candy bar Archives - Page 9 of 27

December 30, 2020January 10, 2021 Michael

Clark Bar – Crunchy, Chewy, and Odd

Candy Bars

I think at this point I’ve reviewed every candy bar in the genre of crispy, sugary, and peanut-buttery. There’s 5th Avenue, Butterfinger, Crispy Crunch, Zagnut, and now Clark Bar. Is that it? Am I done? I think I’m done.

Until now, they had all been mostly interchangeable (outside of Zagnut’s delightful substitution of toasted coconut for chocolate), but Clark Bar is actually a bit different. Is it different in a good way? I don’t think so, but maybe you’ll disagree.

It’s weird. It starts out incredibly crunchy — it’s oddly difficult to even bite into — but then it becomes chewy and you’re thinking, wait, is this stale? But no, that’s just part of it. Once you’ve munched out the crunchiness, you’re left with a gummy, taffy-like sugary blob in your mouth that you have to chew on for quite a while.

It’s interesting, I guess, and the bar has a deeply caramelized flavour that helps to round out its intense sweetness. But it’s also lacking in peanutty flavour, which makes it taste a bit one-note sweet.

After a while the in-your-face sugariness and the off-putting chewy/crunchy contrast becomes exhausting. It’s easily my least favourite of the aforementioned candy bars.

Manufactured by: Boyer
Nutritional info (1 bar, 57 grams): 250 calories, 6 grams of fat (3.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 0 mg of cholesterol, 10 mg of sodium, 47 grams of carbohydrates, <1 grams of fibre, 37 grams of sugar, 1 gram of protein.
Ingredients: Milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate liquor, milk powder, butter oil, soy lecithin, vanilla extract), corn syrup, sugar, peanuts, molasses, invert sugar, salt, coconut oil, vanilla extract, soy lecithin.

December 27, 2020January 10, 2021 Michael

Snickers Peanut Brownie Squares – Tasty, But Not Enough Brownie Flavour

Candy Bars

I can’t think of a single candy bar that wouldn’t be improved by cramming a brownie into it. Think about it: picture a candy bar. Any candy bar. Now picture brownie inside of it. It’s better, isn’t it?

So obviously the Peanut Brownie version of Snickers (which features peanutty brownies covered in a layer of soft caramel and coated in milk chocolate) is good. How could it not be?

The biggest problem here is that the “brownie” isn’t particularly brownie-like. It basically has the taste and texture of a cocoa-tinged version of the usual Snickers nougat. Looking at the ingredients reveals a lack of flour or butter or any brownie ingredients outside of cocoa (aside from egg whites, which are already present in the nougat you’ll find in a regular Snickers).

Still, it’s tasty; it’s essentially a normal Snickers bar, but with more cocoa flavour. Nothing wrong with that — though like with the original, it’s a bit sweeter than it needs to be.

Manufactured by: Mars
Nutritional info (2 squares, 34 grams): 180 calories, 8 grams of fat (4 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 5 mg of cholesterol, 85 mg of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 1 grams of fibre, 18 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, skim milk, lactose, milkfat, soy lecithin), corn syrup, sugar, peanuts, chocolate, milkfat, semisweet chocolate (sugar, chocolate processed with alkali, chocolate, cocoa butter, milkfat, soy lecithin, natural flavor), less than 2% – cocoa powder processed with alkali, invert sugar, palm oil, skim milk, lactose, salt, egg whites, artificial flavor.

December 23, 2020January 10, 2021 Michael

M&M’s Milk Chocolate Bar with Minis & Peanuts – Stop Being Stingy with the Peanuts

Candy Bars, Chocolate

I’ve already reviewed the M&M’s Milk Chocolate Bar with Minis & Crisp Rice, which I thought was decent enough, but lacking in crispiness. Well this is basically the same thing, but instead of not having enough crispy rice, it doesn’t have enough peanuts.

It’s a bit better than that one, I guess. If you get a square with both M&M’s and peanuts, it’s pretty tasty. But the amount of M&M’s and peanuts is dispiritingly anemic — particularly the peanuts.

I guess they’re trying to cut costs? But just charge a bit more and give me more peanuts. Look at the photo of the cross-section of the bar. No rational person could possibly believe that there are enough nuts there. Look at it. Look at it and weep.

