96 replies to this topic

[Emily_R]

Totally agree on the goldenberg's peanut chews and the new packaging!

Love the famous chocolate wafers -- I can't even buy them because of my total lack of self control.

Agree with the original poster that a snickers is a well balanced and tasty sugar-delivery machine...

My addition to this list would be pepperidge farm's Genevas. I hate the milanos, but the cookie consistency and the chocolate quality on the Genevas is perfect.

Ooh wait -- and after eight chocolate covered mints. Loooove.

[Holly Moore]

Chunky - Whata chunka chocolate!

[judiu]

Milky Way Midnite indeed! Also Heath bars and the Chunky that had pecans in it. It was in a gold wrapper. Currently will sub in Milano Mocha cookeies, if I can find them and/or any dark chocolate raspberry combo!

[Chris Hennes]

Three foods that we simply cannot have in the house because of their irresistible siren song: Snickers, Snickers Ice Cream Bars, and Oreos. I ate more Oreos as an undergraduate than I care to admit. I also find that both Snickers and Snickers Ice Cream bars have optimum serving temperatures that when strayed to far from render the product nowhere near as good. Snickers, for example, seems to hit its sweet-spot at about 75°F: too much warmer and it's too melty, but too much cooler and the caramel is too firm.

[gfweb]

Ivin's spiced wafers
Peanut M&Ms
Tastykake butterscotch Krimpets (nobody bakes a cake as tasty as a tastykake)

[Hest88]

Twix
Pepperidge Farm Milanos
Lindor truffles

[OliverB]

first of all:
Haribo Gold Bears, especially if made in Europe.
KitKatt bars
Cheetos (spelling?)

[Darienne]

DH and I just had a small but serious discussion and the answer is there is no mass-produced sweet that we really like.

Now when there is a thread on regional goodies, we'll have one to add that we truly love.

[heidih]

Peanut M & M's. I lived on them as an undergraduate and then a law student. Of course I would pass out in class on occasion from the sugar highs and lows.

Almost any brand of chocolate covered graham crackers works for me. I would not do that as a home project, but if they are present, well... they are gone.

The third would be the crispy version of butterfingers. They were banned at Halloween or I would have been carted off in a sugar coma.

[Jacquester]

This is easy

Oreos
Reese's Peanut butter cups
Kit kats

hmm no wait

Mary jane's
Tastykake coconut cream pie
Manner Hazelnut wafers.

baah,
on second thought, this isn't so easy

[haresfur]

I think perhaps cookies and candy should be separate categories.

I agree, only because it makes this easier:

Cookies:

Dare lemon creams/maple creams (note how I cleverly slipped in a fourth choice?) Canada's gift to the world.
Pims - Spongy cookie with orange marmalade and chocolate. Best when just starting to go stale so they are chewier.
Hobnobs - you can almost pretend they are healthy

Candy:

Tree-Top fruit gummies. They come in a huge box of small packets from Costco.
Snickers - but only the miniature ones frozen.
Star-burst - ok, too sweet and too sticky but the acidity is a nice balance that you don't usually get in candy.

I don't think high end chocolate bars meet the criteria, although I almost said Aero bars instead of Snickers. The chocolate isn't that great but I like the texture.

[maggiethecat]

I love Aero bars -- the texture is outstanding.I've been thinking about this and I realize that although I've been a long time Canadian ex-pat my favorite mass-produced sweets are still Canadian, with a bow to Petit Ecolier.

Coffee Crisp
Peak Frean's (Freen's?)Nice biscuits
Smarties --to our gringo friends, these are the Ur M&Ms.
Cadbury's Fruit and Nut Bar.

OK, that's four, but I couldn't leave one out.

[Emily_R]

Three foods that we simply cannot have in the house because of their irresistible siren song: Snickers, Snickers Ice Cream Bars, and Oreos.

