I’m often puzzled whether the mere act of covering any food item in chocolate makes it into candy.

I don’t do well in drawing that line. Fruit covered in chocolate, that’s candy. Nuts covered in chocolate, that’s candy. Cookies covered in chocolate ... hmm, if they’re bite sized, sure. Ice cream covered in chocolate? No, that’s still ice cream.

Wolfgang Skipjacks are milk chocolate covered oyster crackers (bite sized saltines).

They’re sold in stand up 7 ounce bags ...which sounds more like the packaging of a snack item than a candy item ... but I’m going to just call this candy. Otherwise I can’t review it and I’m currently eating the third bag I got from them after posting the new product announcement.

The pieces are about one inch in diameter and a half inch high. There are little squiggles on the top of the chocolate enrobing.

The crackers are flaky and crunchy with very little flavor of their own beyond the bit of granulated salt.

The milk chocolate is very sweet and has a milky and sticky quality to it.

The light and crisp crunch combined with the dairy milk chocolate is a good combo ... it’s definitely snackable, though not quite decadent they do satisfy.

The only thing that I found disheartening about these was the fact that they’re not all milk chocolate. Reading over the ingredients there are three components listed. Milk Chocolate, Oyster Crackers and then Bottom Coating Compound. Sure enough when I turned over the candies on some of them I could see a different colored chocolate dot on them. I’m sure this was a manufacturing decision and the only thing I can think of is the fact that these crackers, before getting coated, are probably devilishly light and maybe didn’t “sit still” while going through the curtain of chocolate to coat them. Maybe they needed a little chocolate foot ... why it has to be a mockolate foot, well, I don’t know. (They show a little of their enrobing in this video.)

Overall, I thought they were definitely worth it if you’re a crunchy with salt & chocolate person. I also thought the name was pretty cool, the package design is fun and spare (no unnecessary tray or inner bags).

Rating: 7 out of 10.

A companion product are the Jungle Jacks.

These are chocolate covered animal crackers.

This bag is 6 ounces instead of 7.

Like the Skipjacks these are milk chocolate coated (and have that same mockolate bottom coating).

The crackers vary in size - about 1.5 to 2 inches wide by one inch.

Like uncoated animal crackers, I had a hard time figuring out what creatures these were. Most I decided were zebras and rhinos, though they might have been lions or elephants.

The crunch on these little light shortbread cookies is denser than the Skipjacks and has a light toasted flavor, maybe a bit of a graham cracker note.

It’s a little sweeter overall, and I was satisfied much quicker eating these than the Skipjacks - maybe the salt makes me want more.

It says there are 6 servings in the bag ... in my experience there were two.

Overall, a nice change from chocolate covered pretzels or cookies ... but I can’t see myself buying these again. But I can see kids loving them and parents liking how they can give out just two or three pieces of “candy” at a time.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Related Candies

1. Ferrara Dark Chocolate Covered Biscotti
2. Q.Bel Crispy Wafer Bars
3. Cookie Dough Bites
4. Twix PB
5. Maud Borup Potato Chips
6. Yan Yan
7. Men’s Pocky

Long before Hershey’s got into the organic chocolate act by buying Dagoba in 2006, Mars bought a small organic & heritage seed company called Seeds of Change in 1999. Since then, Seeds of Change also became an organic food company (sauces, grains & frozen meals) and launched a line of organic chocolate bars.

Seeds of Change is dedicated to preserving food diversity and promoting organic growing techniques and food worldwide, and cacao is definitely one of those plants that needs that sort of nurturing. In addition to using organic ingredients they also donate 1% of their net sales to advance the cause of sustainable organic agriculture worldwide. I tried their bar called Isle of Skye last year, which I thought was an excellent and noteworthy crisped grain in milk chocolate bar.

This year, while browsing ExpoWest, a natural & organic products trade show in Anaheim, I found out that Seeds of Change has shifted their product line. They changed the names of their bars, dropped a few of them and added some more classic versions (a plain dark chocolate bar, for instance) and also redesigned all their packages. (I did love their previous wrapper images.)

I was excited to see the new package, which is a wallet style paperboard package with three individually wrapped bars inside. Perfect for portion control, great for keeping all pieces fresh and excellent for sharing. The three bars in a reclosable package may look familiar ... Dove introduced it last year.

The Seeds of Change version has little plastic wrapped bars instead of foil.

I picked their 61% Dark Chocolate with Mango and Cashew as the intro to this new look & product line.

