Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Mint – An Assault of Minty Flavour

You know that thing that happens when you have a really strong mint and a cooling sensation blasts through your sinuses?  I got that while eating Hershey’s Cookies ‘n’ Mint.  The mint flavour is not kidding around.

This is actually the third variety in Hershey’s new line of three ice cream-inspired white chocolate bars; the first is Birthday Cake (which I enjoyed), the second is Strawberries ‘n’ Cream (which I absolutely did not enjoy), and the third is this one, Cookies ‘n’ Mint.

Hershey's Cookies 'n' Mint

It’s fine.  I generally like minty desserts, so this was mostly in my wheelhouse, but even for me the mint flavour is a bit overbearing.  After my first bite I had decided that I pretty much hated it, though it did (mostly) grow on me.

The cookie bits help.  They add a decent amount of crispiness and a mild chocolatey flavour that works nicely with the intense mint.

Hershey's Cookies 'n' Mint

The bar is also very, very sweet, which works well in this particular case — the intense sweetness keeps it firmly in the dessert category and prevents it from tasting like eating a bar of chocolatey toothpaste (because again, the mint flavour is explosive).

2.5 out of 4

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, 40 mg of sodium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fibre, 19 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugars (sugar, corn syrup solids, lactose), cocoa butter, milk ingredients, modified palm oil, wheat flour, sunflower oil, cocoa powder, natural and artificial flavours, lecithin (soy), sea salt, polyglycerol polyricinoleate, spirulina extract, turmeric.

Ritter Sport: Butter Biscuit and Chocolate Creme – Tasty Cookie, Mediocre 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.

Ritter Sport: Butter Biscuit and Chocolate Creme

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.

Ritter Sport: Butter Biscuit and Chocolate Creme

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.

2.5 out of 4

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.

Reese’s Stuffed with Crunchy Cookie – A Delicious Twist on a Classic

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?

Reese's Stuffed with Crunchy Cookie

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.

Reese's Stuffed with Crunchy Cookie

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.

3.5 out of 4

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.

Twix – The Only Candy with the Cookie Crunch

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.

Twix

(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.

Twix

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.

3 out of 4

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