Starburst makes some excellent jelly beans and have expanded their line to include a couple of different flavor mixes similar to their fruit chew flavors. The new Starburst Crazy Beans are unlike the fruit chew ancestors. They feature a flavored and colored shell with a different colored and flavored center. There are six varieties in the package.

This is the second “crazy” product from Wrigley’s in two years, with the Skittles Crazy Cores being the first and the third dual flavored product.

The package is fun, the bright purple and yellow certainly got my attention. The prospect of two flavors in one, instead of combining flavors is also appealing. The crazy part, I think, comes with the combinations that Wrigley’s has come up with.

The beans are opaque and note quite as jewel toned as the standard beans. There’s a slight mottling to the color which I liked, it was as if they were dyed little granite pebbles. The sizes are pretty standard and the quality of them is good - they were consistent and glossy. The package boasts that they use real fruit juice, but the ingredients say that it’s less than 2%. Unlike the regular Starburst chews, these have no additional vitamin C. They also contain a confectioners glaze so shouldn’t be considered vegetarian/vegan.

(These don’t go in the order of the photos above, just because.)

Grape-Ade (Purple) - the grape on the outside was easy to distinguish right away, just like a Pixy Stix. The lemon center was a little more muddled, but still had a little citrus note. Good start.

Peach-A-Palooza (Orange) - is definitely peachy on the outside. I don’t know what the center is supposed to be, but it tasted like cherry to me. Not a winner in my book, but I’m sure this is an ideal combination for someone.

Tropical Cherry Splash (Blue) - it’s unfortunate to find another cherry one, this one has a bit of a papaya note to it that makes me as equally unhappy as the peach. Pass.

Razzin Watermelon (Pink) - this pink one was a little confusing. It’s pink on the outside and blue on the inside. But the outside tastes like bubble gum instead of watermelon. And the inside is all sweet and fragrant like raspberry and strawberries. The shells on all of these were downright thick and crunchy as well.

Banana Berry Blast (Yellow) - it starts with a light whiff of banana but quickly becomes a standard tangy berry. I liked it though I would have preferred a little more banana in the mix.

Strappleberry (Green) - it’s true to its name, it’s a sweet golden delicious apple flavor mixed with a mellow berry note. These varied widely, some were puckeringly tangy, others were all sweetness and little flavor.

They’re much more expensive than other jelly beans, though I admit that they’re quite flavorful. However, this particular flavor mix didn’t really hit within my zone of interest. I’d prefer something a bit more on the traditional side or with more intense fruit flavors. (Or maybe they want to try doing candy coated gummis, since they’re already making Life Savers Gummis and Starburst GummiBursts.)

I feel like we’re running out of flavors and though there’s a large number of combinations possible - the results are merely proof of concept, not great candy.

I don’t know if these are a permanent item or just a seasonal one.

Related Candies

1. Starburst GummiBursts Flavor Duos
2. Wonka SweeTarts Jelly Beans 2010
3. Lemonhead & Friends Jelly Beans
4. Spree Jelly Beans
5. Hot Tamales Spice Jelly Beans
6. Starburst
7. Starburst and Jelly Belly Jelly Beans

One of the candies I was looking forward to seeing in the United States from Panda Licorice was their Candy Coated Licorice.

They’re little, beefy one inch rods of licorice with a candy shell. What’s interesting about these that’s different from most licorice pastels is the fact that the shells are flavored. They come with two flavors in each bag - lemon (yellow) and peppermint (white). As with all Panda licorice, the ingredients are all natural and vegan.

In Europe a slightly different version of this candy is available. I bought a bag in Amsterdam called Liquorice Comfits, which had three different colors (more about that in a moment).

This particular bag is small, it holds 100 grams which is 3.5 ounces. The retail price is pretty steep for a sugar candy, I paid over 2 Euros for mine in Europe and it appears that the American version will be prices around $2.50 to $3.00 per bag.

The pieces are consistent and attractive. They’re not slickly smooth, but they are shiny. The yellow is creamy and the white is stark and bright. (The green ones are from the European mix.)

