Tag: sweet

Michael

Andes Crème de Menthe Snap Bar – Minty and Refreshing

Candy Bars

Mint and chocolate is one of those combos that seems like it shouldn’t work, but absolutely does; it’s sweet, refreshing, and delicious.

Andes Snap Bar

But the odd thing about Andes Snap bar is that despite ostensibly being a mint/chocolate bar, the packaging doesn’t once use the word “chocolate,” and cocoa butter is nowhere to be found in the ingredients — only palm oil.

The even odder thing?  It doesn’t really matter.  You definitely get a nice chocolatey flavour that compliments the strong mint quite well, and though the texture is softer and less creamy than actual chocolate, it works.  It’s satisfying.

Andes Snap Bar

I will say that eating it in bar form is probably unnecessary.  Andes mints are typically sold as individually wrapped, bite-sized pieces, which is really all you need.  The chocolate flavour mellows out the mint a bit, but the mint is clearly the star of the show.  It’s tasty and refreshing, but eating a whole bar’s worth of it is overkill.  It’s a bit much.

3 out of 4

Manufactured by: Tootsie Roll Industries
Nutritional info (1 bar, 43 grams): 230 calories, 15 grams of fat (13 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 0 mg of cholesterol, 20 mg of sodium, 25 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fibre, 23 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Sugars (sugar, lactose), palm kernel and palm oils, cocoa, skim milk powder, modified milk ingredients, soy lecithin, natural and artificial flavours, peppermint oil, tartrazine, brilliant blue FCF.

Michael

Old Faithful – Chewy Marshmallow and Crunchy Peanuts

Nut Clusters

I’ll admit that I hadn’t even heard of Old Faithful before a few weeks ago, but apparently it’s been around since 1925, so clearly it’s doing something right.

Old Faithful

It has a traditional bar shape, but Old Faithful is actually a peanut cluster a la Goo Goo Cluster; it features chewy marshmallow creme, lots of peanuts, and a generous coating of milk chocolate.

It’s pretty simple, but also pretty tasty.  The chewy marshmallow, crunchy peanuts, and creamy chocolate are a winning combo.

Old Faithful

The marshmallow is maybe a bit too chewy (it’s slightly rubbery), it’s extremely sweet (it’s a throat-burner), and there’s something slightly off about the flavour that I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but I otherwise enjoyed this.  The quality of the chocolate is pretty decent and the big peanut chunks add a ton of flavour.  It’s easy enough to see why it’s been around for almost a hundred years.

3 out of 4

Manufactured by: Idaho Candy Company
Nutritional info (1 bar, 43 grams): 220 calories, 12 grams of fat (4 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), 0 mg of cholesterol, 30 mg of sodium, 26 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fibre, 20 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein.
Ingredients: Milk chocolate (sugar, whole milk powder, cocoa butter, chocolate liquor, soy lecithin (added as an emulsifier), and vanilla), sugar, corn syrup, peanuts, egg albumen, gelatin, salt, and vanilla.

Michael

Kit Kat Matcha Green Tea – Nails the Green Tea Flavour

Candy Bars

I’m probably not the best person to review this particular Kit Kat variety.  I’m not sure why I even bought it; I’m just not a fan of green tea, either in beverage or dessert form.  It’s a super popular flavour, and I keep waiting for something to come along to sell me on it.  But this Kit Kat isn’t it.

Kit Kat Matcha Green Tea

It’s fine?  I guess?  There’s something about the bitter, vaguely swampy flavour of green tea that just never clicks with me, but if you like that then I’m sure you’ll like this.  The matcha flavour is surprisingly pronounced, and the sweetness is relatively restrained.

It is what it is — it’s a Kit Kat that tastes like green tea instead of like chocolate.  If that sounds good to you, then this is exactly what you’re hoping it’ll be.

Kit Kat Matcha Green Tea

The only real issue here, outside of my personal distaste for matcha, is that the stuff on its exterior has no relation to chocolate — the bar contains palm and vegetable oils and zero cocoa butter, so it’s not the white chocolate with green tea that you’d expect.  But it’s creamy enough, with very little of the waxiness you’ll find in most mockolate.  If I hadn’t known, I don’t think I would have realized.

2.5 out of 4

Manufactured by: Nestle
Nutritional info (1 bar, 35 grams): 190 calories, 11 grams of fat (8 grams of saturated fat, 0.1 grams of trans fat), 5 mg of cholesterol, 35 mg of sodium, 20 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fibre, 14 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: palm kernel, palm and vegetable oils, modified milk ingredients, sugar, wheat flour, maltodextrin, green tea powder, glucose syrup, soy lecithin, green tea leaves, salt, polyglycerol polyricinoleate, baking soda, calcium carbonate, protease, xylanase, natural flavours.

Michael

Twix Triple Chocolate – Delightfully Chocolatey

Candy Bars

I quite like Twix.  Aside from the fact that it’s the only candy with the cookie crunch (at least according to George Costanza), it features a great balance of crunchy cookie, chewy caramel, and creamy chocolate.

Like the Snickers Creamy Almond Butter that I just reviewed, Twix Triple Chocolate is weirdly small.  Presumably this is because a regular Twix is closer to 300 calories, and 200 seems to be the magic number.  Suffice it to say, if you attempted to stage a candy line-up with this and standard Twix bars, the size would be a dead giveaway.

Twix Triple Chocolate

Basically, Twix Triple Chocolate is a standard Twix bar, but with cookies and caramel that are infused with cocoa.  I was afraid it would be some kind of weird bastardization, but I actually think I prefer this to regular Twix.  It’s got everything you love about Twix — the crunchy/chewy/creamy combo is delightfully intact — but with a satisfyingly chocolatey flavour.

Twix Triple Chocolate

My only real problem with a normal Twix bar is that its level of sweetness is a bit intense; the cocoa-packed flavour here does a great job of offsetting that.  It’s delicious.

3.5 out of 4

Manufactured by: Mars
Nutritional info (1 pack, 40 grams): 200 calories, 9 grams of fat (5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat), <5 mg of cholesterol, 95 mg of sodium, 26 grams of carbohydrates, <1 grams of fibre, 19 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein.
Ingredients: milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, skim milk, lactose, milkfat, soy lecithin, PGPR, artificial flavors), sugar, enriched wheat flour (wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), palm oil, corn syrup, skim milk, dextrose, less than 2% – cocoa powder, chocolate, modified corn starch, salt, soy lecithin, baking soda, artificial flavor.

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.

Snickers Creamy Almond Butter

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.

Snickers Creamy Almond Butter

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.”

2.5 out of 4

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.