Candy Blog

It feels like I’m reviewing a lot of Hershey’s products lately: Thingamajig, Good n Fiery, Hershey’s Milk Chocolate with Peanuts, Dark Chocolate Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Reese’s Select Cremes. But they’re putting them out and I’ve gotta try everything at least once.

I passed this by more than once (Candy For Dinner always seems to find new products first) mostly because I wasn’t in the mood: Twizzlers Sweet & Sour Filled Twists. But when the weather gets warmer, I seem to crave tangy.

They seemed a bit like the now discontinued SweeTarts Rope or a long version of the Twizzlers Twerpz.

I bought them in a long “bar” format that has four twists, two of each flavor: Cherry Kick! and Citrus Punch!

The twists are clean & shiny, like they’re made of vinyl. They’re similar to the Twizzlers Rainbow Twists, but I think these are just a little larger in diameter or at least not dried and stiff.

Each rope is five inches long and about a half an ounce ... they feel much heavier and denser than a regular fruit licorice rope.

Of course, I gravitated towards the Citrus Punch! first. The yellow and red twists reminded me more of mustard and ketchup than lemon and cherry, but I still admit that they were glossy and appealing.

The bite is much softer than the regular Twizzlers, less like biting into some sort of extruded & dried acrylic paint. The gooey filling is soft and has a texture of buttercream frosting. It has an immediate tangy pop and a good mix of flavors, both citrus zest and the tartness. It reminded me of a fresh lemon tart.

Next up was the Cherry Kick! which I resisted. It’s lighter in color from the deep red & berry flavored Twizzlers. The texture is identical to the citrus package mate. The licorice twist is soft and chewy and has a mild sweet flavor. Then the soft center popped in with a very strong note of woodsy black cherry, cough syrup and artificial flavorings. As far as I was concerned, there are a lot of folks who are going to like the play of the mild chewy outside and the intense flavor of the inside.

I really just want to buy the Citrus by itself, perhaps I can pick them out if they package them in individual ropes for Halloween or something.

Related Candies

1. Leaf Schoolchalk, Allsorts & Pipes
2. Topps Blue Razz Wazoo
3. Twizzlers (Strawberry)
4. Shockers Squeez
5. Rolly Pop
6. Fazer Lemon Lakritsi

The Reese’s Select line has finally expanded beyond the initial offering of the Reese’s Select Cluster which launched in early 2008.

I spotted these new Reese’s Select Peanut Butter Cremes at Target over the weekend. They sport no banner that says “new” but they certainly weren’t there last month.

The 8 ounce bag is long and sturdy and kind of oddly puffed up. I assumed this was to protect the candy inside from getting smashed. (And air is pretty cost effective.) Inside are approximately 18 little individually wrapped pieces.

The description on the bag says Smooth, Creamy Peanut Butter covered in Rich Milk Chocolate. I expected peanut butter meltaways.

The pieces are about 1.5” inches square, slightly domed (a full 1 inch high). They have a little R medallion molded on the top for Reese’s.

I had a little trouble with the integrity of a few pieces. I thought I chose my bag well and was careful bringing it home, yet two of the pieces that I ate (I consumed about half the package) were smashed completely.

Aside from that, the little individual wrappers are sturdy and feature full ingredients info (many individually wrapped Hershey’s items do not).

The little pieces smell of sweet peanut butter.

The bite is interesting, the chocolate shell, though soft, is thick enough to give a big burst of chocolate texture and slight dairy taste immediately. The melt is smooth and rather silky. The center is not at all like a meltaway - this is a full on gooey cream. (Spreadable like room temperature butter.)

At first I was taken aback because I found it extremely salty. But it did balance the sweet milk chocolate well. The texture combination and the rounded flavors gives these pieces well earned decadence points.

In case you were curious, the ingredients are:

Milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, milk, chocolate, milk fat, soy lecithin, vanilla beans), peanuts, sugar, dextrose, partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil, less than 2% salt, partially hydrogenated palm oil, cornstarch, PGPR, soy lecithin, TBHQ, natural flavor.

The sodium content isn’t as extreme as it tastes. It’s 95 mg for 36 gram serving, which is actually less proportionally than regular Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

These are not made in Mexico, like the Clusters, and these are also Kosher.

Overall, an interesting addition to the Reese’s line, a smoother melt and much higher quality than I expected. I enjoyed them quite a bit, and found that everyone else in the office did. Perhaps an 8 ounce bag isn’t big enough?

Related Candies

1. Reese’s Enigma & Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Eggs
2. Malley’s Chocolates
3. Hershey’s Bliss
4. Reese’s Pieces
5. Choxies in Boxies
6. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Line

Melville Candy has always made fantastically attractive lollipops. They have an extensive line of Honey Spoons and an amazing array of Barley Sugar Pops (which I will review after I finish eating one of each).

They were highlighting their line of Harvest Candy at the Fancy Food Show back in January.

The array includes large lollipops shaped like vegetables and fruits.

As you can see above when you compare that list to my photo, I didn’t pick up all the flavors.

