Candy Blog

I saw these last year at the All Candy Expo, but didn’t really give them any of my attention. I didn’t get them. They’re called Eiffel BonBons but I just didn’t know what they were beyond the chewy candy description on the package. The little beret wearing bonbon with his mustache and spats just seemed a little like it was co-opting a stereotype. (He’s also kind of creepy because he seems to find himself tasty.)

Then folks commented that they were fabulous and I was missing out on something. So I started looking for them. After all, they were introduced in the United States after being known as a sleeper hit amongst travelers to France and students of the French language (apparently they’re sold by French clubs at schools all over North America). Supposedly they’re available at Target or Wal-Mart, but I’ve not seen them at all.

But what are they?

Even after eating a whole package, I’m not sure if I can adequately describe them.

They’re little spheres, about the size of a hazelnut or garbanzo bean. They’re not completely consistent in color or size but in the case of the Strawberry ones, they’re pink with darker pink flecks. They’re powdery on the outside, kind of like Smarties can be. They smell like strawberry or pink cotton candy - just sweet and fresh.

On the tongue the coating is sweet. There’s a slight shell on the candy, but it’s not crunchy, more like a Smarties kind of crumbly compressed dextrose coating. It’s not tangy though, just sweet with a light touch of strawberry.

Inside is a soft and tangy fruit chew. It’s a foamy Starburst, it’s pillowy when you bite into it. (Also like a Starburst it has gelatin.)

It doesn’t have the sophistication that the name seems to indicate, but the taste & texture are definitely unlike other candies that I’ve had. If you’re going to go to the trouble of importing a candy into the crowded American confectionery market, it should be unique.

I’m smitten and I really want another bag ... this one was only 1.25 ounces. They also come in Green Apple.

Caitlin at Candy Addict gave them an overall positive review.

As far as I can tell there are two avenues for purchasing this. You can stumble across it wherever it’s been picked up for retail or buy it online (Apple & Strawberry only). The other option, if you know you like it, is to buy in mass quantities from the same place that school groups do for their fundraisers (but you’d better be sure you like it, the minimum is 80 packages and they also carry the full range of flavors like Watermelon, Cherry & Blue Raspberry).

Related Candies

1. Starburst
2. Mentos Berry Mix
3. Doscher’s French Chew Taffy
4. Airheads
5. Strawberry HiCHEW

It sounds great. Reese’s Select Clusters feature Peanuts, Pecans, Peanut Butter and Caramel wrapped in Milk Chocolate. It’s like a peanut butter turtle.

Reese’s Signatures line is supposed to fancy up the standard Hershey’s fare, like the Bliss line is doing for their regular chocolate pieces. They were announced last fall at All Candy Expo and last I heard were supposed to come out late this summer. Imagine my delight seeing them at CVS over the weekend. Imagine my shock seeing myself pay $4.29 for a half a pound of Hershey’s!

The clusters are individually wrapped in a pleasant orange, maroon & mango colored wrapper. Each chocolate is a bit different in shape, but they’re mostly a half ounce each and mostly 1.5” in diameter. The little zig zags in the chocolate shell give them a rather handcrafted artisan look. The lumpy exterior teases that there may be real pecans in there. Each piece contains approximately 75 calories.

Biting into it, it’s rather soft. Unlike a turtle that has nuts and caramel to work through, these “nuts” are not quite abundant and certainly not whole - think chunky peanut butter. The caramel reservoir is centered under the little dome, a peanut butter layer with some nuts mixed in. The peanut butter is a bit salty, which balances the sweetness of the milk chocolate and caramel. The caramel is far too gooey and without any actual flavor of its own ... no buttery component, not burnt sugar flavors.

I thought maybe I was just not keen on the texture, so I froze a few. Instead of making a chewy caramel, I just made some sort of similarly tasteless toffee. The peanut butter remained soft and salty, but the caramel bit just never developed a chew, it was like hard candy.

They’re simply not a cluster. I consider a cluster to be something that has distinct items clumped together. In the case of a confection, I expect to be able to discern each of those items. I never really got any sense of pecan in this whole thing ... and come to think of it, I didn’t get much caramel.

It’s appealing, but not something that I’ve found myself reaching for. (I have, however, been reaching for the dark chocolate Bats.) Rebecca at Sugar Hog also found them early and has a review (and paid far less then I did, grrr.).

