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Friday, April 7, 2006

Meiji Lucky Mini Almond

While I’m partial to Pocky, I’m trying to open up and try a few of the other dipped cookie sticks from Japan. Last week it was Yan Yan, this week I bring you Lucky Mini Almond Black.

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These petite little sticks of chocolate flavored biscuit stucks are covered with a mix of dark chocolate and crushed almonds. Like Pocky, there’s a little bit of uncovered stick so you can grab it and not worry about melting the chocolate as you nibble.

The package holds a brown plastic tray with two sections filled with the sticks. Each stick is about 2.5” long. There are plenty of almonds and it’s got a good mellow crunch to the biscuit without being too sweet.

The ingredients have some oddities, including things like “cheese powder” and “cream powder” but these definitely have no hint of the cheesiness of the Yan Yan.

Overall, as a nuttier version of Pocky, this is pretty good. I actually like the high ratio of chocolate and nuts and the slightly flavored biscuit. It’s no Men’s Pocky, but it’s a great afternoon snack that doesn’t feel too decadent.

Name: Lucky Mini Almond
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Meiji
Place Purchased: Mitsuwa (Little Tokyo)
Price: $1.49
Size: 1.9 ounces
Calories per ounce: 168
Categories: Chocolate, Cookie, Nuts, Japan, Meiji

POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:43 am    

Thursday, April 6, 2006

The Saga of the Valomilk: Four of Five

The Results

So here I was with 20 packages of Valomilks (come on, I ate four of them while still in Pennsylvania) - ten packed into their original box and inside my suitcase, seven inside my carry on bag in a sealed plastic box and three of my precioussess inside a vacuum-sealed flask. I can only imagine what happened to my suitcase because when it arrived at LAX at baggage claim as it was soaking wet (well, it was raining). The contents were thankfully dry. My laptop bag was bumped around quite a bit as I had trouble finding space for it and then it got moved around by the flight crew.

Now, part of this experiment was not scientific (all right, none of it was). I have no clue if they were intact when they left the Sifer factory, when they arrived or left Candy Favorites or if they were affected by the drive across the state and back, nor when I put them into my luggage. Further, I didn’t open them all that the same time here at home (because I had the intention of eating them, and I do have other candy commitments that I had to keep). So any of them could have ruptured before they got on the plane or sometime after I brought them home. However, I can say that the ones in the thermos did the best ... but that may have less to do with the vacuum seal than the less bumpy treatment.

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The box that was in my checked luggage has leaky cups. The packages from my carry-on “tupperware box” has leaky cups. It’s true, the cups leak, some more than others.

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I can’t say that the smaller outflows don’t affect the flavor, they do tend to give it a gummy, flaky, sticky spot but they don’t bother me. However, there were some substantial losses in the filling department. Some cups were nearly void of filling (well, there was filling, but it wasn’t filling the cups, it was filling the package and tray). The longer I’ve had them, the less coherent they seem to be. In truth, I am troubled that there is such a high proportion of loss ... I don’t put up with that sort of thing with a Godiva truffle, why would I put up with it with a Valomilk? Are they really that good?

Tomorrow’s Episode: The Valomilk Review

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:13 pm     ValomilkFun StuffNews

Boyer’s Mallo Cup

While on that fateful trip to Pennsylvania in February I picked up some Mallo Cups. How could I not? They’re made right there in Altoona by the Boyer Candy Co. Soon, I will have tasted all the marshmallow cups there are. Boyer is known for cup candies, they also have the Smoothie Peanut Butter Cup, which has a devoted following.

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The Mallo Cup is the East Coast version of the Cup-o-Gold which consists of a milk chocolate cup filled with marshmallow (of differing consistencies) and a little coconut on the top.

The coconut smell is quite apparent when raising the cup to the mouth. The chocolate is sweet and very creamy with the coconut bits providing a chewy texture. The marshmallow center is soft and runny, but not too flowing as to make a mess.

Like the Valomilk, the Mallo Cup suffers from some structural integrity issues - in this case the chocolate base is too thin, so I was not able to remove either cup in my package from the paper without leaving some chocolate behind - basically bottoming out. (If you look closely at the photo, which you can click to enlarge, you’ll see that there is no base at all as I wasn’t able to peel it off for the photo. Maybe refrigeration would help.) The marshmallow itself has a nice flavor and consistency - it’s not at all foamy but not viscous or grainy like some others marshmallows. It doesn’t have any perceptible flavor of its own so I came away with more of a chocolate/coconut vibe.

I liked it quite a bit better than the Cup-O-Gold, I liked the sweetness of the chocolate, nutty scent of the coconut and mellow filling and the proportions seem better balanced (the Cup-O-Gold seemed to be too much chocolate and of course was single cup in a package).

