Candy Bars Archives - Page 28 of 29

October 21, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Lion – Crispy, Chewy, and Delicious

Candy Bars

This is another British bar that I purchased at the import store I mentioned in my Time Out review. This one’s called Lion, and it’s essentially a denser version of a Mr. Big bar (which, I suppose, will mean little to most Americans as neither bar is available in the States, as far as I’m aware). Basically, it’s a filled wafer, topped with a rather thick layer of chewy caramel, and coated with milk chocolate and bits of crispy puffed rice.

It’s good. The caramel is very chewy – it takes a while to fully chew, even after the other stuff is long gone. This gives the bar a satisfying richness. It helps that the caramel is surprisingly subtle, and not very sweet at all (by candy bar standards, at least). The whole bar is actually a bit less sweet than the usual American offering. The crispy rice and wafers provide a nice contrast to the soft caramel, making the bar texturally interesting. The wafer adds some sweetness to the bar, as well as the usual mildly wheaty/wafery taste (What’s that you say? “Wafery” isn’t a word? Sure it is! Don’t look it up, though. Just take my word for it).

I think I might prefer Lion to Mr. Big, as it seems to have a bit more substance, though I’d have to try a Mr. Big again to be sure. It’s definitely a shame that this isn’t available in North America outside of specialty stores.

Manufactured by: Nestle
Calories (55 g bar): 277

October 20, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Big Turk – An Odd Mixture of Gummy Candy and Chocolate

Candy Bars

This has always been a candy that, alongside stuff like Eat More and Bridge Mixture, I can’t say I fully understand. It’s one of those things you never actually see anyone eat, but always seems to be in there with the rest of the candy bars at the store. So who’s buying these? Older people, I guess? The packaging proudly proclaims that it’s low in fat (with “60% less fat than the average chocolate bar”) so I suppose that it might appeal to dieters or people who are trying to cut down.

This is actually only the second time in my life that I’ve eaten a Big Turk; it definitely isn’t one of the first bars you go for when you’re a kid, but once you realize that you’ve tried everything else at the store, you start wanting to try something new – even if it looks suspiciously unappealing. Well, the kid version of me took a couple of bites, deemed this completely inedible and never looked back.

This definitely isn’t quite as bad as I remember it being – I think part of the reason I hated it so much as a kid was the shock of finding gummy candy inside of a chocolate bar, which still seems incongruous to me, but which completely horrified me when I took my first bite, completely unprepared for what lay within (the wrapper in no way indicates that’s it’s gummy candy inside there, and if you’re a kid and you have no idea what Turkish Delight is, you’re in for quite a surprise). This time around, knowing what it was, I didn’t find it to be offensively bad, but I don’t think I’ll be running out to buy another one anytime soon.

In case it’s not clear from the picture, the Big Turk consists solely of a piece of gummy candy coated in milk chocolate. The gummy is extremely chewy, and is of the sticks-to-your-teeth variety. I’m not sure what the flavour is supposed to be; there’s no indication on the packaging, and the ingredients list yields no clues other than the presence of citric acid. There is a mild tartness to it, but other than that it just has a generic fruity/gummy flavour. The milk chocolate is fine, but not necessarily the best accompaniment to the fruity candy.

I think this is essentially just a case of two good things that shouldn’t go together. I like chocolate, and I like gummy candy, but cram the two together and I’m not so sure you have a winner.

Manufactured by: Nestle
Calories (60 g bar): 230

October 19, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Time Out – Crispy Wafers and Creamy Milk Chocolate

Candy Bars

I recently went to a candy store that had a pretty decent selection of imported candy bars from the U.K., so along with this review you can expect a few more British candy reviews coming up. Time Out is a bar that I distinctly recall being introduced in Canada in the early ‘90s. I remember it well because they had a widespread advertising blitz, something which is a bit unusual for a new candy bar. I liked it, and ate it on a fairly regular basis until it disappeared without a trace a couple of years later. I just sort of assumed it had been discontinued altogether, but I guess it sold well enough in Britain to keep it on the market.

