Twix is one of the most popular candy bar brands in the country (and mighty popular in Europe, to boot). About 43 million are sold each year (source). There are quite a few different versions and limited editions that have come and gone over the years.

Twix recently released the new Twix PB ... this new product replaces the Peanut Butter Twix (shown) that has been around on and off since 1983. I contacted Mars regarding this change.

It was kind of an odd process. I submitted an email through the Contact page on the Twix website and two days later I got an email (referencing Peanut Butter M&Ms, which really confused me, because if I asked a question about PB M&Ms, it had to be over a year ago when I was trying to find out if they still made Crispy in the States) with a reference number and their toll free hotline. I called the number and gave them the number and they confirmed that there will be no more Peanut Butter Twix once supplies currently in stores and warehouses run out. (This would be the appropriate time to pick up a box at your local grocer when they go on sale for three for a dollar and then sell them for $2 each on eBay.)

The only difference between these two products is the cookie in the center. The original Peanut Butter Twix has a vanilla cookie (like the regular Twix) while the new PB Twix has a chocolate cookie (like the Limited Edition Twix Triple Chocolate).

This is how I feel about this bar ... it’s trying too hard.

I got a hold of the classic Peanut Butter Twix and did a side by side comparison.

I like the Peanut Butter Twix, not a lot, but enough to finish the bar on hand. The peanut butter is definitely the main attraction here. The bar isn’t very sweet and the cookie gives it a nice texture without doing much else. The chocolate, well, keeps things together.

The Twix looks the same from the outside. The cookie isn’t quite as crispy and satisfyingly crunchy. The peanut butter seems to be lost in the Hydrox-style cookie (no, not Oreo, I’m saying Hydrox for a reason). It all tastes like bad frosting. Not like peanut butter, not like chocolate. It has a nice salty balance and isn’t too sweet, but it just doesn’t have much going for it as a candy. I hate to say it, but when I eat this, the word that comes to mind is unctuous. I mean this in both senses of the word ... it’s kind of oily and it’s also kind of insincere and smug.

Now, if you’re a Twix fan, you’ll probably want to ignore everything I’ve written here. I’ve never actually cared much for Twix. Sometimes I’ll eat a miniature as a reminder to myself that I really don’t like them. I don’t know why. All the elements seem like a good idea. Is it just me, or do Twix always become a melted mess in your fingers too? I don’t have that problem with most other bars.

If you’re a fan of the traditional (and you should really try this one before you go getting in an uproar) then you should probably call Mars or send them an email to let them know how you feel.

Related Candies

1. Candy Source: Jelly Bean Factory
2. Disney Branded Chocolate Candies

A couple of week’s ago I saw a mention on the All Candy Expo website that M&Ms was introducing Dark Chocolate Peanut M&Ms on July 1st. I couldn’t find anything else about it though ... expect the commercial that’s running for Dark Chocolate M&Ms ... have you seen it? It’s themed on the Addam’s Family.

The curious part is that only Uncle Fester and Pugglsey are regular shaped, the rest of the family is Peanut. The M&Ms website makes no mention of the peanut version as of this date.

I can kind of shrug it off, except for the fact that I actually found them on sale at RiteAid last night. Well, of course I bought them!

Dark Chocolate Peanut M&Ms were introduced a couple of years ago as a themed promotion for Star Wars and called Darth Mix. I never got to try them (just the plain ones, which were also introduced as a regular version).
The Dark Chocolate Peanut M&Ms come in a similar purple package as the plain Dark Chocolate M&Ms. The way they were lined up in the rack, in fact, made it hard to tell that they were different at all, except a little bit of yellow peeking out.

First, Peanut M&Ms are not my favorite. They’re kind of in the middle of the pack, I enjoy them but I find that they’re a bit uneven in quality, I really don’t like the Russian Roulette of getting a bad peanut.

A regular Peanut M&M single-serve package contains 1.74 ounces. The Dark Chocolate version contains 1.5 ounces. Do you think that’s exactly the milk content difference? Hardly, there’s plenty of milk in here ... lactose and milkfat are both ingredients, so this isn’t really dark chocolate.

They’re dark, that’s for sure. They crunch the same but the combination of peanut and dark chocolate is quite, well, dark. It’s a bit bitter, it’s a bit smoky, in fact, the whole thing reminded me of peanuts and molasses more of peanuts and chocolate.

The colors are nice and there’s no indication that these are dark on the shell (the plain dark ones have the occasional “dark” stamp on them).

Overall, they were just a little too “dark” for me. It’s not that they weren’t sweet, they were just too bitter.

Read up on all the other M&M coverage.