The unique selling proposition of the Boyer Candies, though, is the “Play Money Rebate Offer”. The tray in the Mallo Cup package is actually a coupon advertising their rebate program - save up 500 Points and you can get a $1.00 rebate. Each Mallo Cup tray is worth 5 points. Yes, you get a dollar for every 100 Mallo Cups you buy! The points are also good for other merchandise such as candy tins, sweatshirts, mugs and caps. I have no idea how long they’ve been doing this, but the copyright notice on the package says 1983.

Other opinions: Writers/Artists Snacking at Work gave it a 7.5, Candy Wrapper Museum just doesn’t like marshmallow, Taquitos.net thinks it smells like coconut and finally, read about the long road back for the Mallo Cup production line.

Related Candies

  1. Melster Marshmallow Eggs
  2. Mallow Blast
  3. Boyer Smoothie
  4. The Saga of the Valomilk - Review
  5. The Mysterious Cup-O-White Gold
Name: Mallo Cup
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Boyer Candy Co.
Place Purchased: Baldinger's (Zelienople, PA)
Price: $.65
Size: 1.6 ounces
Calories per ounce: 125
Categories: Chocolate, Coconut, Marshmallow, United States

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:34 am    

Wednesday, April 5, 2006

The Saga of the Valomilk: Episode Three of Five

The Challenge

The problem with Valomilks is that they have a tendency to pop their tops or leak. So even when you get one as fresh as possible, close to the source, there’s still a chance that they’ve got a little oozing spot. It doesn’t really affect the flavor, just the messiness factor. It’s hard to keep from getting sticky if the cup is already leaking when you bite into it. When I got to my sister’s we each had a package. Of the six cups, three were already oozing, though they had healed themselves. (It’s like they’re filled with a tasty Fix-a-Flat caulk!)

On my long drive back to Pittsburgh from my sister’s in Mechanicsburg, I formulated a plan for getting as many of the Valomilks back to Los Angeles intact, as well as trying as many different ways to fly with them as an experiment. First, I had to figure out what the weakness of the Valomilk was so that I could best combat any disintegration during my continuing journey. My best guess was that flying caused the cups to rupture because of the change in air pressure. How this precisely works is beyond me.

The Analysis

As a structural material, chocolate is probably not the best choice. Sure, in large bars it’s pretty strong but the load bearing members on the side of the candy cup is hardly enough to hold back the considerable pressure of the super-tall cup. Further, the paper of the candy cup provides only the flimsiest of shear wall support, thought the fluting does give greater structural integrity than one might expect.

The weak point of the candy cup is where the sides of the chocolate join its chocolate top.

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Any small fissure in the shell will result in the leaking of the vanilla center. It seems rather odd that the viscous filling would want to escape, and further that it would do it at the top of the candy cup and not at the bottom. I have several theories about this:

The first is that the chocolate top creates pressure on the vanilla filling pushing it out wherever it will go, obviously finding the weak spot at the top of the sides the easiest. In most cases the leak seals itself as the vanilla milk meets the air and solidifies (also gluing the paper cup to the candy). This likely releases some pressure and does not recur.

The second theory is that there is an electro-magnetic charge associated with the vanilla filling. This theory is best illustrated by looking at a cross section of the planet Earth. Though the Valomilk has no solid iron core rotating to create the magnetic poles as we know it, I have surmised that there is a static charge associated with the filling in the cups and that further currents that develop once the vacuum of the cup is achieved with the addition of the clingy chocolate topper. So there are these ebbing and flowing currents, flinging off electrons willy-nilly, creating this negative charge. Then you look at the chocolate cup, which is made of a micro-crystalline matrix of cocoa butter which gives chocolate its yielding solidity. The solid parts are positively charged, but the semi-solids may vary in charge. The hull integrity is apparently at odds with the electromagnetic charge of the plasmatic filling. The polarity of the hull and the variable charge of the static flowing center enhances the micro-fractures in the shell, time being a major factor here.

Or maybe banging them around cracks them.

Whatever the cause, the Valomilk is delicate and prone to leaking from a variety of causes. The Valomilk is known to do poorly when frozen and at high altitudes. This presented some challenges when it came to transporting this box of candies back to Los Angeles.

The Plan

So I decided to sacrifice some of my flowing marshmallow babies in an effort to determine the best way to travel with Valomilks.

First, the experiment: Is freezing actually bad for Valomilks? Technically, no. It’s not the freezing that seems to do the damage, it’s the thawing. I put a reasonably pristine single cup in the freezer overnight at my brother’s and lo and behold, the next morning it was just fine. No leakage, no splitting of the cup. However, upon thawing (just putting it out at room temperature for several hours) it lost hull integrity and started seeping at one of the seams. The good news is that the taste and texture of the candy is unchanged.

I conducted this bit of candy cup cruelty because one of the ideas was to put the Valomilks in my suitcase that would be checked. Now, I’m not certain if the temperature in a USAirways jet hold gets below freezing, but on a cross-continental flight it’s certainly in there for a while. The other issue with checked luggage is I have no clue what they’re going to do with it. It could get dropped, smashed and of course the hold may not be pressurized as well as the passenger cabins. (I know they pressurize the cargo hold, but I’m not sure if it’s done to the same levels as the passenger compartments.)

