savers (Wrigley’s)
Description: A fun low-calorie confection that is a tasty treat.  Sweet Strings ‘N Sour Rings playfully combine sweet and sour flavors including Sour Fruit Punch and Sour Green Apple squiggle shapes alongside Sweet Cherry and Sweet Raspberry classic “ring with a hole” shapes, offering a lively mix that is More Fun For Your Mouth(tm)
Notes: These are already available in stores and expand on the large line of gummi mixes that Life Savers already offer. According to their marketing information, they’re the #1 gummy brand in the US.

Name: Cool Honey Altoids
Brand: Callard & Bowser (Wrigley’s)
Description: Cool Honey, a sweetly unconventional alternative in breath freshening captures the emerging trend of herbal, spice and botanical flavor choices, while providing
the strong, fresh flavor consumers expect from Altoids
Notes: These are on store shelves now, I picked some up and should have a review shortly.

Review here

Name: All Natural Necco Wafers
Brand: Necco
Description: All Natural Necco Wafers come in four flavors milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate and mocha. Also look for the new All Natural classic flavors, now with no artificial flavorings or colorings.
Notes: I can’t seem to find out if they’re still going to do the single chocolate pack or if it’s now this mix pack. I have two rolls of this plus a bag of the minis of the classic flavors. I’m curious if the pink/wintergreen will still have a bitter aftertaste. These are available now.

Chocolate Necco Wafers Review here & All Natural Necco Wafers review here.

Name: Now and Later Peppermint
Brand: Farley’s & Sathers
Description: The classic chew expands to the classic flavor of peppermint.
Notes: It seems odd that Now and Later doesn’t come in the spice/essence flavors like Licorice, Spearmint, Peppermint and Cinnamon. But peppermint will be a step in that direction. These should be out by Christmas.

Name: Peeps Chocolate Covered Chicks
Brand: Just Born
Description: For the first time, Just Born introduces its iconic Peeps Chick shape covered in chocolate. The individually wrapped, one-ounce Chocolate Covered Chicks are available in Milk Chocolate and Dark Chocolate flavors and have a SRP under $1. 
Notes: A single Peep dipped the the peep-makers themselves. It’ll be interesting to see. (I have a dark chocolate one I’ll crack open soon.) After Easter 2010 you should expect to see them for Halloween, Christmas & Valentine’s themes. (I think the Peppermint Stars would be excellent dipped in dark chocolate.)

Review here

Name: Grape Vines
Brand: Red Vines (American Licorice)
Description: The flavor of purple grape in a twist
Notes: It seems a natural idea to expand the Red Vines family to other flavors and of course Grape Vines is an awesome name that only American Licorice can claim. I have a dim recollection that they used to make these, but can’t find any evidence for it (except some comments here on this blog made by other readers). No word on when these hit shelves.

Review here

Name: Ghirardelli Milk & Caramel
Brand: Ghirardelli
Description: 1.15 ounce bars, especially for impulse buys. Replacing the squares, these bars are more convenient to eat and share.
Notes: I’ve often been reluctant to buy the larger squares I often see at Target because they’re kind of hard to eat. you have to break them into quads, and resealing the package was tough. The new format does dispense with that unique square format, but sometimes interesting doesn’t mean tastier. They should be in stores within the next 6 weeks.

Name: Dove Miniatures Cafe Collection (Ice Cream)
Brand: Dove (Mars)
Description: Two flavors in one box. CAPPUCCINO: Creamy coffee flavored ice cream coated with Dove Milk Chocolate. JAVA CHIP: Creamy coffee flavored ice cream with tasty coffee-flavored chips coated with DOVE Milk Chocolate.
Notes: I know I don’t usually post about ice cream, mostly because I can only eat about 4 ounces at a time, but these would be perfect for me since each individual piece is less than one ounce. They’ll also come in a peppermint ice cream/dark chocolate version (but the mint ice cream center is colored pink, which makes me wonder if it’ll taste weird).

(All photos not marked Candy Blog are courtesy of the respective manufacturer.)

A couple of months ago all the foodie world was a’blab about the prospect of chocolate made from the milk of camels instead of the milk of cows.

I didn’t find this terribly exotic, since there’s already chocolate made with goat’s milk and sheep’s milk on the market. But of course I didn’t realize that camel’s milk is kind of hard to come by at this time.

Al Nassma is the first chocolate company to make camel milk chocolate. And instead of just plopping themselves in the middle of the crowded deluxe chocolate bar market, they’re positioning themselves as fine chocolate with a unique taste and possibly some other splendid properties.

There is only one place in the United States to buy Al Nassma, it’s at a little shop I’ve visited before in San Francisco called Chocolate Covered. Happily a friend was visiting the city and agreed to pick up my chocolate for me (I dare not try to send the stuff as it was a brutally hot late summer ... though camels bear it well, their chocolate does not). Yes, I have chocolate mules.

