Monday, June 12, 2006

Snickers Xtreme

Mars hasn’t been nearly as invested in the limited edition game as Hershey’s but I think that when they do come out with an item, though it’s usually just a simple twist on an existing one, they’re pretty good.

Witness the Snickers Xtreme. It’s a Snickers bar without that pesky nougat. What’s odd about this bar is that Snickers has already released this product in miniature.

image

I smashed my bar in my bag, so the picture isn’t that pretty. (I cut off the smashed part to give the bar the best chance at looking dead sexy. I tried biting the bar to show off the innards, but all you saw was caramel, not the plethora of nuts.)

The label heralds it as having 5 grams of protein, which is pretty good for a candy bar. Nearly all of that protein is from the peanuts with a trace amount, I supposed, from the milk in the chocolate and caramel.

First, let me tell you about my hopes for this bar. I’ve always been a big fan of the Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews because of the density of the nuts but also because the infusion of molasses gave the chew a real pop of flavor. I was hoping that the Snickers Xtreme bar would fill that niche, only with real chocolate.

What this bar does is reveal how uninspiring the caramel of the Snickers (and I’ll wager the Milky Way) actually is. I could taste the peanuts loud and clear and the milk chocolate made a nice appearance (albeit a sweet one), but the caramel only provided a backdrop of sweet chew, no caramelized sugar notes. (And an odd hint of cinnamon but that could be cross contamination with all the other candy I’ve picked up and stored this with ... Atomic Fire Balls were EVERYWHERE!)

My last quarrel I’m going to mention is the name of the bar. If Milky Way put out a caramel-less bar, you wouldn’t call it a Milky Way Xtreme ... you’d call it a 3 Musketeers. If you took out the nuts in a Snickers, well, you’d have a Milky Way ... see where I’m going here? Changing an item to a different version of the same basic foodstuff, such as dark chocolate instead of milk chocolate does qualify. But taking out a whole item does not allow you to keep them name. Period.

Actually, I liked the bar. Probably more than the regular Snickers bar, because it isn’t quite as sweet (because of the nuts) and if it’s possible, it’s more satisfying that way. It’s a calorie laden bar - 290 to be exact and at over 2 ounces, it’s no wonder it satisfies (that’s only 10 more calories than the regular Snickers bar and one more gram of protein). Now if they decided to make the Snickers Almond bar into an Xtreme, I am so there!

Here’s something I learned last week: The Snickers bar was named after one of the Mars family horses. You can read more about the Snickers history (which is pretty interesting) at the Snickers site.

Name: Snickers Xtreme
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Mars
Place Purchased: All Candy Expo sample
Price: approximately $.75
Size: 2.07 ounces
Calories per ounce: 145
Categories: Chocolate, Peanuts, caramel, United States, Mars, Limited Edition

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:26 am Tracker Pixel for Entry    

Comments
  1. I love the almond snickers, that’s what they should do with this…make an almond xtreme, now that would be good.

    Comment by Amy on 6/12/06 at 10:09 am #
  2. I wondering what’s taking Mars (masterfoods, whatever) so long to create the Galaxy bar.

    The Galaxy bar as i envision it is a 3 Musketeers with m&m minis ( or full sized ) sprinkled/mixed throughout the fluffy chocolate.  I used to stick m&ms; into my next bite of 3 Musketeers all the time.  Good stuff.

    They’ve got the Milky Way, so “Galaxy” seems like the perfect name.

    Comment by Brad on 6/12/06 at 11:09 am #
  3. Sorry to dissapoint you, Brad, but Mars have had Galaxy bars out in the UK for years. They’re somewhat of a staple chocolate here. They’re just plain old bars of creamy milk chocolate, Mars’ attempt at a “high-end” product, not bad but nothing special. They come in “Ripple” form too, which is Mars’ version of a Cadbury’s Flake.

    http://www.britsuperstore.com/acatalog/Galaxy_Chocolate.html

    Comment by GTO on 6/12/06 at 12:23 pm #
  4. GTO: they’ve already used the same names for different candy bars in the US/North America vs. Europe, what’s to stop them from doing the same with Galaxy? :^)

    Comment by Tricia on 6/13/06 at 8:19 am #
  5. Cybele's avatar

    Brad - I think I’d call your 3Musketeers/M&M mashup the ASTEROID bar. Or maybe METEOR. Or SHUTTLE.