Oh YES! YES YES YES! Snickers Ice Cream bars are absolutely a miracle food. The ice cream bars are totally incredible. I don't understand what miracle of chemistry it is that allows the caramel to stay totally fluid while the ice cream is still frozen... Not to mention that nougat flavored ice cream is incredible. Perfect, and SO much better than if they were made out of vanilla ice cream.

[maggiethecat]

Oh geez, how could I have forgotten about Dove Bars? (I'll be checking out the Snickers ice cream bars. Thanks.)

[hsm]

Kit Kat Bars and Mounds are why I stay away from vending machines. And now I'm looking at the mostly empty box of Petit Ecolier I've been trying to ignore this evening, so thanks for that.

[Fat Guy]

When I saw several nominations for Heath, I realized how much I like Heath bars. So this afternoon I decided to buy one and eat it. If there are a few places on Earth that could be said to be the center of everything, one of them is surely Grand Central Station. That's where I was, heading to an appointment on 41st and Madison. I visited a number of newsstands and shops in Grand Central, and several others on 42nd Street and along Madison Avenue, where I walked 4 blocks past my destination in search of a Heath bar.

I couldn't find a Heath bar anywhere in or around Grand Central Station. I'm sure there was one somewhere, but I checked a lot of places and they had none. They all, however, had Snickers, M&Ms, Hershey bars, Twix and several others. So I have to conclude that Heath is a specialty product rather than a true mass-market product.

The genesis of this topic, for me, was in a class I'm taking. To be licensed as a teacher in a New York career school, I need 90 hours of certification classes. These classes last 7.5 hours each on a Sunday down in the vicinity of Macy's, which is a real no-man's land on Sundays. The school where the classes are held is, I think, a school where people go to train to be things like EMTs. The days are long and so the vending machines become a focal point.

In the class with me are several people who teach at area culinary schools (in addition to people who teach everything from nursing to music production to welding) like FCI, ICE and CIA, and one guy who teaches cooking in a place that seems to be one step removed from a prison. Anyway, I was standing around the vending machine with a few chef-instructors, including one who is the former pastry chef at two of the city's best restaurants, and the subject turned to "Which of these vending-machine offerings pass muster as actual delicious treats?"

I thought about starting a topic devoted to vending-machine items, but I realized that would be too narrow. So I framed it in terms of mass-market treats. I can't really anticipate the twists and turns the discussion will take, and it's hard to rule on, for example, whether ice cream counts. But I'm enjoying everybody's posts.

[Aloha Steve]

Almond Joy
Red Vines
Nestle Crunch

[Pierogi]

Absolutely #1 is Heath Bars.....ohhhhhhhh, Heath Bars.
#2 would be Peppermint Patties....love the mix of dark chocolate with the peppermint cream(?) or the peppermint whatever
#3 would be a tie between Rolos/Baby Ruths/Paydays/*fresh* Butterfingers and Almond Joys. I really can't choose just one out of these, they are all an addictive downfall !

[Chris Amirault]

Steven, did you see Skor bars? Both Heath and Skor are made by Hershey but -- in a classic late 20thC story -- twasn't always this way. Heath was an independent British candy company, and Skor was Hershey's attempt to battle with them when Heath was bought by Leaf. Of course, later on down the road, Hershey bought Leaf, meaning that both bars were in the Hershey line. I wonder if they've pushed Heath off the shelf and given the space to Skor....

[Fat Guy]

I had no idea the widely available Skor was a Heath analog. I'll have to get one -- maybe I can even get both -- and report back.

[JeanneCake]

I can usually find Skor bars at CVS; the Heath bars at a supermarket - but while you can buy Heath bar crumbles (smashed up candy bars) in the bakery aisle (so you can add them to cheesecake batter, or cookie dough, or buttercream) you cannot buy Skor bits. And the Skor bits are much, much better!

Who remembers the name of the online store that sells "old time" candy - the stuff we grew up on and can't really find easily - if at all? I checked it once and I think they had a 3# bag of Skor bits that I kept meaning to buy and then forgot until this thread!