The chocolate is made with camel’s milk from Dubai but manufactured in Vienna, Austria by a chocolate maker named Manner. Some folks may recognize that company, as they make Chocolina’s Sheep’s Milk Chocolate (photo here) in the same facility. After the basic chocolate is created it’s shipped back to Al Nassma’s facility in Dubai to be combined with the final ingredients and molded into bars & chocolates.

Camel’s milk is reported to have many fabulous attributes. It has more protein, no lactose, a higher concentration of vitamins and minerals ... lots of wonderful things to recommend it. I don’t actually hear much about it being really, really tasty ... but there are studies going on to see if it can treat autism, diabetes, tuberculosis and Crohn’s disease (yeah, big stuff). Still, I see the value of trying different milk products in chocolate in order to maximize its nutritional profile and also improve digestibility for those with allergies.

The milk chocolate comes in four varieties: Whole Milk, Whole Milk with Dates, Macadamia-Orange and Arabia. I went for the bars (mostly because that’s what’s available so far here).
So I’ve had the bars for a few months, instead of rushing into them and making rash evaluations.

I love the packaging. It’s spare and elegant. A simple deep brown and metallic gold wrapper. The heavy paper overwrap is even printed on the inside with little camel line drawings. The same camel and palm tree logo is embossed on the stiff gold foil wrapper underneath.

The stack as a whole has a comforting scent to it. A bit like unburnt incense and potpourri. I get a vague whiff of orange and spices but also just a comforting clean smell. I don’t know if it’s that my chocolates, which are each different flavors, have commingled to the point that I won’t be able to tell them apart or not.

Once I opened each bar, I was aware that though some flavors may be shared, they’re definitely different.

The Whole Milk Camel Milk Bar is nicely molded and tempered. It’s quite a dark looking milk chocolate bar. It has a distinct, thick snap to it.

The flavor is immediately a bit salty to my tongue. The caramel flavors are noticeable as is the smooth texture but still on the rustic side. It’s not quite fudgy but also not completely slick or oily like some milk chocolates. It’s sweet but also well rounded with toasted notes and maybe a hint of malt and cheese. The ingredients on all bars list honey, though it’s far down on the list and I didn’t really get the honey notes here. The chocolate flavors are mild but more to the malt and woodsy side of things than raisins/berries or coffee.

The Dates bar felt like a classic Arabian combination.

I rarely eat dates straight, as they’re exceptionally sweet, but I enjoy their grainy texture and deep molasses notes.

This bar didn’t quite capture that. While it was sweeter than the straight Whole Milk, I didn’t get the berry and musky notes of the dates. Instead I got the texture - the kind of papery skins and grainy sweetness. I didn’t get the same salty notes as the Whole Milk either, which might have helped.

I thought the Macadamia-Orange smelled like oranges from the outside, I was certainly surprised at how strong it was once I opened the foil. The scent reminds me of candied orange peels boiling away in sugar syrup on the stove. Warm and steamy.

The orange is present in the whole bar as an essence, but also as little bits of candied orange zest. The pieces aren’t crystallized and grainy like some bars, which means that they don’t distract from the smoothness of the chocolate and also, they don’t add any additional sweetness. Instead, at moments, they can add an orange oil bitterness.

The macadamia chips are quite small, and sometimes barely noticeable. Macadamias, when this small, may as well be coconut as far as I can tell. They’re slightly chewy, a little buttery and have that tropical coconut note to them.

I don’t know if it was the orange or not, but the honey was more lively here. A kind of musky and low background for the whole bar. I liked the intensity of the orange and thought the macadamias added a little peppy crunch.

After the plain bar, I was most looking forward to the Arabia bar. I like spiced chocolate and thought a blend specific to the culture & food of the Arabian peninsula would be fantastic. Of course I didn’t know what that would be and the wrapper doesn’t say much about what spices specifically are included. I could tease out perhaps coriander or nutmeg or one of the other woodsy spices and black pepper or perhaps a note of saffron. There’s something slightly floral and maybe musk-like in it (but that could be the honey). It’s also a little grainy with the spices. It’s not quite as pungent and chaotic as Indian Chai.

As a whole line, they’re nicely made and well thought out. They’re incredibly expensive, but novelty does that (as does shipping and of course small inventories). For folks looking for something to point to as a source of pride, well, camel fans certainly can. The whole nutritional aspects are probably not going to bear out when put into a product like chocolate, but for lactose intolerant folks this is certainly some of the nicest stuff you’re ever going to get.

I would like to try some of the filled chocolates in their line, but I’m hesitant to shell out close to fifty dollars and fret over whether it will make it to the house in the heat any time soon. (I still have plenty left to eat on these bars as it is.)

Sara has a review on her site of the Whole Milk and Dates bar and Graeme Wood at The Atlantic went all the way to Dubai to look the camels in the face.

Related Candies

1. Amano Milk Chocolate Ocumare
2. Askinosie White Chocolate (Plain, Nibble & Pistachio)
3. Theo 3400 Phinney Bars
4. Chuao Chocolatier
5. Dagoba Chai