The other plan for protecting the candy cups was enclosing them in an air-tight, container. I was already traveling with a plastic Tupperware-type container that held my candy for review (the on deck candies that I’d photographed). I could certainly put at least six of them in there, and plan to carry them in my computer bag that would be stowed in the overhead compartment. But I wanted more protection than simply a plastic box.

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The first thing that came to mind was a thermos. But how was I going to find a thermos with a neck big enough to put a candy bar into it? A soup thermos seemed to be the best solution, so off to Target we went searching for a small thermos to hold as many Valomilks as possible. I found a very nice one with a stainless steel compartment and a double seal. It was also pretty compact which meant that only three Valomilk packages would be flying in these tony accommodations.

Now, I have to admit that I had some trepidation about trying to take my hermetically sealed goodies on a plane because of the security concerns. I’ve had to explain what’s in my luggage before, but I wasn’t sure how I would explain why I was carrying a dozen candy bars in my carry-on and further, why three of them were in a stainless steel cylinder.

Of course all of my worries and anxiety was for nothing. No one at the Pittsburgh Airport cared much about my thermos ... they just wanted me to take off my shoes.

Tomorrow’s episode: Arrival in Los Angeles

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:22 pm     ValomilkFun StuffNews

Lifesaver Gummies

Lifesavers are known for being highly-flavored hard candies. If there were a candy model that Jelly Belly might have gone off of, it was probably Lifesavers - here is a hard candy, a little smaller than usual, but super-flavored and in a huge variety. Lifesavers got into the gummi game a while ago and I tried them when they first came out, but didn’t think much of them. I decided to revisit them, especially since they changed the flavors out on the five flavor tray.

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The 5 Flavor variety bears little resemblance to the hard candy rolls that have been around since 1934. The flavors in this roll are Cherry (an original flavor), Watermelon, Green Apple, Blackberry and Strawberry. No orange, no lemon, no pineapple. Drat! The candies are much larger than the hard version, they’re soft, if a little greasy on the outside to prevent sticking and are positioned upright on a clear plastic tray inside the wrapper.

The Cherry is just as you’d expect it, great woodsy cherry flavor with a good tart bite. I’m not fond of cherry flavored stuff, but I actually find Lifesavers rather acceptable, probably because the flavor doesn’t seem as artificial as many others. The Green Apple, the lighter of the two green flavors, is rather mild, not too sour but good overall flavor. Watermelon is a darker green and bears little resemblance to real watermelon flavor but has a nice tart bite to it without that overwhelming fragrance that many watermelon candies have. Strawberry was a bit disappointing. It was sweet and had only the slightest hint of a berry flavor to it. I’d tell you about the Blackberry, but this roll had none. I think they’re dark purple. I’ll hazard that it’s the same blackberry flavor in the Wild Berries below.

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The Wild Berry mix held more promising flavor for my tastes: Cherry Berry, Strawberry, Red Raspberry, Black Raspberry, Blackberry and White Grape.

The colors are a little bland, but I guess when you’re making a dozen different flavors you’re going to run out of primary and secondary colors. The White Grape was my favorite. Soft and delicate, it’s just a bit tart and has none of that artificial grape note that I only seem to like in Tootsie Pops and SweeTarts.  The Cherry Berry was remarkably similar to the Cherry in the 5 Flavor, but I’m not complaining. The Blackberry is the only one that seemed opaque, a lustrous dark purple it was tart and fragrant but hardly had a flavor different from the other berries. The Strawberry was the same as above. The rather lavender looking one was, I think, Black Raspberry. It was sweet and tart like the others and much more perfumed, as raspberries tend to be. The lightest red one was probably Red Raspberry and was similar to the Black Raspberry one, but perhaps a little tarter.

The good thing about this mix is that the flavors all blend together well, you can eat them one after another without the flavors fighting or combine them if you’re so inclined.

I like to eat gummies when my throat is bothering me, and I’m just getting over a cold (so if my tasting is a little off, it’s some sort of leftover malaise). They’re soothing and not too sour, so I don’t have to worry about burning my tongue like I often do on my overdoses of SweeTarts. I bought these in a Christmas Storybook on an after-holiday clearance for 98 cents ... so I certainly got my money’s worth for five packages of these.

While these flavors all have merit, I’d really like to have my favorite Lifesavers flavors - Lemon, Orange, Tangerine, Banana, Pina Colada and Pineapple. Actually, I’d be game if they wanted to try a Butter Rum gummi, too!

Name: Lifesaver Gummies - 5 Flavor and Wild Berries
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Lifesavers (Kraft)
Place Purchased: Ralph's
Price: $.20 (on clearance)
Size: 1.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 87
Categories: Gummi, United States, Kraft

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:39 am    

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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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