[Darienne]

OK. OK. I've never even had a Heath bar and I'll find one and try it.

If I might be allowed to mention a book on this subject, Steve Almond's Candyfreak; A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America is well worth the reading. The title is off base to me...it sounds like something almost unsavory, but the book is a good read, all about the candies which are no longer there. Really enjoyed it.

[snowangel]

Steven, did you see Skor bars? Both Heath and Skor are made by Hershey but -- in a classic late 20thC story -- twasn't always this way. Heath was an independent British candy company, and Skor was Hershey's attempt to battle with them when Heath was bought by Leaf. Of course, later on down the road, Hershey bought Leaf, meaning that both bars were in the Hershey line. I wonder if they've pushed Heath off the shelf and given the space to Skor....

Here in MN, Heath is much more widely available than Skor.

[John DePaula]

OK. OK. I've never even had a Heath bar and I'll find one and try it.

If I might be allowed to mention a book on this subject, Steve Almond's Candyfreak; A Journey Through the Chocolate Underbelly of America is well worth the reading. The title is off base to me...it sounds like something almost unsavory, but the book is a good read, all about the candies which are no longer there. Really enjoyed it.

Candyfreak is, indeed, a good read. Not at all what I expected, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

It was this book that led me to try, umm... purchase these examples from the Boise Candy Co:

[rlibkind]

Almost any chocolate covered cherry, i.e., Cella's in the Northeast and MidAtlantic. Don't know if it's nationally distributed, but there've got to be other manufacturers. It doesn't compare to a fine chocolatier's version, but I love those artifically colored-flavored "marischino" cherries.

[Amy D.]

M&S's Percy Pigs - the only time i'd been thankful when they started producing something in smaller bags, because once i've opened them I really can't stop eating until they've all gone.
Galaxy Caramel
Maltesers

[Lindacakes]

What is a Red Vine, please?

Fat Guy, I think the Candy Machine aspect of what you are talking about is very important. I got a Letter of Concern in college for attempting to move the candy machine from the 3rd floor of the dorm to the 4th floor of the dorm. I thought the candy machine added a lot of personality and I wanted it closer. For many years I had the entire text of that letter memorized, and I must still have it somewhere. "Propensity for a mishap to occur was great . . . " was the crucial part.

There's something about the Nourishing Mother of a candy machine, particularly for people in dire circumstances. Those who have stayed up all night for a press O.K., and are eating breakfast from it. Those who are travelling and must surge onward fueled by it. Your classmates whose brains must depend on it.

The happiest candy machine I've known was in a very small airport in West Virginia and stocked only Lance products.

It was emblazoned with the memorable logo: Why go round hungry?

The finest nourishment available in a candy machine is a peanut block.

[Joe Gerard]

This topic is particularly timely for me as I spent the last two evenings rifling through my five year old's Halloween loot to conduct a similar rxperiment. I tasted a bunch of chocolate bars and suddenly had a vivid recollection of why I stopped eating them years ago - they suck. They were uniformly awful, featuring terrible chocolate, mealy or grainy textures and an overdose of sugar.

I think Walker's shortbread is a good product, and Haagen-Daz, at least the basic flavors.

[Hest88]

What is a Red Vine, please?

Picture a Twizzler, but one that's just sweet--without that sickly artificial strawberry flavor.

Last week I had a discussion with a co-worker who's from the East Coast. He maintains that East Coasters love Twizzlers and hate Red Vines, while West Coasters love Red Vines and hate Twizzlers. Since this California girl's tastes support his theory I couldn't deny it.

Is there a difference between Heath bars and Skors taste-wise. I like both, but I don't eat them frequently enough to have done any analysis.

[Darienne]

I figure that if a Red Vine licorice can be listed, so can then our favorite candy. Made in Grand Junction, CO, but available by mail all over the States.

Dark Chocolate Almond Toffee. The best I have ever eaten in my life. Enstrom. Written up somewhere...can't recall where...but the recommendation led me there last year. Yummmm

Now THAT'S good candy.