I don’t often fall prey to novelties on the basis of their cuteness. It’s usually their novelty or utility that gets me.

These are cute but certainly expensive, useless and probably bad for the environment.

What’s worse? I bought two.

The come in a gajillion different versions: Eeyore, Piglet, Tiggr, Pluto and Mickey were the ones I saw. They’re called Candy Keepers, and as far as I’m concerned, they can keep the candy.

Each little pod comes in a snug little clear plastic box along with a packet of candies (about the same amount as a packet of sugar). They’re all pastels. I thought for a while there might be primary colored ones in there and rooted around in the display. The pastel really doesn’t make much sense, unless you’re a Piglet fan.

The little pod comes apart with a twist that holds exactly the amount of candy included. You’re responsible for your own assembly.

The little pastel candies are dreadful. I thought they were going to be like Tart n Tiny ... little sugar shelled SweeTarts or something. Instead the candies are slightly floral/raspberry flavored ... completely sweet except for the awful bitter aftertastes (is that the artificial coloring?).

How much, you’re wondering? $2.50 each. The included candy aside, they’re still going to be fun to keep on my desk and put other actual candies that I like inside. (This week it’ll probably be Good & Plenty.) If it were just a little toy, I think I’d be okay (if it were less than $2, come on, how much was it to make these things ...). With the candy, these fall out of my good graces and I give them a 5 out of 10. If you’re trying to moderate your child’s candy intake and have only given them a $2.50 budget for sweets and Disneyland, well, this is the treat for you! (It makes me feel silly for complaining about paying over a dollar for those Gummy Fishies.)

There are a lot of lollipops for sale at Disneyland. My guess is there is at least one per child available in stores at all times. They’re a silly candy, really. A very, very big piece of bright hard candy. You could get a kid interested in hard candy if you paid them ... unless it’s flat, comes with a handle and has some sort of Princess on the wrapper.

I was pretty pleased to see these Mickey Mouse Bundled Pops at the stores. They’re fun to look at and it appears that a kid might actually be able to eat one of these while waiting in one of those long lines for a ride ... and still have some for later.

The bundle has five thick Mickey Ear pops in it: Cherry, Orange, Banana, Cotton Candy and Watermelon each on a 7” paper stick.

I left the red on my brother’s windshield ... so the kids would think there was a lollipop fairy at Disneyland!

Each pop weighs about .66 ounces each. They feel substantial and are dense, without any noticeable voids. They’re opaque due to the addition of titanium dioxide, which means they’ll make effective but small sunblocks if necessary.

The flavors aren’t as bright as the colors though. For Banana and Cotton Candy, the flavor was mild and sweet. For the Orange and Watermelon, the flavor just didn’t have any zazz. It was all sweet and no tang. I suppose some children prefer sweet over tart, so keep that in mind if you’re looking for a candy that won’t overpower them.

They are very attractive and one of the few candies that continues the Mickey Mouse theme all the way until you bite their ears off. At $3.95 for the bundle of five, well that’s a bit steep. I give them a 6 out of 10.

Neither of these treats was marked Kosher.

Related Candies

1. Universal CityWalk for Candy Lovers
2. M&Ms Memorable Moments (Disney)
3. Disney Branded Chocolate Candies
4. Disneyland Candy Palace - Candy Case Chocolates
5. Disneyland for Candy Bloggers

Just when I think I’m done, I get pulled back in again! I thought I’d reviewed all the Starburst on the market today when I saw that the Starburst Sour have new flavors.

It’s not like I was that thrilled with the original set of flavors in the Starburst Sour array, so the new ones might be better.

As luck would have it I picked up the new flavors, then saw the original flavors at the 99 Cent Only Store. Before you go thinking that this will be a redux of the LifeSavers, both of these products are fresh.

Original Starburst Sour were manufactured in June of 2006 with an expiration of 8/2007. New Starburst Sour were manufactured in December 2006. (Curious how I know this, check out What Does that Mars Code Mean?)

Here’s the flavor breakout:

Sour Tangerine (was Orange) - I really had to work hard on this one. The wrappers were the exact same shade of orange and the candies were the exact same shade of orange. I had to admit that the new Sour Tangerine was different from the orange. It had a “high note” of orange and tartness that just wasn’t in the original. I can’t say I prefer one over the other, but I’m glad there’s something citrus in there.

Sour Green Apple (was Cherry) - I was pretty surprised that this wasn’t in the original mix. It’s definitely a synthetic sour apple taste, but it’s quite intense and of course sour. It has some nice real apple juice notes to balance it out, especially as the chew goes on.

