sweet Archives - Page 23 of 26

November 7, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Chocolate +Plus: Milk Chocolate Tiramisu Crisp – A Suprisingly Tasty (and Maybe Healthy?) Chocolate Bar

Candy Bars

I have to admit, my expectations for this were pretty low. Healthy chocolate seems like an oxymoron to me, and the thing that supposedly makes this bar healthier than the average chocolate – “bifidobacterium longum” – certainly isn’t one of the more appetizing-sounding ingredients I’ve seen in a candy bar. So colour me surprised that it actually tastes pretty good.

According to MicrobeWiki (now there’s an exciting web site), Bifidobacteria “promotes good digestion, boosts the immune system, and produces lactic and acetic acid that controls intestinal pH.” So that’s good, I guess…? I’m really not too concerned about how healthy this is, what I really care about is how it tastes.

Chocolate +Plus Milk Chocolate Tiramisu Crisp features creamy milk chocolate with a smooth, truffle-like centre. The bar has a pleasantly sweet, coffee aroma, and with the letters “+PLUS” embossed on the individual segments, it’s one of the nicer looking bars I’ve seen in a while. The bar is also slightly crispy thanks to little bits of puffed rice, though I’m not sure why as Tiramisu is probably one of the least crispy desserts you’ll find (it’s not crispy at all).

It’s good. The milk chocolate kind of reminds me of a slightly creamier version of Cadbury’s chocolate, and the truffle centre has a mild coffee flavour and is pretty tasty. I’m not sure how much it tastes like Tiramisu, but it’s good nonetheless. It definitely doesn’t have any kind of strange taste or unpleasant aftertaste that you might imagine, given that it’s a “health” bar, which leads me to believe that it probably isn’t very healthy at all. But healthy or not, it tastes good, and I’m curious to try some of the other flavours.

Manufactured by: Smart Confections
Calories (50 g bar): 290

November 6, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Caramilk Thick – An Improved Version of a Classic

Candy Bars

Caramilk is one of those bars that I like, but really only need to eat once every few months, because it’s so insanely sweet. It’s kind of like a Cadbury Creme Egg in that respect (and Cadbury, perhaps not coincidentally, makes both products). Caramilk is not available in the States, though according to Wikipedia, Caramello is pretty much the same product. I’ll have to verify that for myself the next time I get a chance.

The bar I’m reviewing here actually isn’t the standard Carmilk, it’s Caramilk Thick. It’s pretty much the same thing, only the squares are slightly bigger and seem to have a slightly higher chocolate to caramel ratio. The increased amount of chocolate actually works fairly well here, as the caramel is throat-burningly sweet, so a little bit of it goes a long way.

Of course the main selling point of a Caramilk bar is the consistency of the caramel; it is much softer than the usual caramel, and it flows rather easily (it’s probably a similar viscosity to a caramel sauce that you might put on ice cream). It’s pretty hard to eat without making a mess, so it’s advisable to pop an entire square into your mouth rather than trying to bite it in half. The chocolate is standard Cadbury milk chocolate, and is of a fairly high quality.

Overall this is probably a minor improvement over a regular Caramilk, thanks mostly to its increased chocolatiness. It’s also slightly easier to eat, as the segments are in one straight line rather than rows of two like the original, so you can just take a bite instead of having to break a piece off first.

Manufactured by: Cadbury
Calories (50 g bar): 250

November 5, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Terry’s Chocolate Orange: Mini Segments – A Fun Twist on a Classic Flavour

Chocolate

Terry’s Chocolate Orange are those fun, baseball-sized chocolates that you get to slam onto the counter in order to separate all the little segments. They are surprisingly delicious (I say surprisingly because, though the combination of chocolate and orange doesn’t exactly sound like a slam dunk, it actually works a lot better than you’d imagine).

These minis are pre-separated and individually wrapped, so you don’t need to slam them on anything (unless you want to, I guess). They all feature that classic combination of creamy chocolate and fruity orange that have made Terry’s so famous, with a bit of a twist. They are:

Puffed Rice: The puffed rice really doesn’t add much here – there’s not much of it, and the rice itself isn’t particularly crispy. It’s still good, but only because the chocolate is good; I normally like the combination of chocolate and puffed rice, but here the somewhat soggy rice is completely superfluous, and if anything, detracts from the chocolate. Definitely the weakest of the bunch.

