candy shell Archives - Candyrageous

August 10, 2021August 10, 2021 Michael

Pretzel M&M’s – A Delicious Combo of Chocolate and Pretzels

Candy Bars

I’ve mentioned on this blog a few times that Peanut M&M’s are the king of M&M’s; this remains true, and I suspect will always remain true. There’s just something about them that can’t be beat. But Pretzel M&M’s are pretty damn close.

Chocolate-covered pretzels are delicious. M&M’s are delicious. Combine the two, and yeah, the result is delicious. What did you think was going to happen?

The generously-sized pretzel ball in the middle of each M&M does a great job of balancing out the sweetness from the candy shell and the milk chocolate, and of course, the sweet-and-salty mix that you’re expecting from a chocolate-covered pretzel is here, and it’s delightful. It helps that the balance between chocolate and pretzel is pretty much perfect; neither overwhelms the other, and they both work so well together.

The texture is great, too; the combo of the crispy shell, the crunchy pretzel, and the creamy chocolate is thoroughly satisfying. Peanut M&M’s may be the superior M&M, but they’re neck and neck.

Manufactured by: Mars
Nutritional info (1/4 cup, 35 grams): 160 calories, 5 grams of fat (3 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 0 mg of cholesterol, 100 mg of sodium, 26 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fibre, 18 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa mass, milk ingredients, cocoa butter, lactose, soy lecithin, salt, artificial flavour, flavour), sugar, pretzel (enriched wheat flour, modified sago starch, salt, soybean oil, corn syrup, barley malt extract, baking soda, ammonium bicarbonate, yeast), cornstarch, corn syrup, tapioca, dextrin, colour (with tartrazine), salt, carnauba wax, modified coconut oil and / or modified palm oil (medium chain triglycerides), gum acacia.

June 13, 2021 Michael

Caramel M&M’s – Chewy, Caramely Goodness

Candy Bars

Caramel M&M’s aren’t exactly new (they were introduced in 2017), but considering how much of a no-brainer the chocolate/caramel combo is, it’s surprising that it took that long.

It’s pretty much exactly what you want it to be. The intense sweetness is a bit of a shock at first (the best M&M’s flavours, like peanut and pretzel, work as well as they do because they balance out the sweetness of the chocolate and the candy shell), but it grows on you. The caramel has a satisfying butterscotch-infused flavour that works quite well with the sweet chocolate.

I wish the caramel were a bit creamier, however — it’s not exactly at Reisen levels of intense chewiness, but it does stick to your teeth a bit. It kinda reminded me of what you’ll find in a Rolo. It generally works, but the best M&M’s varieties have an addictiveness where you just wanna pop one after the other, and these ones never quite get there.

Manufactured by: Mars
Nutritional info (1/4 cup, 42 grams): 200 calories, 8 grams of fat (5 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg of cholesterol, 65 mg of sodium, 30 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fibre, 27 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Milk chocolate (sugar, milk ingredients, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, lactose, soy lecithin, artificial flavours, salt), sugar, corn syrup, milk ingredients, hydrogenated palm kernel oil, cornstarch, lactose, tapioca dextrin, salt, mono and diglycerides, colours (with tartrazine) carnauba wax, cocoa mass, artificial flavour, modified coconut oil and/or modified palm oil (medium chain triglycerides), gum acacia.

April 21, 2021 Michael

M&M’s Dark Sweet Chocolate Bar with Minis – Surprisingly Addictive

Candy Bars, Chocolate

I was shocked at how much I enjoyed M&M’s Dark Sweet Chocolate Bar with Minis. I didn’t particularly care for M&M’s Milk Chocolate Bar with Minis & Peanuts, or M&M’s Milk Chocolate Bar with Minis & Crisp Rice (those names just roll off the tongue, don’t they?), and I sort of figured this would be more of the same.

Well, I guess I had slightly higher expectations for this one than the others — my main issue with the other two was the middling, overly sweet milk chocolate, so I hoped the dark chocolate here would be an upgrade.

It was. Though the packaging, oddly enough, doesn’t actually call it dark chocolate — it’s “dark sweet chocolate.” This might be because it contains milk ingredients, which would mean that it’s technically not dark chocolate? I’m not sure. Whatever it is, it’s pretty tasty. It’s quite sweet, but it has a nice robust chocolatey flavour that balances out the sweetness. It actually tastes a lot closer to the chocolate you’ll find in an M&M than the two milk chocolate bars that I tried.

The M&M’s Minis do a decent job of adding some crispiness to the creamy chocolate. They’re not super generous, but unlike the other two versions, I didn’t mind.

There’s nothing about this that’s particularly mind-blowing, but the more I ate it, the more it grew on me. There’s something about standard M&M’s that’s oddly addictive; once you start eating them, it’s hard to stop. Unlike the milk chocolate bars, this one does a decent job of recapturing that.

Manufactured by: Mars
Nutritional info (1/3 bar, 38 grams): 200 calories, 12 grams of fat (7 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg of cholesterol, 15 mg of sodium, 23 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fibre, 20 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Dark sweet chocolate (sugar, cocoa mass, milk ingredients, cocoa butter, lactose, soy lecithin, polyglycerol polyricinoleate, artificial flavour, 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)].

