Confessions of a Novelty Confection Fiend

[emmapeel]

Over spring break I found a store that sells Mallow Cups and Sky Bars.  I'm down to one Sky Bar and two packages of Mallow Cups

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I love those also. I remember Bar Six, it was great. I also loved the Hollywood Bar, it was sort of like Milky Way Dark. My new favorite however, is the Butterfinger Crunch Wafer Bar. It's so light.

Edited March 5, 2005 by emmapeel (log)

[phlox]

Oh man, those Take 5 bars are amazing - the perfect PMS food.

[Toliver]

I was in a local drug store and saw a display with three "new" candies. I don't know how new they are but they were new to me.

There was a Limited Edition Dark Chocolate Twix bars, Reese's Fudge Peanut Butter Cups and Triple Chocolate Kit Kat Bars. They were touted as "Limited Edition" and were all in one display.

I, of course, took one for the team and have sampled all three.

Hey, someone has to do it.

The Triple Chocolate Kit Kat bar (according to the wrapper: "Crisp Chocolate Wafers and Chocolate Creme in Milk Chocolate") was nothing to post about so I won't bother.

The Reese's Fudge Peanut Butter Cups didn't seem any "chocolate-ier" than the regular peanut butter cups though the chocolate did have a softer, chewier texture. I guess you could say it was a little more fudge-like to the tooth. Perhaps that is what they were aiming for but I don't think it's enough of a enticement to make me buy it again.

But the hands-down winner was the Dark Chocolate Twix Bars. The enrobing chocolate is visually darker than the regular Twix bars. At first bite, they tasted like the regular Twix bars but then a definite dark chocolate "note" asserted itself (I wish I could taste wine as well as I can taste chocolate! ). I would love to see this made into a widely available chocolate bar. It's a winner.

edited to add links...but couldn't find a link to the Dark Chocolate Twix

Edited March 24, 2005 by Toliver (log)

[lia]

Oh man, those Take 5 bars are amazing - the perfect PMS food.

had my first on Tues. BEST new mass produced candy bar i've had in years and years.

[Tim Z]

Well I'd have to say Yorkie!! Yum!!

[jhlurie]

I was in a local drug store and saw a display with three "new" candies.  I don't know how new they are but they were new to me.

There was a Limited Edition Dark Chocolate Twix bars, Reese's Fudge Peanut Butter Cups and Triple Chocolate Kit Kat Bars.  They were touted as "Limited Edition" and were all in one display.

I, of course, took one for the team and have sampled all three.

Hey, someone has to do it.

The Triple Chocolate Kit Kat bar (according to the wrapper:  "Crisp Chocolate Wafers and Chocolate Creme in Milk Chocolate") was nothing to post about so I won't bother. 

The Reese's Fudge Peanut Butter Cups didn't seem any "chocolate-ier" than the regular peanut butter cups though the chocolate did have a softer, chewier texture.  I guess you could say it was a little more fudge-like to the tooth.  Perhaps that is what they were aiming for but I don't think it's enough of a enticement to make me buy it again.

But the hands-down winner was the Dark Chocolate Twix Bars.  The enrobing chocolate is visually darker than the regular Twix bars.  At first bite, they tasted like the regular Twix bars but then a definite dark chocolate "note" asserted itself (I wish I could taste wine as well as I can taste chocolate!  ).  I would love to see this made into a widely available chocolate bar.    It's a winner.

edited to add links...but couldn't find a link to the Dark Chocolate Twix

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I've had the Fudge Reese's PB Cups, and the Triple Chocolate Kit Kats, but not the Dark Chocolate Twix yet.

The Fudge PB Cups were okay. Nothing bad, nothing special.

The Triple Chocolate Kit Kats worked, because Kit Kats are very flexible in terms of product extension in my estimation. I've liked every variant they've come out with for it. Not loved, but at least liked. Well, at least enough to bother posting a picture.

Another decent purchase I made, the same day was a neat extension to the burgeoning Altoids product line. A while back they branched into Sour Candies. Then the branched off into gum. Now they've combined those branches with the addition of a Sour Apple Gum flavor:

These work well because they are EXACTLY as Sour as they need to be. Enough to make you pucker your lips, but not so much that your mouth is aching from it after the fact.

[ErinM]

My favorites run to the normal: Reese Sticks, Butterfinger, Whatchamacallit, Milkway Midnight (but only the bite size ones). I also liked the dark chocolate kit kat.

As for kit kat, until I did a google search, I had NO IDEA there were so many flavors! The following is the list I developed, and I would love to have a complete one (yeah, my life is so sad, I need to compile lists of candy flavors!)

Berry

Banana

Orange

Pinapple

Apple

Peanut Butter

Lime

Christmas Pudding

Green tea

Mint

Dark Chocolate

White Chocolate

Strawberry

Vanilla

Caramel

Triple Chocolate

Lemon Cheesecake

Passionfruit

Caffe Latte

And I read somewhere they were considering cranberry.

It just boggles my mind....

I really want to try the new dark chocolate m&ms as well as the dark chocolate twix and the triple chocolate kit kat. I'll have to start paying more attention in the candy aisles!

