Here’s another candy that has been around for years but I simply have not tried: Cookie Dough Bites. The concept of the candy is pretty simple, soft nuggets of “cookie dough” covered in chocolate. After all, loads of people love to eat cookie dough as they’re making a batch and how many romantic comedies feature the heroine sitting around eating a chub of the pre-made stuff to drown her sorrows in the third act?

I guess the main reason that I’ve never tried them is that they don’t come in a single-serve size, just in these big theater concession boxes. I don’t go to the movies that often and I’ll admit that I stick to my tried-and-true favorites: Junior Mints, Good & Plenty and SweeTarts. 

All of the boxes make note that they are EGG FREE. Now, at first I looked at that and I though, what is E.G.G., is this something like Non-GMO? It took me a few moments to realize that they meant, eggs, plain old eggs. It makes sense that when you say cookie dough people might think that there’s raw eggs in there. Not only are there no raw eggs though, there simply aren’t any eggs at all. Of course the allergen alert does go on to mention that they’re made in a facility that also processes eggs (and peanuts, nuts, milk solids, wheat and soy), so it’s not like that note is anything other than an advertisement that there’s no salmonella.

Milk Chocolate Cookie Dough Bites are the original product in the line. The nuggets vary in size, some are as large as a hazelnut and some as small as a pea.

The image on the front shows little bits fo chocolate chip cookie dough being drenched in milk chocolate. However, I bit a lot of these in half and never found any chocolate chips. Or even flecks.

No biggie, the chocolate coating takes up that contribution of chocolate chips quite well.

The center is not quite a moist dough, it’s a little more chalky ... but not quite shortbread territory. It reminds me more of sugar cookie dough than chocolate chip cookie dough, as CCCD has a touch of brown sugar.

They’re suprisingly tasty. The chocolate isn’t at all notable, it smells a bit like chocolate, but isn’t really that creamy or satisfying. The easy chew & pop some more qualities make them an excellent movie snack.

Rating: 5 out of 10

Unlike the Milk Chocolate version, I actually found a few chocolate chips in the Dark Chocolate Covered Cookie Dough Bites! I don’t think it made much of a difference overall. 

The dark chocolate also isn’t truly dark, it has some milkfat in it, but it’s not like anyone expected these to be vegan otherwise.

The general texture and bite was similar to the milk chocolate, perhaps a little “drier” but still very munchable. I appreciated that they didn’t taste quite as sweet (those paying attention to the nutrition label will see that the dark one actually has more fat and less sugar). The dark chocolate was a little chalky sometimes, but had a dry finish that kept them from being too cloying. The cookie centers have a slight sugary grain to them that works pretty well.

Rating: 5 out of 10

To be honest, I was more interested in the Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Bites than the original and I think that interest was well founded.

They look just like the original Milk Chocolate Cookie Dough bites, but even after I took them out of the package for the photographs, I could tell them apart with a quick sniff. These smell like peanut butter all the way.

The chocolate seems creamier on this version than the other bites, I’m going to guess that the fattiness of the peanuts helped. The center is softer and not quite as chalky as the others, it seemed to almost melt in the mouth. The peanut butter flavor is light and fresh, but kind of lacks that “fresh roasted flavor” that peanut butter cups have. I could have used just a smidge more salt and perhaps a sugary grain to sell the dough part.

Though they’re not quite the same, fans of Reese’s Bites might enjoy this as a replacement of that discontinued product. (It’s still not quite as peanutty.)

Rating: 7 out of 10

The final variety is Fudge Brownie Cookie Dough Bites. This one had a nice brownie batter consistency for the center with a good sugary grain to it. The cocoa flavors of the center went well with the chocolaty flavor of the coating. They rated a little higher for me than the regular Cookie Dough Bites, but I still think the Peanut Butter ones are the most successful of the array.

Rating: 6 out of 10

The only ones I’ve actually seen in stores are the original at places like Target, Dollar Tree, 99 Cent Only and Walgreen’s, usually for about a buck a box. They’re also sold at movie theater concession stands, probably for about $3 a box.