The white ones are Peppermint and I was hoping they’d be similar to Skoolkrit, which I love so much. The licorice center is soft and chewy but not deeply flavored. It’s a bit doughy, like Panda can be, but missing the dark molasses notes. The licorice flavors are exactly that, the mellow and lingering sweetness of the licorice root. Though they have aniseseed oil in them, there’s less of that flavor in the profile. The mint shell gives is a fresh start and finish. It’s crunchy and sweet as well, but doesn’t really stick with me after consuming.

The lemon was a bit more of an unconventional combination. It was definitely sweeter to me with a lemony start that reminded me of icing. The licorice just seemed sweeter in this version.

Both are fun to eat, but I kept waiting for some stronger licorice flavors that I was relieved when the bag was empty and I could move on to something else.

The European bag I picked up of the Panda Liquorice Comfits is unflavored, as far as I can tell, though I did get a bit more of a floral note from the green ones, but natural colorings can do that.

Without the flavored shell, you’d think they’d have more of a licorice punch, but it was the same thing. Too sweet, not enough rich burnt toffee notes.

I don’t expect that I’ll pick these up again. I’m sure there are plenty of folks who will like these and I expect for parents who want a great family licorice, this is a good place to start, especially with younger kids who are turned off by strong flavors.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I like Good and Plenty better, I certainly prefer the price.

Related Candies

1. Natural Vines - Black Licorice
2. Panda Soft Herb Licorice and Licorice Cremes
3. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Hearts
4. Organic Finnska Soft Licorice
5. Kenny’s Licorice Pastels & Root Beer Twists
6. Good & Plenty (Fresh from the Factory)

Just Born has been steadily expanding the Peeps line of products for the the past five years or so. Beyond just new colors and shapes for the iconic sugar crusted marshmallows, they’ve also delved into flavors and more recently, the addition of chocolate.

The newest member of the Peeps repertoire is Peeps Peepsters Chocolate with Marshmallow Flavored Creme. They come in two varieties, milk and dark chocolate and sound like an interesting new version, more about the chocolate and less about the marshmallow.

I found them at the drug store before Valentine’s Day, so I paid full price for my bags - $3.99, which I found startling for 11 ounces of candy whose first ingredient was sugar and contained palm kernel oil.

I’ll start with the Peepsters Milk Chocolate with Marshmallow Flavored Creme which are enclosed in an easy to spot yellow bag with brown and green trim. The pieces inside are visible through a little window and foil wrapped in a matte pastel assortment of yellow, orange and pink.

The pieces are a little bit bigger than a Rolo. They feel solid and firm. Even without unwrapping them a vague soft vanilla flavor wafted from the bag. The little domes on the pieces have a little Peep on them, but that’s the only chicky thing about them. There’s really nothing that otherwise makes these feel Peepy except that the packaging tells me so.

The chocolate is smooth and has an excellent snap (however, it is rather cold in Los Angeles right now, they’ve been sitting in the unheated Candy Blog studio, which is about 58 degrees right now). It’s quite sweet but what’s most notable about the creme center is how firm it is. It seems to have the same density as the chocolate. So biting into it is like biting into a thick chunk of chocolate. As you can see from the cross section, there’s a lot of chocolate and not much filling.

The chocolate is sweet and milky, which adds to the marshmallow notes. The cream center does melt a bit on the tongue, kind of like a white chocolate but without the extra milk notes and malty flavor. Instead it’s all vanilla and sweetness. I didn’t get marshmallow at all. If this was served to me without a name, I don’t think think I would have come up with marshmallow as a descriptor. The essential elements of marshmallow are missing. (Lightness, fluffiness and smooth melt.)

The Peepsters Dark Chocolate filled with Marshmallow Flavored Creme are similar to the milk counterpart. They come in a blue bag with white polka dots and the same brown trim. The foil wrapping on the pieces is blue, green and lilac. (So you could mix these in a bowl and knowing the key, pick out your preference.)

The dark chocolate contains milk fat, so it’s not suitable for vegans ... but the creme center has milk products in it anyway. There is no gelatin in it though, so lacto-ovo vegetarians can indulge if they want to. The thickener used for the center is gum arabic.

