Thursday, September 22, 2005

The New Caramels: Hershey’s & Nestle

Both Hershey and Nestle recently introduced their standard chocolate bars now stuffed with a caramel center. If they could stuff two different candies into one, I can stuff two bars into one review.

Name: Hershey’s with Caramel
Brand: Hershey’s
Place Purchased: Target
Price: $.79
Size: 1.3 oz
Calories per ounce: 138
Type: Chocolate/Caramel

Hershey seems to have changed their chocolate recipe. Maybe it’s like the New Coke. Many of their products, including their limited edition line are sporting something they call “Extra Creamy Milk Chocolate” but here it’s called simply “Creamy Milk Chocolate.” It’s definitely different than the chocolate I’m accustomed to in my Kisses.

This is a four segment bar with a little filling of soft, flowing caramel. The chocolate is very sweet and doesn’t really smell like much, but the caramel has a nice toasty scent to it. It’s rather runny, so instead of biting each segment in half, I’d recommend stuffing the whole thing in your mouth. It’s got a little salty tang to it, but mostly it’s a very sweet bar.

(After writing all of this I realized I should probably pick up some Rolos and find out how different this bar is from them.)

Name: Crunch with Caramel
Brand: Nestle
Place Purchased: 7-11 (Hollywood)
Price: $.85
Size: 1.52 oz
Calories per ounce: 132
Type: Chocolate/Crisp/Caramel

 

Since the Crunch bar is the centerpiece of the American Nestle brand, it only makes sense that they’d put caramel inside of it eventually. This bar has three beefy segments. The bottom layer of chocolate is very thick, about half the height of this bar and contains a good amount of crisped-rice crunchies. The rest of the chocolate coating does not have crisps in it.

This caramel center is less runny than the Hershey’s but is immediately saltier. I checked the label and it has twice the sodium content of the Hershey’s. The salt is actually a nice counterpoint to the exceptionally sweet Nestle chocolate. The crisps really aren’t as dense as you’d find in a regular Crunch bar, which is kind of disappointing. This bar had a bit more of a cardboard flavor to the chocolate and it was so sweet that it made my throat hurt. Though I love Nestle’s European chocolate, I really don’t care much for the American stuff because of the lack of chocolatey flavor to it.

If I could, I’d put the caramel from the Nestle version in the Hershey version and call it a great bar. As it is now, both are good bars but nothing mind-blowing for me. The Five Star bar holds my heart right now for caramel bars.

Ratings - Hershey with Caramel - 7 out of 10
Crunch with Caramel - 6 out of 10

POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:29 pm Tracker Pixel for Entry     CandyReviewHershey'sNestleCaramelChocolate6-Tempting7-Worth ItUnited States

Comments
  1. so really, these get 6 and 7 when the venerable (and not entirely dissimilar) sky bar gets a mere 5??? sigh

    Comment by TG on 12/31/69 at 4:00 pm #
  2. Rolos!

    Man would I love a Rolo about now.

    Comment by russ on 12/31/69 at 4:00 pm #
  3. You don’t know me, and I can’t remember how I got here…probably by clicking and clicking and browsing and clicking various links.  But I want you to know that I appreciate all the difficult sacrifice you make to write this blog. It’s hard testing all that candy. I can only imagine the personal hell of responsibility you must feel with every bite. The only problem is that now I feel the need to run out and try some of these…right this minute.  Keep up the good work!

    Comment by Julilla on 12/31/69 at 4:00 pm #
  4. Is Caramilk available in the US? I think it would definitely trump these two. It even comes in a dark chocolate variety now, if I recall correctly.

    Comment by Anonymous on 12/31/69 at 4:00 pm #
  5. there is an article in this months saveur about retro candy.  they list this website. http://www.bigtipscandy.com.  you can buy a retro pack of 15 candy bars.  they look yummy.

    Comment by Randi on 12/31/69 at 4:00 pm #
  6. Cybele's avatar

    TG - the chocolate they use on the Skybar is rather, um, bland. Also, I wasn’t fond of the vanilla portion (which makes up a full 1/4 of the bar). There’s really no accounting for my taste ... I feel your pain.

    Russ - I haven’t had a Rolo in years, I probably should have grabbed some of those at the same time. Rolo is now owned by Hershey in the States, but I think they’re made by someone else in the UK.

    Thanks Julilla - it’s a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it. (And no one really was.)

    Anon - I don’t know how widely the Cadbury caramel bar is available but I used to buy them when I was in college and found them to be a real sugar charge. I haven’t seen them lately though.

    Randi - I saw bigtips candy on another site as well as mention of Vermont Country Store for hard to find candies. I’ll probably place an order soon now that the weather has cooled off.

    Comment by Cybele on 12/31/69 at 4:00 pm #
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