The list of ingredients is exhaustingly long. The chocolate is real but contains both corn syrup solids & PGPR, the caramel contains high fructose corn sweetener and the whole thing is noted to have less than 2% of pecans. It also lists that it contains macadamia nuts & almonds (though much farther down on that less than 2% less). They call it Select but I don’t think it means selective. (Also, unlike most other Reese’s products, these are not Kosher.)

The final thing to note from the package: Reese’s Select Clusters were made in Mexico. These must be the first items coming off the lines for the American market. While it’s not a replacement for a product that we’re accustomed to from the US factories (so I can’t do a one-for-one comparison like so many folks do with American Coca-Cola & Mexican Coca-Cola).

Many folks have expressed dismay (and outrage) about the closing of the Oakdale, CA Hershey’s plant and have said that you’ll never buy another Hershey’s product because they’ve opened factories in Mexico. Contrary to some rumors, Hershey’s is not moving all production out of the United States (in fact, one of the greatest losses of jobs was not in the US but was in Canada at the Smith Falls, Ontario factory which employed 400 people directly.)

Here’s a statement from Hershey’s:

The Hershey Company is making changes to our global manufacturing network to ensure that our company remains competitive in the global marketplace for the long term. When these changes are completed, 90 percent of the items that Hershey sells in the United States and Canada will continue to be made in these countries.

And we will continue to make HERSHEY’S milk chocolate bars, HERSHEY’S KISSES milk chocolates and REESE’S Peanut Butter Cups as well as a wide range of other products in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

So if anyone wants to send a message to Hershey’s about their restructuring, an idea to consider is to continuing buying the candies made in the USA (it’s very clearly marked on the package) and eschew the Mexican produced ones. A complete boycott abandons the remaining American workers.

If this is an important issue for you, then I also encourage folks to look at the origin of all of your candy. Many “American” products are not made here. A few examples: Wrigley’s LifeSavers (Canada); Nestle Chunky (Brazil) & Wonka Gobstoppers (Mexico) and Starburst Jelly Beans (Mexico).

The reason I probably won’t be buying the Reese’s Select Clusters is purely because they weren’t good enough to warrant that price. Perhaps the name Select and Signatures set the bar too high (oh, and the tease that there were actually pecans in there). If this was just promoted as a new version of Reese’s cups, I would probably be more amenable. But for $7 to $9 a pound I’m more likely to splurge on some See’s Pecan Buds (okay, those are $15 a pound). And for an everyday treat, a simple Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup or for a more textured treat: Take 5 (really, this is just a Take 5 without the pretzel!).

Related Candies

1. The Oh Henry!s
2. Factory Fresh Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
3. Nestle Turtles
4. Russell Stover Organic Pecan Delight
5. GooGoo Cluster
6. Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews

One of the items teased at the September 2007 All Candy Expo was the series of The Dark Knight (Batman) tie in products. As the Indiana Jones Mars products (Mint Crisp M&Ms & Snickers Adventure Bar) found their way onto the shelves about 6-8 weeks in advance of the movie release, I was keeping a close watch for the new Reese’s & KitKat products in the past weeks.

The Limited Edition line features:

I found the bags of the medallions at Target yesterday. They also had the Reese’s Pieces, but frankly, different colored RP just weren’t distinctive enough to get me to buy them. A new proportion of chocolate and peanut butter and the further enticement of dark chocolate is enough to get me to buy them, though.

The Reese’s Dark Chocolate and Peanut Butter Bats bag is a rich chocolate brown, setting it apart from the regular Reese’s orange offerings (though it has that signature orange on the wrapper as an accent).

There’s also some sort of a sweepstakes thing going on where you can Find the bat-signal and win instantly but there was no game piece in either bag so I’m left to wonder how this thing works. (If it’s not a regular game piece that you open to find out if you’ve won, then what prevents someone from going through all the bags at the store and peeking through the little “window” in the package to see if there is a winning game piece?)

The dark ones are just shy of 1.75 inches in length and a little over 1 inch across and a half an inch tall. They weigh about 10 grams each (a regular Reese’s Miniature Peanut Butter Cup is about 9 grams).

I assume that these are absolutely fresh, and have an expiry date of April 2009. However, the sheen of the chocolate was slightly greasy, as Reese’s products usually are. (The exception is pretty much the Fresh from the Factory cups.) The bag smells like dark roasted peanuts.

