Archive for September, 2008

Review: Hershey’s Mr. Goodbar

September 21, 2008 at 11:57 pm · Filed under Candy, Chocolate, Hershey's, Negative, Review, United States ·Tagged ,

Mr. Goodbar is a classic. First sold in 1925, it’s in the same iconic league as Snickers and Baby Ruth. It was also one of my favorites growing up. Whenever I came across a bag of Hershey’s miniatures, I quickly combed through and picked out all the little Mr. Goodbars; especially leaving the Special Darks behind. Well it’s been a few years since I’ve had one of these and I was pretty devastated to learn that Mr. Goodbars no longer contain real chocolate. Apparently, in an effort to cut costs, Hershey’s has decided to downgrade one of their greatest brands. But how noticeable is it? I figured it was worth a shot to see if maybe one of my childhood favorites was still as awesomely tasty as I remembered.

Structure
A 12 segment, molded milk chocolate bar with roasted peanuts.

Texture
The bar is thin and really soft – not at all like tempered chocolate should be. Worse, the chocolate is grainy. This is characteristic of real Hershey’s milk chocolate anyway, but this is worse. The peanuts are at least crunchy, but in a molded chocolate product like this, the consistency of the chocolate is the most important part and Mr. Goodbar fails in that department.

Taste
Sugary sweet with a lot of vanilla and little real chocolate flavor. The peanuts are fine enough, but it’s interesting to me that there’s no salt in this bar. Peanuts, salt, and chocolate go so well together. I can understand not wanting to go overboard with the salt, but just a little bit would go a long way. Especially if Hershey’s is going to make such a sweet fake chocolate product, it needs something to balance it.

Verdict
It’s really sad to see a classic like this suffer in the interest of reducing production costs. Some day, I hope Hershey’s regains their senses and refocuses on quality with this product. Until then, I’m going to try to get my hands on a Ritter Sport Voll Erdnuss, which I’m confident will be of a much higher quality than Mr. Goodbar.

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Review: Freia Kvikk Lunsj

September 21, 2008 at 5:11 pm · Filed under Candy, Chocolate, Freia, Norway, Positive, Review ·Tagged ,

The bright, bold packaging really stands out on the Kvikk Lunsj (Norwegian for “Quick Lunch”). With it’s three horizontal stripes, it dawned on me that it looks like a country flag. I wouldn’t have a clue off the top of my head which one, but after some quick research, I figured out that it does in fact look just like the flag of Bolivia.

As for the actual candy bar, it’s apparently quite popular in Norway. The average citizen there consumes nine per year.

Structure
A molded milk chocolate bar with four long segments – each with a wafer center. A Marabou Stork (the Freia mascot) is imprinted four times on each segment.

Texture
The chocolate coating is thick and well tempered. It’s VERY smooth and thoroughly coats your mouth as it melts. Overall, Freia milk chocolate is thick, creamy, and very satisfying. The inner wafer isn’t quite as crispy as its Kit Kat cousin, but it does provide a nice complement to the chocolate coating nonetheless.

Taste
The milk chocolate is again the star. It has a distinct milky flavor that I can now attribute as unique to Freia products in the same way I can pick out Nestle or Hershey’s chocolate. The wafer is mostly tasteless, but I appreciate that it is not overly sweet. This allows the chocolate taste to shine on it’s own.

Verdict
This bar easily gets a thumbs up from me. It’s basically a Kit Kat (a bar I already like), except with better chocolate. The fact that it has cool packaging is a bonus.

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Review: Hershey’s Whatchamacallit

September 15, 2008 at 10:44 pm · Filed under Candy, Chocolate, Hershey's, Negative, Review, United States ·Tagged , , ,

Whatchamacallit brings back memories of my 80’s childhood. Not because I actually ate many of them, but because I can remember those cheesy ads I used to see on TV. Back then, Hershey’s actually used real chocolate to cover this product. Sadly, today they use vegetables oils instead of cocoa butter because it’s cheaper and therefore, print “chocolately coating” on the packaging.

Structure
A peanut flavored crispy interior topped with a layer of caramel and enrobed in a milk chocolate coating.

Texture
The crispy center reminds me of Cheetos. Ok, that sounds weird, but imagine a Cheeto without any cheese on it. That’s what I thought of when biting into the center. Sadly, but expectantly, the chocolate coating is gritty. I wish I could go back and sample this Hershey’s product with real chocolate. The chewy caramel layer works nicely to provide some balance and depth to the texture of the bar.

Taste
The Whatchamacallit flavor experience is packed with sugary sweetness and vanilla. There’s really no chocolate flavor to be found, which is sad considering that I carefully taste candy bars looking for flavors. The caramel has a bit of saltiness, which cuts the sweetness a little, but it also has an artificial caramel taste that isn’t very pleasant.

Verdict
After I was done, I figured out what this candy bar reminded me of; these big tins of chocolate drizzled caramel popcorn my dad used to get for Christmas. I used to love that stuff. However, these days I’m not a fan of Whatchamacallits.

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Review: NECCO Sky Bar

September 12, 2008 at 8:45 pm · Filed under Candy, NECCO, Negative, Review, United States ·Tagged , , , ,

Sky Bars are manufactured by NECCO, New England Confectionary Company, which I associate with NECCO wafers — the worst candy ever made (one of the flavors is clove! yuck…). I learned never to eat them again after I first tasted one around 1987. So I’m hoping that NECCO’s Sky Bar turns out to be a lot better than those terrible chalky wafers.

