Hershey’s Strawberries ‘n’ Creme – Is it Supposed to Taste Like Medicine?

Hershey recently released three white chocolate bars with ice-cream-inspired flavours: Birthday Cake (which I just reviewed), Strawberries ‘n’ Creme, and Cookies ‘n’ Mint (which is up next).  I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the Birthday Cake variety, which had an appealingly junky flavour that reminded me of store-bought frosting.

This one, on the other hand?  Swing and a miss.

Hershey's Strawberries 'N' Creme

It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever eaten, but nothing here particularly works.  The slightly sour strawberry flavour is neither here nor there; it’s muddled, with a medicinal quality that I found to be vaguely unpleasant.  I guess it’s supposed to taste like strawberry ice cream, and it kinda does if you use your imagination, but mostly it tastes like lousy white chocolate with a watered-down strawberry-like flavour.

Hershey's Strawberries 'N' Creme

It doesn’t help that the chocolate isn’t particularly creamy, with a slightly grainy consistency (which, to be fair, seems to be an issue with all Hershey chocolate).

There are little crispy bits interspersed throughout, but unlike the sprinkles in the Birthday Cake variety, I’m not sure what they’re supposed to be or why they’re there.  They lack the pronounced crunch of the sprinkles, and only serve to emphasize the white chocolate’s lack of creaminess.

1.5 out of 4

Manufactured by: Hershey
Nutritional info (1 bar, 39 grams): 200 calories, 11 grams of fat (7 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg of cholesterol, 35 mg of sodium, 24 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fibre, 20 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugars (sugar, corn syrup solids, lactose, strawberry juice, maltodextrin), cocoa butter, milk ingredients, sunflower oil, modified palm oil, corn starch, lecithin (soy), natural and artificial flavors, polyglycerol polyricinoleate, beetroot concentrate, citric acid.

3 Color Coconut – Not Something I Ever Need to Eat Again

I’m generally a pretty big fan of coconut in candy – Bounty, which is essentially a superior version of Mounds, is one of my favourites. But there are those who feel differently, such as Steve Almond, who described coconut as having a “creepy dead skin texture” (in his very entertaining book, Candyfreak). I can see what he’s saying with a complaint like that, though it’s not something that generally perturbs me. 3 Color Coconut, however, is drier and less sweet than the usual coconut candy, which makes the “dead skin” factor much more of an issue.

3 Color Coconut

3 Color Coconut contains three sections with three distinct flavours: strawberry, vanilla and chocolate. The strawberry section definitely has the strongest flavour, with a sweet, unmistakably strawberry taste. Vanilla is just plain, sweetened coconut – only it’s not very sweet, and it doesn’t have a particularly pronounced coconut flavour (leading to the flavour running out before you’re actually done chewing it, and to the aforementioned dead skin problem). The chocolate section has a weak, vaguely chocolatey flavour (there’s no cocoa or anything even resembling chocolate in the list of ingredients, so take from that what you will).

3 Color Coconut

The chocolate coating that you’d generally find in a coconut confection such as this (like Mounds or Bounty) is definitely missed here. It’s kind of dry and not particularly flavourful; while the three different flavours make this an interesting novelty, I can’t say it’s something I’ll ever buy again.

2 out of 4

Manufactured by: Friesinger’s Candies
Calories (71 g bar): 320