Thursday, October 30, 2014

Brach’s Royals: Caramel Apple and Sea Salt Caramel

Brach's Apple Caramel RoyalsThe Brach’s Milk Maid Royals candies were always quite special looking. I remember seeing them in the pick-a-mix assortments at the dime store as a kid. I was attracted to the bold foil wrappers that each little flavored caramel rod sported. The looked expensive and sophisticated. The are a lot more caramel choices in the stores now and it seems harder to find the Brach’s individually wrapped candies since the bins of the candy disappeared from many grocery store candy aisles.

Royals Caramels are a layered candy, a flavored center chew is surrounded by caramel. It’s a simple construction that’s helped by the fact that caramel goes with just about everything.

I’ve noticed that Brach’s has recently started repackaging their standard line of candy and sprucing up the flavor assortments to match current tastes. The new Brach’s Apple Caramel Royals come in a stand-up gusset bag and are positioned right next to M&Ms and the new morsel sized candies like York Minis and Snickers Bites.

DSC_6901rb

The package is a lovely apple red but the candies inside are wrapped in neon green waxed paper. It’s kind of an odd, especially because I had two flavors sitting around at one time and I kept grabbing the wrong package. However, Brach’s did use red for their Caramel Apple Candy Corn, so the flavor colors do match on the outside at least.

Unlike the foil-wrapped ancestors, these candies don’t look like much in the wrapper. They’re the kind of candy that would probably sit around with the Tootsie Rolls at the end of Trick-or-Treat until I was desperate.

DSC_6902rb

The look of the candies unwrapped is odd, the caramel looks good - an opaque medium brown color. But the green center is on the blue side, which makes it look a little more like a caramel filled with toothpaste than a green apple candy. Luckily the smell aligns everything again. It’s sweet and with a light apple peel and milk scent. The chew is soft, the caramel and sort of taffy center mix well. It could use a little bit of salt to bring it together. It’s never quite a smooth and creamy caramel, but much more satisfying than the Brach’s Candy Corn Nougats I tried last week.

The ingredients list actual apples plus buttermilk as an ingredient in these, which really makes them one of the closest candies on drug store shelves to actual caramel apples.

Brach's Salted Caramel RoyalsThe Brach’s Sea Salt Caramel Royals come in the same style of gusset bag. It’s a more sedate design, as the colors are more subdued.

While caramel apple candies are quite trendy right now for fall, the general salted caramel rage is a year round thing and still going strong. It only makes sense that Brach’s, now owned by the Ferrara Candy Company, would expand into some of these mainstream trends.

While they say sea salt on the front of the package, the ingredients list only salt. The nutrition panel shows that there are 180 mgs of salt per serving of 6 pieces. As a point of reference, the Apple Caramel Royals have only 75 mgs.

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The Sea Salt Caramel Royals are, well, quite nice! The chew is soft with a little difference between the caramel outside and the sort of pasty chew inside. They’re definitely salty, but it does highlight the brown sugar notes of the caramel. I wouldn’t be likely to buy these again, especially at the price when I can get some really good sea salt caramels from Trader Joe’s or just some Sugar Babies ... but I will finish this bag.

These candies are made in Mexico. The contain milk, soy and egg ingredients. There’s no notation about nuts or gluten, though.

DSC00847rBrach’s Milk Maid Royals have been made since the late 1920s (though I’m sure the wrappers have changed over the years). The flavors are probably also cyclical with changing tastes. The last time I had them I enjoyed the extra-sweet Maple and Butter Rum, but didn’t care for the sherbet flavored Orange. The Chocolate is softer than a Tootsie Roll but didn’t have the reliably long chew.

Related Candies

  1. 15 Caramel Apple Candies I’ve Reviewed
  2. Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate Sea Salt Cashew
  3. See’s Caramel Apple Lollypops
  4. Pearson’s Sea Salt Caramel Nut Goodies
  5. Trader Joe’s Chocolate Covered Sea Salt Butterscotch Caramels
  6. Werther’s Original Caramel Apple Filled
  7. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Sea Salt Caramels


Name: Apple Caramel Royals
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Brach’s
Place Purchased: Samples from CandyWarehouse.com
Price: $6.00
Size: 10 ounces
Calories per ounce: 112
Categories: Candy, Halloween, Brach's, Ferrara Pan, Caramel, 6-Tempting, Mexico


Name: Sea Salt Caramel Royals
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Brach’s
Place Purchased: Samples from CandyWarehouse.com
Price: $6.00
Size: 10 ounces
Calories per ounce: 112
Categories: Candy, Brach's, Ferrara Pan, Caramel, 7-Worth It, Mexico

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:19 pm Tracker Pixel for Entry     CandyReviewHalloweenBrach'sFerrara PanCaramel6-Tempting7-Worth ItMexico

Comments
  1. Thanks for bringing back a memory from my childhood! Once in a long while my mom would let me pick out a quarter pound of candy from the bins at the grocery store. For some reason this seemed fancier to me than the regular candy at the checkout aisle. The Royals in their shiny foil seemed very special, and not being able to really guess the flavors (other than the orange) was exciting.

    I was always fascinated by the other Brachs candies that were heavily advertised on TV, especially the stars. Sadly, those weren’t available in the bins.

    Comment by JR on 10/30/14 at 6:14 pm #
  2. Wow, Milkmaid Royals, there’s a blast from the past!  I used to love these, especially the raspberry and orange ones.  I’ll have to look for the caramel apple ones and give them a shot.

    Comment by Michelle on 11/03/14 at 11:12 am #
  3. Where can I find the sea salt or caramel apple royals.

    Comment by Christine Knight on 10/23/16 at 6:00 pm #
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