Tag: candy

Michael

Snickers Creamy Almond Butter – Sweet and Salty Overload

Candy Bars

The first thing you’ll notice about the almond butter variety of Snickers is how comically small it is.  Consisting of two tiny little squares that can’t even fill up the small wrapper, it’s definitely one of the smaller candy bars you can buy.  I’m assuming the candy companies have done a bunch of research showing that 200 calories is the magic number, and because this is so dense, it had to be tiny.  But it’s still weirdly small.

Snickers Creamy Almond Butter

The illustration on the wrapper seems to indicate that it’s just smooth caramel and creamy almond butter enrobed in chocolate, but the caramel is actually dotted with tiny little almond shards.  This is a good idea in theory — crunchy nuts would be a nice contrast to the bar’s chewiness, and of course, the peanuts in a regular Snickers are one of its defining characteristics.  But the minuscule almond bits are way, way too small to bring a satisfying crunch.

Other than that, it’s fine, I guess.  It’s generally decent enough, with a satisfying chewiness that never feels overbearing.  But boy is it ever sweet; it’s a throat-burner, that’s for sure.  Of course, a standard Snickers bar is also quite sweet, so I guess that’s par for the course.

Snickers Creamy Almond Butter

There’s also a decent amount of saltiness, which helps to counteract the sweetness and gives the bar that satisfying sweet/salty combo.  But the intense sweet and salty punch kinda kills all the other flavours of the bar; you can barely even taste the almond butter or the chocolate.  It’s basically just there for texture.  A more apt name for Snickers Almond Butter would be “Sugar and Salt: the Bar.”

2.5 out of 4

Manufactured by: Mars
Nutritional info (2 squares, 38 grams): 190 calories, 11 grams of fat (4 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 0 mg of cholesterol, 140 mg of sodium, 22 grams of carbohydrates, 1 grams of fibre, 17 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Almonds, sugar, invert sugar, milk ingredients, lactose, corn syrup, cocoa butter, corn syrup solids, cocoa mass, modified palm oil, dextrose, hydrogenated palm kernel oil, vegetable glycerine, hydrogenated cottonseed oil, salt, calcium carbonate, soy lecithin, TBHQ, flavour.

Michael

Twirl – An Easier to Eat Flake Bar

Candy Bars

Twirl is basically just an enhanced version of Flake; it’s a Flake bar that’s been covered in milk chocolate.  That doesn’t seem like much, but it actually makes a pretty huge difference when you’re eating it.

Twirl

Flake is one of the more painful chocolate bars to eat.  Its distinctive shape means that as soon as you take a bite, it starts crumbling into bits.

Twirl thoroughly solves that issue; the chocolate coating holds it all together quite nicely.  Every bite is crumb-free.

Twirl

Other than that?  It is what it is.  It’s standard Cadbury milk chocolate, but in a different shape.  It’s certainly not the most interesting candy bar in the store, but if you’re craving chocolate, it’ll hit the spot.  The flaky texture makes it a slightly different experience from eating a standard block of chocolate.

As for the quality of the chocolate itself, it’s very sweet, but it’s nice and creamy and has a pleasant milky flavour.  It’s good.

3 out of 4

Manufactured by: Cadbury
Nutritional info (1 finger, 21.5 grams): 114 calories, 6.3 grams of fat (3.6 grams of saturated fat, unknown grams of trans fat), unknown mg of cholesterol (British labeling standards are different, I guess), 50 mg of sodium, 13 grams of carbohydrates, 0.5 grams of fibre, 12 grams of sugar, 1.5 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Milk, sugar, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, whey powder (from milk), vegetable fat (palm, shea), emulsifiers (E442, E476), flavourings.

Michael

Kit Kat – An Absolute Classic

Candy Bars

After reviewing (and being delighted by) a bunch of Kit Kat variants, I figured it was probably time to write about the original.

I was under the impression that Kit Kat had gone down in quality; the last couple of times I’ve eaten it, I’ve been underwhelmed.

Kit Kat

Well, either I was wrong or the quality has gone right back up, because this one was absolutely delicious.  Top-notch stuff.

Everything here just works.  In particular, the ratio of chocolate to wafer is spot on; there’s enough chocolate to give you a satisfying chocolatey hit, but you also get a good amount of crispiness from the wafers.  It’s a great balance, and as I’ve mentioned in previous Kit Kat reviews, the wheaty wafers do a great job of offsetting some of the sweetness of the chocolate.