April 14, 2021 Michael

Reese’s Pieces Peanut – A Big Downgrade from the Original

Candy Bars

Cramming a peanut into Reese’s Pieces seems like it should be a match made in heaven — Reese’s Pieces are one of my favourite candies, and Peanut M&M’s are objectively the best M&M’s. So combining the two must be the greatest thing ever, right?

You’d think.

In practice, these things just aren’t that great. It’s weird; adding a peanut seems like it could only enhance an already delicious candy, but it throws off the balance. It muddles that distinctive Reese’s Pieces flavour. It does add a nice roasted nuttiness, but it turns out Reese’s Pieces doesn’t need that. It was already perfect on its own; the presence of a whole nut waters down what was already great about it.

It doesn’t help that the candy shell is slightly thicker than a standard Reese’s Piece (what, isn’t a single one of these a Reese’s Piece? Or does this always have to be plural?), which gives it an unpleasantly assertive crunchiness that’s a bit over-the-top. It’s not a big deal, but again, the balance is thrown off. The addictive, “just one more piece” quality of the original is diminished.

Manufactured by: Hershey
Nutritional info (13 pieces, 39 grams): 200 calories, 11 grams of fat (6 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 10 mg of cholesterol, 30 mg of sodium, 22 grams of carbohydrates, 2 grams of fibre, 18 grams of sugar, 5 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugars (sugar, corn syrup solids, dextrose, corn syrup), peanuts, partially defatted peanuts, hydrogenated palm kernel oil, palm kernel oil and hydrogenated soybean oil, confectioners glaze, corn starch, modified corn starch, salt, lecithin (soy), carnauba wax, artificial flavour, titanium dioxide, tartrazine, sunset yellow FCF, allura red, brilliant blue FCF, milk ingredients.

April 2, 2021 Michael

Mini Eggs vs. Eggies vs. M&M’s Eggs

Easter Candy

Here it is, the ultimate Easter chocolate showdown. It’s the battle of the small, egg-shaped chocolates; whoever wins, we lose. Or something, I don’t know. They’re all chocolate, so I guess whoever wins, we also win.

It’s Cadbury (Mini Eggs) versus Hershey (Eggies) versus Mars (M&M’s Eggs). Apparently there’s also an egg-shaped version of Smarties, so I guess I could have thrown Nestle into the mix, but you have to draw the line somewhere.

The results of this smackdown probably won’t surprise you. Mini Eggs are the original and the best, though Eggies come surprisingly close. If I tasted them both blind, I don’t know that I’d be able to tell the difference. Aside from the size (Mini Eggs are slightly smaller), they’re mostly interchangeable.

It’s honestly kind of weird how similar they taste. They both have a delicate candy shell encasing creamy, vanilla-infused milk chocolate. It’s a tasty combo. It’s also pretty obvious that Eggies are trying very hard to ape the flavour of Mini Eggs, because the chocolate tastes much less like standard Hershey, and more like what you’d expect from Cadbury.

Meanwhile, M&M’s are off in the corner doing their own thing. They taste absolutely nothing like the other two. They’re just M&M’s in a different shape, with a glossy exterior, a thick candy coating, and that very distinctive M&M’s chocolate flavour. I like M&M’s, but these are easily my least favourite of the bunch; something about the different shape and different candy-to-chocolate ratio completely throws off what makes plain M&M’s so tasty. They’re too sweet, the shell is too aggressively crunchy, and they’re just kind of a bummer to eat. They’re clearly inferior to regular M&M’s, and clearly inferior to the other two in this showdown.

As for Eggies versus Mini Eggs? It’s basically a coin toss, but if I have to pick, I’ll go with Mini Eggs; I think the quality of the chocolate is ever-so-slightly better. But they’re both delicious, so either way you can’t go wrong.

Mini Eggs

Manufactured by: Cadbury
Nutritional info (1 package, 33 grams): 170 calories, 8 grams of fat (5 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg cholesterol, 25 mg sodium, 23 grams of carbohydrates, 22 grams of sugar, 0 grams of fibre, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugar, milk ingredients, modified palm and modified vegetable oil, unsweetened chocolate, cocoa butter, gum arabic, soy lecithin, natural and artificial flavour, colour (with tartrazine).

Eggies

Manufactured by: Hershey
Nutritional info (12 pieces, 40 grams): 180 calories, 8 grams of fat (5 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg cholesterol, 35 mg sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrates, 27 grams of sugar, 1 gram of fibre, 3 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Milk chocolate [sugar, milk ingredients, cocoa butter, unsweetened chocolate, lecithin (soy), polyglycerol polyricinoleate, natural flavour], sugar, corn starch, gum acacia, titanium dioxide, artificial flavour, tartrazine, indigotine, allura red.

M&M’s Eggs

Manufactured by: Mars
Nutritional info (1/4 cup, 42 grams): 200 calories, 8 grams of fat (5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 5 mg cholesterol, 30 mg sodium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, 26 grams of sugar, 1 gram of fibre, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa mass, milk ingredients, cocoa butter, lactose, soy lecithin, salt, artificial flavour, flavour), sugar, cornstarch, corn syrup, tapioca dextrin, colour (with tartrazine), carnauba wax, modified coconut oil and / or modified palm oil (medium chain triglycerides), gum acacia.