Archive for February, 2008
February 23, 2008 at 8:34 pm
· Filed under Cadbury, Candy, Negative, Review, United Kingdom ·Tagged honeycomb, milk chocolate
I was able to find a few British bars at a local candy store, so this will be the first of a few I will soon write about. This candy bar from Cadbury is different from any of the mainstream American bars. It’s mainly comprised of honeycomb; a light, brittle confection. Its made by heating sugar to a hard crack or caramel stage then mixing it with sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and acid. This combination releases carbon dioxide (CO2), which forms bubbles. The sugar then hardens as the mixture cools to create the final product.
I first tried this bar on a trip to Bermuda a couple years ago. I’m curious to see how much I like it when I really put it through a taste testing.
Structure
A long, square honeycomb center enrobed in milk chocolate.
Texture
Crunchie is surprisingly easy to bite through; it’s very light and crispy. It breaks apart cleanly as soon as you bite in. The honeycomb melts quickly in your mouth and you can feel it dissolve when your tongue touches it. The negative is that the whole bar, including the chocolate, is really dry – almost powdery. I’m reminded of a freeze-dried ice cream sandwich I ate recently. I really think this needs something liquid (i.e. caramel or honey) or even waxy to counter the dryness.
Taste
You’ll mostly taste milk chocolate. The honeycomb releases an odd burnt flavor into your whole mouth as it breaks apart. I’m not sure if this is from the CO2 in the manufacturing process or if it’s burnt sugar. Either way, it didn’t work for me.
Verdict
This is a beautiful looking bar that I appreciate for being different from what I’m used to. Ultimately, the texture is one-dimensional and it doesn’t taste that good. I don’t recommend Crunchie unless you’re curious to try something different.
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February 19, 2008 at 4:38 am
· Filed under Candy, Nestlé, Positive, Review, United States ·Tagged Chocolate, chocolate creme, crispies, wafer
Just about everyone I work with has a blog. Most focus on web development and design. When I recently began telling them that I’m writing a blog devoted solely to candy bars, most were intrigued. One of my co-workers was even awesome enough to buy me a candy bar, which I of course promised to properly review on this blog. So here it is, the Nestle Crunch Crisp.
Structure
The center consists of alternating wafer and chocolate creme layers, which aretopped with a layer of milk chocolate and crispies. The entire bar is enrobed with a thin shell of milk chocolate.
Texture
The wafers are very crisp and the chocolate cream is soft – exactly how it should be. I expected a powdery texture like those cheap sugar wafers I was once addicted to, so I was pleasantly surprised. The top crispies don’t stand out. They have to be there for branding reasons, but I wouldn’t have missed them. Most importantly, Nestlé made this bar the perfect thickness. I panned Kit Kat Caramel for being too thick. Crunch Crisp didn’t make that mistake.
Taste
Nestlé chocolate has a unique flavor. When I was a kid, I loved it. Now, I find it to be a little too sweet and it has a distinct burnt caramel aftertaste. I probably should have eaten this in two sittings because the off flavors became unpleasant by the end.
Verdict
I really liked the texture of the wafers and chocolate creme; more than I disliked the chocolate flavor. If given the choice between this bar and a regular Nestlé Crunch, I would choose this. Therefore, I would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes Nestlé candy bars.
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February 14, 2008 at 3:54 am
· Filed under Candy, Negative, Review, United States ·Tagged carbonated crystals, milk chocolate
While scanning the candy assortment at Blockbuster this past weekend, something unusual caught my eye – a Pop Rocks brand chocolate bar. It’s been years since I’ve eaten Pop Rocks, but I think I remember liking them at the time. My first thought was that this is probably a strawberry flavored Pop Rocks center covered in chocolate. I think the red lettering on the wrapper threw me off because upon further investigation of the wrapper, I could not find any indication of a flavor other than chocolate. I’m not convinced that mixing Pop Rocks with chocolate is a good idea, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try this candy bar out.
Structure
To my surprise, this is in fact a molded bar with the carbonated sugar crystals (Pop Rocks) incorporated throughout.
Texture
Overall this is most like a Nestle Crunch. The crystals are small and crunchy. The chocolate is dry and crumbly – pretty terrible. This is really cheap chocolate. It’s probably been sitting on that Blockbuster shelf too long and the carbonation must have decayed the chocolate in the packaging. What’s the half-life of Pop Rocks? Hold on a second… what the hell is this? A few seconds after biting in, I feel what I believe to be an aneurysm. There are bubbles exploding in my brain. And it won’t stop. I experience a full 20 seconds of unpleasant popping in my cerebral cortex before it starts to die down and settle in the back of my throat. That was not cool. I put the bar down and ponder for a moment what just happened. I’m hesitant to go back, but I can’t let one bite suffice. Maybe it just caught me off guard. I prepare myself and take a second, smaller bite. And once again, I’m bombarded with crackling bubbles.
Taste
The little chocolate flavor there is vanishes within seconds. The crystals are completely flavorless, which is what makes the whole thing so weird. With each pop, no flavor is released. There’s no citric acid or anything else to counter the sensation. I imagine this is what Crystal Drano tastes like.
Verdict
This is without a doubt, the worst candy bar I’ve ever had. I couldn’t make it past the second bite. A half hour later I’m still feeling a little sick. Needless to say, I won’t be recommending this bar.