The chocolate is very soft, so the whole thing has a mellow fudgy bite to it. It melts quickly, rather slick on the tongue but pretty smooth. The peanut butter filling, on the other hand, is exactly the sort of Reese’s peanut butter center you’d expect. A little sandy in texture, a bit salty and sweet.

The dark chocolate is actually bitter, so there’s a whole mix of flavors here - sweet, salt and bitter plus the textures of the chocolate and light crunch of the rough peanut butter.

It’s a great combination and really refreshing. The proportions here are weighted heavily towards the dark chocolate (which isn’t really “dark” as it has milk fat in it), much more than the previous regular-sized Limited Edition Reese’s Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups.

The foil wrapper is also very appealing; it’s a bronzy brown around the sides and the top has the Reese’s logo and bat logo.

There’s a strange molding anomaly on them, just about all that I unwrapped had little bubbles on either end of the top. (I opened quite a few, looking for a pristine one for the photo, then finding this to be the norm, photographed it.)

Rating: 9 out of 10

The little oval medallion has the stylized bat-signal symbol molded into the top of each piece. Yes, the logo on these is a little different. As with most continuations of classic franchises, the bat-signal has evolved. The original was not an actual bat, but Batman & his cape ... at some point them omitted his head. Back in the old TV show days and the first few movies it looked like this which was pretty consistent with the TV series emblem.

But just as superheroes change their costumes, the logo became more angular and lost some of its bat-ness and wing fringes. (To me it looks more like a car logo now.)

The Reese’s Milk Chocolate and Peanut Butter Bats are simply tasty. They’re everything you’d expect in a flattened Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Miniature. The chocolate is sweet and pretty mellow but has a slight cool feeling on the tongue. The peanut butter center is immediately salty, squishy and has the dark roasted flavors of peanuts & a sandy texture.

There’s less peanut butter, so fans of the peanut part and not the chocolate part should probably stick with the original or seek out the single serve size Bats (I haven’t found those yet).

Rating: 8 out of 10

Overall, this is a good tie in. I like the use of dark chocolate on a tried-and-true favorite. I also like that they tried a new shape instead of just tossing some different foil on the regular minis. (Of course then it just makes us sadder when they go away.) The proportions on the milk chocolate just didn’t have the same appeal as the regular minis or the larger eggs - but I’m sure some other folks will find them to be their ideal version.

Anyone found the large sized bats yet?

Related Candies

1. Colt’s Bolts
2. Elvis Reese’s Peanut Butter and Banana Cup
3. KitKat Mint Dark Chocolate Minis
4. Darth M&Ms
5. Bleached Reese’s

I’ve heard that Domori makes some of the best chocolate bars ever.

I’m not reviewing those. (I will someday, but I’m afraid that trying the best chocolate in the world would be like flying first class, I’d never want to go back to coach.)

Instead of I got a hold of these lovely little 8 gram tasting squares of Domori’s 70% Cru single origin chocolates at the Fancy Food Show back in January. Besides being made from extremely rare beans, Domori also uses no soy lecithin in this line - it’s all cacao and pure cane sugar at work here, a fascinating experiment in flavor.

As I often do with tastings, I did my notes blind and then later looked at the descriptions & origin information. You can read along to see how I did. But I’ll save you the suspense, this is good stuff and lives up to its hype. The consistency of every piece was silky smooth on the tongue - incredible melt & quick release of flavors then a lingering revelation of more notes.

Careno Superior

Origin: Venezuela - It is a trinitario-type cacao grown in the Barlovento area of Venezuela.

I say: Mild with some light blueberry notes and peppery carnation. Smooth, as were all others.

They say: It has notes of dried figs, raisins and cashews with great character, smoothness and finish.

Apurimac

Origin: Peru - It is a recent hybrid (trinitario-type cacao).

I say: So buttery smooth. There’s a bit of a bitter high note to it, kind of reminiscent of asparagus. But the texture is so dreamily silky, it’s rather staggering. Cool on the tongue.

They said:  It has notes of flowers, caramel and cream. It is very mild with a nice sourness.

Sur del Lago Clasificado

Origin: Venezuela - It includes more trinitario-type cacaos with a high content of criollo genotype.

I say: Dark olive notes rise to the top, it’s sweet but has a tangy bite. Silky, caramel.