Apple - is a large and deep red pop. It’s shaped like an apple and about 2.5” in diameter and slightly domed. The shrink wrap has a little stem and green leaf, but after opening it up, it’s just a plain red lollipop. I was expecting the normal “candy company green apple flavor” that has no relationship with the real world. Instead it tastes like sweet, solid apple juice. I didn’t get any “citrus” per se, but the smooth texture of the candy and the light fruity flavor was appealing.

Orange - is about the same size as the apple but has two little leaves at the top and a bumpy texture on the molding. The flavor is mostly sweet with a touch of orange zest. It’s not at all tangy, which sets it apart from most orange lollies on the market (like Orange Tootsie Pops).

Corn - it’s a tall and narrow pop, about 5 inches long. The shrink wrap on it has the little husks and peeling the wrapper form the top is rather like shucking corn. The molding of the pop is textured just like rows of corn niblets.

I didn’t know what to expect for the flavor. They described it as buttered popcorn. I’ve always found “butter flavor” especially in things like popcorn snacks and Jelly Belly to be rather repulsive (and one of the chemicals used to create this, diacetyl, is actually causing dire health complications for workers exposed to it).

Happily the flavor here is more like the toffee-like coating on kettle corn. The butter flavor is very mild and the toasted sugar flavors are more prominent with just a hint of creamed corn to really sell the corn-ness of it.

Carrot - it’s about the same size as the corn, but obviously tapered at the top as a carrot is. I was hoping for a wonderful spice pop, with notes of ginger and maybe raisins. Instead it was kind of a sweet generic yellow cake taste. Not bad, but just not quite as cool and innovative as I’d hoped. However, the shape & texture was amazing - smooth & easy to eat.

The sticks are large and beefy and the pops are substantial (1.75 ounces each). They last a long time and the smooth texture makes them a pleasure - not a mouth-wrecker.

It’s also nice the the pops are shrink wrapped instead of in little baggies, for use as favors or on display, this makes the especially appealing. They retail for about $2 to $3 each (depending on whether you buy them in full boxes or individually). As a molded hard candy these do have a tendency to droop when exposed to high temperatures or simply when they get old, so if you get some, eat them soon.

Other reviews: I first heard of these on Sugar Savvy years ago (which may or may not be made by the same company) & Candy Addict tirelessly reviewed the whole array.

Related Candies

1. Milk Maid Caramel Apple Candy Corn
2. Hershey’s Pumpkin Spice Kisses
3. Lindt Chocolate Carrots
4. Zotter Candy Bars
5. Candy Corn Kisses

The Dark Chocolate Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups have finally returned as a regular product (teased here in CandyForums.net).

Dark chocolate Reese’s come and go from Hershey’s. Last summer they were a limited edition product as a tie in with the Batman: The Dark Knight movie.

The new package design is different enough that I was able to spot them from the next checkout aisle at Target (though I definitely have candy-vision) on Saturday.

I have to say that the wrapper is rather spare, though bold. As someone who has to look at design pretty often in her day job, I wasn’t really pleased with the mix of fonts. (The script logo, the italic san serif “dark chocolate” and then the regular san serif of the “2 peanut butter cups” and weight info ... but then the use of black outline on white in a serif font for “dark” feels like an afterthought.)

But enough of this judging a book by its cover. It’s what’s inside that matters, right?

So what does the package say is inside?

Semi-Sweet Chocolate (sugar, chocolate, cocoa butter, milk fat, soy lecithin, vanillin, artificial flavor, PGPR, milk), peanuts, sugar, dextrose, salt, TBHQ.

Okay, so it’s not really dark chocolate, it’s dark chocolate with some milk fats ... not that big of a deal. It’s pretty common in mass-marketed semi sweet chocolate candies. 

The encouraging part is that these cups are full sized. When Mars makes a limited edition or dark chocolate version of a milk chocolate product, they have a tendency to make it smaller. This package is 1.5 ounces, the standard these days for Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup two packs.

Each 3/4 of an ounce cup is lovely to behold. Satiny smooth with lightly fluted sides. It may be that these were fresh (as it’s a new product) but there was no little oily pool on the top of the chocolate.

They smell very dark - like deeply roasted nuts and woodsy charcoal.

Like most other Reese’s products, the chocolate is a very soft bite. The dark chocolate, though it lists sugar as the first ingredient, is not at all sweet. The first impression I get is bitterness - a nutty toasted bitterness that goes well with the deep peanut flavors.

The salty hit from the crumbly & grainy peanut butter went well against the creamy chocolate. It has a nice melt without the fudgy grain that the classic milk chocolate has.

Overall, this is a winner. I can see craving these in the evening (I usually don’t want super-sweet after dinner) and keeping the Reese’s Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups for daylight hours (afternoon pick-me-up).

They also come in the little foil-wrapped miniatures, but Target didn’t seem to have those in stock yet. If you’ve tried though (they were also available about three years ago), let me know how they are.

Related Candies

1. Reese’s Peanut Butter Bar
2. Reese’s Select Clusters
3. Reese’s Whipps
4. Factory Fresh Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
5. Reese’s Crispy Crunchy Bar
6. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Line

They say we eat with our eyes first. If there’s one candy that capitalizes on our attraction to bright and shiny things, it has to be lollipops.