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February 11, 2008 at 6:05 am
· Filed under Candy, Negative, Nestlé, Review, United States ·Tagged caramel, milk chocolate, wafer
By themselves, plain old Kit Kats are great. Good caramel is also great. So, wouldn’t it be great if the two were combined? Well not so fast. Candy bars are a delicate balance of flavors and textures. Adding something, even if its tasty on it’s own, might not make the product any better than what you had to begin with. If it were that easy, candy manufacturers would just throw all of the goodies they could round up into a single bar.
So, back to the product at hand – a Caramello stuck to the top of an over-sized Kit Kat stick. Let’s see if this is an improvement over the regular Kit Kats many of us have come to love.
Structure
This is a molded bar with two cavities. The bottom one is filled with a layered wafer and the top one is filled with caramel.
Texture
Biting into Kit Kat Caramel is interesting. Your top teeth will first make their way through the caramel cavity before getting held up by the thick, middle layer of chocolate. Once they’ve broken this barrier, they will proceed easily through the crispy, wafer layer. What you end up with is a “ka-clunk” sound in your head with each bite. I wasn’t a big fan of this. It feels like you’re biting through two separate bars.
Taste
You’ll taste a lot of milk chocolate. The quality of which isn’t bad, but not great either. The wafer is pretty tasteless, but that’s fine. It’s only job was to provide texture. The big disappointment is that you can’t really taste the caramel, which is mild and gets overpowered by the chocolate. Wasn’t the addition of caramel the whole point of making this product? It would have been better if the caramel was saltier.
Verdict
I definitely don’t recommend this bar. The thickness of the middle chocolate layer is the fatal flaw. It ruins the texture and masks the caramel. I’ll be reaching for classic Kit Kats over their caramel cousins every time.
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February 10, 2008 at 11:49 pm
· Filed under Candy, Fillings, Recipes ·Tagged butter, corn syrup, cream, salt, sugar
This is the type of caramel you’d find in Twix or Snickers.
If you’ve ever researched caramel recipes, you may have come across some like this. I’m not a fan of this method. In fact, I don’t even consider it real caramel because the sugar never actually caramelizes. Instead, this method relies on vanilla extract for flavor and gets it’s color only from the Maillard reaction of the heated amino acids in the cream and butter.
The recipe below is darker in color with a fuller flavor, yet remains soft and won’t stick to your teeth.
Ingredients
- 1 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup corn syrup
- 1/2 cup water
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1/3 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 tbsp salt
Equipment
- 2 or 3 quart, heavy-bottomed pot
- candy thermometer
- whisk
Step 1: Prep
Get all of your ingredients out and measure everything ahead of time. We’ll move quickly through the last step, so you won’t have time to measure then. Also, it helps to cut the butter into four 1-tbsp pieces and mix the salt into the cream.
Step 2: Caramelize the sugars
In the pot, mix the sugar, corn syrup, and water over low heat with a whisk until the sugar is completely dissolved. Raise heat to high and boil mixture up to 315° F. Remove from heat and swirl the pot gently. You’ll notice the mixture start to darken a bit. The residual heat will bump the temperature to 320° F, the point of caramelization for sucrose.
Step 3: Incorporate the fats
If we stopped at this point and let the mixture cool, we would have a hard mass of dark sugar. To turn this into the soft caramel we’re looking for, we need to introduce some fat (i.e. the cream and butter). Drop the butter pieces into the pot and whisk until the butter is incorporated. Next, pour in the salted cream and again, whisk until blended. Note: The butter and cream both have water, so they will cause the pot to bubble up and release very hot steam. Make sure to wear an oven mitt to protect your hands and forearms.
Step 4: Cool
The caramel will thicken as it cools. If you’ve done everything correctly though, it should remain soft and gooey at room temperature.
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February 9, 2008 at 10:39 pm
· Filed under Candy, Hershey's, Positive, Review, United States ·Tagged milk chocolate, nougat, peanut butter
Following up on my earlier review of the Reese’s Crispy Crunchy bar, I’m breaking down another Reese’s product; Whipps. This product bills itself as “lighter than air, but a whole lot tastier”. We’ll see about that.
Structure
The inner core is peanut flavored nougat, which is surrounded first by a thin layer of peanut butter and second by a coating of milk chocolate.
Texture
The soft, thin chocolate coating is barely perceptible upon biting in and the next layer of peanut butter below is a little dry. The inner nougat mass accounts for most of the bar’s texture. The nougat is soft and airy. It becomes chewy for a split second before dissolving. Whipps feel very similar to a 3 Musketeers.
Taste
The favor profile is very straight-forward; peanut butter and vanilla (the chocolate never showed up). The peanut butter flavor is much lighter than other Reese’s products, which isn’t a necessarily bad thing. Ultimately, what makes the bar work for me is that its not too sugary. Even though it delivers only a mild hint of peanut butter, it still manages to come through.
Verdict
This bar is simple in both texture and taste. I will acknowledge that it is a whole lot tastier than air, but I won’t go much further. With that said, I enjoyed Whipps and recommend them if you like 3 Musketeers and peanut butter. I’ve seen some very negative reviews of this bar, so I might be in the minority, but I wanted more when I was done. Ultimately, that’s the only thing that should matter when evaluating candy.
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