Still, it’s not bad. The chocolate is middling, but tasty enough, and when the bar delivers on what it promises, it’s good. The slight crunch from the peanuts and the M&M’s works very well with the creamy chocolate. But then you get a square that’s just plain, mediocre chocolate, and why? Why is this happening? As if 2020 hasn’t been bad enough, now I have to deal with this? Come on.

Manufactured by: Mars
Nutritional info (1/3 bar, 37 grams): 200 calories, 12 grams of fat (7 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 10 mg of cholesterol, 25 mg of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fibre, 20 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Milk chocolate (sugar, milk ingredients, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, lactose, soy lecithin, polyglycerol polyricinoleate, artificial flavour), M&M’s® Minis milk chocolate candies [milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa mass, milk ingredients, cocoa butter, lactose, soy lecithin, salt, artificial flavour, flavour), sugar, colour (with tartrazine), corn syrup, tapioca dextrin, cornstarch, carnauba wax, modified coconut oil and/or modified palm oil (medium chain triglycerides)], peanuts (peanuts, palm oil).

December 20, 2020January 10, 2021 Michael

Eat-More – It Tastes Better than it Looks

Candy Bars

Eat-More is, on a surface level at least, one of the more unappealing candy bars you can find. Between the frumpy retro packaging and the appearance of the bar itself (I’m too classy to say that it looks like nutty poop, but I think we all have eyeballs and can see what it clearly looks like), the makers of Eat-More seem to have no interest in making you want to eat their candy bar.

The wrapper calls it a “dark toffee peanut chew.” I’ve always been under the impression that it had zero chocolate, though a quick perusal of the ingredients reveals unsweetened chocolate right near the top. I guess they melt it right into the toffee, and now that I know that, yeah, I can kind of taste it in the background.

I haven’t had an Eat-More in years, and I actually think it’s slightly better than I remembered. It’s chewy, peanutty, and satisfying. The sweetness level is surprisingly restrained, with a slightly bitter flavour that has way more going on than the one-note sugariness of so many candy bars. There’s no molasses in the ingredients, but it definitely has that flavour, with a nice roastiness from the peanuts and a subtle chocolately kick.

As for the texture, it’s chewy but soft; it definitely doesn’t have the intense sticks-to-your-teeth level of chewiness of something like a Tootsie Roll. It’s quite different from pretty much any other candy bar, but I guess that’s part of the appeal.

Manufactured by: Hershey
Nutritional info (1 bar, 52 grams): 240 calories, 14 grams of fat (5 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg cholesterol, 65 mg sodium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, 18 grams of sugar, 2 grams of fibre, 5 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Peanuts, corn syrup, sugar, unsweetened chocolate, modified palm kernel oil, high fructose corn syrup, modified palm oil and modified vegetable oil (shea, sunflower and/or safflower), modified milk ingredients, dextrose, high maltose corn syrup*, corn starch, salt, sorbitol, mono and diglycerides, soy lecithin, artificial flavour, invertase*, sulphites, disodium phosphate*, TBHQ*, citric acid, colour. *may not always be present.

December 16, 2020January 10, 2021 Michael

Kit Kat Cookie Crumble – Tasty, but a Downgrade from the Original

Candy Bars

The problem with a lot of these Kit Kat varieties is that the original Kit Kat is basically perfect, so there’s really nowhere to go but down. The original still exists and it’s so damn good, which means it’s hard not to wonder what the point is of so many of the new flavours that they keep churning out.

This is less of an issue with out-there varieties like Birthday Cake or Apple Pie, which bring enough of their own unique personality to justify their existence. But with something like Cookie Crumble — which is tasty, no doubt about it — it kinda just made me crave a standard Kit Kat.

Still, there’s nothing wrong with it. Featuring chocolate wafers and bits of cookie crumbs, it has a cocoa-infused chocolate cookie flavour that’s fairly satisfying. The hint of bitterness you get from the cocoa goes nicely with the other flavours in the bar, and while the whole thing is a bit too sweet, it’s pretty tasty. But it’s not hugely different from a standard Kit Kat, and everything about it that is different is inferior.

Manufactured by: Nestle
Nutritional info (4 pieces, 40 grams): 200 calories, 10 grams of fat (6 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg cholesterol, 35 mg of sodium, 25 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fibre, 20 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugars (sugar, glucose syrup), milk ingredients, wheat flour, cocoa butter, unsweetened chocolate, modified palm oil, palm, palm kernel and vegetable oils, cocoa powder, sunflower lecithin, baking soda, salt, sodium carbonate, natural flavour, protease, xylanase, tocopherol, citric acid.