Edited May 6, 2005 by ErinM (log)

[emmapeel]

I just had a Dark Chocolate Chocolate Almond Joy. It was really different than a Mounds bar, (which I prefer since it's dark chocolate) because the coconut is chocolate also.

[touaregsand]

My 6 year old asked for candy money, minimum is $1.00 these days.

1975 I remember the joy of getting a quarter for candy. I bought a snickers bar, a jolly rancher watermelon flavored bar (remember the flat rectangular shape?) and two pieces of bazooka gum. All for just a quarter. Gas was less a dollar a gallon too.

A friend of ours brought over ten bags of haribo candy from France for the kids. My husband ate 7 of the bags within 3 days.

[Radio7]

I recently tried the 'sour apple' sugarless Extra gum. It's quite refreshing - and I usually am repulsed by apple-flavored candy.

As for KitKats, I love the white chocolate ones. Yum! they just kind of melt in your mouth. I've never actually bought a proper-size bar though, I had a multi-flavor bag of minis to hand out back at Halloween.

I tried Halvah for the first time last night at Canter's in L.A. Such the unique taste! Too sweet for my liking (I got marble), but perhaps some could be had while having coffee or tea.

I also tried one of those m&m minis chocolate bars (in peanut butter) and it was lovely. Seriously good. I'm not even a fan of chocolate-with-shell candies, but the minis are just tiny enough to burst a little peanut butter into your mouth as you eat the bar. I reccommend it.

I'm Canadian, and I miss my Coffee Crisp.

[Toliver]

I recently tried the 'sour apple' sugarless Extra gum. It's quite refreshing - and I usually am repulsed by apple-flavored candy.

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I concur. It's a great flavor. The only drawback is that it loses its flavor too quickly!

Within the last year I'd started keeping the jumbo packs of Extra in my office because I'd get a flood of visits from coworkers asking if I had any gum. One positive side effect of chewing the sugarless gum is during my last visit at the dentist's office, the hygenist who was cleaning my teeth asked what I was doing differently since there was hardly any staining on my teeth. I didn't put two and two together until I left the dentist's office that the gum must have made the difference. Chew on!

[Mooshmouse]

This new "Take 5" bar, from, Hershey's is actually fantastic.  It's got a much stronger salty quality than sweetness, and that makes it somewhat unique among mass-packaged candy bars.

The list of ingredients (pretzels, caramel, peanuts, peanut butter, milk chocolate) seems ordinary, but it's actually more than the sum of it's parts, due to a fairly interesting texture.  It's also MEGA-caloric.  220 for 1.5 ounces.  Whooooooo

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Oh man, those Take 5 bars are amazing - the perfect PMS food.

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I had my first Take 5 bar today. It will most certainly not be my last. Calories be damned... this is one tasty PMS salt/sugar/chocolate fix!

[natasha1270]

I had one of these the other day:

It had a chocolate to peanut butter ratio similar to the smaller individual sized reeses. Too much chocolate.

In a full-size reeses, I think I prefer the regular style.

N.

[Dining Diva]

GREAT thread! brings back a lot of childhood memories as well as making me crave all the new additions to the chocolate bar lineup

my parents owned a grocery store right up until i was out of my teens so i'm VERY familiar with a lot of the candies and bars that were mentioned on here (unfortunately lol). personal favs as a kid were those little cocolates that were shaped like a football (with the gold foil and silver lines depicting said football), marshmallow strawberries and bananas, charleston chews (the chocolate ones), nibs when they were fresh out of the box and super chewy, laura secord mint choclate bars and jolly rancher stix.... oh man, i really enjoyed those childhood years.....my dentist loved me

some newer favs include the fusion bar...... so yummy! i love that mix of carmel, crispy bits and chocolate... and that chocoate and caramel covered prezel that's sold at starbucks. delicious!

[jhlurie]

I had one of these the other day:

It had a chocolate to peanut butter ratio similar to the smaller individual sized reeses. Too much chocolate.

In a full-size reeses, I think I prefer the regular style.

N.

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There's apparently also a "Peanut Butter Lovers" variety with the exact opposite proportions.

One I've yet to try, but actually WANT to try because of TV commercials are the "Dark Chocolate M&M". Darth Vadar is selling them. I'm not kidding.

Hey... here's one (of many) news stories on this. I chose this one because the huge M&M guy is dwarfing Vadar, and it makes it look doubly ridiculous.

[Zucchini Mama]

Okay, now I know where I'm going to do my Christmas Shopping. A friend from Austria has brought us a Zotter chocolate bar. (www.zotter.at) Wowza! Grammelnussn vom Waldschwein: " Lumps of lard (grated) are roasted in a crispy fashion and then caramelized"-mixed with a sweet almond nougat and covered in dark chocolate. PMS prescription medicine. And I vote it be part of our Canadian health care plan! As should the rest of the assortment of bars:

Mare Milk

Hot Chicken Ensemble

Puss Puss

Celery, truffle, and port

red onions and beans

and many many more...

I'm putting in orders for the advent calendar for sure.