Sour Strawberry (was Grape) - While I enjoy a sassy tart and crispy apple and even a juicy tangerine, I have a hard time with sour strawberries, as they’re so much better when they’re sweet and ripe. It smelled like strawberry - a cross between summer flowers and cotton candy. The chew though, was a little less pleasant. It was sour but it didn’t match up with the flavor, it was like a blind date that was going horribly, uncomfortably wrong. It made me break out in a sweat twice, not because it was too sour, perhaps because of the red food coloring. I didn’t eat the third one in the mix.

Sour Blue Raspberry (same) - still an insane blue, still an unnatural flavor for food. Tart and a little on the lime side, a little bitter/dry aftertaste that I kind of liked it this time around.

Overall, I prefer the much more rounded flavors of the classic Starburst. I can see these being a nice change of pace and if I were doing more bike riding or running where I wanted a little something to get rid of dry mouth, this might be the stuff because they’re so portable and of course a good variety in every pack.

Some of our wheat sensitive friends will be happy to hear that the new packaging now says that New Flavors Starburst Sour are Gluten Free (please make sure that your package says that if you’re gluten intolerant since the old flavor set does not say that!).

Related Candies

1. Eiffel BonBons
2. Starburst GummiBursts
3. Cinnamon Fire Twizzlers
4. Sour Extinguisher
5. Starburst Baja California & Tropical
6. Starburst Berries & Creme and Fruit & Creme
7. Starburst

I tried the Nestle Dark Stixx last year and thought they were pretty good. They’re a little crispy cookie wafer in the form of a tube filled with some cream and covered in chcoolate.

The Butterfinger Stixx were introduced at the same time, but it took a little while for me to find them super-cheap. They were stupidly expensive at $2.29 for a box of 6 when they came out. But at the 99 Cent Only Store this little package of two was a respectable 33 cents and still fresh (expiration July 2007).

What’s great about these is the one thing that you can’t get in a Butterfinger ... real chocolate. Not that the chocolate is great, but you know, if it’s not tasty at least it’s not fake.

The package describes this rather oddly with a little four point diagram:

What I suspect after reading that is that this is more like a Butterfinger Crisp bar (which may be running one of the lamest commercials of the year, sorry, as far as I’m concerned that girl has to be high if she’s enjoying a Butterfinger Crisp and thinks that’s really laugh-out-loud funny).

The little stick has that familiar peanut butter and buttered popcorn scent. The sweet chocolate and bland crunch of the wafer are a nice combo, not too sweet. The creamy center is nothing like a Butterfinger, it’s soft and reminds me of that peanut butter filling that comes inside those cheesy orange peanut butter crackers. The peanut butter flavor is pretty mellow and rather lost. It’s sweet and a little salty, not very creamy and not really notable beyond that.

The little sticks are tasty but not very satisfying. I completely missed the “sprinkle of candy bits”. On the plus side, this didn’t stick to my teeth like the industrial-strength-cement-like Butterfinger filling can. I think if I’m looking for a stick shaped peanut butter candy I’ll stick to Atkinson’s Peanut Butter Bars. (No chocolate, but still tasty.)

Other thoughts: Victoria at Candy Addict liked them, Taquitos.net gave them a positive, Chris at CandyCritic gives them a 3/3/4 Lord Jezo gives them two cheeses.

I’ve been looking at Crunky for a few years now. It’s not the name that threw me, it just didn’t seem that appealing. Why buy a Japanese or Korean cheap chocolate bar when we have plenty of them here in the States. But I knew I had to give it a try eventually.

Lotte is a huge company, based in both South Korea and Japan, so there are lots of places where you may see these bars in Asia.

Crunky Chocolate - Salted Caramel - the description on JBox said that this was a salted caramel bar. I was expecting, as the picture seems to have, some chocolate and some caramel. Instead it’s some sort of a white chocolate bar with a salty and caramelized flavor. It also has the malted crunchies.

The wrapper isn’t in English so I’m at a loss to read the rest of the description, but as far as I’m concerned, this is not chocolate. It doesn’t taste like chocolate, it doesn’t look like chocolate. It might be shaped like chocolate, but it’s not. Perhaps it’s off-white chocolate.

My feelings of betrayal aside ... it’s nice, and I actually grew rather fond of the not-so-sweet taste. The slightly burnt flavor was also nice as were the crunchies with their malty hit. But the texture of the chocolate itself wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t creamy, it didn’t melt in my mouth. It got soft, it was rather smooth, but it felt more fudgy than chocolatey.

Crunky Chocolate - my feelings for the first bar I tried were set aside for this experience. It looks rather traditional, like a Krackle or Nestle Crunch bar, but the chocolate is definitely lighter. It’s certainly well packaged. The easy to open

box reveals a large flat bar (well, mine got a little bent in transit from Japan) wrapped in a light matte foil.

