Candyrageous - Page 33 of 35 - A Blog about Candy

October 31, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Skittles Chocolatey Eruption! – Do Not Eat this Under any Circumstances

Candy Bars

My initial assumption, upon seeing these in the store, was that these were going to be real chocolate, kind of like Smarties or M&Ms. Nope. They’re actually pretty similar to regular Skittles, only with chocolatey flavours rather than fruity ones. Real chocolate certainly would have been preferable, but then pretty much anything would be preferable to eating these, so that’s not saying much.

The first thing I noticed was that these things smell bad. And I don’t just mean that they smell slightly unpleasant, I mean that the bag emanates a bitter, garbage-like aroma that actually stings your nose if you take too deep of a whiff. They sort of smell how I imagine chocolate would smell if it were allowed to rot in a compost heap.

Skittles Chocolatey Eruption! is broken down into five flavours. From left to right in the photo above, they are:

Brownie: Easily the worst of the bunch. I’m pretty sure that this flavour is the culprit for the garbage smell coming from the bag. The first thing that hits you when you eat one of these is an overwhelming bitterness. It gets a bit better as you chew it, but not by much. Once you eat a few of these you realize that it does kind of have a brownie-like taste, albeit the worst brownie you’ve ever eaten.

Chocolate: This flavour actually isn’t so bad (especially after eating the brownie ones). It basically tastes like a Tootsie Roll with a candy shell.

Vanilla: This is probably the best of the five flavours, though using the word “best” in this context is sort of like trying to determine the least evil serial killer. It kind of tastes like a really artificial vanilla cake frosting, sort of like Betty Crocker or something along those lines. It’s not bad. If I could buy a whole package of just this flavour I might be tempted to do so.

S’mores: Not bad, but not good either. It doesn’t taste much like a s’more – it has a vaguely marshmallow-like flavour, but mostly it’s just sweet, and it has the same sort of funky flavour that all of these have.

Caramel: Again, this doesn’t taste much at all like its namesake. It’s bitter (though it’s nothing compared to the egregiously bad brownie flavour). It’s just unpleasant, really. It also has a pretty bad aftertaste.

In case it’s not clear by now, I really did not care for these. I’m not sure how something this bad makes it to the market, what with all the rigorous testing I’m sure a place like Mars does, but… well, here they are. Blech.

Update: It’s been a few hours since I ate these, and I’m finding that the taste and smell of them – the brownie flavour in particular – are periodically popping into my mind, and each time they do it turns my stomach a little bit. I’m like a veteran just returned from ‘Nam. I can’t take it, man.

I was going to give these one out of four, but I think I’m going to downgrade that to half-a-chip out of four (only because the vanilla and chocolate flavours weren’t completely objectionable, otherwise I’d give it a rating of zero for sure).

Manufactured by: Mars
Calories (56 g bag): 230

October 30, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Kit Kat Chunky – Might Even Be Better than the Original

Candy Bars

Generally speaking, I haven’t been the biggest fan of the “Chunky” line of candies – they’re fine, but not really a big improvement over the original bars, and the addition of sickly-sweet caramel or peanut butter in some of them tends to feel unnecessary. Kit Kat Chunky is, however, an exception. A sweet, sweet exception.

A standard Kit Kat bar comes with four separate chocolate covered wafers; the “Chunky” variant (known as Big Kat in the States) is essentially an oversized version of one of those bars. There are a few differences: the chocolate to wafer ratio seems to be a bit higher here than in a standard Kit Kat. Also, I think the wafer is slightly crunchier and a bit more substantial.

What’s good about this is that it strikes a good balance between the chocolate and the wafer; the wafer adds a lot of flavour, but not so much that it’s overpowering. The milk chocolate is fairly sweet, but it never crosses the line into “too sweet” territory. I actually think I prefer this to the original Kit Kat, but I’d have to taste them side-by-side to give a definitive answer on that.

Manufactured by: Nestle
Calories (50 g bar): 260

October 29, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Double Decker – A Seriously Delicious British Candy Bar

Candy Bars

This is yet another British bar from the import store. This one actually makes me wish I lived in Britain; I’m not sure I’ve ever had this bar before, but I know I’ll be eating it again – even if it means a trek out to the import store and paying a bit more than normal (imported candy bars tend to go for two or even three bucks).

Double Decker consists of two layers: the first being milk chocolate nestled with bits of crisped rice, and the second being “chewy nougatine” (no, I haven’t heard of nougatine either – perhaps it’s a British thing?). The nougatine actually reminded me more of marshmallow than nougat – it had that sort of soft, spongy texture marshmallow tends to have, and it tasted a little bit richer than the usual nougat, with an almost subtly roasted marshmallow type of flavour.

As for the bottom layer, it’s kind of like a Crunch bar, only with crunchier, more substantial pieces of crisped rice. The crunchy rice works very well here, doing a great job of complimenting the chewiness of the nougatine. Also, the amount of chocolate in the bottom layer gives this bar a much chocolatier flavour than the standard candy bar.

Double Decker kind of tastes like the love child between a Nestle Crunch bar and a Mars bar (a.k.a. Milky Way, for all you Americans). It’s pretty great. Cadbury definitely needs to bring this one to North America, and fast.

Manufactured by: Cadbury
Calories (60 g bar): 275

October 28, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Coffee Crisp – A Tasty, if Somewhat Boring Candy Bar

Candy Bars

Coffee Crisp is another one of those bars that, though not particularly exciting, certainly has its place. Though I should mention that its motto (“makes a nice light snack”) is a tad misleading – it’s about the same as any other candy bar as far as its fat content and calorie count goes. Not that I particularly care – my philosophy is that generally, if you want something low in fat/calories, you probably shouldn’t be eating candy in the first place. But if you’re buying this because you think it’s somehow less fattening than other candy bars, you are out of luck.

Speaking of misleading, the name Coffee Crisp is probably also a bit of a misnomer. Not that this doesn’t taste of coffee at all, but the coffee taste here is quite subtle. The “crisp” part of the title, however, is right on the money – the bar is filled to the brim with crispy wafers.

Basically, Coffee Crisp consists of several layers of wafer, with a filling that is sweet and slightly crumbly. The whole thing is coated in a somewhat negligible coating of milk chocolate. The aforementioned coffee taste is really more of an aftertaste – the first thing that hits you when you’re eating this bar is the sweetness; the coffee taste takes a while to kick in.

So yes, this is a good bar – even if it doesn’t taste much like coffee.

Manufactured by: Nestle
Calories (50 g bar): 260

October 27, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Cadbury Flake – Plain Chocolate in an Interesting Shape

Candy Bars

Flake is one of those candy bars where the title really says it all – it is extremely flaky. It’s basically just plain milk chocolate, molded in such a way that it becomes very flaky and delicate. It’s not a particularly attractive bar, resembling an old tree, or an extremely old piece of chocolate, if chocolate were able to grow old and become wrinkly.

Other than the very different presentation, it’s essentially just Cadbury milk chocolate, though it does seem a bit sweeter than usual. It’s also not quite as creamy as you might expect, with a slightly grainy consistency, however that might just be because the bar I had was a bit on the stale side (the packaging indicated that it was due to expire in a couple of months).

The real highlight of Flake is its signature shape — it has an appealing crumbliness in your mouth, which makes it a bit more interesting to eat than a standard piece of chocolate. It’s kind of like Aero or Mirage in that sense, so it’s a bit more exciting than your usual bar of plain milk chocolate (not that plain milk chocolate isn’t exciting, but sometimes you want something a bit different).

Manufactured by: Cadbury
Calories (32 g bar): 170