My other basic complaint with the candy is the packaging. I think the box itself is a bit misleading. First, in order to preserve the freshness, the bites are in a little clear plastic pouch. That’s fine, although it makes it kind of silly to have the box itself, because it’s not like you dispense from the box. The box is 3.5” wide, 6” long and .75” deep. The bag dimensions are technically the same, except that it’s of course flat. It seems that the box could be flatter or maybe the bag be narrower but fuller to be more efficient. Each box has only 3 ounces in it. A similar sized Junior Mints box has 4.75 ounces. Dots have 6.5 ounces. (Granted, Cookie Dough Bites probably aren’t as dense as Dots.)

Maybe I’m getting too snooty or expected too much after Brian at Candy Addict rates the Milk Chocolate Covered Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites as Awesomely Addictive (tm). But hey, everyone has slightly different tastes, which is why it’s so great there are so many different review sites. Here’s a roundup of other opinions: Taquitos.net has Fudge Brownie, Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip and Review Busters.

Related Candies

1. Mint Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bites
2. Jujyfruits & Jujubes
3. Dots
4. Good & Plenty (Fresh from the Factory)
5. M&Ms Line
6. Hershey Bites: York, Reese’s Peanut Butter and KitKat
7. Chocolate Pocky

After Christmas sales tend to make me more adventurous. I saw these World’s Finest Chocolate Dark Continental Chocolate Almonds at Walgreen’s while they were still in their 50% off mode.

The box is very tasteful and appealing with a tiny cellophane window that shows that they’re nice looking glossy dark chocolate covered almonds. While they’re not the largest almonds in the world (I think Trader Joe’s consistently has the largest chocolate covered almonds I’ve ever seen) I was hoping that they were fresh.

The box is interesting, larger at the top than the bottom, which was kind of odd when I opened it because it means that the opening for spilling out the almonds from the top is pretty wide (and that means easy to fumble).

My experience with World’s Finest Chocolate is limited to the fundraising bars, and since I don’t have any neighbors or co-workers with kids in band, I haven’t had one in about a year (and that was a milk chocolate crisp bar). I never much cared for their chocolate, I always found it a bit sweet and waxy. (Our band in high school sold mostly those boxes of M&Ms ... or at least that’s what I bought.)

Some of the pieces looked about the size of a Peanut M&M and others were the larger almond size you’d expect. They smell very sweet, though not much like chocolate or almonds, more like a vanilla candle.

The chocolate coating is passably creamy, a little on the dry/chalky side with a very strong sweet and fake-vanilla finish. The almonds inside are pretty consistently crunchy, but not very fresh tasting. There wasn’t a bad nut in the bunch, but they just didn’t have a strong nutty taste ... it seemed to be all about the chocolate.

Dark chocolate covered almonds are one of my favorite foods. In fact, I think a handful with some pretzels and coffee are an ideal breakfast. I’ve had these sitting on my desk for a little over a week and I ate less than half the box. They look great, the spare packaging is elegant and the price, even when not on sale, is pretty decent. But the taste just didn’t wow me. These taste more like the box than those two great elements: dark chocolate and fresh almonds. Instead I find myself eating my plain old raw almonds instead.

I may give World’s Finest Chocolate another try at some point, though according to the WFC website, the Continental Almonds are their top seller.

Note: the bittersweet chocolate World’s Finest Chocolate uses contains milk, so is not suitable for vegans. Their website says their Kosher, but the package doesn’t indicate that.

Related Candies

1. Sconza 70% Dark Chocolate Toffee Almonds
2. Dove Caramels & Chocolate Covered Almonds
3. Charles Chocolates
4. Cocoavia Chocolate Almonds

I have lots more candy to tell you about that I haven’t done full reviews for. Here’s a half dozen of them.

First is the Nestle KitKat Peanut Butter from Canada. The format on this bar is the single chunky finger. This is actually larger at 1.76 ounces than the American single finger bar which is 1.59 ounces. I found this bar at Mel & Rose’s Wine & Liquors on Melrose Ave a month ago.