The little bars are nicely molded, shiny and with a crisp snap. They’re scored into four pieces - the whole bar weighs only an ounce.

I like the thickness of it, as it allows a nice bite and a slow melt of the bar.

The dark chocolate is smooth and silky, it has a quick melt and a lot of cocoa butter feel on the tongue. Unfortunately it’s not a vegan bar, there’s milkfat in there.

The flavors are pretty simple. It’s rich coffee & woodsy flavored chocolate, a little bit of dark charcoal and then some grassy notes of the cashew pieces. The little dried mango bits are a little fibery but pack a powerful punch of tangy chew - kind of orangy-citrus with a hint of peach and green tea.

The little inclusions are rather small. The cashew pieces weren’t big enough to be crunchy, which is too bad, because I think the buttery crunch of cashews would really bolster this bar.

As it is, the shining star here is the chocolate followed by the mango notes. Aa good, fun taste combination.

The complete list of products in their line is now: Milk Chocolate (43%), Milk Chocolate with Puffed Grains (formerly Isle of Skye), 61% Dark Chocolate, Dark Chocolate with Cherries & Vanilla, Dark Chocolate with Coconut. It’s an interesting array because besides the plain chocolate, the flavors are different from the usual offerings when standing in the chocolate bar aisle. I’ve seen Seeds of Change at drug stores (Long’s Drugs in California). Oddly enough, Seeds of Change also just sent me some of the other new bars, so I’ll have reviews of those soon, too.

In recognition of Earth Day, Seeds of Change is running a contest (deadline July 21, 2009) - submit you video, photo or essay to tell the world what you’re doing to make a difference.

The Grand Prize winner will receive 365 days of Seeds of Change(r) Organic Chocolate, plus a variety of our other Seeds of Change Organic products. The runner-up will receive a sampling of Seeds of Change Organic Chocolate and our other Seeds of Change Organic products.

I buy their sauces and think they’re very tasty and usually well priced for organic products.

Related Candies

1. Chocolate Dipped Altoids - Creme de Menthe
2. Organic Zootons
3. 3400 Phinney: Fig, Fennel & Almond and Hazelnut Crunch
4. Zotter Candy Bars
5. Terra Nostra Pocket Bars
6. Green & Black’s Ginger Chocolate
7. Dagoba Hazelnut

I’d say that I don’t review about half of the candy that I acquire. Some is for personal consumption or gifts, but a good proportion I just never get around to. Most of that you’ll never even see. These shown below are ones I at least took photos of, yet I still couldn’t muster a review.

Do if you’ve had any of these, please feel free to chime in with your thoughts so that at least other folks can get some feedback on them.

Brix Chocolate - Special milk & dark chocolate blends made just for eating with wine. It comes in huge blocks that seem like they’d be difficult and messy. I picked up these tasting squares at the Fancy Food Show. I photographed them, I ate them. I read some other reviews.

These are Valerie Confections liquid caramel eggs in a dark chocolate shell with a dusting of gold flakes. They were divine and I ate a half a dozen of them in a matter of three days. (Along with a fabulous box of my favorite Lemon & Hazelnut Nougat.)

I bought this in Pennsylvania last year at the grocery store near my sister’s house. Eurocrem Blok - it sounds like it could be the name of any number of products. A brand of butter. A solid deodorant stick. Maybe a fine chocolate.

I bought it because of the name and the package design, not because I thought it’d be good. Even though the package clearly says it’s good until October 2009, it was bloomed. Could have been my fault, could have been something that happened in my luggage. Could have been the store. But it wouldn’t be fair to review it and I’m not really into eating chalky chocolate.

Brandini Toffee has been suggested for review several times by readers. I thought that the Fancy Food Show was a perfect opportunity to do that. They gave me these itty-bitty samples (mostly because I visited them on the last day, not because they were stingy or anything ... not that any candy company is obliged to give me free samples just to get reviewed, because that’s also not true).

Not really the way to review toffee. One of these days I’ll find it in stores and buy a real-sized portion, not these sugar-cube-sized stuff made for Barbie dolls.

I diligently picked out these samples of the missing flavors in my set of Lake Champlain truffle eggs when at the Fancy Food Show.

These are the Java Truffle Eggs.

Then I ate them. They were good. I did actually intend on getting more of them, since they were already photographed at the Whole Foods by my office, but sometimes I get lazy.

