Candyrageous - Page 22 of 35 - A Blog about Candy

June 14, 2020January 10, 2021 Michael

Ritter Sport: Butter Biscuit and Chocolate Creme – Tasty Cookie, Mediocre Chocolate

Chocolate

I recently reviewed the coconut variety of Ritter Sport, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I was under the impression that Ritter Sport had gone downhill, but eating that made me question myself. Maybe I’m wrong about Ritter Sport, and by extension, my entire life??

I figured I should probably try a different flavour to figure out what’s what.

Thankfully, it looks like my existential panic can stop (for now), because the Butter Biscuit and Chocolate Creme variety was okay at best.

The main issue is the chocolate itself. I noted in the coconut review that the chocolate flavour was a bit too mild, and that issue is even worse here. The flavour is all generic sweetness. It’s not outright unpleasant, but it’s nothing anyone is going to get too excited about.

The cookie is nice. It’s got a good amount of crunch and a decent buttery flavour. But it doesn’t go all the way to the edges of the bar. Which means that while the middle pieces — which feature cookie all the way through — have a good balance of creamy and crunchy, the edge pieces are a bit overwhelmed by the middling chocolate.

Manufactured by: Alfred Ritter GmbH & Co. KG
Nutritional info (6 pieces, 38 grams): 210 calories, 13 grams of fat (8 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg cholesterol, 50 mg of sodium, 22 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fibre, 18 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: sugar, palm fat, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, wheat flour, lactose, whole milk powder (6%), skim milk powder, cream powder, butter fat, butter (1%), soy lecithin, wheat starch, glucose-fructose, salt, whey powder.

June 7, 2020January 10, 2021 Michael

Kit Kat Hazelnut Crunch – A Sweet Combo of Chocolate and Hazelnut

Candy Bars

Like Kit Kat Senses, Kit Kat Hazelnut Crunch kind of feels like Nestle’s attempt to do their own version of a Ferrero product. This one isn’t quite as blatant, but with its combo of milk chocolate, hazelnut pieces, and crispy wafers, it’s hard not to think of a Ferrero Rocher.

But then there’s no creamy filling, so maybe I’m just seeing connections where there are none. Ferrero certainly can’t lay claim to the chocolate/hazelnut combo.

Kit Kat Hazelnut Crunch is tasty enough, but if I had the choice between this and a Ferrero Rocher, I’d pick the latter ten times out of ten. It’s no comparison.

The main issue is the intense level of sweetness, which kinda bulldozes all of the bar’s other flavours. The taste of the chocolate and hazelnut are certainly there, but they’re in the background.

A standard Kit Kat is balanced out somewhat by the wheatiness of the wafers, but the chocolate version here isn’t quite able to perform that function.

Still, the snappy chocolate has a nice creamy texture, and the hazelnut bits add a decent amount of crunch. Between that and the crispy wafers, the texture here is quite satisfying. And it’s nearly impossible to go wrong with chocolate and hazelnut; making a candy bar with that combo is almost like cheating. You’d have to work pretty hard to mess it up.

Manufactured by: Nestle
Nutritional info (4 fingers, 40 grams): 210 calories, 12 grams of fat (6 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg cholesterol, 30 mg sodium, 23 grams of carbohydrates, 19 grams of sugar, 1 gram of fibre.
Ingredients: Sugar, milk ingredients, cocoa butter, wheat flour, unsweetened chocolate, hazelnuts, modified palm oil, palm, palm kernel and vegetable oils, cocoa powder, sunflower lecithin, natural favour, baking soda, protease, xylanase, tocopherol, citric acid.

May 31, 2020January 10, 2021 Michael

Reese’s Stuffed with Crunchy Cookie – A Delicious Twist on a Classic

Candy Bars

The last time I tried a Reese product stuffed with something, it was the underwhelming Reese Outrageous, so I’ll admit that I didn’t have particularly high hopes for this one. I love Reese Peanut Butter Cups; would this be ruining a good thing? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it?

Well, it ain’t broke, but apparently it did need to be fixed, because this was delicious. Maybe even better than the original?

It’s a pretty basic concept: it’s the standard Reese Peanut Butter Cup, but filled with crunchy cookie bits (think Oreo, but without the creme).