Structure
A molded, milk chocolate bar with four segments – each with a different filling (caramel, vanilla cream, peanut butter, and chocolate fudge).

Texture
All of the fillings are soft and pretty similar in consistency.  The caramel and vanilla fillings are noticeably granular – not pleasant. There’s really no excuse for having sugar crystals in a finished product, especially in a product like caramel, which should be silky. The peanut butter filling was surprisingly the smoothest of the bunch, which is kind of weird because peanut butter doesn’t need to be smooth – it can be a little more coarse and crunchy and still be good.

Taste
When I first tried the peanut butter filling, I thought it was the caramel filling.  It doesn’t taste like peanut butter. With my second bite, I could make out a little bit of the peanut flavor. If you’re expecting it to be anything like a Reese’s peanut butter cup, you’d be way off.

The vanilla filling is forgettable. I really wish it had been marshmallow filling. Instead, it’s too sweet – like the inside of a Cadbury creme egg.

The caramel center is slightly salty, but has no deep, caramel flavor like I would prefer.

The chocolate fudge filling is my favorite. It tastes like brownie batter, which to me, is a good thing. I love licking the spoon after making brownies. Like the other fillings, it’s more sugary and sweet than anything. It could have been a more intense chocolate flavor, but it was good enough.

Verdict
The concept of four different fillings in one candy bar is cool.  If executed well it would be really good but this bar is not well done.  The chocolate is sub par and none of the fillings are very good (though I did kind of like the chocolate fudge). It’s a classic example of a product that does a little bit of everything, but doesn’t do anything particularly well. If NECCO were to combine the classic name and branding of the Sky Bar with high quality product and good execution, this could become a thumbs up.

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Review: Chocolove Cherries & Almonds in Dark Chocolate

September 10, 2008 at 12:34 am · Filed under Candy, Chocolate, Chocolove, Positive, Review, United States ·Tagged , ,

I received this bar as an Easter gift a while ago, but with so many candy bars lying around in my place waiting to be reviewed, it’s taken me a while to get to this one. I see these Chocolove bars all the time at Target, but since I actually don’t like the packaging design, I’m never tempted to buy them. If I hadn’t received this as a gift, I probably wouldn’t have picked it up for myself. Of course, I’m happy to try out any new candy bars and this is no exception.

Structure
It’s 18 segments of molded dark chocolate with pieces of toasted almonds and dried cherries mixed in.

Texture
The first thing you’ll notice is the strong snap to the chocolate when you bite in. It’s definitely one of the best tempered chocolates I’ve had. The almonds are chopped up pretty small and are toasted well, so they have a nice crunch. The dried cherries are a little chewy and stuck to my teeth after the chocolate had melted away.

Taste
You can taste right away that the Belgian dark chocolate is high quality. It’s only 55% cocoa, so it’s fairly sweet for dark chocolate, which is good because it counteracts the slight sourness of the dried cherries. The toasted almonds have a nice subtle flavor that complements the other components well.

Verdict
I didn’t love the dried cherries and would have enjoyed the bar more without them. Even so, this is a quality candy bar that I thoroughly enjoyed. I’m anxious to taste some of Chocolove’s other varieties. In fact, I have a Crystallized Ginger in Dark Chocolate bar sitting around that I’ll have to try out soon.

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Review: Nestlé Oh Henry!

September 6, 2008 at 7:50 pm · Filed under Candy, Negative, Nestlé, Review, United States ·Tagged , , ,

Oh Henry! bars are made by Nestlé in the US and by Hershey in Canada. The Nestlé version has a different look, both outside and inside, than it’s Hershey’s cousin.  Frankly, the Canadian version looks much better. This week though, I needed a late night snack. So, I raided the Candy Bar Lab stash and picked out one of these “Peanutty caramel fudge bars in rich milk chocolate”. Sounded good enough, so I gave one a try.

Structure
Two segments of peanuts, fudge nougat, and caramel covered in milk chocolate.

Texture
The bar’s thin chocolate coating is dry and crumbly.  Inside, peanuts are sparsely distributed throughout the caramel layer.  In fact, if I didn’t take a close look, I wouldn’t have known there were peanuts at all because they are so crumbly and soft they get lost amongst the caramel.  The grainy bottom layer of fudge nougat is very chewy – almost like bubblegum. Overall, the bar’s components run together and do not compliment each other.

Taste
What’s probably most interesting about Oh Henry! is what you don’t taste.  The chocolate has little to no flavor and you can’t taste the peanuts at all. There’s a little bit of saltiness in the caramel (not much), but the fudge layer doesn’t add any taste at all.  What you do taste, is a lot of artificial vanilla, sugar, and a slight burnt caramel aftertaste.

Verdict
Oh Henry! was a disappointment both as a late night indulgence and again the next day. The crunchy, salty, sweet, and chewy combination I was anticipating turned out to be a crumbly, chewy mess. I’ll have to try to get my hands on a Canadian version and try that out one day. Until then, I’m sticking with Snickers if I want a chewy, chocolate, caramel & peanut candy bar.

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