chewy Archives - Page 7 of 8

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 21, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Lion – Crispy, Chewy, and Delicious

Candy Bars

This is another British bar that I purchased at the import store I mentioned in my Time Out review. This one’s called Lion, and it’s essentially a denser version of a Mr. Big bar (which, I suppose, will mean little to most Americans as neither bar is available in the States, as far as I’m aware). Basically, it’s a filled wafer, topped with a rather thick layer of chewy caramel, and coated with milk chocolate and bits of crispy puffed rice.

It’s good. The caramel is very chewy – it takes a while to fully chew, even after the other stuff is long gone. This gives the bar a satisfying richness. It helps that the caramel is surprisingly subtle, and not very sweet at all (by candy bar standards, at least). The whole bar is actually a bit less sweet than the usual American offering. The crispy rice and wafers provide a nice contrast to the soft caramel, making the bar texturally interesting. The wafer adds some sweetness to the bar, as well as the usual mildly wheaty/wafery taste (What’s that you say? “Wafery” isn’t a word? Sure it is! Don’t look it up, though. Just take my word for it).

I think I might prefer Lion to Mr. Big, as it seems to have a bit more substance, though I’d have to try a Mr. Big again to be sure. It’s definitely a shame that this isn’t available in North America outside of specialty stores.

Manufactured by: Nestle
Calories (55 g bar): 277

October 18, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Cinnabon Cinnamon Caramel Pecan Cluster – Cinnamon Overload

Nut Clusters

The very idea of a Cinnabon candy is pretty exciting to me – I’ve always been a big fan of Cinnabon and what they do. Diet food it is not, but when you’re on the lookout for a really rich, satisfying dessert, you could certainly do worse than one of their pastries. I also noticed, upon inspecting the wrapper, that this pecan cluster is made by the Standard Candy Company (makers of the Goo Goo Cluster), which is one of the few old-time candy companies that didn’t go out of business over the years or get bought out by the big guys. So my expectations going in were pretty high, and while this wasn’t the best candy ever, I’m glad I tried it.

They’re definitely not kidding around with the cinnamon in this thing. It smells pretty strongly of cinnamon, which is definitely the dominant flavour in this candy. This is a pecan cluster, so obviously the main components, aside from the chocolate, are pecans and chewy caramel. There are also toffee bits in there, though I’m not sure if they add much to this particular confection – all they seem to do is give the caramel a slightly grainy consistency (at least I’m assuming that was caused by the toffee). There’s also a lingering mild spiciness – nothing particularly pronounced, but it does help to add a bit of complexity to this treat.

And then, of course, there is the cinnamon. The cinnamon taste hits you almost as soon as you start to chew, and only gets more pronounced as you eat it. There’s a very strong cinnamon aftertaste, which reminded me a lot of cinnamon gum. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but it was definitely interesting.

“Interesting” is actually a good word for the Cinnabon Cinnamon Caramel Pecan Cluster (that’s a mouthful) – I can’t say I’ve ever had a chocolate like this with such a strong cinnamon taste, and while I enjoyed it and am glad I tried it, I’m not sure I’d ever want to eat it again.

Manufactured by: Standard Candy Company
Calories (43 g cluster): 180

October 16, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Twix – The Only Candy with the Cookie Crunch

Candy Bars

Twix is (as George Costanza describes it) “the only candy with the cookie crunch.” I recall wondering, when that episode first aired, if this was really the case – is Twix the only candy bar with a cookie in it? And as far as I can tell, it’s true, at least as far as candy bars manufactured by the big guys go (ie. Hershey, Nestle and Mars). That pretty much puts Twix in a league of its own; if you’ve got a craving for a bar with cookie in it, Twix is the only game in town.

(And I wonder: is it even possible to watch that episode of Seinfeld without having a massive craving for a Twix bar? I remember watching that episode and then immediately going out and buying a Twix the next day.)

As far as candy bars go, Twix is pretty simple: it’s a plain vanilla cookie, topped with soft caramel and enrobed in milk chocolate. It’s basically equal parts cookie and caramel, with caramel that is nicely chewy, and neither too soft nor too dense. The cookie itself is sweet (perhaps too sweet – more on that in a bit) and crumbly, kind of like a crunchier shortbread. It does a good job of complementing the caramel. The chocolate coating rounds things out.

My only real complaint about Twix is that the whole thing is a bit too sweet. I don’t know how many people this happens to, but when I eat something that’s super sweet I get a mild pain in my forehead. Twix kind of gives me that. I think both the cookie and the caramel could stand to be toned down a bit as far as sweetness goes, though mostly the caramel – it’s easily one of the sweeter caramels you’ll find in any candy bar.

Manufactured by: Mars
Calories (2 bars, 57 g): 290