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April 25, 2021 Michael

Abba-Zaba – Ultra-Chewy Taffy with Peanut Butter

Candy Bars

Abba-Zaba has been around for almost a hundred years (since 1922), so it clearly has its fans. I can’t say that I’ll ever buy one again, but if you’ve been around that long, you must be doing something right. It’s basically just a big old hunk of ultra-chewy taffy, and if you’re into that, you’ll probably enjoy it.

It’s odd; the shiny white bar looks plasticky enough that after I opened it I assumed it had some kind of inner wrapping, but nope, that’s just the bar. It’s certainly not the most appealing looking candy bar ever.

It’s filled with a decent amount of creamy, slightly salty peanut butter, which is where most of the flavour comes from. It’s otherwise surprisingly restrained in its sweetness, and is mostly notable for how incredibly chewy it is. It’s actually kind of aggressive in its chewiness, like, “oh, you want to chew me? Good luck with that, pal.” It made my jaw tired almost immediately.

I wasn’t crazy about it, but then I’m not a huge fan of taffy in general, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

Manufactured by: Annabelle
Nutritional info (1 bar, 51 grams): 210 calories, 4 grams of fat (2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 0 mg of cholesterol, 45 mg of sodium, 41 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fibre, 22 grams of sugar, 1 gram of protein.
Ingredients: Corn syrup, liquid sugar (cane sugar, water), peanut butter (dry roasted peanuts, sucrose, hydrogenated rapeseed and cottonseed oil, salt), fully hydrogenated vegetable oil (palm kernel oil, soybean oil), dextrose, salt, mono- and diglycerides, BHA (antioxidant).

April 11, 2021April 11, 2021 Michael

Trumpf Aero – Germany’s Version of a Familiar Treat

Candy Bars, Chocolate

Aero is produced by Nestle throughout the world — except for Germany, where it’s made by Trumpf. My attempts to google this have been fruitless, so I have no idea how or why this arrangement happened, but it’s not the only time Nestle has made a deal like this. I’m thinking of Kit Kat, which is produced by Hershey in the US and by Nestle in the rest of the world.

Whatever the reasoning may be, the two Aeros are surprisingly different.

They’re both essentially the same thing — they’re aerated milk chocolate bars, which means that they have hundreds of tiny holes that gives the chocolate an interesting texture.

Aside from that, they’re pretty different; the Trumpf version is aerated all the way through, and lacks Nestle’s solid chocolate coating. This makes a bigger difference than you’d think; it has a very pronounced lightness that makes it melt away almost instantly.

The flavour is also quite different from standard Aero, with an in-your-face milkiness that gives it a fairly unique personality. The chocolate flavour is muted, but not in an unpleasant way. It’s a bit too sweet (the Nestle version has the same issue), but is otherwise pretty tasty.

Manufactured by: Trumpf
Nutritional info (100 grams): 543 calories, 32 grams of fat (19 grams of saturated fat, unknown grams of trans fat), unknown mg of cholesterol, 170 mg of sodium, 56 grams of carbohydrates, unknown grams of fibre, 56 grams of sugar, 6.4 grams of protein.
Ingredients (Google translated from German): Sugar, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, cocoa mass, milk sugar, cream powder (milk), emulsifiers (soy lecithin, E476), vanilla extract. Cocoa: 30% minimum.

April 4, 2021April 11, 2021 Michael

Mounds – A Tasty Combo of Coconut and Dark Chocolate

Candy Bars

Mounds and Bounty are weirdly similar. They both feature sweet coconut covered in chocolate, they’re both divided into two bars, and both feature distinctive rounded edges. Mounds is the original, however. It was first released in 1920; Bounty didn’t come out until 1951.

I’ll admit I have a soft spot for Bounty thanks to a childhood fondness for the stuff, but the two are very, very similar.

The biggest difference is that Mounds is covered in dark chocolate versus Bounty’s milk chocolate (apparently there is a dark chocolate version of Bounty, though I don’t recall ever seeing it). I think pretty much every candy bar is improved by subbing dark chocolate for milk; it delivers more chocolatey flavour than its milky counterpart, and its slight bitterness balances well with the sweetness of a candy bar. So that’s definitely a point in Mounds’ favour.