They say: It has mild notes of almond and coffee, excellent finesse, smoothness and finish.

Rio Caribe Superior

Origin: Venezuela

I say: One of the more mellow pieces. It has some tangy elements and most notably a dry finish.

They say: Notes of nuts, ripe fruit, raisins, tobacco and chlorophyll. It has a nice acidity, a great smoothness and a long finish.

Arriba

Origin: Ecuador - It is a Nacional-type cacao.

They say: It has notes of hazelnut, banana and citrus. It is very fresh and mild.

I say: This one was a bit more bitter, with coffee notes and flavors of sweet cashews. A weird chalky feeling to it, even though it was actually quite smooth. Dry, acrid.

Sambriano

Origin: Madagascar

I say: Strong tangy & raisin notes, lemon and bitter orange.

They say: It is a light-colored cacao with unique notes of berries along with a very pleasant sourness. It has a long finish, great sweetness and smoothness.

Overall, my notes weren’t far off from theirs, though sometimes I think it’s like the astrology column from the newspaper. With some single origin kits I’m not always able to distinguish the different bars blind, but these were quite distinct. Though the chocolates are available as single bars, you can also get assortments of these individually wrapped tasting squares in boxes. They’re still quite expensive, over a dollar a piece from Chocosphere. Though these don’t have nuts in them, they are made in a facility that processes nuts, milk and soy. Domori also does a version of these that are 100% (no sugar).

Related Candies

1. Four 99%-100% Chocolate
2. Amano Single Origin Bars: Madagascar & Ocumare
3. Michel Cluizel Les 1ers Crus de Plantation
4. Dagoba Single Origin
5. Single Origin Chocolate

Just Born is expanding its efforts of Peeps World Domination with a new line of Chocolate Mousse Peeps.

The first version will premiere next Valentine’s Day in the shape of Peeps Chocolate Mousse Marshmallow Bears.

I’m not sure why there hasn’t been a bear shaped Peeps all along, they’re an ideal Valentine’s emblem (and really, why can’t we have Bear Peeps all year round?). However, this package is all about love, with its red wrapper & little hearts.

The packages I got were for evaluation purposes only, so I don’t have the complete nutritional info & ingredients list. I decided to open the Peeps Chocolate Mousse Marshmallow Bunnies for the purposes of the review.

Look familiar?

They’re nice looking, medium brown. They’re sparkly with the light sanding of sugar. (I’ve often wondered what corn starch dusted Peeps would be like.)

They’re extremely soft, softer than regular Peeps are, if you ask me. They smell like chocolate breakfast cereal, like Cocoa Puffs.

But the big question, at least in my mind, was are these different from the Cocoa Peeps?

I just so happened to have a package of Peeps Cocoa Marshmallow Bunnies (left) for a direct comparison.

Though they looked similar in my memory, putting them side by side, it’s easy to see that the new Mousse Peeps are darker.

The cross section shows that the Mousse Peeps is cocoa through and through, where the only slightly creamy colored on the inside.

The difference in taste? Well, if you’re expecting some sort of decadent mousse-like product, you’re going to be disappointed. The new Mousse version are kind of like a fluffy, watered down Tootsie roll. Pleasant and less-sweet than the ordinary Peeps, but still, not a chocolate phenomenon.

They’re great with coffee but like the Cocoa version, it’s very hard to get them stale. I’ve had this package open for two weeks and they’re still pretty squishy.

However, these are awesome broiled. The center becomes frothy and runny and the sugar dust becomes a crunchy shell. I put them in the toaster over for 3 minutes. Be sure to have them on foil or parchment or else they run all over the place. You also might need a spoon to eat them. Microwaving also gets the same soupy center, but the outside doesn’t get crispy (so it’s the confectionery equivalent of trying to make pizza in a microwave ... it’s edible but it’s not the same).

In the end, I’m more inclined towards the Chocolate Mousse Peeps than any other Peeps to date, but that’s not necessarily a rave review.

For the record, the available shapes for Peeps are:

These should be in stores starting in January, but you can also buy many Peeps items all year round now directly from Just Born.

Related Candies

1. Peeps Mash Ups - Savory
2. Peeps inside a Milk Chocolate Egg
3. Peeps Chick & Bunny Candy
4. Marshmallow Pig
5. Candy Wrapper Purses from Endangered Species
6. Peeps Mash Ups
7. Peeps