Milk Chocolate: This is just the standard Terry’s Chocolate Orange, no frills. The milk chocolate is nice and creamy, and it strikes a good balance between the chocolate the and orange. Good stuff.

Cornflakes: This is definitely a big improvement over the rice; the flakes add a satisfying crispiness to the chocolate, and along with that, they contribute a surprisingly pronounced corny flavour.

Dark Chocolate: This is about a half-and-half split between the milk and the dark chocolate. If you’re not necessarily a fan of Terry’s signature chocolate/orange taste, this is probably the one for you – the dark chocolate doesn’t seem to be orange flavoured, giving this one a much more subtle orange flavour. It’s also, not surprisingly, much less sweet than the standard chocolate orange.

Crunchy Honey: The description of “sweet, crunchy honey flavoured bits” made me think of Toblerone, however the honey bits are larger and crunchier than the ones found in that bar, and they give this a fairly strong honey aftertaste. Another winner.

Aside from the somewhat anemic puffed rice flavour, these are all quite good an a definite must-buy if you’re a fan of Terry’s Chocolate Orange. However, with the possible exception of the dark variant, these all definitely have that specific Terry’s flavour, so if you’re not already a fan then these aren’t going to change your mind.

Manufactured by: Terry’s
Calories (for 5 pieces, 39 g): 200

November 4, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Kinder Bueno – Crispy, Creamy, Hazelnutty Goodness

Candy Bars

Though Ferrero are rather one-note as far as their product line goes (with a few exceptions, everything they sell has hazelnut in it), they’re probably one of the more reliable candy makers – I don’t think I’ve ever had a Ferrero product that I outright did not like. So it shouldn’t come as a big shock that I enjoyed this treat quite a bit.

Kinder Bueno consists of two individually wrapped bars (which is nice if you just feel like having a small snack and saving a bit for later). The bars are made up of a crispy wafer shell, filled with a “smooth milky hazelnut filling” and enrobed in a thin layer of milk chocolate.

The hazelnut filling (which is similar to the stuff inside the Ferrero Raffaello) is very creamy, and has a pronounced hazelnut taste. It is perhaps a bit too sweet, but that’s a minor complaint. The wafer shell adds a pleasing crispiness to the mix, and also has some flavour of its own to add complexity. The whole thing is coated in a thin layer of milk chocolate which, despite its thinness, contributes a definite chocolately taste (unlike, say, Cadbury Fudge, in which the chocolate is completely negligible).

It’s probably not the best thing that Ferrero makes (which is – and will likely always be – the classic Ferrero Rocher), but it’s still pretty tasty.

Manufactured by: Ferrero
Calories (2 bars, 43 g): 240

November 3, 2008January 10, 2021 Michael

Hershey’s Marshmallow Pumpkin – An Overly Chewy, Tasteless Blob

Marshmallow Treats

Hershey’s Marshmallow Pumpkin is presumably meant to cash-in on Halloween, though the actual product looks nothing like a pumpkin (it’s more of a semi-round blob). It also doesn’t have any pumpkin flavour, though that much is clear just by looking at the wrapper.

I’m generally not a fan of chocolates with marshmallow in it; there are a few exceptions (such as the amazingly good but difficult to find Valomilk), but for the most part marshmallows in candy tend to have an unpleasantly chewy/spongy texture. That is certainly true here.

Hershey’s Marshmallow Pumpkin consists of a thick, chewy marshmallow coated with a generous topping of dark chocolate. The chocolate coating is fine, if a little sweet. It’s the marshmallow where this candy seriously falters. It has an unpleasantly rubbery, almost chewing gum-like texture. It also doesn’t really have the vanilla flavour that you’d expect; it’s pretty bland, with a subtler-than-average marshmallow taste that seems slightly off. Pretty much all the sweetness comes from the chocolate.

I’m not sure what it is about marshmallow that makes it so hard to pull off in candy form. I think that anyone who wants to make a marshmallow-based candy should be required to eat a few Valomilks (I’ll post a Valomilk review once I can get my hands on one – they’re pretty much impossible to find in Canada); it just gets everything right, as far as marshmallow goes. This, on the other hand, is the anti-Valomilk.

Manufactured by: Hershey
Calories (31 g pumpkin): 110