The caloric density on the dark version is slightly higher, there are two more grams of fat per serving in this version.

Again there’s nothing Peepish about these. They have a much more pronounced vanilla smells to them, and less of the milky notes.

The chocolate is deep and rich, though not entirely well rounded. There are bitter, woodsy notes of charcoal and a lack of fruity notes to balance it all out. So it’s a very rough sort of flavors in combination - the one note sweet vanilla flavored center and then the cocoa powder outside. The balance of sweetness in this was much better though, so I definitely felt much less throat-searing on this version.

It’s an interesting brand extension from a company that I’ve never really though of much more than a sugar candy manufacturer. The foil is cute, but the ratio of center to chocolate was a bit off for something that I thought was going to have the lightness of marshmallow. The attention to detail on the production though is much better than my recent experiences with the Chocolate Covered Peeps. The pieces were well made and protected appropriately by their wrappings. I like that there’s no unnecessary food coloring used in the centers to make them violently yellow - so parents can feel better about giving these to kids. And for once vegetarians can enjoy a Peeps product.

But if I were to pick up an Easter themed cream, I think I’d stick with the Russell Stover eggs line, even though the ratio of chocolate to cream is pretty much the opposite.

UPDATE 11/29/2012: Just Born updated the packaging look for Peepsters this year, though the product remains the same. They also introduced a Christmas-themed version with red and green foil wrappings.

Related Candies

1. Peeps Dark Chocolate Covered Mint Marshmallow
2. Chocolate Covered Peeps
3. Peeps Mash Ups - Savory
4. Russell Stover Eggs
5. Peeps Mash Ups
6. Cadbury Eggs: Creme & Caramel

I found this box of Tootsie Chocolate Covered Raspberry Cremes in with the Valentine’s candy at Walgreen’s, but I don’t see why this is a seasonal item and it doesn’t say that it’s Limited Edition.

The box says that there’s Delight in each bite!. The design is, well, odd and out of place. There’s a little Tootsie logo in the corner, but I never really think of Tootsie when I think of Junior Mints, which is a similar product.

They look just like Junior Mints. They’re same size and shape and have the same deep dark chocolate shell with a glossy shine. They smell, well, like perfume made for fashion dolls. It’s a floral raspberry but has a soft fake vanilla note to it as well.

The chocolate is thin but has a crisp crunch to it and protects the gooey innards very well. The raspberry flavor is all sweetness and floral artificiality. It’s an interesting mix, the chocolate is not very strong, but has a decent cocoa punch. The fondant is sticky and sweet, and a little grainy like a frosting or glazed donut might be.

They were intriguing, but not compelling for me. The raspberry wasn’t overpowering but also didn’t wow me much. I like the idea of other flavored centers for Junior Mints, like orange or chocolate or maybe maple. I’m sure some folks are going to absolutely love these. If I were making them though, I probably would just keep them as a seasonal item.

Raspberry Cremes are made in a peanut free and gluten free facility. (The do contain soy, eggs and dairy.)

Related Candies

1. Zingerman’s Zzang! Wowza Raspberry Bar
2. Junior Fruit Cremes
3. 3 Musketeers Cherry & Raspberry
4. Junior Mints Peppermint Crunch
5. Mountain - Regular & Raspberry
6. Junior Mints - Heart Shaped

Inside this tiny little box are nine pastilles. They’re called Grether’s Blackcurrant Pastilles and they’re world famous. They’re made in Switzerland, in a process that must be incredibly expensive and labor intensive because this little box cost $2.99. Remember, I said there are nine little lozenges in there. That’s 33 cents each. Per ounce, this is far more than I pay for some really incredible chocolate.

Let me just say, the packaging is lovely. The tin is nicely made, with smooth edges and rounded corners. The printing on it is excellent and the design work fits the candy so well. I love this little tin and considering the fact that I paid $3 for it, I’m definitely going to find a use for it. (I think I’m going to put my earphones for my MP3 player in it.)

The pieces are soft but stiff, the shape fits easily in the mouth. They all bear the GP initials on them but aren’t distinctively attractive really. They’re translucent but quite a deep shade of purple.