The bar is thick and chunky but follows the standard KitKat formula.

There are wafers with cream filling then a thick stripe of peanut butter all covered in milk chocolate.

The package smelled strongly of raw peanuts when I opened it. Roasted peanuts have a deep and smoky tone to them, this was that higher octave scent, like freshly snapped peas mixed with peanuts.

The crunch of the bar was good, but there’s definitely a lot of chocolate in operation here. The peanut butter stripe is great. It’s very flavorful despite being so thin. It’s not sweetened at all, in fact it’s pretty salty. I preferred eating this bar like I eat most KitKats. I nibble off both ends of chocolate, then all the chocolate off the sides. Then I eat the less-chocolatey remains.

It was really good and I think I’d buy this if I could find it at my local store. Far more satisfying than a regular KitKat (4 grams of protein - one more than a regular) and not nearly as sweet.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Das Caramelini has a couple of new flavors. Most of the other candy bloggers also go free samples from Katie Das and covered it far quicker than I did, so I didn’t put down my thoughts right away.

She sent me Ginger & Pistachio which I already reviewed and loved last spring. The new-to-me flavor was Cafe Cortado. It’s a vanilla caramel with coffee.

Unfortunately I’m not keen on coffee beans in my food. It might be that I have a problem with caffeine or it might be that I don’t care for the texture, but these just didn’t do it for me. I tried a few, but I was very aware that I needed to eat them before noon (as I don’t drink coffee after that) which always made me feel pressured.

The great news though is that the wrapping of the caramels has been changed to a heavier waxed paper. They no longer stick to the paper and are far easier to keep popping in your mouth. The box looks deceptively small but holds a quarter of a pound of rich, boiled sugar & butter. You can order direct on their website for about $6.99 a box (less if you order more).

Rating: 8 out of 10

I ordered these Meiji Kaon Citrus from JBox.com last fall. I wasn’t quite sure what they were, but citrus and gummi combined with a brand like Meiji and I figured I could take a chance.

They’re not a transparent gummi, instead they’re opaque and matte. They’re still very soft and bouncy. They have a distinct bite, not a rubbery as a German gummi. The thing that was most clear was that this is a real fruit product. The texture feels a bit like pear, there’s a slight grain to it. Then there were a few bits of zest in there.

The flavor is predominantly tangerine with a little dollop of grapefruit & lemon in there for good measure. Completely addictive, I ordered two bags and ate both. They’re small bags though at only 35 grams each. I can’t remember how much I paid for them and of course JBox doesn’t have them on their site right now. (Here’s the official webpage.) See Sera’s review.

Rating: 8 out of 10

I picked up these little beauties at the All Candy Expo as samples, but I still haven’t found them in stores.

The Traditional Halva bars from Sultan’s Finest Foods are little .71 ounce bits of plain halva. They’re smooth and creamy with a strong sesame flavor to them.

It’s the perfect portion size, if only I can find them somewhere. These are made in Tunisia, and may be the first Tunisian candy mentioned on the blog! They’re imported by Agora International and come in a sugar free version as well. I think these sorts of sesame snacks are ideal, especially for hot weather. It’s creamy and filling, not too sweet and of course does better in hot weather than chocolate.

Rating: 7 out of 10

I’ve seen the Sencha Green Tea Mints at stores for years. I just couldn’t get my brain around them for the longest time. I like a mint that has some zazz to it, and the idea of green tea in a mint seemed to defeat the purpose.

These were sample packages that I picked up at ExpoWest which is for natural products. They’re usually sold in little maroon or dark colored tins with a clear top. These compressed candies are made from xylitol & sorbitol, which are natural sugar alcohols. They have a cool feeling on the tongue (and shouldn’t be consumed in large quantities because of some digestive troubles they can cause) and a subtle flavor.

The three flavors I got were: Delicate Pear, which is just slightly fruity and sweet. Green Tea was subtle and while fresh tasting, didn’t leave that minty burn.
Lively Lemongrass was, well, lightly lemon, but not quite lively.

