candy Archives - Page 18 of 31

June 28, 2020January 10, 2021 Michael

Hershey’s Strawberries ‘n’ Creme – Is it Supposed to Taste Like Medicine?

Candy Bars

Hershey recently released three white chocolate bars with ice-cream-inspired flavours: Birthday Cake (which I just reviewed), Strawberries ‘n’ Creme, and Cookies ‘n’ Mint (which is up next). I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the Birthday Cake variety, which had an appealingly junky flavour that reminded me of store-bought frosting.

This one, on the other hand? Swing and a miss.

It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever eaten, but nothing here particularly works. The slightly sour strawberry flavour is neither here nor there; it’s muddled, with a medicinal quality that I found to be vaguely unpleasant. I guess it’s supposed to taste like strawberry ice cream, and it kinda does if you use your imagination, but mostly it tastes like lousy white chocolate with a watered-down strawberry-like flavour.

It doesn’t help that the chocolate isn’t particularly creamy, with a slightly grainy consistency (which, to be fair, seems to be an issue with all Hershey chocolate).

There are little crispy bits interspersed throughout, but unlike the sprinkles in the Birthday Cake variety, I’m not sure what they’re supposed to be or why they’re there. They lack the pronounced crunch of the sprinkles, and only serve to emphasize the white chocolate’s lack of creaminess.

Manufactured by: Hershey
Nutritional info (1 bar, 39 grams): 200 calories, 11 grams of fat (7 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg of cholesterol, 35 mg of sodium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fibre, 20 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugars (sugar, corn syrup solids, lactose, strawberry juice, maltodextrin), cocoa butter, milk ingredients, sunflower oil, modified palm oil, corn starch, lecithin (soy), natural and artificial flavors, polyglycerol polyricinoleate, beetroot concentrate, citric acid.

June 21, 2020January 10, 2021 Michael

Hershey’s Birthday Cake – Like Betty Crocker Frosting in Bar Form

Candy Bars

Birthday cake flavour can be extremely hit and miss; it’s often just vanilla-flavoured sweet overload. That’s basically what I was expecting here, so this was actually a pretty delightful surprise.

The aroma hits you as soon as you unwrap the bar: Betty Crocker frosting. And it hits hard.

That’s what it tastes like, too; it’s like someone took a tub of Betty Crocker vanilla frosting, mixed in some sprinkles, and then magically transformed it into a candy bar.

I actually like that flavour (a childhood spent eating Dunkaroos probably has something to do with this), so I liked this, but your enjoyment entirely depends on your tolerance for overly sweet, artificial-tasting frosting.

The sweetness level here is intense, but in the context of the birthday cake flavour, it feels right. It would be weird if it weren’t a throat-burning assault of sugary sweetness. That’s the deal. That’s what it is, and it works.

The sprinkles work too — they add a nice crunchy counterpoint to the creamy white chocolate.

Manufactured by: Hershey
Nutritional info (1 bar, 39 grams): 200 calories, 11 grams of fat (7 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg of cholesterol, 35 mg of sodium, 25 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fibre, 22 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugars (sugar, com syrup solids, lactose, glucose), cocoa butter, milk ingredients, modifed palm oil, sunflower oil, lecithin (soy), corn starch, natural and artificial flavours, carnauba wax, beeswax, turmeric, spirulina extract, beetroot red, palm and shea oil, polyglycerol polyricinoleate.

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.