They melt slowly, and though I can chew them, mostly I just squish them a bit. The melt or dissolve is smooth and has a dark blackcurrant flavor to it, it’s a mix of blackberry, pomegranate and boiled jam flavors. It’s a little tangy but mostly floral and berry.

They do soothe in a way that hard candies simply can’t, but without being sticky. Blackcurrant isn’t one of my favorite berry flavors, there’s a weird note to it, like the vine called Lantana that’s prevalent here in Southern California. It’s just a little gamey to me. I think the texture is spectacular, but the flavor and price is just too much for me. I wish they did a raspberry, honey or licorice though.

Related Candies

1. Eat with your Eyes: Pine Brothers Cough Drops
2. Dr. Doolittle’s Pastilles (Lemon, Grapefruit & Wild Berry)
3. Grapefruit & Blackcurrant Pastilles

NEWTREE is a Belgian chocolate company with a different take on the decadent chocolate traditions of their country. They make chocolate bars with interesting flavor combinations (like milk chocolate with lavender or dark chocolate with thyme). They also make bars that are fortified with healthy ingredients.

I picked up their new petite bar called NEWTREE Belgian Biscuit. It’s cute and just a little over an ounce.

Last year I reviewed their dark milk chocolate bar which has added fiber and less sugar. This bar also boast a reduced amount of sugar, though it doesn’t really save much in calories for a petite bar like this (about 5 calories as far as I can tell).

NEWTREE Biscuit Bar is rich in cocoa since it contains 65% pure cocoa. It is not only generous, but also light and crunchy. The delicacy of the biscuit and the subtle blend of flax seeds will stimulate your sense for a moment of relaxation and well-being.

The NEWTREE Biscuit Bar is rich in Omega 3 thanks to flax seed-based recipe, and contains 30% less sugar and 3 times as much fibers than an equivalent chocolate. A crunch snack bursting with creativity.

It’s a really nice looking bar - lovely molding and I like the shape for eating. It’s shiny and has a good cocoa aroma with a fresh woodsy note to it. It’s a long block with five thick sections.

The thickness let me really get the crunch of the biscuit bits. They were kind of like graham crackers, but not quite so sandy. They were small but well distributed. Then there were whole flax seeds. I like the idea of flax, but in reality they’re slimy little seeds that taste like fish to me. I’ll eat them and they’re just fine for savory crackers but I’ve decided they don’t belong in my chocolate.

The chocolate itself was strange. It was stiff and was lacking something in the melt, it wasn’t waxy but it also wasn’t quite the silky quick melt that I wanted. The flavor was rich but not deep.

I blame this on the added fiber, which probably takes away some of my much-loved cocoa solids or cocoa butter. The fiber comes from inulin,  oligofructose and dextrin.

I think I’ll stick to the more traditional Belgian chocolates and have an extra helping of green beans at dinner instead.

Related Candies

1. NewTree Dark Milk
2. Wonka Exceptionals Scrumdiddlyumptious
3. Eat with your Eyes: Choceur Choco & Biscuit
4. The Alien Forehead Chocolate Collection
5. Choco-Omeg
6. Ritter Sport Assortment

Godiva Chocolatier has been moving into more stores lately - places like Cost Plus World Market and even drug stores like CVS. This holiday was the first time I saw them in my ordinary grocery store (Von’s). The mass-market fare isn’t quite like the stuff in their shops, it’s small bites (Gems) and bars along with their Chocoiste line of little pearls.

They’re still rather expensive, this bag of Godiva Gems Peppermint Truffles was selling for $6.00 before Christmas. Though the bag looks pretty big (similar to the stand up bags from Ghirardelli which holds nearly 3 times as much), it only holds 3.5 ounces. But after Christmas I snagged this for only $2.64 ... a fair price for a real white chocolate product.

The package says: White chocolate with creamy candy cane filling.

The package warns that some settling of contents may occur in shipping, and they’re not kidding. There are 10 individually wrapped Gems inside, making two layers - that’s a lot of empty space in the bag. Each sphere is wrapped in a candy cane striped mylar twist.

