shell Archives - Candyrageous

July 20, 2021 Michael

Kinder Happy Hippo – Kinder Meets Ferrero Rocher

Candy Bars

Kinder Happy Hippo is kind of like a Kinder Surprise and a Ferrero Rocher had a baby. A delicious, delicious baby. It’s got the crispy wafer exterior and creamy interior of a Ferrero Rocher, and the white/milk chocolate combo of a Kinder Surprise.

This is a European import (the one I bought seems to be German) and I’m going to have to insist that they bring this to North America ASAP, because it’s surprisingly delicious.

It’s everything you like about Kinder Surprise and Ferrero Rocher crammed into one delicious package. The interior is delightfully soft and creamy, featuring a nice balance between the chocolatey layer and the milky layer, and the wafer exterior features a nice crispiness and a subtle wheaty flavour that helps to balance out the sweet creamy filling. I wasn’t expecting much from this thing and it kind of blew me away.

Manufactured by: Ferrero
Nutritional info (100 grams): 593 calories, 38.6 grams of fat (17.69 grams of saturated fat, unknown grams of trans fat), unknown mg of cholesterol, 26.4 mg of sodium, 53.6 grams of carbohydrates, unknown grams of fibre, 45.1 grams of sugar, 6.7 grams of protein.
Ingredients (Google translated from German): Sugar, vegetable fats (palm, shea), wheat flour (8.5%), whole milk powder (7.5%), low-fat cocoa (5%), skim milk powder (4.5%), hazelnuts, sweet whey powder, semi-dark chocolate (sugar, cocoa mass, cocoa butter, emulsifier: lecithins (soya), vanillin), wheat starch, emulsifier: lecithins (soya), sunflower oil, milk protein, raising agent: ammonium hydrogen carbonate, sodium hydrogen carbonate: salt, vanillin.

December 23, 2020January 10, 2021 Michael

M&M’s Milk Chocolate Bar with Minis & Peanuts – Stop Being Stingy with the Peanuts

Candy Bars, Chocolate

I’ve already reviewed the M&M’s Milk Chocolate Bar with Minis & Crisp Rice, which I thought was decent enough, but lacking in crispiness. Well this is basically the same thing, but instead of not having enough crispy rice, it doesn’t have enough peanuts.

It’s a bit better than that one, I guess. If you get a square with both M&M’s and peanuts, it’s pretty tasty. But the amount of M&M’s and peanuts is dispiritingly anemic — particularly the peanuts.

I guess they’re trying to cut costs? But just charge a bit more and give me more peanuts. Look at the photo of the cross-section of the bar. No rational person could possibly believe that there are enough nuts there. Look at it. Look at it and weep.

Still, it’s not bad. The chocolate is middling, but tasty enough, and when the bar delivers on what it promises, it’s good. The slight crunch from the peanuts and the M&M’s works very well with the creamy chocolate. But then you get a square that’s just plain, mediocre chocolate, and why? Why is this happening? As if 2020 hasn’t been bad enough, now I have to deal with this? Come on.

Manufactured by: Mars
Nutritional info (1/3 bar, 37 grams): 200 calories, 12 grams of fat (7 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 10 mg of cholesterol, 25 mg of sodium, 21 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fibre, 20 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Milk chocolate (sugar, milk ingredients, cocoa butter, cocoa mass, lactose, soy lecithin, polyglycerol polyricinoleate, artificial flavour), M&M’s® Minis milk chocolate candies [milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa mass, milk ingredients, cocoa butter, lactose, soy lecithin, salt, artificial flavour, flavour), sugar, colour (with tartrazine), corn syrup, tapioca dextrin, cornstarch, carnauba wax, modified coconut oil and/or modified palm oil (medium chain triglycerides)], peanuts (peanuts, palm oil).

November 10, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Reese’s Pieces – Loved by Humans (and Aliens) Worldwide

Candy Bars

I don’t think there’s any other candy out there that can thank its success so thoroughly to a movie; I think it goes without saying that the movie I’m referring to is E.T.. If Reese’s Pieces hadn’t been so prominently featured in that film and subsequently found success because of it, who knows if we’d still be eating them today (and of course, there is the infamous story of the people at Mars refusing to allow M&Ms – Steven Spielberg’s first choice of candy – to be used in the movie. That’s one of those colossal blunders that you have to imagine still stings a little bit).

The question of “favourite candy ever” is one that, for me at least, probably changes on a daily basis depending on my mood. However, ask me that question, and more times than not I’ll probably say Reese’s Pieces. I mentioned in my review of Reese Peanut Butter Cups that it took me a while to warm up to their distinctive, crumbly peanut butter. I never had that problem with Reese’s Pieces; it’s always been one of my favourites.

There’s just something about the sweet, creamy peanut butter filling combined with the crunchy shell that hits all the right notes for me. The smooth peanut butter centre is sweeter than the average PB, and contrasts very nicely with the crunchy shell. They also happen to be highly addictive; once you start eating them, it’s pretty hard to stop until you’re scraping the bottom of the bag and wishing there could be just one or two more left.

I do have a small quibble with the packaging – I’m of the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” school of thought, and so I kind of miss the box. I guess it doesn’t make a difference, but I miss it nonetheless.

Manufactured by: Hershey
Calories (51 g bag): 250

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