It’s fantastic. It’s very, very sweet, but it totally works — the slight salty hit from the peanut butter does a decent job of balancing out the sweetness, and the chocolate and peanut butter combo is predictably delicious.

The cookies are great. I figured they might be a bit sogged up from the peanut butter, but they’re aggressively crunchy and add a great amount of texture. They also have a pronounced cocoa flavour which works perfectly with the peanut butter cup.

The chocolate seems a bit firmer than the fudgier chocolate that you usually find in a Reese Peanut Butter Cup, and it’s extremely sweet, but it’s tasty. The whole thing is really tasty. If you like peanut butter cups, this needs to be in your life.

Manufactured by: Hershey
Nutritional info (1 package, two cups): 200 calories, 11 g of fat (4.5 g of saturated fat, 0 g of trans fat), 5 mg of cholesterol, 125 mg of sodium, 24 g of carbohydrates, 1 g of fibre, 21 g of sugar, 4 g of protein.
Ingredients: milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, nofat milk, milk fat, lactose, lecithin (soy), PGPR), peanuts, sugar, dextrose, cornstarch, contains 2% or less of: salt, cocoa processed with alkali, vegetable oil (canola oil, palm oil and/or palm kernel oil), modified cornstarch, high fructose corn syrup, lecithin (soy), artificial flavor, TBHQ and citric acid to maintain freshness.

May 24, 2020January 10, 2021 Michael

Les Reclettes de L’Atalier: Raisins, Almonds & Hazelnuts – Creamy, Crunchy, and Chewy

Candy Bars, Chocolate

You know that a company is trying very hard to make their candy seem gourmet when they pull out the French. Les Reclettes de L’Atalier; oh la la. Well that must be fancy.

Aside from the pretentious name, this is basically a Cadbury Fruit & Nut bar, but with the addition of hazelnuts.

It’s good (sorry — I mean c’est bon). If you like Fruit & Nut, it’s a safe bet you’ll like this; the flavour of the chocolate is actually quite similar, and the addition of hazelnuts is a welcome one.

I mean, the chewy/crunchy/creamy combo is always going to be great, and the quality of the chocolate is pretty decent. It’s sweeter than it needs to be (the addition of more sweetness thanks to the raisins doesn’t help), but the nicely toasted nuts do a decent job of balancing it out. It’s not going to blow anyone’s mind, but if you’re looking for a decent quality piece of chocolate, you could certainly do worse.

Manufactured by: Nestle
Nutritional info (3 segments, 42 grams): 230 calories, 13 grams of fat (7 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 10 mg of cholesterol, 25 mg of sodium, 23 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fibre, 21 grams of sugar, 4 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugar, milk ingredients, cocoa butter, unsweetened chocolate, raisins, almonds, hazelnuts, sunflower lecithin, vegetable oil, natural vanilla flavour.

May 18, 2020January 10, 2021 Michael

Ritter Sport: Coconut – A Tasty Combo of Coconut and Chocolate

Candy Bars, Chocolate

I was under the impression that Ritter Sport had gone downhill; the last couple I’ve had have been fairly mediocre, so I had mostly written them off. But this one was quite tasty! So there’s my entire world-view, shaken to its very core.

I will admit that I’m a sucker for the chocolate/coconut combo; Bounty would easily be in my top five favourite candy bars. So maybe I’m just going easy on this one because the combination is so inherently delightful.

Either way, I thoroughly enjoyed this. It’s basically like Bounty, but with a higher chocolate to coconut ratio. Oddly, the chocolate flavour isn’t quite as pronounced as you’d think it would be; it has a bit of a generic sweetness, and I wish it packed a more chocolatey punch.

That’s pretty much my only real complaint here. Otherwise, the chocolate is nice and creamy, and there’s a good balance of coconut flavour along with a mild crispiness from the flakes. I don’t know that I’d pick this over a Bounty, but then the increased amount of chocolate makes it feel fairly distinct.

Manufactured by: Alfred Ritter GmbH & Co. KG
Nutritional info (6 pieces, 38 grams): 220 calories, 15 grams of fat (9 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg cholesterol, 25 mg of sodium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fibre, 19 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugar, palm fat, cocoa butter, grated coconut (9%), whole milk powder, cocoa mass, skim milk powder, lactose, butter fat, coconut milk (1%), glucose syrup, soy lecithin, pea protein, concentrated lemon juice.