The tea ingredients are fair trade and xylitol is supposed to be a pretty good base for gum & mints (not bad for your teeth, but bad for dogs). It’s hard to find sugar free mints that don’t have artificial sweeteners in them, so if you’re looking for something that fits that niche, these might be for you.

Rating: 5 out of 10

I’m very late with my write up on Stained Glass Candy. I ordered it online about a year ago. I expected it to be pretty little hexagonal disks of candy (about the size of a quarter), but the photography on their website didn’t prepare me at all for how lovely this stuff was.

Though it’s expensive for hard candy at $12.95 a pound (when you order 2 pounds), I figured I’d give it a try. The cool thing is that you can custom design your flavor mix, so I chose one pound of herbs & spices: cinnamon, hot cinnamon, wintergreen and anise. The second pound I did as fruits: banana, orange, lemon and pineapple.

Each piece came sealed in a little clear plastic sleeve with the name of the flavor printed on it. This was helpful as I’d ordered both cinnamon and hot cinnamon (definitely a difference!). The shapes were lovely, the colors clear (except for banana), distinctive and tasty. I loved the pineapple and anise especially.

The downside is that they’re a little softer than some hard candies, so they either need to be stored in a fridge to keep them from losing their shape eventually or just eaten quickly. The softness also means that they stick to teeth and can’t be crunched. But I kind of like slowly shaping them to the roof of my mouth.

I probably wouldn’t order these again unless I had a special need for them like a party or something. They’d make nice wedding favors or for a shower or something. But at five times the price of regular hard candy, it’d have to be a very special occasion or a very special flavor.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Related Candies

1. VerMints
2. Shigekix Aha! Brain (Citrus)
3. St. Claire’s Organic Mints & Tarts
4. HiCHEW Yuzu & Valencia
5. KitKat Caramel
6. Halvah and Turkish Delight

I’ve been cleaning up my studio space and going through all my unreviewed items. Let me say that there are a lot of them so I’m going to devote the rest of the week to clearing them out of the queue.

Half Cut Chocolate

I don’t know where they came from. My neighbor Robin gave them to me from one of her friends at work who travels a lot. The back of the package has a translation on it, unfortunately into another Asian language. The only thing in English on the package besides the calorie info is the words “Half Cut Chocolate.”

These lovely little hemispheres look just like itty bitty cantaloupes. They each come individually wrapped in cellophane. Even though they’re wrapped, the bag smells of a light melon flavor. Once opened, they do smell a lot like cantaloupe. The white confection base is sweet and a good complement for the flavor. They’re a little bland, but so incredibly cute and of course so unusual.

I was rather unsure of how melon would go with chocolate, but it’s a perfectly natural combo for white chocolate.

Rating: 5 out of 10

Morinaga’s Black Sesame Caramels

I’m not a big fan of sesame flavored things. I enjoy sesame snaps (basically, sesame brittle) and the odd seed on a bun ... well, I also like halvah. Okay, I might just love sesame!

I was kind of on the fence about these. They tasted a lot like toasted sesame oil used in Japanese cooking, which always tastes a little burnt to me. But they were very smooth and creamy and after chewing for a minute or so they become very rich. But the smell put me off each and every time.

I ordered this box from JList.

(I realize now that I carelessly photographed this package upside down. Even though I don’t read Japanese, it’s not like I couldn’t have figured out that the little angel went at the top.)

Rating: 6 out of 10

Morinaga’s Azuki Caramels

I had high hopes for the red bean flavored caramels. They package was easy to spot, pretty much kidney bean red.

The Morinaga caramels have always had a slight grain (kind of a short caramel or dry caramel). This worked particularly well with the red bean flavor, which of course I always expect a little bean mealiness. It’s so smooth though and has such a consistent texture, it really works. It reminded me a lot of adzuki ice cream in that it got that creamy texture, but it’s much less sweet and more flavorful.