These are little plain dark chocolate tasting pieces of Frey Swiss Delice Dark Chocolate in 72% and 55% cacao.

I picked them up because I thought it’d be interesting to taste the chocolate base for the bars that seem to be so popular at Target and come in a bajillion flavor combinations except just plain chocolate.

I never got around to it and then I lost these eensy little pieces. (Seriously, you think they’re small, but they’re actually smaller than that.)

I thought this was a fabulous little bite of caramel.

Goat’s milk is a little gamier, a little tangy and sometimes a little musty tasting compared to cow’s milk. These Beurre et Lait de chevre were no exception. It was like eating a bit of cream cheese with my caramel.

At the point where I ate them after the Fancy Food Show, I’d completely forgotten where I got them from. Then I found the second one a few weeks ago and I have to say that I think they’re product best eaten fresh.

So there you have it, if not full reviews, at least lots of eye candy.

Related Candies

1. Kohler Chocolates Garden Ganache & Toffee Mountains
2. Askinosie White Chocolate (Plain, Nibble & Pistachio)
3. Lake Champlain & See’s Bunny Battle
4. Frey Supreme: White, Lemon & Lime and Citron & Poivre
5. Ethel Holiday Assortment
6. Lake Champlain Hazelnut Eggs

I have been waiting nearly a year to find these! I first read about them last year on Candy Addict’s list of new products coming out from Hershey’s. The release date of December 2008 came and went and I kept my eyes open but still didn’t see them in the stores ... not even on the internet. I thought maybe Hershey’s decided not to put them out.

Then last week I wandered down to the 99 Cent Only Store about a mile from my office to see what was new. I found a box. One box. Just sitting there, mixed in with the Sugar Babies and Care Bears Gummi Bears. I would have bought more, but this was all they had (and this one was a little dinged).

The biggest question I had about these was which side of the confectionery line would they fall ... are they a licorice product like Good & Plenty or are they a jelly-bean-like Good & Fruity.

The front of the package was no help. It describes these only as Sweet and Spicy chewy candy. The side of the package pushed me in the direction of Good & Fruity when I looked at the ingredients. The first three are dextrose, sugar & corn syrup. Good & Plenty has wheat flour as part of the licorice.

So now I knew that I was expecting: Lemon, Orange, Apple & Cinnamon jelly rods.

All that confusion aside ... the box design is fabulous. I love the bold colors & graphic style (which is why there are so many photos in this review).

Good & Fiery are like their brethren Good & Fruity - little jelly bean rods. Long (about 2/3 of an inch) & tapered at both ends, they’re smaller than Mike and Ike and a bit shinier, too.

Lemon (Yellow) - bright and translucent, I was more than curious what the combination of lemon and cinnamon would hold. The candy shells on these is rather thin & crunchy. Now, the flavor ... at first it’s a little bitter. The shell is sweet, but the little sweet veneer wears off and I got a slight bitter hit, an organic type of woodsy bitter. I got lemon zest too ... and then cinnamon. At the very end there was a little twang of tartness.

It’s downright bizarre. It’s like eating a candle. Not in a bad way.

Orange (orange) - also starts with a slight bitterness but that moved into a very strong sweetness quickly. The cinnamon here is like an actual cinnamon stick - woodsy with notes of cedar and pine and then a strong snap of tartness then some more bitter at the end. There’s a warm feeling from the cinnamon but not a strong lingering one.

Apple (red) - I had trouble telling the reds apart when I didn’t have another to compare it to (though usually the cinnamon ones were a bit fatter). This apple is sweet and tangy and has that nice combination of apple juice flavor mixed with that made-in-the-lab note of “green apple flavoring”. The cinnamon is a bit of a background here but makes it taste a bit like a McDonald’s Hot Apple Pie. (Without the “caution filling is hot” label.)

Cinnamon (dark red) - I was expecting the plain cinnamon to be like a Hot Tamale or Sizzling Cinnamon Jelly Belly. Instead this one went in a wholly different direction. The shell on these seemed crispier. The cinnamon flavor on the outside was soft. Then at the edge of the shell and the jelly center there was a burst of flavor - like an all cinnamon chai - it had a burning warmth and some really authentic notes of real cinnamon, not just the cinnamon oils.

