Mars Archives - Page 5 of 6

August 6, 2020January 10, 2021 Michael

Snickers Creamy Almond Butter – Sweet and Salty Overload

Candy Bars

The first thing you’ll notice about the almond butter variety of Snickers is how comically small it is. Consisting of two tiny little squares that can’t even fill up the small wrapper, it’s definitely one of the smaller candy bars you can buy. I’m assuming the candy companies have done a bunch of research showing that 200 calories is the magic number, and because this is so dense, it had to be tiny. But it’s still weirdly small.

The illustration on the wrapper seems to indicate that it’s just smooth caramel and creamy almond butter enrobed in chocolate, but the caramel is actually dotted with tiny little almond shards. This is a good idea in theory — crunchy nuts would be a nice contrast to the bar’s chewiness, and of course, the peanuts in a regular Snickers are one of its defining characteristics. But the minuscule almond bits are way, way too small to bring a satisfying crunch.

Other than that, it’s fine, I guess. It’s generally decent enough, with a satisfying chewiness that never feels overbearing. But boy is it ever sweet; it’s a throat-burner, that’s for sure. Of course, a standard Snickers bar is also quite sweet, so I guess that’s par for the course.

There’s also a decent amount of saltiness, which helps to counteract the sweetness and gives the bar that satisfying sweet/salty combo. But the intense sweet and salty punch kinda kills all the other flavours of the bar; you can barely even taste the almond butter or the chocolate. It’s basically just there for texture. A more apt name for Snickers Almond Butter would be “Sugar and Salt: the Bar.”

Manufactured by: Mars
Nutritional info (2 squares, 38 grams): 190 calories, 11 grams of fat (4 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 0 mg of cholesterol, 140 mg of sodium, 22 grams of carbohydrates, 1 grams of fibre, 17 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Almonds, sugar, invert sugar, milk ingredients, lactose, corn syrup, cocoa butter, corn syrup solids, cocoa mass, modified palm oil, dextrose, hydrogenated palm kernel oil, vegetable glycerine, hydrogenated cottonseed oil, salt, calcium carbonate, soy lecithin, TBHQ, flavour.

November 7, 2011January 10, 2021 Michael

Maltesers – Crispy, Bite-Sized Goodness

Candy Bars

Maltesers have always been a favourite of mine. There’s something about those chocolately, malty little balls that I find kind of irresistible.

Odds are, you’re probably more familiar with Whoppers than with Maltesers – as far as I’m aware, Maltesers are hard to come by in the States, while Whoppers are quite prevalent. That’s a shame, as I feel like Maltesers are clearly the superior product, though I’d have to do a side-by-side comparison to be sure.

Basically, Maltesers are crunchy, malt-flavoured balls (the package describes them as “Honeycombed centres”), covered in a relatively thin layer of milk chocolate.

They’re lightly crunchy, with a fairly complex malted taste – there’s a hint of bitterness, but not in a bad way. They’re sweet, but not intensely so, with a vaguely honey-like aftertaste. The milk chocolate coating complements the centre really well. They’re quite good; if you’re only familiar with Whoppers, I’d definitely recommend that you seek these out.

Manufactured by: Mars
Calories (37 g package): 180

October 31, 2011January 10, 2021 Michael

Snickers Peanut Butter – Not Enough of that Sweet PB Flavour

Candy Bars

Ah, Snickers: the old standby. It’s not the most exciting candy bar in the store, but it’s always there when you need it, and it’s always tasty. I like Snickers. I also like peanut butter. So, is this two great tastes that taste great together? Uh… kind of?

Snickers Peanut Butter is divided into two square chunks. Each one consists of a layer of nougat, topped with a layer of peanut butter filled with chunks of peanuts, topped with a layer of caramel, and all enrobed in milk chocolate.

It’s not bad. The first thing you notice is that it’s very, very sweet – cloyingly so, but with a strong salty kick that attempts to balance things out. It’s a bit of a throat-searing combination, but it did grow on me after a while.

Between the peanut butter, the nougat, the caramel and the chocolate, there’s a lot going on in this bar. Maybe a little too much; the peanut butter doesn’t really stand out as much as you’d think it would, considering that it is ostensibly the main attraction here. I should also note that the peanut distribution is somewhat uneven – my first square had almost no peanuts, while the second was actually quite peanutty.

The whole thing reminds me a lot of Reese’s Fast Break, which is another bar that I’m not crazy about (the very Reese’s-esque thick, crumbly peanut butter certainly solidifies this connection).

Manufactured by: Mars
Calories (two squares, 50 g): 250

November 12, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Mars Caramel – A Downgraded Mars Bar

Candy Bars

You can file Mars Caramel under “U” for “unnecessary” – not that it’s completely without virtue, it’s just that it’s essentially superfluous. It’s an offshoot of the Mars Bar (Milky Way in the states), which normally consists of nougat topped with a layer of caramel. Mars Caramel forgoes the nougat altogether, and consists entirely of caramel enrobed in milk chocolate.

The problem here is that the bar contains the exact same caramel you’ll find inside a regular Mars Bar, which normally, balanced out by the nougat, works quite well. Here, however, the soft, slightly chewy and very sweet caramel just seems to be missing something. You expect to taste the nougat, but of course, it’s not there. The caramel itself doesn’t really have the complexity to carry the whole bar, and while it does have that Mars Bar taste, it’s just kind of plain – sweet, but without anything to ever make you want to pick this over a standard Mars Bar.

Ultimately, Mars Caramel is unnecessary because it’s just a downgraded Mars Bar. It’s kind of like listening to a song you like with one of the main instruments removed – it’s a little bit interesting at first, but ultimately there’s a reason why all the instruments are there.

Manufactured by: Mars
Calories (45 g bar): 210

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