ABOUT

FEEDS

CONTACT

  • .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
  • Here are some frequently asked questions emailed to me you might want to read first.

EMAIL DIGEST

    For a daily update of Candy Blog reviews, enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

CANDY RATINGS

TYPE

BRAND

COUNTRY

ARCHIVES

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Villars Swiss Milk Chocolate

Candy Blog reader Karen clued me in to Villars bars. I had no idea these Swiss-style milk chocolate bars had MALT in them! I’ve seen them at the checkout at Trader Joe’s for some time, but the old-fashioned looking packaging just didn’t grab me.

image

Don’t be misled - they’re not malted milk bars or anything, must sweet, creamy Swiss milk chocolate with a little hint of malt. If I didn’t know better, I would have said it was hazelnut, but it’s definitely a malty quality.

The packaging is quite nice, a decorated box with a flip and tuck top for storing uneaten portions and the bar itself is cloaked in thin aluminum foil. A little thin for my taste, but it’s nicely designed with large and flat with flowers inside each of the squares (I’m going to say they’re edelweiss). This chocolate doesn’t have that cloying dairy flavor that some other Swiss chocolates have but it is creamy and certainly melts easily.

I ate the bar pretty quickly as it was hot this weekend and for most of the time it was the consistency of fudge because it was about 90 degress in my house. Instead of breaking off small pieces (after I’d broken into big ones for the photograph while it was still cool in the morning), the bar pretty much bent or tore. Holding the pieces in the heat was dicey too, as they got very slippery.

I fear that chocolate must be put aside for the rest of the summer or reserved for the early morning cool.

But back to the chocolate bar! It’s a great deal for a Swiss style chocolate with a more interesting malty hit than you might be used to. If you’ve got a Trader Joe’s around you, pick one up. They also have a dark bar (no malt) and a hazelnut bar (which I’ll be trying after it cools off).

Name: Villars Swiss Milk Chocolate
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Villars
Place Purchased: Trader Joe's
Price: $1.69
Size: 3.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 157
Categories: Chocolate, Switzerland, Malt

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:10 am    

Monday, July 10, 2006

Mounds Island Orange

This review is in honor of the New York Times Magazine column yesterday, called Consumed and written by Rob Walker on the subject of limited edition candies.

This particular candy is the perfect example. It’s a good, tasty bar that probably has limited appeal and will therefore never be seen on shelves again. Oh, how I mourn for some of these here-and-gone bars.

When I was a teenager my mother got a hold of a tapioca pudding mix that was coconut and orange flavored. You wouldn’t think that’d be a good idea, and I’m not sure I even liked it at first, but here it is, some 25 years later and I’m still pining for it.

image

The Mounds Island Orange bar is as close as I’ve come to recapturing that taste. (Yes, my mother tried to make it from scratch last time I was at her house, but it just wasn’t the same - something about the proportions was wrong ... don’t get me wrong, it was still tasty and I had two helpings. I love tapioca.)

It’s a regular old Mounds bar from the outside, it doesn’t even smell any different. A strong chocolatey aroma but no trace of the orange burst that awaits inside. That’s right, the coconut is orange flavored. Zesty orange and coconut, which really cuts the sweetness of the filling and allows the chocolate to shine through. (This is a much better idea than last years Key Lime Almond Joy which had a white chocolate coating flavored with lime ... whereas I would have preferred a coconut center with some lime essence in it.)

The center is a freakish orange color, as if someone took the pulp out of a fresh orange. It’s rather unnaturally orange, and it seems pretty silly that they would color the inside of it like that. But the flavor feels natural - not chemical in the least and I really enjoyed how each of the flavors played off each other.

I bought two of these bars, mostly because I saw that Joanna loved them as well, so if you’re a Mounds fan and enjoy zesty flavors, pick it up before it’s gone.

Name: Mounds Island Orange
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Hershey's
Place Purchased: 7-11 (Hollywood)
Price: $.85
Size: 1.65 ounces
Calories per ounce: 133
Categories: Chocolate, Coconut, United States, Hershey's, Limited Edition

POSTED BY Cybele AT 4:09 am    

Sunday, July 9, 2006

Cadbury May Face Charges

Cadbury may face formal charges in reference to the Salmonella montevideo contamination of their chocolate. Either the FSA (Food Safety Authority) or one of the municipalities that cover the factory of Cadbury may charge them for knowingly distributing food products unfit for human consumption.

Even though they recalled the offending product, Cadbury has been criticized for unsafe practices, including distributing their chocolate crumb to other factories for use before testing showed the it was safe, possibly leading to contamination of other factory products.

In the mean time the factory in question is being closed and completely cleaned, which may take months.

Cadbury’s sales are off since the recall notice. Nearly four times as many Salmonella montevideo infections were confirmed in the period that the contaminated bars were on the market than in previous periods.

Full story.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 11:29 am     News

Saturday, July 8, 2006

Limited Edition Column

Consumed - NY Times Magazine
Short and Sweet
by Rob Walker

Rob Walker sums up the current limited edition fad in the candy industry (with a pretty funny little illustration by Leif Parsons) with some great insights. Oh, and expert commentary from me and Brian at Candy Addict (oh, and Susan Fussell from the National Confectioners Association).

Dig in, it’s for a limited time only!

POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:37 pm     Limited EditionNews

Friday, July 7, 2006

Nestle Experiencing KitKat Slump

The Wall Street Journal recently published a story about how Nestle is experiencing a decline in sales for the revered KitKat bar. Part of this may be due to the dilution of the brand with all the limited edition flavors and shapes.

image

Flavor experiment for KitKat leaves Nestl? with a bad taste by Deborah Ball, Wall Street Journal

Sales for 2005 were down over 16% from 2004 while Cadbury and Masterfoods bars have been gaining marketshare. What plays in the UK may not hold true with other markets, however.

Personally, I enjoy the limited edition flavored bars, but I wish they were seasonal - you know, that there were a dependable schedule so that I could get them every year, even if the strawberry was only a summertime thing.

Along that note, watch the New York Times Magazine this weekend ... I have it on good authority that there will be an article about limited edition candy bars there, too.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:32 pm     CandyReviewKitKatNews

Page 484 of 584 pages ‹ First  < 482 483 484 485 486 >  Last ›

Meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world. And the occasional other sweet adventures. Open your mouth, expand your mind.

 

 

 

 

Facebook IconTwitter IconTumblr IconRSS Feed IconEmail Icon

COUNTDOWN.

Candy Season Ends

-2547 days

Read previous coverage

 

 

Which seasonal candy selection do you prefer?

Choose one or more:

  •   Halloween
  •   Christmas
  •   Valentine's Day
  •   Easter

 

image

ON DECK

These candies will be reviewed shortly:

 

 

image