I love lollipops in the sense that I love looking at them, I like buying them and I enjoying having them. But I’d have to guess that I only eat about half of the lollipops I ever have.

Part of it is that lollipops are simply hard candy. And I’m pretty sure that most people don’t actually like hard candy ... in the sense that they’d be willing to pay three times as much for it simply because it includes an inedible holder with it. But this is part of the amazing enigma of lollipops.

If I were a sculptor, I would probably wish to make things of spun, twisted & boiled sugar.

If I were to have my wedding all over again today, I’d probably just carry a bunch of lollipops instead of a bouquet of flowers. (Or maybe some of those wondrous flowers made from sugar.)

At the moment though I just take photos of lollipops when I get a hold of them.

Today, however, I’m also eating them.

I have a set of Hammond’s Candies All Natural Lollipops.

They’re made without artificial flavors or colors and are hand crafted. They come in a variety of flavors, I have six that I’m going to profile

These are the middle-sized pops - they’re one ounce each and about two to two and a half inches across. (Honestly, I think some of these were more than generously oversized.)

The pops feature thick wooden sticks and are wrapped simply in little cellophane bags with a sticker on the back that lists the flavor, ingredients & nutritional info. The front is all about the look of these hand-crafted medallions.

Strawberry - magenta/red background with orange & cream stripes. (cross section above of broken pop)

The ropes of candy are built in layers, at the center is a slightly aerated hard candy center. The outer layers are smooth and for the most part “clear” boiled sugar candy. The slight aeration of the core means that it’s very easy to crunch & chew it up and has no noticeable voids. It also means the the candy has a slightly lighter feel to it than I think I would have guessed just looking at it.

The flavor is light and bright - a touch of tartness but mostly a floral berry flavor like cotton candy.

Pomegranate - satiny cream background with pink/red stripes.

This had a very light floral flavor at first, all sweetness on the outside. The core, though, has a bit of a yogurty tang to it and a mellow cherry flavor with a stronger pop of sourness towards the end. It’s not a very intense flavor - just a light and rather nondescript berry note. It’s more like a fruit punch and is an overall positive.

Cherry - alternating large stripes of bright pink and medium red with a small strip of cream between.

This was a big test for me, because for the most part I don’t like cherry flavored candies because I don’t like the aftertaste of the most commonly used red food coloring, Red 40.

The outside was sweet and has a little toasted sugar flavor to it. The interior has a nice, zesty sour pop to it along with the cherry flavor. It’s not the dark, black cherry flavor - more like a cherry pie note. I’d call it positive and definitely has no weird poisonous aftertaste. Call it a win for cherry haters.

Peppermint - deep red with a series of amber stripes inside cream bands.

The coloring on this one wasn’t what I would have picked out of the bunch as the mint flavored one.

The mint flavor is clean and crisp - fresh and cooling with a long-lasting aftertaste. The texture of the candy is a little odd at first. The outside is smooth and with few voids, but can be kind of sharp if you break or crunch it.

Pear - satiny light green with cream stripes (with inset green stripes)

Most of the pops at this point I was eating by breaking them first, eating the pieces and then whatever was left on the stick. For the Pear, which was just slightly smaller than the others, I ate it whole.

The outer layer was mild & sweet and had a light orchard fruit scent. In this case the center is the same ... kind of like an apple kissed toasted marshmallow. For the most part I love fresh pears but have never cared for pear flavored candies ... but this isn’t very “pear-flavored” so I give it a thumbs up.

Lemon - yellow bands with cream mini stripes

The outside is zesty but just a kiss of sweetness to it. The center is only slightly tangy. The whole thing reminds me of the flavor combination of a lemon bar. It’s not going to burn holes in my tongue, so I’ll definitely eat the whole thing.

The size of these pops was just a smidge too large for placing in the mouth whole. The texture and smoothness of the outside & inside meant that they were both interesting and pleasant from start to finish. In most cases the outside & inside also offered different flavor variations, which was a good feature to offer when selling at a premium price. They also come in a huge variety of sizes, from this one ounce version to a 4 ounce (saucer) to a full pound (dinner plate).

When not in “review mode” I found that these were definitely an all day sucker for me. The price is a bit steep - at about $2.50 to $3.00 per pop (depending on where you buy them). I’ve seen these at department stores around Christmas (in cinnamon!), at Cost Plus World Market (they also have Root Beer, but I don’t think it’s all natural) plus upscale candy shops and of course on the internet at CandyWarehouse.com, NaturalCandyStore.com and direct from Hammond’s.

Hard candy has its place, it’s durable and can be packed with flavor or just sweet comfort. Mostly it’s an amazing concoction because it can be beautiful.

To finish this off, have a look at how they make some of their hand-crafted creations:

Related Candies

1. Melville Candy Company Tea Spoons
2. Hammond’s Pantry Candies
3. Disneyland Candy Novelties
4. Peeps Lollipop Rings
5. Miette Patisserie