Monday, June 22, 2009
Brach’s Indulge Almonds: Coconut & CaramelBesides the regular chocolate covered nuts that Brach’s has been making for about a hundred years, Brach’s has more recently branched out into more than the old fashioned pick-a-mix items. the new Indulge gable-box line includes some boxed chocolate items (like Cherry Creme Clusters) as well as the standard bridge mixes and chocolate covered nuts. I picked out these two from the samples that Farley’s & Sathers sent me: Coconut Almond Escape and Caramel Almond escape because they both have almonds at the center but were definitely outside of the normal panned nuts offerings. Besides the color coding of the boxes, it’s hard to tell the candies apart from the pictures on the package ... they’ve obviously taken some artistic license or are able to produce identical candies in both dark and milk chocolate. (Click to see it a bit bigger on Flickr.) Coconut Almond Escape is called Rich, creamy, coconut covered almonds coated in luscious dark chocolate. They make it sound simple but it’s really not. There is an almond at the core and there is a “sweet chocolate” coating (which has lactose as the second ingredient after sugar and before chocolate & cocoa butter). But that white stuff in between goes like this:
So that “coconut covering” has very little actual coconut in it ... as far as I can tell the smallest dash of coconut oil and maybe that natural flavoring. They certainly smell coconutty - like suntan lotion. The pieces are glossy and large. The almonds are crunchy and nicely toasted. The white cream is soft and has a good melt on the tongue ... not quite fondant and rather salty. Sometimes I get a fake butter flavor from it, which turns me off. The whole effect is rather good otherwise and rather different. I was hoping for the elusive Dark Chocolate Almond Joy experience, but without actual coconut flakes, all the chewy texture is provided by the almonds. It tastes rather fake, but the hit of salt gives them a good munchability. But on the other hand I’m hesitant to recommend a candy that has more coloring (titanium dioxide in this case) than salt. But I don’t know what my daily recommend intake of titanium is. Maybe it makes my cell phone reception better. Or makes me impervious to UV radiation. Caramel Almond Escape is Rich creamy, caramel covered almonds in luscious milk chocolate. I should have photographed these two candies together to show the difference in size. Most of these are about the size of a Peanut M&M. These milk chocolate pieces look great otherwise, very nicely panned they’re shiny and smooth. I was rather surprised when I opened the package that they smell like maple. I was hoping for a nice chewy caramel, but probably expecting a Brach’s Milk Maid Caramel. Instead it’s more like a maple fudge instead of anything resembling a caramel. And it’s an awful like like fake maple. The nuts are crunchy, but their tiny size leaves the proportions here a bit off as well. I’ve been eating the, but I have a hard time believing that I’d buy them. Rating: 4 out of 10 It’s nice to see Brach’s bringing production back to the United States, but I’d like to see some less convoluted recipes ... or I’ll just stick to the Bridge Mix, Candy Corn and Spearmint Leaves that they do so well. Related Candies
POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:19 pm |
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Meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world. And the occasional other sweet adventures. Open your mouth, expand your mind.
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Titanium dioxide in food weirds me out…it’s the same pigment they use in PAINT for goodness sake. Gross. The worst is those “yogurt covered” items where the coating seems to include little more than sugar, hydrogenated oil, and white pigment. :-p
Titanium dioxide doesn’t gross me out at all, it may sound harsh, but its just a natural pigment. Its just a natural crushed mineral. I would much prefer having titanium dioxide as a colorant over more chemical based ones, or even animal. And if people are bothered by titanium dioxide, I wonder how they feel about the red cochineal dye made from crushed insects that is pretty much used in all food colored red.
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