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February 7, 2021 Michael

Jelly Belly Mint Filled Chocolate Bar – Shockingly Good

Candy Bars

I’ll admit that I had extremely low expectations for this one. I mean, it’s Jelly Belly. They’re legendary for their jelly beans, but what do they know about chocolate?

Quite a bit, apparently!

Yes, this is a Jelly Belly product, but it has absolutely nothing to do with jelly beans — it’s just milk chocolate with a minty filling. It’s so much better than I thought it was going to be.

It’s basically like something that Andes would make, but better. Unlike an Andes product, it’s real chocolate, which helps. And it’s good quality chocolate, too — it’s nice and snappy, it’s rich and creamy, and it has a satisfying flavour that isn’t too sweet.

In a lot of bars like this, the chocolate itself is infused with a minty flavour, which makes the whole thing taste a bit toothpastey. But the mintiness here only comes from the filling, which gives the bar a great balance of minty and chocolatey flavour. I feel like this might have been slightly more satisfying if the mint were a bit softer (it’s basically the exact same texture as the chocolate), but that’s a minor complaint.

I started out assuming that this would be more of a novelty than anything else, but now I feel like I need to seek out other Jelly Belly chocolates. It’s weird how good it is.

Manufactured by: Jelly Belly Candy Company
Nutritional info (1 bar, 49 grams): 280 calories, 18 grams of fat (11 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 10 mg cholesterol, 35 mg sodium, 26 grams of carbohydrates, 26 grams of sugar, 0 grams of fibre, 3 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, whole milk powder, chocolate liquor, soy lecithin (an emulsifier), vanillin), sugar, coconut oil, cocoa butter, nonfat dry milk, contains 2% or less of the following: whole milk powder, soy lecithin (an emulsifier), natural flavor, vegetable and fruit juice (color), turmeric (color).

January 17, 2021 Michael

Milky Bar – Average White Chocolate

Candy Bars, Chocolate

Here’s something odd: the wrapper of the Milky Bar I ate for this review contains two separate lists of ingredients. One of them is on the wrapper itself, and one is on a sticker, presumably put there by the company that imported the British bar into Canada.

The lists are surprisingly different. Most pressingly, the sticker version lists sugar as the first ingredient, directly contradicting the wrapper’s proclamation that “milk is our no. 1 ingredient.” Is milk the number one ingredient or not? Who am I supposed to believe??

Anyway, it’s plain white chocolate, so there’s not much to it. I should note that the sticker on the front of the wrapper is keen to point out that’s it’s actually a “white chocolaty candy bar” rather than a white chocolate candy bar, presumably due to the inclusion of vegetable fat supplementing the cocoa butter.

It’s tasty enough. I guess it’s not technically real white chocolate, but it’s fairly creamy. True to its name, it has a pronounced milky flavour. It’s not the best white chocolate you’ll ever eat, but it’ll do in a pinch.

Manufactured by: Nestle
Nutritional info (1 bar, 25 grams): 140 calories, 8 grams of fat (5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 0 mg of cholesterol, 40 mg of sodium, 14 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fibre, 14 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients (from the wrapper, not the sticker): Milk powders (whole and skimmed) (37.5%), sugar, cocoa butter, vegetable fats (mango kernel, palm, sal, shea), emulsifier (sunflower lecithin), natural flavouring.

January 10, 2021January 10, 2021 Michael

Curly Wurly – Ultra-Chewy Caramel Coated in Chocolate

Candy Bars

Curly Wurly is a British import, and yeah, obviously. There’s something about it — the name, maybe? — that feels thoroughly British. I’ll bet it’s Ray Winstone’s favourite candy bar.

It’s fine. It’s chewy caramel coated in milk chocolate. The texture of the caramel reminds me a bit of Riesen, mostly because it’s super duper chewy. It is the chewiest of the chewy. If you don’t want to eat something that’s going to get all up in your teeth, stay away.

It has a decent flavour, though unlike Riesen, it is very, very sweet. I wouldn’t say it’s too sweet — there’s enough of a rich caramel flavour to balance out the sweetness, at least somewhat — but it’s clearly on the sweeter end of things.