Wow!

Zuke

P.S. I forgot to say it's fair trade chocolate-don't know about the pork fat tho.

Edited May 15, 2005 by Zucchini Mama (log)

[Jason Perlow]

JHLurie and I picked up a couple of packs of the "Darth Side" M&Ms. Both the regular and the peanut are a superior darker chocolate formulation, similar to the "Shrek" M&Ms that were done for Shrek 2.

There's about six different varieties of packaging, all with different M&M versions of the Star Wars characters on them.

[rose_ayn]

JHLurie and I picked up a couple of packs of the "Darth Side" M&Ms. Both the regular and the peanut are a superior darker chocolate formulation, similar to the "Shrek" M&Ms that were done for Shrek 2.

There's about six different varieties of packaging, all with different M&M versions of the Star Wars characters on them.

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You found little packages of these? Wow. I bought a large bag of the darks, because, well it's dark chocolate. Didn't realize the Shrek ones were dark, just thought they were bigger - teach me not to buy novelty M&M's.

Of course I could probably bypass the packaging all together next time. My local Wegmans has the Star Wars M&M's in bulk at the moment, or at least they did a couple weeks back.

Wonder how much begging it would take for them to offer dark M&M's on a regular basis? I miss the Royals, they were so much better.

[jhlurie]

The store we visited only HAD the small packs. Luckily it was a great sale (69 cents, reduced from I think... $1.39), since little packs are always a rip off.

I didn't know that the Shrek M&Ms were Dark chocolate. Are you sure about that Jason?

I actually really like these by the way. They are less sweet than milk chocolate M&Ms. They taste more like ACTUAL chocolate instead of just a pile of sugar.

My favorite character of the many on those little packages? The Red M&M playing Darth Maul. Now I hated Darth Maul as a character in the movies, but Red M&M has the black face paint, so I can't resist it.

Red M&M vs. Darth Maul

Also... from the BACK of the package... here's Green--the only "female" M&M. I'm sure sure if this is supposed to be Leia or Padmé though.

[Jason Perlow]

You said it yourself, Jon:

Got a bag of the Peanut variety today (at Target, of course!).  Not bad.  They do taste a bit "richer".

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Shrek M&M thread (click)

[jhlurie]

You said it yourself, Jon:

Got a bag of the Peanut variety today (at Target, of course!).  Not bad.  They do taste a bit "richer".

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Shrek M&M thread (click)

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I admit that I recall the Shrek M&Ms tasting distinctly different from normal M&Ms, but I'd pretty sure I'd have specifically identified (and would recall) a Dark Chocolate taste.

Thinking back, when I said "richer" for the Shrek M&Ms I bet I meant "creamier"--as in maybe they used more cocoa butter and milkfat in the mix.

Besides, the media reports for the Star Wars Dark Chocolate M&Ms seem to be indicating this is the first time they've used Dark Chocolate.

The paragraph of the MSNBC article I linked to a few posts back says:

M&M's have gone to the "dark side." For the first time in the company's 64-year history, M&M's Brand Candies is introducing a dark chocolate version of its famous candy — and just in time for the release of "Star Wars: Episode III, Revenge of the Sith," the sixth and final episode of the Star Wars saga.

[Toliver]

My local drugstore must be a testing site...I am finding all kinds of new goodies there!

At first taste, there didn't seem to be enough of that slight bitterness that comes with dark chocolate. But as I continued to nibble (hey, someone has to take one for the team ) the flavor grew on me. It still has that Nestle's Crunch-essence but with a (too?) subtle dark chocolate taste.

I guess if I had to choose between Dark Chocolate Twix Bars and Nestle's Crunch Dark, I'd probably stick with the Twix. But I give them an "A" for their effort.

[chocomoo]

I really like Kitkat chunky peanut butter. Surprisingly good! Coffee Crisp had/has a Cafe Latte variety, which is not bad - although you white chocolate haters out there will hate it - it's enrobed in white chocolate instead of milk chocolate. My friend bought a whole box from Costco, and then moved to Shanghai, so now I'm stuck with them.... I like to go here for my U.K. candy bar & nostalgic candy fixes.

[Bernaise]

I've been aching and pining for something called Bar Six, gone forever in Canada...Recently though, I tried the Kinder Bueno Bar - and just like that it has brought me back to my Bar Six days!! yummy!

[Toliver]

Something new:

Kit Kat Candy Bar - Limited edition - Extra Creamy

Reese's Peanut Butter Cups - Limited Edition - Extra Smooth and Creamy

The Kit Kat bar was...unusual. The crunch was the same but I guess their idea of creamy means chewier. The chocolate covering almost came off as a complete sheet as I bit into it. Fun to try once but once was enough.

As for the Reese's LE...It was a total absence of texture. The peanut butter filling, which normally has some dry texture to it, was completely smooth and creamy. The chocolate coating was, like the LE creamy Kit Kat Bar, chewy. The familiar firm, almost crisp but not quite, chocolate covering was gone. As advertised, it was completely smooth and creamy. It was a completely different peanut butter cup experience. I prefer the original version but this LE was quite interesting.