The coconut portion of Mounds seems slightly creamier, but I think the coconut itself is a bit more roughly chopped, which means that you’ll still be chewing it even after the coconut flavour has mostly faded away. Point: Bounty.

Still, that’s a fairly minor complaint; both are delicious and extremely similar. I prefer Bounty, but I think that has more to do with childhood nostalgia than anything else.

Manufactured by: Hershey
Nutritional info (2 pieces, 49 grams): 230 calories, 13 grams of fat (10 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 0 mg of cholesterol, 55 mg of sodium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, 3 grams of fibre, 21 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Corn syrup, semi-sweet chocolate (chocolate, sugar, milk fat, lecithin (soy), PGPR, vanillin, artificial flavor, milk), coconut, sugar, contains 2% or less of: salt, hydrolyzed milk protein, sodium metabisulfite to maintain freshness.

March 21, 2021 Michael

Kit Kat Duos: Mocha + Chocolate – An Intense Kick of Coffee Flavour

Candy Bars

I’m not a big coffee drinker. And by “not a big coffee drinker,” I mean that I don’t drink coffee at all, so I’m probably not in the target audience for this particular Kit Kat variety. I do, however, enjoy the chocolate/coffee combo.

The wrapper describes this as “Crisp Wafers in mocha creme with coffee bits + chocolate.”

It’s a tasty bar, though I’ll admit that the coffee flavour was a bit too strong for me. I normally enjoy chocolate with a coffee flavour — and it’s not that I didn’t enjoy this (it’s still Kit Kat, which is inherently delicious) — but the balance of flavours is definitely weighted more towards the coffee than the chocolate. It has an admirably restrained sweetness and a mild but distinctive bitterness. I liked it, but if you’re a coffee drinker, I think you might love it.

Manufactured by: Hershey
Nutritional info (1 package, 42 grams): 210 calories, 12 grams of fat (7 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 0 mg cholesterol, 20 mg sodium, 27 grams of carbohydrates, 19 grams of sugar, 1 gram of fibre, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugar, vegetable oil (palm oil, shea oil, sunflower oil, palm kernel oil, and/or safflower oil), wheat flour, chocolate, skim milk, corn syrup solids, cocoa butter, lactose (milk), cocoa processed with alkali, contains 2% or less of: milk fat, coffee, lecithin (soy), natural & artificial flavor, PGPR, salt, yeast, baking soda, artificial color (yellow 6 lake, yellow 5 lake, red 40 lake, blue 2 lake).

February 17, 2021February 20, 2021 Michael

Huckleberry Gems – Like Viva Puffs without the Cookie

Marshmallow Treats

I learned something today: I had assumed that huckleberry wasn’t an actual thing, like a bumbleberry, but nope, it’s real. It apparently tastes like a blueberry, and it’s the state fruit of Idaho. So I suppose there are a bunch of Idahoans currently shaking their head at my disturbing lack of huckleberry knowledge.

Here’s the other odd thing: Huckleberry Gems, which the wrapper describes as “huckleberry marshmallow creme covered in rich milk chocolate,” contains zero huckleberries or anything even huckleberry-adjacent. A quick perusal of the ingredients confirms that no fruit was harmed in the making of this product.

That’s never a great sign, but this turned out to be decent enough. The marshmallow is creamy and not too rubbery, the chocolate is okay if overly sweet, and despite the odd lack of fruit in the ingredients, it has a pleasantly berry-tinged flavour. It reminded me of a more chocolatey version of Viva Puffs (which I just discovered is a Canadian thing; sorry Americans, you’re missing out) but without the cookie.

It’s fine, but honestly, if I’m craving something like this, I’d rather just have a Viva Puff.

Manufactured by: Idaho Candy Co.
Nutritional info (2 pieces, 34 grams): 140 calories, 4 grams of fat (2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 0 mg cholesterol, 10 mg sodium, 26 grams of carbohydrates, 20 grams of sugar, 0 grams of fibre, 1 gram of protein.
Ingredients: Milk chocolate (sugar, whole milk powder, cocoa butter, chocolate liquor, soy lecithin (added as an emulsifier), and vanilla), corn syrup, sugar, invertsweet congealed sugar, sorbitol, gelatin, egg albumen, natural and artificial flavors, invertase (glycerine and aqueous extract of invertase from yeast and sodium citrate), and glycerine.