    Tricia - I think Mars is trying to undo the confusion about the bars. It’s a big deal in Europe where they renamed the Mars bar to Snickers ... which is what it is here.

    Comment by Cybele on 6/13/06 at 10:12 am #
  6. Mars Bar (European version) is presently being called “Believe” in conjunction with the World Cup. Bloody pointless.

    Comment by GTO on 6/14/06 at 12:56 pm #
  7. XTEME!!! I think that says it all. I Love the no nougat. It was AWSOME. MARS I think you have a KEEPER!!

    Comment by Ben on 9/30/06 at 2:48 pm #
  8. I hope they keep this bar. I’ve loved snickers a long time but I always thought the nougat was pesky- in fact I often ate the nougat off the bottom so I could enjoy the peanuts and caramel on their own. I was delighted to bite into what I expected to be a normal snickers bar and find no nougat! At first I thought it was the result of an accident at the plant, but ultimately I hope this won’t end up being truly limited edition, but a permanent product. Definitely better than the normal snickers.

    Comment by CP on 11/24/06 at 5:52 pm #
  9. I agree with CP here. I prefer it without the nougat by far. True it’s not a very “deep” caramel flavour, but with crunched up peanuts in there who is going to notice anyway?
    NB: In Australia this is called Snickers: Maximus.
    Also saw the Timeout Hazelnut Crisp when I was doing the shopping and wondered if it was any good. But you don’t seem to have reviewed it. Well I suppose there are just too many limited editions out there. I’ll have to find out the old fashioned way..

    Comment by leigh on 2/27/07 at 8:02 pm #
  10. o.k. pretty good liked it better than the reular snickers, how about a less sweet version in dark chocolate, esp with almonds! anyone tried the british mars bar, its a pretty good candy bar!

    Comment by kim on 8/14/07 at 6:09 am #
  11. THIS IS THE WORST KANDY EVER I REALLY LIKE THE ORIGINAL THAN THIS KIND BUT ITS JUST ME THATS ALL

    Comment by genesis paez on 4/10/08 at 9:49 am #
  12. love love love, I can’t get enough! Snickers was always my favourite Chocolate but now Extreme takes the cake, I’m buying up big in case they stop selling them

    Comment by christine on 7/01/11 at 9:18 pm #
  13. Sinckers Xtreme is the best candy bar I have ever tasted. Better then regular snickers and better then even reese cups. Please do not stop making these.

    Comment by Andrew Matherly on 1/22/15 at 9:48 pm #
  14. I just atemped to eat this cement log. I had to spit the excess nuts out or I would’ve been chewing for hours. I like regular snickers, but this one is horrible..most of the peanuts felt like gravel in my mouth. I will never eat one of these things again. My jaws hurt from the 30 minutes of chewing I had to do. The peanuts were as hard as rocks. If anyone asks me if it’s good I’ll tell them to pass and get a Milky Way.

    Comment by Cyndi on 2/24/16 at 8:51 pm #
  15. The xtreme is good but I wish the Mars bar would return it’s the best!

    Comment by Gumby on 8/31/16 at 5:09 pm #
  16. This is the best Snickers ever! It taste like a candy from back in the 70s,  I love it.

    Comment by Lourann Jones on 10/10/16 at 4:36 pm #
  17. I was lucky to pick up one of these bars at a convenience store. Since then, I can’t find it, though I look at every place i go to. Where, can *I get it? Thank you.

    Comment by Adolph R Hernandez on 5/26/17 at 12:35 pm #
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