The 3 best mass-produced sweets

[MikeHartnett]

Rowntree's Fruit Pastilles, Aero Bars, British chocolate/candy of nearly any kind.

Notice a trend here? British candy trumps all!

[jsmeeker]

Not sure if they are "best" but I certainly have some favorites I really like

Heath Bars (i really like toffee)

Little Debbie Fudge Rounds (goes way back to Mom packing them in my lunch when I was in school)

Coca-Cola (even if it does have HFCS)

So, I have a candy, a baked good, and a beverage.

[Katie Meadow]

I think perhaps cookies and candy should be separate categories.

The only commercial cookies I buy are Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers. They resemble oreos in flavor, but without the white goop. When I eat oreos I scrape away the filling and toss it or give it to the nearest small person who wants it. LuckyGirl notes that Famous Wafers are now made with hydrogenated oil, but I can't say I noticed a difference in taste. Actually for a commercial cookie Walker's Shortbread is pretty good.

Candy: Violet crumble, any M&Ms except minis, sour skittles.

[LuckyGirl]

I think perhaps cookies and candy should be separate categories.

The only commercial cookies I buy are Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers. They resemble oreos in flavor, but without the white goop. When I eat oreos I scrape away the filling and toss it or give it to the nearest small person who wants it. LuckyGirl notes that Famous Wafers are now made with hydrogenated oil, but I can't say I noticed a difference in taste. Actually for a commercial cookie Walker's Shortbread is pretty good.

Candy: Violet crumble, any M&Ms except minis, sour skittles.

I can't say that I notice a difference in taste either. I didn't quit buying then because I noticed a taste change but because I prefer not to use/eat products with hydrogenated oils.

There are other products that I believe the switch to HO's changed the taste of but that's a whole other topic. Whether those flavor changes are from the HO itself or other recipe changes when HO was added, maybe yet another thread

I do notice a difference in how Oreos taste now compared to how they used to taste but I'm not sure what accounts for that difference.

[rlibkind]

I've been a Three Musketeers fan since I fell off the Peanut Gallery circa 1952 and the staff fed them to me to shut me up. I've always thought it was a Snickers without the peanuts and caramel. (I'm probably in the minority, but I don't favor nuts in my chocolate, the only exception being Chunky and Cadbury's Dairy Milk's Fruit and Nut variety.)

Milky Way Midnite, though slightly harder to find than regular Milky Way, is also a fav. Once upon a time this used to be called Forever Yours.

[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.