candy Archives - Page 28 of 31

November 6, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Caramilk Thick – An Improved Version of a Classic

Candy Bars

Caramilk is one of those bars that I like, but really only need to eat once every few months, because it’s so insanely sweet. It’s kind of like a Cadbury Creme Egg in that respect (and Cadbury, perhaps not coincidentally, makes both products). Caramilk is not available in the States, though according to Wikipedia, Caramello is pretty much the same product. I’ll have to verify that for myself the next time I get a chance.

The bar I’m reviewing here actually isn’t the standard Carmilk, it’s Caramilk Thick. It’s pretty much the same thing, only the squares are slightly bigger and seem to have a slightly higher chocolate to caramel ratio. The increased amount of chocolate actually works fairly well here, as the caramel is throat-burningly sweet, so a little bit of it goes a long way.

Of course the main selling point of a Caramilk bar is the consistency of the caramel; it is much softer than the usual caramel, and it flows rather easily (it’s probably a similar viscosity to a caramel sauce that you might put on ice cream). It’s pretty hard to eat without making a mess, so it’s advisable to pop an entire square into your mouth rather than trying to bite it in half. The chocolate is standard Cadbury milk chocolate, and is of a fairly high quality.

Overall this is probably a minor improvement over a regular Caramilk, thanks mostly to its increased chocolatiness. It’s also slightly easier to eat, as the segments are in one straight line rather than rows of two like the original, so you can just take a bite instead of having to break a piece off first.

Manufactured by: Cadbury
Calories (50 g bar): 250

November 5, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Terry’s Chocolate Orange: Mini Segments – A Fun Twist on a Classic Flavour

Chocolate

Terry’s Chocolate Orange are those fun, baseball-sized chocolates that you get to slam onto the counter in order to separate all the little segments. They are surprisingly delicious (I say surprisingly because, though the combination of chocolate and orange doesn’t exactly sound like a slam dunk, it actually works a lot better than you’d imagine).

These minis are pre-separated and individually wrapped, so you don’t need to slam them on anything (unless you want to, I guess). They all feature that classic combination of creamy chocolate and fruity orange that have made Terry’s so famous, with a bit of a twist. They are:

Puffed Rice: The puffed rice really doesn’t add much here – there’s not much of it, and the rice itself isn’t particularly crispy. It’s still good, but only because the chocolate is good; I normally like the combination of chocolate and puffed rice, but here the somewhat soggy rice is completely superfluous, and if anything, detracts from the chocolate. Definitely the weakest of the bunch.

Milk Chocolate: This is just the standard Terry’s Chocolate Orange, no frills. The milk chocolate is nice and creamy, and it strikes a good balance between the chocolate the and orange. Good stuff.

Cornflakes: This is definitely a big improvement over the rice; the flakes add a satisfying crispiness to the chocolate, and along with that, they contribute a surprisingly pronounced corny flavour.

Dark Chocolate: This is about a half-and-half split between the milk and the dark chocolate. If you’re not necessarily a fan of Terry’s signature chocolate/orange taste, this is probably the one for you – the dark chocolate doesn’t seem to be orange flavoured, giving this one a much more subtle orange flavour. It’s also, not surprisingly, much less sweet than the standard chocolate orange.

Crunchy Honey: The description of “sweet, crunchy honey flavoured bits” made me think of Toblerone, however the honey bits are larger and crunchier than the ones found in that bar, and they give this a fairly strong honey aftertaste. Another winner.

Aside from the somewhat anemic puffed rice flavour, these are all quite good an a definite must-buy if you’re a fan of Terry’s Chocolate Orange. However, with the possible exception of the dark variant, these all definitely have that specific Terry’s flavour, so if you’re not already a fan then these aren’t going to change your mind.

Manufactured by: Terry’s
Calories (for 5 pieces, 39 g): 200

November 3, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Hershey’s Marshmallow Pumpkin – An Overly Chewy, Tasteless Blob

Marshmallow Treats

Hershey’s Marshmallow Pumpkin is presumably meant to cash-in on Halloween, though the actual product looks nothing like a pumpkin (it’s more of a semi-round blob). It also doesn’t have any pumpkin flavour, though that much is clear just by looking at the wrapper.

I’m generally not a fan of chocolates with marshmallow in it; there are a few exceptions (such as the amazingly good but difficult to find Valomilk), but for the most part marshmallows in candy tend to have an unpleasantly chewy/spongy texture. That is certainly true here.

Hershey’s Marshmallow Pumpkin consists of a thick, chewy marshmallow coated with a generous topping of dark chocolate. The chocolate coating is fine, if a little sweet. It’s the marshmallow where this candy seriously falters. It has an unpleasantly rubbery, almost chewing gum-like texture. It also doesn’t really have the vanilla flavour that you’d expect; it’s pretty bland, with a subtler-than-average marshmallow taste that seems slightly off. Pretty much all the sweetness comes from the chocolate.

I’m not sure what it is about marshmallow that makes it so hard to pull off in candy form. I think that anyone who wants to make a marshmallow-based candy should be required to eat a few Valomilks (I’ll post a Valomilk review once I can get my hands on one – they’re pretty much impossible to find in Canada); it just gets everything right, as far as marshmallow goes. This, on the other hand, is the anti-Valomilk.

Manufactured by: Hershey
Calories (31 g pumpkin): 110

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