Ultra-chewy caramel isn’t my favourite, and if I did have a craving for that I’d go for Riesen instead, but Curly Wurly isn’t bad. The relatively generous layer of milk chocolate compliments the caramel quite nicely, and the whole thing is tasty enough.

Manufactured by: Cadbury
Nutritional info (1 bar, 26 grams): 118 calories, 4.6 grams of fat (2.5 grams of saturated fat, unknown grams of trans fat), unknown mg of cholesterol, 15 mg of sodium, 18 grams of carbohydrates, 0.2 grams of fibre, 13 grams of sugar, 0.8 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Glucose syrup, sugar, palm oil, skimmed milk powder, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, whey permeate powder (from milk), milk fat, emulsifiers (E471, sunflower lecithin, E442, E476), salt, flavourings, sodium hydrogen carbonate.

October 25, 2020January 10, 2021 Michael

Time Out Wafer – Does this Count as a Candy Bar?

Candy Bars

Time Out Wafer is tasty for what it is, though I think calling it a candy bar might be a bit of a stretch. If you’ve ever tried Loacker — those wafer cookies that come in a rectangular block — then you’ll know what to expect here. This is basically like that, but coated in a thin layer of chocolate and individually packaged.

And that layer of chocolate is thin; you can tell just by looking at it. It’s so thin that it’s semi-transparent, partially revealing the wafer underneath.

But then the bar weighs in at a scant 112 calories, so if you’re looking for something that isn’t too substantial (which would make it the opposite of the Reese Peanut Butter Oh Henry I recently reviewed), this should fit the bill.

It’s enjoyable enough, with an airy crispiness along with a mild sweetness and nice chocolatey flavour. But despite being composed of roughly the same components as a standard Time Out bar (wafers and chocolate), its connection to that one is fairly tenuous. It isn’t much of a substitute if you’re hoping for a lighter version of a Time Out.

Manufactured by: Cadbury
Nutritional info (1 bar, 21.2 grams): 112 calories, 6.1 grams of fat (3.4 grams of saturated fat, ? grams of trans fat), ? mg of cholesterol, 70 mg of sodium, 13 grams of carbohydrates, 0.4 grams of fibre, 9.6 grams of sugar, 1.4 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Milk, sugar, wheat flour, vegetable fats (palm, shea), cocoa butter, whey powder (from milk), cocoa mass, reduced fat cocoa powder (1%), emulsifiers (E442, soya lecithin, E476), potato starch, rapeseed oil, salt, raising agents (E500, E503), skimmed milk powder, milk fat, flavourings.

October 4, 2020January 10, 2021 Michael

Maltesers Teasers – A Chocolatey Twist on a Classic

Candy Bars

Maltesers Teasers was a lot more Maltesersy than I was expecting. That’s a bit of a weird thing to say — Maltesers is right there in the name, after all — but sometimes these spin-off bars only have a very tenuous connection to the original. That’s definitely not the case here.

Teasers is basically a plain chocolate bar, but with bits of the classic Maltesers malty crispiness interspersed throughout. I think the chocolate itself might also be infused with a malty flavour, because that taste is quite pronounced.

It’s really good. If you like classic Maltesers (and what’s not to like??) then I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll like this. It’s basically reverse Maltesers — Maltesers is crispy with a bit of a creamy chocolaty hit, and Teasers is creamy with a bit of a crispy malty hit. But the flavour is basically identical; the only real difference is the creamy-to-crispy ratio.

It’s very, very sweet, but the thoroughly malty flavour does a great job of balancing it out and ensuring that it never feels one-note cloying. It’s delicious.

Manufactured by: Mars
Nutritional info (1 bar, 35 grams): 186 calories, 10.4 grams of fat (6.3 grams of saturated fat, unknown grams of trans fat), unknown mg of cholesterol, 130 mg of sodium, 20.3 grams of carbohydrates, unknown grams of fibre, 18.5 grams of sugar, 2.6 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugar, cocoa butter, skimmed milk powder, cocoa mass, glucose syrup, palm fat, lactose and protein from whey (from milk), whey powder (from milk), barley malt extract, milk fat, emulsifier (soya lecithin), wheat flour raising agents (E341, E500, E501), salt, natural vanilla extract.