Kit Kat

I mean, it’s a Kit Kat; it’s not the most exciting thing at the store, but if you haven’t had it in a while, I think you might be surprised.  The chocolate is pretty decent, the wafers are nice and crispy, and it’s not too sweet.  It’s not gourmet, but for a mass-market candy bar made by one of the huge candy companies, it really doesn’t get much better than this.

4 out of 4

Manufactured by: Nestle
Nutritional info (1 bar, 45 grams): 230 calories, 12 grams of fat (7 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 5 mg cholesterol, 35 mg sodium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, 22 grams of sugar, 0 grams of fibre, 3 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Milk chocolate (sugar, milk ingredients, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, whey powder, lactose, soya lecithin, polyglycerol polyricinoleate, natural flavour), wheat flour, sugar, modified palm oil, cocoa, sodium bicarbonate, soya lecithin, yeast, natural flavour.

Michael

Cadbury Burnt Almond Dark – Decent Dark Chocolate with Crunchy Almonds

Chocolate

If you’re looking for a chocolate bar without too many frills, Burnt Almond is right up your alley.  Featuring a scant seven ingredients (which is impressively low for a mass market product like this), it’s just dark chocolate and toasted almonds.  Sometimes the simplest things are the best.

Cadbury Burnt Almond

It’s quite tasty.  Is the dark chocolate here going to blow anyone away?  Not likely; it’s decent enough, but it lacks the complexity of better quality chocolates.  Still, it gets the job done.

Cadbury Burnt Almond

As you’d expect from a chocolate bar called “Burnt Almond,” the almonds are front and centre.  The almond chunks are generous, and their very toasty flavour does a great job of balancing out the bar’s sweetness.  They also add welcome pops of flavour that bring some interest to the somewhat one-note chocolate.  And they’re nice and crunchy, which works quite well with the bar’s creaminess.

3 out of 4

Manufactured by: Cadbury
Nutritional info (9 squares, 38 grams): 200 calories, 13 grams of fat (6 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 0 mg of cholesterol, 5 mg of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 2 gram of fibre, 18 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Dark chocolate (sugar, unsweetened chocolate, cocoa butter, milk ingredients, soy lecithin, natural flavour), almonds.

Michael

Hershey’s: Milk Chocolate, Peanuts & Reese’s Pieces – Candy Crammed into Middling Chocolate

Chocolate

Hershey sure loves to cram things into a Reese product, or cram Reese products into things.  I’ve already reviewed Reese Outrageous! Stuffed with Pieces and Reese’s Stuffed with Crunchy Cookie, and now here’s a Hershey chocolate bar stuffed with Reese’s Pieces.

Hershey’s chocolate has a pretty unmistakable flavour.  It’s quite sweet, and it has a mild but distinctive sour tang that may or not share chemical properties with vomit (no, really).  It’s certainly not my favourite, but if it’s the only chocolate around, yeah, sure, I’ll eat it.

Hershey's: Milk Chocolate, Peanuts & Reese's Pieces

The problem here is the addition of Reese’s Pieces.  That sounds delightful (Reese’s Pieces are delicious, after all), but in practice it’s a bit much.  Hershey chocolate is very, very sweet; so are Reese’s Pieces.  Combine the two with nothing to balance them out (the tiny peanut bits are barely even noticeable and definitely do not perform this function) and you’ve got a recipe for sweetness overload.

Hershey's: Milk Chocolate, Peanuts & Reese's Pieces

The texture wasn’t great either.  I don’t know if it was the addition of the chunks or if Hershey chocolate is always like that (it’s been a while), but the chocolate wasn’t particularly creamy.  It’s actually pretty grainy.

2 out of 4

Manufactured by: Hershey
Nutritional info (1 bar, 43 g): 220 calories, 12 g of fat (8 g of saturated fat, 0 g of trans fat), 5 mg of cholesterol, 55 mg of sodium, 27 g of carbohydrates, 1 g of fibre, 25 g of sugar, 3 g of protein.
Ingredients: Milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, skim milk, milk fat, lecithin (soy), salt, natural flavor), sugar, peanuts, partially defatted peanuts, hydrogenated vegetable oil (palm kernel oil, soybean oil), contains 2% or less of corn syrup solids, dextrose, palm kernel oil, corn syrup, artificial color (yellow 6 lake, yellow 5 lake, red 40 lake, blue 1 lake), cornstarch, salt; confectioner’s glaze, lecithin (soy), modified cornstarch, carnauba wax, vanillin, artificial flavor.