This has to be one of the strangest ventures I’ve seen Hersheys’ take in quite a while. It’s like they subcontracted the folks who developed the Dots: Elements (Earth, Wind, Fire & Water) to come up with a brand extension for Good & Fruity. I’m completely puzzled by these though, because I think Hershey’s created a great new product with their Cinnamon Twizzlers Fire. Why couldn’t they have taken those and made a version of that like the true Good & Plenty?

Those who are disappointed by the soulless rebirth of Good & Fruity aren’t going to find any comfort here. Those who enjoy cinnamon with all the variations of the flavor might find some solace.

Joann from Sugar Hi reviewed them a few months ago, at least helping to disambiguate their candy category but didn’t dissuade me from trying them.

Related Candies

1. See’s Cinnamon (Hearts & Lollypops)
2. Cinnamon Imperial Hearts
3. Gimbal’s Lavaballs
4. Good & Plenty (Fresh from the Factory)
5. Chocolate Dipped Altoids
6. Hot Tamales and Hotter Tamales

I don’t know much about fudge. What I do know is that when I accepted an offer of fudge samples from Rosa’s Fudge last month I became the proud recipient of more fudge than I have ever possessed before.

The box pictured is over 6 inches long, 4 and a half inches wide and almost three inches deep. Inside were 24 1.25 ounce squares. Yes, the box weighed about two pounds (counting the weight of the box itself).

This was an ideal time for me to get over my fudge ambivalence. It’s not that I don’t like fudge, it’s that I don’t know fudge.

For the most part I find fudge tasty, but difficult. After all, it usually requires implements to eat ... cutting it with a knife, storing it awkwardly, it dries out easily. Candy should be low fuss.

Rosa’s Fudge, based in Springfield, Massachusetts makes 22 flavors. They sent me 16 of them to try (no walnut or cherry for me!). It took me two weeks to get through them. 

Their fudge is sold in these little cubes, one serving, each stays fresh and they’re easy to eat, store & share.

They’re made with mostly wholesome ingredients: milk, butter, sugar but also a dash of hydrogenated palm kernel oil (can’t be much based on how far down on the list it comes) plus chocolate or nuts as dictated by the flavor then some potassium sorbate to keep it all fresh.

Chocolate - the bite is soft and the chocolate flavor is immediate (chocolate is the second ingredient in this flavor). It’s rich and has both the cocoa flavors and some nice fatty “melt” going on with the slight sugary grain. It was appealing and went especially well with salty/crunchy snacks like pretzels or plain almonds. *

Peanut Butter - this is a classic flavor and I find that fudge made from peanut butter to be one of the ideal ways to use peanuts in confection (along with peanut butter cups & peanut brittle). It smells dark and a little bitter. The stuff is fatty, but not greasy ... though it did make the little waxed paperboard bottom label a clear translucent. It has a softer and crumblier bite than the chocolate. The nut flavors were wonderful with a mellow not-too-sweet powdery quality that kept it together without giving me that “sticky” feeling on the tongue. *

Chocolate & Peanut Butter - this block is a combination of the first two flavors, about 25% is chocolate on the top and the 75% on the bottom is peanut butter. The variation between the two textures is awesome, and of course chocolate and peanut butter are a natural fit. *

Chocolate Mint - this piece could have gone a few ways. It could have been a vanilla piece flavored with mint and then a layer of chocolate fudge. Instead this is a chocolate fudge with a creme de menthe flavor to it. It was quite cool, not too strong and refreshing with a good authentic peppermint note (it does have peppermint oil in it). The mint made it seem a bit less sweet but the mint wasn’t so overpowering that it infected the neighboring pieces. *

Vanilla - I was a bit lost on what this should be. It’s just butter and sugar, right? Well, this isn’t quite grandma’s recipe. Sugar, milk, butter, partially hydrogenated palm kernel and cottonseed oils, cream, corn syrup, maltodextrins, natural and artificial flavors, invert sugar, soy lecithin, potassium sorbate and salt. Maybe it needs some real vanilla bean in there.

Penuche - I love the idea of penuche and sometimes get a version of it I love at the local shop by my office. Penuche is basically a brown sugar fudge. It’s grainy and maybe even a bit greasy, but I love it. This one was smooth and had the brown sugar notes, but mostly it just tasted like a good cooked buttercream frosting would.