I really liked this and was looking forward to buying more, but I haven’t seen them again. I got this box in Little Tokyo after lunch one day when I was on jury duty.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Aunt Sally’s Creamy Pralines

This was one of the products I was looking forward to at the All Candy Expo. I didn’t make it over to their booth until the last day and all they had left was their original flavor. Their Creamy Pralines also come in Bananas Foster, Chocolate and Cafe au Lait but all they had left was the original.

Aunt Sally’s makes two different kinds of Pralines (pronounced PRAH-leens), this Creamy kind and a Creole kind.

The Creamy Pralines are a nice size, 3/4 of an ounce, like a small chocolate chip cookie. The nuts are abundant and smell fresh and kind of like maple. The sugary praline base is soft and kind of chewy like a fudge, but not quite caramel. It’s very smooth with only a slight grain to it.

I’m much more fond of either the straight chewy pralines or the sandier version (I think that’s Creole), but these were still very nice. I’m still curious to try the Bananas Foster version. At $2 each on the website, they’re a little pricey. I get one that’s almost triple the size at Littlejohn’s Toffee at the Farmers Market for $2.50 (it’s the sandy style).

I still haven’t been able to find them in person anywhere, SugarHog.net found them at the Albanese Candy Factory store.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Related Candies

1. Candy Dump - International House of Chocolate
2. Welcome to the Candy Dump
3. Short & Sweet: Japanese Goodies
4. Green and Black Caramels

I had hoped to do a good history of Sprees and the newer Chewy Sprees for this review. What I found is that like many large families, the kids in the middle or towards the end get kind of lost in the shuffle. The novelty of their existence is lost and though they grow up admirably strong and fetch a good price when sold (oh, wait, we don’t sell kids any longer, do we?), it’s just not as interesting as the first.

So info is kind of scant. Sprees came along sometime after SweeTarts, which came after Pixy Stix and Lik-m-Aid and were made by Sunline (Sunmark) brands (a little history here). I remember eating them as a kid. I loved the bright colors and the sound they made in my pocket (or when I unwrapped them from their roll and put them in the Gold Mine Gum bag I had because they both had that sunshine sweet juicyfruit scent). Sunline later sold out to Nestle which kind of folded the candies under the Wonka brand. The product, however, was happily unchanged except for the swap of Green Apple for Lime a few years back.

Chewy Spree come in a few different formats. You can get them in the bags shown here that holds 1.7 ounces and I believe they may still make the 1.73 ounce rolls. They also have a little plastic container of Chewy Mini Sprees that I’ve tried before as well.

The original Sprees are a compressed dextrose tart with a bright candy shell. The Chewy Spree, however, is less tart. I don’t know why, but it is. They’re a mellow version of the Spree, which I’m guessing sets it apart from the much bolder SweeTarts Shockers, which have a sour flavored candy shell and tart chewy inside.

They come in Grape, Orange, Lemon, Green Apple and Strawberry, otherwise known as the “don’t rock the boat” flavors of middle/later children.

Earlier this year Nestle debuted their newest addition, the Mix’d Berry Chewy Spree at the All Candy Expo. They’re pretty, the same shape and size, same glossy paint colors.

The package, however, gives little indication about what’s inside. Simply called Mix’d Berry, it occured to me that besides telling us that it’s a kick in the mouth, Spree packages offer no explanation of what they are. Most candies do! (And I often like to dissect those statements.) There’s no listing of flavors, and even the colors on the front of the package bear little resemblance to the real-life ones.

Packaging and vagueness aside, it’s pretty easy to figure out what to do with these. I ate ‘em.

Then I realized I didn’t figure out which color was which flavor, so I had to stop at the 7-11 this morning and buy another package. And for the life of me, after actually paying attention, I can’t figure it out.

Pink tastes like watermelon to me. I don’t think that’s a berry, even a mix’d one. Blue is raspberry, not terribly tart or intense, it has a good fragrant quality to it. The other two, I just didn’t know what they were. And after two packages, you’d think I would have figured it out. Purple might be mixed berry or maybe blueberry. I’ve never been good at figuring out what “flavor” blueberry is in candies. Red has me completely flummoxed. I suppose it could be Cherry?