Time Out essentially consists of rippled chocolate (sort of like what you’ll find in a Flake bar) sandwiched between two wafers and coated in milk chocolate. Now, I might be remembering this wrong, but I seem to recall that the Canadian version of this bar featured three wafers rather than two, and creamier chocolate rather than the Flake-like stuff found here. I could be way off on that, though. Either way, both bars (the real one, and the one that could very well be a product of my imagination) are fairly similar, and both are quite good.

The wafers in this bar are extremely crispy, and taste mildly of wheat, which helps add some flavour other than the chocolate, without being overpowering – the creamy milk chocolate is still definitely the main attraction here. The chocolate is the standard British Cadbury milk chocolate, which definitely has its own distinctive taste. That’s about it. It’s just wafers and chocolate, but sometimes it’s the simplest thing that’s the most delicious.

Manufactured by: Cadbury
Calories (2 bars, 34 g): 180

October 17, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Reese Peanut Butter Cups – A Delicious Combo of PB and Chocolate

Candy Bars

Is there a better combination out there than peanut butter and chocolate? There’s something about the creamy sweetness of milk chocolate combined with the nutty richness of peanut butter that make them perfect bedfellows. So it’s a bit odd to note that if you want that particular combination, the Reese line of products are pretty much the only ones around to scratch that itch. Yeah, there are a few other candy bars that feature chocolate and peanut butter – mostly modifications of existing products, such as Twix PB – but they’re few and far between.

The first thing I noticed upon opening the wrapper was a pleasant, nutty aroma. I’m not sure if I’ve ever noticed that before; I guess when you’re eating something with the intention of reviewing it you pay more attention to those types of things. Inside the wrapper are three cups, each sitting in its own paper… cup? What do you call those things? Wrappers? Paper thingy? Taking the peanut butter cup out of the paper thingy, and inevitably leaving a little chocolate residue at the bottom of the paper, it’s clear pretty much instantly that this chocolate is softer than average, and almost fudgy in consistency.

As for the peanut butter, I think everyone is familiar with the unique consistency of Reese’s peanut butter. It’s not very creamy at all; it’s dry and a bit crumbly. It has a nice peanutty flavour, and contains an ever-so-slight amount of saltiness that helps balance out the overall sweetness of the cup.

Because of the really specific taste of the peanut butter, it actually took me a while to warm up to Reese’s products. I still wish there was a candy out there with real, creamy peanut butter (and actually, there was – it was called PB Max and it was glorious, but I’ll save that rant for another post). But for what it is, Reese Peanut Butter cups are pretty damn good.

Manufactured by: Hershey
Calories (3 cups, 51 g): 280

October 16, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Twix – The Only Candy with the Cookie Crunch

Candy Bars

Twix is (as George Costanza describes it) “the only candy with the cookie crunch.” I recall wondering, when that episode first aired, if this was really the case – is Twix the only candy bar with a cookie in it? And as far as I can tell, it’s true, at least as far as candy bars manufactured by the big guys go (ie. Hershey, Nestle and Mars). That pretty much puts Twix in a league of its own; if you’ve got a craving for a bar with cookie in it, Twix is the only game in town.

(And I wonder: is it even possible to watch that episode of Seinfeld without having a massive craving for a Twix bar? I remember watching that episode and then immediately going out and buying a Twix the next day.)

As far as candy bars go, Twix is pretty simple: it’s a plain vanilla cookie, topped with soft caramel and enrobed in milk chocolate. It’s basically equal parts cookie and caramel, with caramel that is nicely chewy, and neither too soft nor too dense. The cookie itself is sweet (perhaps too sweet – more on that in a bit) and crumbly, kind of like a crunchier shortbread. It does a good job of complementing the caramel. The chocolate coating rounds things out.

My only real complaint about Twix is that the whole thing is a bit too sweet. I don’t know how many people this happens to, but when I eat something that’s super sweet I get a mild pain in my forehead. Twix kind of gives me that. I think both the cookie and the caramel could stand to be toned down a bit as far as sweetness goes, though mostly the caramel – it’s easily one of the sweeter caramels you’ll find in any candy bar.

Manufactured by: Mars
Calories (2 bars, 57 g): 290