Maple - was much softer than the other pieces. Not so soft that it lost its shape once out of the wrapper, but definitely a little droopy. The flavor also seemed smoother, very strong in the woodsy pecan end of things. Sweet, aromatic and definitely one of my favorites. *

Butterscotch - I wasn’t sure what butterscotch would be like, I assumed it’d be like butterscotch pudding. Instead, when I opened the package I was greeted with an aroma like putting my head into a bucket of butterscotch disks (the hard candy). The fake “flavorishness” aside, I enjoyed it. It was artificial and throat-searingly sugary, but the texture was nice and I really knew that this was supposed to be butterscotch.

Coffee - looked a lot like the Maple or Penuche. Instead the texture was quite different once I bit into it. It has the same grainy consistency that melts in the mouth that I like about fudge. The coffee flavors were mild but sweet and milky. It reminded me of coffee ice cream. This was my top pick of the whole assortment. *

Coffee & Chocolate - this one is rather simple, just a coffee fudge with a layer of chocolate fudge. But I didn’t like the addition of the chocolate much. It didn’t give it a chocolate punch, but did lessen the coffee flavors. The two fudges had a slight consistency difference as well, the chocolate was firmer with a tighter grain (is that a way to describe fudge or hardwood?).

Amaretto - my appreciation of amaretto is pretty shallow. I like almonds but I don’t care for marzipan because of the strong amaretto notes, which I associate with the same fake flavor that butterscotch is to true toffee. This smelled, to me, like a fine bath product. Sweet, a little floral and a lot like amaretto. It was actually pretty good ... nothing I’d eat, but I think amaretto fans would like it.

Irish Creme - is a combination of three flavors: Irish Whiskey, coffee and cream. Instead this tastes like coconut, butterscotch and maple. I’m missing the deep woodsy tones that whiskey can bring ... and I’m definitely not getting any coffee in there, but there’s a creamy flavor. I’d definitely keep eating it, if I didn’t have a bunch of other fruit & nut flavors to get to.

Chocolate & Coconut - looking at the side of this, it was evident that this was more than a coconut flavored chocolate fudge, there’s coconut flakes all through it. It smells woodsy, herby and a little bit like granola. Biting into it, it has a lot of chew from the coconut but the biggest flavor hit here is chocolate. The chocolate tastes deeper, richer and less sweet than the other versions I tried singularly and in combination earlier. This stuff is awesome. It reminds me of a less-sweet Mounds bar. *

This was where I reached a stumbling block. While I usually like bright colors & fun incorporated into my candy, something about these fruit ones just seemed wrong. So I picked around them in the box.

Pina Colada - this was bright yellow. While I was hesitant because of the color and the idea of pineapple and coconut in fudge didn’t sound like a good idea, the chocolate coconut was a pleasant surprise. This one doesn’t have as much coconut in it as the chocolate version, but there’s still a fair bit. It smells sweet and like a floral/peppery pineapple. The bite is soft, dry but with a very small grain (besides the bits of coconut). There’s a lot of pineapple flavor, but no tang to it. The coconut gives a lot of texture and a fair bit of authentic coconut butter flavor. It’s better than I expected, but still far too sweet.

Chocolate Raspberry - the bright pink and malleable texture makes this look something I made with Playdoh. The raspberry flavor is all fragrance and food coloring. I ate that one bite shown and didn’t want to go back for more even if it meant a scathing paragraph here.

Chocolate Strawberry - this smelled like strawberry ice cream and kind of tasted like it too. It was very sugary and the chocolate kind of brought it down a notch, but then the bitter taste of the food coloring kicked in. I know some folks probably like this, but it’s not my thing.

Even though it ended on a down note, the tasting experience with Rosa’s Fudge was fun. I found out that there are some specific flavors that I think go well with fudge. (I also think nuts go great with fudge, so if you’re a walnut person, I wholeheartedly recommend it even though I’ve never tried theirs.)

Rosa’s offers custom packed boxes based on your flavor preferences, so you’ll never end up with a block you don’t want. My choices (marked with a *) now ranked in order: Chocolate & Coconut, Coffee, Peanut Butter, Chocolate, Chocolate & Mint and Maple.

The whole thing gets a 7 out of 10 rating. Good price, spare packaging & excellent shipping. The flavors were distinct, classic and well executed.

Rosa’s Fudge is sold on their website ($12 for 12 pieces - 15 ounces) as well as at some candy counters in the northeastern United States.

Related Candies

1. Spoonfudge
2. Mint Chocolate M&Ms
3. Caffe Acapella - Coffee Confections
4. Trader Joe’s Irish Cream Chocolates
5. Flippin’ Fudge
6. Jim Beam Fudge
7. Coffee Beat