fudge Archives - Candyrageous

March 7, 2021March 14, 2021 Michael

Pal-O-Mine – An Unpleasant Sugar Overload

Candy Bars

If you follow this blog at all, you’ll notice that it’s exceedingly rare that I give anything less than two out of four. I mean, it’s candy. How bad can it be?? Candy bars are like pizza; even when they’re bad, they’re still pretty good.

But there are exceptions, of course. Enter: Pal-O-Mine, an old-timey Canadian chocolate bar (the packaging proudly proclaims that it’s a “Ganong original since 1920”). How it’s managed to stick around for so long is a complete mystery to me.

It’s upsettingly sweet. It hurt my teeth and burned my throat. It gave me a mild pain behind my eyes, which basically never happens. I had to eat a pickle after just to cleanse my palate of the overriding sugariness. It’s sweet.

The wrapper describes it as “fudge & peanuts,” and I guess you can taste a mild peanutty flavour if you really concentrate, but mostly it’s just like eating pure sugar.

The soft fudge is covered in a fairly generous layer of dark chocolate, which you’d think would temper the sweetness a bit and bring the bar a nice chocolatey flavour — but it accomplishes neither of those things. It’s lost in the tidal wave of sweetness.

You know those really bottom-of-the-barrel boxes of chocolate you can get at the dollar store? The kind that makes Pot of Gold look gourmet in comparison? That’s what Pal-O-Mine reminded me of. It’s just soft and sweet and unpleasant. If you’re a real sugar fiend maybe it’ll do something for you, but otherwise there’s a reason you’ve likely never heard of it.

Manufactured by: Ganong
Nutritional info (2 pieces, 55 grams): 210 calories, 6 grams of fat (3.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 5 mg of cholesterol, 10 mg of sodium, 39 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fibre, 33 grams of sugar, 1 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugars (sugar, yellow sugar, glucose, lactose), dark chocolate (sugar, chocolate liquor, cocoa butter, milk fat, soy lecithin, vanilla flavour), milk ingredients, peanuts, salt, dried egg white (egg white, citric acid, baker’s yeast), natural and artificial flavour.

September 20, 2020January 10, 2021 Michael

Mars Fudge – A Pleasant Variation on a Classic Candy

Candy Bars

The last Mars Bar variant I tried was Mars Caramel, which was a pretty clear downgrade from a standard Mars Bar. So my expectations weren’t particularly high for this one, which replaces the original’s nougat with fudge.

But hey, what do you know — it’s actually not bad. It probably helps that unlike the Caramel version, this one feels more like a tweak than a huge change.

Mostly, it tastes like a standard Mars Bar, but with a slightly stronger punch of chocolate flavour (though I will admit that it’s been a few years since I’ve had the original, so I might not be the best judge of this). If there’s a huge difference between the original’s nougat and the fudge here, I certainly couldn’t tell.

It’s quite satisfying, with a nice chewiness from the fudge and the caramel, and an intense sweetness that’s in-your-face but not too overpowering. It’s nothing to get too excited about, but it’s a solid candy bar.

Manufactured by: Mars
Nutritional info (1 bar, 50 grams): 230 calories, 9 grams of fat (6 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg of cholesterol, 75 mg of sodium, 35 grams of carbohydrates, 1 grams of fibre, 30 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugar, corn syrup, milk ingredients, cocoa butter, hydrogenated palm kernel oil and/or palm oil, cocoa mass, cocoa powder, lactose, soy lecithin, salt, dried egg-white, natural and artificial flavours.

October 22, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Cadbury Fudge – A Slap in the Face to Fresh Fudge

Candy Bars

In my experience, fudge is generally something that has to be eaten while it’s reasonably fresh. I’ve never had a prepackaged fudge that I’ve been particularly fond of; this, unfortunately, is no exception. Actually, this may just be the worst fudge that I’ve ever had.

Cadbury Fudge is, as the name implies, just a stick of fudge. It’s also coated with a thin layer of milk chocolate, but I’m not sure if that adds much, if anything, to the flavour. My first impression, upon taking a bite, was that this bar definitely has the texture right – it has that thick, slightly grainy consistency, almost like a really thick peanut butter, that you expect from fudge. That’s pretty much the only thing that this bar has right.

The bar is ridiculously sweet – burns the back of your throat sweet. There’s really not much to it other than the extreme sweetness. It has an underlying artificially fudgey taste, but mostly it’s just sweet. Eating a handful of sugar straight from the bag would probably be less sweet, and would probably taste better, too. The bar also has an unpleasant aftertaste.

This is another candy I bought from the import shop, and boy am I glad Cadbury saw fit not to inflict this upon North America. Wow. I’m generally pretty easy going when it comes to candy, but this was awful, and certainly not up to Cadbury’s generally higher-than-average standards.

Manufactured by: Cadbury
Calories (1 bar): 115

October 15, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Oh Henry! – Sweet and Substantial

Candy Bars

I should probably mention that the Oh Henry! bar that I’m reviewing probably isn’t the Oh Henry! that you’re used to – unless, that is, you’re a Canadian. In the U.S., Oh Henry! is made by Nestle, while here in Canada it’s manufactured by Hershey. This is one area in which I’m definitely glad to be a Canadian; while I don’t remember the American Oh Henry! well enough to talk about it in any amount of detail, I do recall eating it and thinking that the Canadian version is clearly better.

The first thing I noticed is that the bar is covered in fake chocolate (the wrapper states that it contains “crunchy peanuts, chewy fudge, [and] creamy caramel covered in a chocolaty coating” (emphasis mine). The word “chocolaty” is a sure sign that shenanigans are afoot. Sure enough, a quick peek at the ingredients reveals no sign of chocolate of any kind. I’m not sure if this is a result of the recent Hershey cheapening, or if Oh Henry! bars have always been made like this. Though I have to admit, in this kind of candy bar I don’t think the absence of real chocolate particularly hurts it that much.

I like Oh Henry. It’s always been one of my favourites, and though it isn’t the most exciting bar you can buy, it gets the job done. It’s definitely one of the chewier bars around – the “chewy fudge” (which seems more like a thick nougat to me) combined with the caramel and peanuts definitely give this bar some real substance. If you want value for your money, Oh Henry is one of the better bars around, just because of how much you have to chew that sucker to make it go down. The bar also isn’t stingy with the peanuts; it’s completely covered in nuts, which helps give Oh Henry its distinctive taste, and adds to the sense that this is a bar with substance. It’s not an overtly sweet candy bar, and has a nice vanilla-y taste thanks to the fudge/nougat.

Manufactured by: Hershey
Calories (62.5 g bar): 300