They’re pretty, but I think I’ll stick with the regular hard Sprees.

Chewy Sprees have egg albumen in them, so are not suitable for vegans.

I was really excited about the idea of Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints. Then I started reading the package and somehow it was pushing all my irritation buttons.

First, the description: Real Junior Mints (tm) made with a real candy crunch. Are there fake Junior Mints (tm) out there ... is this an issue? There are other dark chocolate peppermints out there, sure, but is there anything that’s trying to occupy the Junior Mints (tm) niche? What makes them Junior Mints anyway? Is it the dark chocolate and flowing fondant? Because the Junior Mints Deluxe had the Junior Mints name. So it’s not size or proportion.

The thing I have the real hangup on is the “CRUNCH!” that they advertise. The little image on the box shows what looks like a Starlight mint, which is basically a hard candy with peppermint flavoring ... they’re good crunched up and put in things (see my list o’ uses for Candy Canes). At first I though they were nonpareils, which are little spheres of sugar found on SnoCaps.

But on closer examination they weren’t. They’re too irregular. So I read the ingredients: Sugar, Semi Sweet Chocolate, Corn Syrup, Flaked Corn, Yellow Corn Flour, Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, Corn Starch, Confectioner’s Glaze, Modified Food Starch, Peppermint Oil, Invertase, Invert Sugar Syrup, Artificial Color (Red 40) and Corn Syrup Solids.

In an effort to figure out what these nibbles are, I’ve boldfaced those ingredients that are not found in regular Real Junior Mints (tm). Seems like we have some red polenta or something. Definitely not crushed Starlight Mints (like those little candy flakes on the Peeps Peppermint Stars). One thing I’m quite sure of, they’re not that tasty. They don’t dissolve like a bit of candy crunch should, but they do remain crunchy no matter how long you roll them around in your mouth!

They just don’t look that good. They look like they fell in something. I like traditional Junior Mints, they’re pretty! Usually so slick and dark, these are lumpy and malformed. The taste is pretty much the same but the crunch isn’t crunchy enough, doesn’t add any pep to the whole thing. If it was real candy (you know something that you’d actually buy and eat separately ... tell me you’d eat flaked corn, yellow corn flour, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil and corn syrup solids!) then I think they’d have something. I haven’t been particular fond of the other versions of Junior Mints so far: Pastel, Inside Out or Heart Shaped (only because the red ones tasted weird). I think I’ll just stick with the Real Junior Mints from now on.

Nicole of Baking Bites reviewed them earlier this month.

Related Candies

1. Dove Promises (Caramel & Almonds)
2. York Mints
3. Recipe: Peppermint Stick Layer Cake
4. Chocolate Filled Candy Canes
5. The Mint Kisses: Chocolate Mint & Candy Cane

On my recent trip to San Francisco I was excited to check out the licorice assortments at both Miette Patissiere and The Candy Store, as both were known for their large variety for sale. I wasn’t disappointed at all! (The only sad part was that they were $12 a pound.)

Fruit Filled Rockies - these are gorgeous little nibbles. The dark licorice tube is filled with a firm fondant-style fruit creme. Not quite sweet, they do have a salty bite through and through. There are two different pinks there, one raspberry and the lighter one is, as far as I can tell, orange. The brown one is more smoky, with a strong salty component. 6 out of 10

Schoolkrijt by Venco (Netherlands) is a very common licorice in Europe, kind of like our Good & Plenty but much milder. It’s much like the Rockies, in that it’s a tube of licorice filled with a creme. Then the whole thing is panned with a crunchy mint shell.

The flavor combo is kind of medicinal, like a cough drop, but I rather like that. Peppermint, licorice and some molasses. I’ve had these a couple of times before, but this particular sampling was very fresh. The outside was crisp and the inside was soft and chewy.

UPDATE: Seems I couldn’t get these out of my mind and have bought at least two pounds (not at once) since this review for personal consumption. So the rating gets updated to a 9 out of 10

Griotten by Venco (Netherlands) were completely new to me. If I’ve seen these before I’ve completely blocked them out. They look like little raw sugar cubes, but pick one up and it’s too light for that. Why, it’s a little spongy too!