The truffles are about 1 inch in diameter. They’re not completely spherical, they’re slightly faceted, I’m guessing to go with the Gems part of the name. They remind me of well-used polyhedral dice.

They’re formed from two hemispheres, so there’s a distinct seam in the center. Sometimes with a little gentle pressure on opposite sides of the seam, I can pop the sides apart. They’re each filled with the pink cream and then joined together with some more white chocolate.

The pieces are soft, the shell yields easily when bitten. The center is a soft cream made of white chocolate, sugar alcohols, butter and some palm oil along with some red food coloring and peppermint flavor. There’s just a little dash of salt in there. The sorbitol and xylitol are used as sweeteners to good effect. Both of them are lower in calories but they also are less sweet and provide a cooling effect on the tongue. (Some folks cannot tolerate sugar alcohols, but I don’t think there’s much in here.)

They were good quality, I liked that the ganache filling wasn’t greasy and thin tasting like the Lindt Lindor Truffles, which I see these as competing with. But the flavor combo wasn’t really best for me, I wanted a rich, silky dark chocolate shell and the white chocolate, minty ganache center. White chocolate lovers may disagree though. They’re not too sweet, which is also refreshing.

Related Candies

1. Russell Stover Peppermint Bark Snowman
2. Wonka Exceptionals Peppermint Shortbread Chocolate Pieces
3. Godiva Shamrock Truffles
4. Fannie May Mint Meltaway
5. Dove Peppermint Bark
6. Ghirardelli Holiday Squares
7. Lindt Lindor Truffle Eggs

Chocolate covered pretzels are one of those treats that straddle the line between candy and snack.

Today I’ve decided these are a candy, even though they’re not usually placed in the candy aisle. (Some stores keep them with the pretzels & chips, some near the nuts and others in with the candy.)

They’re called Snyder’s of Hanover Peanut Butter Pretzel Sandwich Dips. They say they’re made with real peanut butter (which I assumed by the fact that they’re called peanut butter pretzel sandwiches, but apparently it needed to be pointed out as a feature) and dipped in Hershey’s Milk Chocolate (which I don’t necessarily consider a feature unless the alternative is R.M. Palmer’s or Nestle’s mockolate).

They look like tiny chocolate dipped Oreos. They’re about an inch and a quarter around and nicely domed with a thick layer of milk chocolate.

The pretzels are little wheels with a grid pattern to them. Between two of these tiny pretzels is a bit of peanut butter cream. Then the whole sandwich is dipped in milk chocolate. The pieces are a bit scuffed up from tumbling around in the bag, but all were whole, so they hold up well.

The pretzels are crisp and though tiny, pack a lot of crunch. The peanut butter center isn’t very strong but at least says peanut butter upon introduction. There’s not a lot of peanut butter texture because there’s so much of the sweet milk chocolate coating. The chocolate is okay, it seals the pretzels well, which keeps them fresh, but doesn’t really have much of a chocolate flavor contribution. The texture is creamy and sweet but not too grainy.

Overall the snacks are very munchable, they’re filling but they don’t stick to the ribs like some peanut butter candies can. I found that I could eat lots of them, but I never quite enjoyed them. I wanted more crunch, more salt, more peanut butter and better chocolate. None of these wants kept me from finishing the bag, naturally. I know there are better versions of this product out there, but this would probably do in a pinch. Great for watching a movie or sharing with others during a football game. (Technically, all it needs is a little bit of caramel and some crushed peanuts and this would be the original version of the Take 5 Bar - which now features mockolate.)

Snyder’s makes several versions of the dips. Some are just straight chocolate dipped pretzels in Milk Chocolate and Special Dark. They also, supposedly, introduced a York Peppermint Pattie version earlier this year, but I still haven’t seen them in stores. To be honest, it sounds kind of bad, but I’m still fascinated with the idea of mixing pretzels, salt, minty fondant and dark chocolate.

Related Candies

1. Snickers Peanut Butter Squared
2. Pretzel M&Ms
3. Wolfgang Skipjacks & Jungle Jacks
4. Malley’s Chocolates
5. Revisit: Take 5, Sunkist Fruit Gems & Snickers Almond
6. Asher’s Milk Chocolate Covered Things