It’s like a cross between a marshmallow and a gummi. Soft and chewy, but not too dense or tacky.

The flavor is mild, with only a delicate hit of licorice and anise and not terribly sweet either with a mix of the grainy sugar coating and a little salt. 7 out of 10

Heksehyl Zoete are also something that I’ve never tried before. Kind of a baby step in the licorice world, they’re more of a molasses candy than a licorice one.

The smoky molasses is a good background for the light licorice flavor. No salt here, just a light coating of sugar to pull it all together. Very soft, very chewy. Kind of chocolatey. 7 out of 10

Kokindjes (Netherlands) were one of the few salty licorices I picked up.

The cute little buttons are nice and soft. While I like a hard glycerine-style licorice sometimes (Katjes), I really enjoy the chew of licorice as a feature. As a lightly salted licorice, it was very mild, but I was disappointed that it didn’t have a huge licorice kick.

There was a slight metallic tinge for me and a fleeting glimpse of damp cat-inhabited basements. 5 out of 10

Honey Tops (Netherlands) were the one piece that I thought was one that I’d had before, it didn’t look quite the same, not quite as amber and there is no bee on this hive. The flavor is a round with only the slightest honey tint, some mild licorice (no anise). They’re pretty firm. These and the Kokindjes were the last ones I finished. 5 out of 10

(I was guessing at the brands here based on who sells what. There could be other companies that make these same varieties.)

As a kid I loved Ice Cubes. They’re little squares of hazelnut mockolate. Their unique selling proposition included the fact that they were individual pieces that sold for 10 cents a piece and had a wild, cool feeling on the tongue when they melted instantly.

I remember buying them at the student union on the Kent State University campus when I was a kid waiting for my mother to be done with classes or my father to be done with work. (I usually panhandled to get the money to buy them, I was pretty shameless in the lengths I would go to get my fix.) Later when I was in college on my own I would use my meal points at the Jolly Giant Commons to buy these by the tub.

The little candies have been around since the mid-thirties, made in Germany by a small company called Nappo and sold by Albert’s in the States. They’re similar to the Caffarel Gianduia, except for the fact that they’re made with partially hydrogenated coconut oil instead of nut paste and chocolate.

I was really excited to find these looking so smart and crisp at The Candy Store in San Francisco on Friday. I see them every once in a while, but they always look sad and melted. The Candy Store had a whole jar of pristine looking Ice Cubes in both wrappers (they’re switching to a gold wrapper from the traditional blue and white so there’s a crossover right now).

They don’t smell like much, a little sweet, a little nutty, but nothing like chocolate. They have a soft bite and an immediate hit of cool on the tongue. They melt quickly (as partially hydrogenated coconut oil has a melting point of 76 degrees F) and have a decent mix of nutty flavors, a little milkiness and a little hit of cocoa. A little grainy, they’re not quite as good as I remember.

Now, for the sobering part. Read the ingredients: partially hydrogenated coconut oil, sugar, low fat cocoa, dried sweet whey, soy flour, hazelnut paste, soy lecithin, artificial vanilla flavor.

There is no nutritional info included with these, but this page tells me that just one of them is 22% of my daily value of saturated fat (65 calories).

So while I enjoyed this little trip back in time to taste those little cubes of obsession and trans fats, now that I’m all grown up and have found good sources of candy, I don’t think I’ll ever eat these again now that I’ve found Caffarel Gianduias. (The traditional ones are perfect, the novelty shaped ones are fun & make a cute stocking stuffer.) In fact, at The Candy Store the price for Caffarel and Ice Cubes was identical ... 75 cents each. I bought a handful of Fig and Chestnut ones ... something I’ll feel a little less guilty about eating.

Related Candies

1. Milka Alpenmilch
2. Nutpatch Nougats
3. Ferrero Mon Cheri
4. Lake Champlain Hazelnut Eggs
5. Scharffen Berger Gianduja