The chocolate is a little waxy, but very smooth. The flavor is more milky and perhaps a little burnt tasting as several people have mentioned to me. The quality is no better than Hershey’s or Nestle’s standard consumer fare, but perhaps a bit different. I liked the format of the bar, I’ve always found Crunch bars a little too flat, I want the crispies to be really surrounded (I rather prefer the Easter egg versions).

Neither of these set my world on fire. Every country has to have a crispy chocolate bar. I like the name, it has a good onomatopoeiaic sense to it. If I were in Japan or South Korea I would probably pick these up as a “safe” choice, but I don’t know if I’d mail order them again. (But they could probably sucker me with some limited edition variety ... because I’m a sucker like that.)

Back in January at the Fancy Food Show I picked up a few candies I like to put in the category of “comfort foods.” Asher’s is one of those companies, like See’s that I associate with traditional sweeties.

Asher’s is in Souderton, PA and though they’re pretty big, I don’t see their candies very often on the West Coast. Then one day I was at Loehmann’s and saw a stack of big boxes of Asher’s Chocolate Covered Pretzels and I decided I should finally review these items. Because I’d want to know whether or not something is good before I go buying it at Loehmann’s.

The Chocolate Smothered Pretzel, as far as I’m concerned, is the epitome of Pennsylvania Candy Cuisine. After all, they make lots of chocolate in Pennsylvania and they certainly are known for their pretzels. As a kid I would make my own chocolate frosting (equal parts butter, powdered sugar and cocoa) and then dip pretzel rods into it. Later as I began making my own candies I dipped pretzels when I ended up with leftover melted chocolate.

Asher’s milk chocolate is smooth and creamy. Very sweet, but the pretzel is salty and crunchy, so it goes well together. I prefer the tiny pretzels to the big ones, because you can fit the whole thing in your mouth at once instead of risking chocolate loss to flaking. (They make a variety of sizes.)

Milk Chocolate Smothered Graham Cracker - a chocolate covered graham cracker is kind of wholesome, right? This reminded me of a Twix bar without the caramel. The chocolate was creamy and the graham was crisp and fresh. It’s not my favorite of the three, but I’m sure folks who enjoy graham crackers will also like this.

I think a little bit saltier cracker would help, but then again maybe it’s the bland and slightly malty sweet cracker that’s the highlight here. Now, I see that Asher’s makes their own chocolate covered marshmallows and I’m wondering why a S’More isn’t an option on their site.

The Milk Chocolate Sandwich Cookie was fun. When I was in college I worked in a bakery/chocolate shop and one of my duties was to make chocolate dipped cookies. Back then Oreo made a HUGE version of their cookie, the size of my palm. They were a bear to dip, but the proportion of chocolate to cookie usually turned out well because the proportion of chocolate to cookie was just right.

The Asher sandwich cookie is covered in real milk chocolate (as are all of the above). Again, it’s sweet but the dark and slightly salty note of the cookie set it off nicely. One cookie is plenty, it’s very filling. (If you want a really good version of these, check out the Best Regards version as well, which is more expensive but come in other flavors.)

If you see these at the discount stores, they’re certainly worth picking up at less than $10.00 a pound, I’m not sure they’re worth more than that seeing how there’s a lot of filler in there and they’re not that labor intensive. The pretzels are certainly better than the bagged versions available in the candy aisle from Hershey’s and Nestle. I have to admit that the Chocolate Smothered Potato Chips also sound good and have to be better than those mockolate chips I had earlier this year.

The story of how LifeSavers were created is one of those classic happy accidents. They came about in 1912 when Clarence Crane was looking for a candy to sell in the summer when chocolate was difficult to store. He concieved of a hard mint and engaged a pill manufacturer to make them for him. They found that the candies were easier to make if they were donut shaped and thus the candy and name Lifesavers was born.

The Five Flavor LifeSavers are not a compressed dextrose candy, instead they’re a boiled sugar candy. While the Pep-O-Mint was going strong, the fruit flavored versions were introduced in 1924 as simple hard candy disks. In 1929 technology caught up with demand and LifeSavers got their holes. The original fruit roll was all citrus - Lemon, Lime and Orange. In 1935 they became the Five Flavor Roll with Cherry and Pineapple joining the mix. And that’s how it was until 2003.

Then the internet mucked it all up. Wrigley’s, who now owns LifeSavers, decided to change up the flavors in the roll because they thought that the old flavors were hurting sales. So they let voters add their voice at their website. I think this was their first mistake. First, you could only vote for the flavors on their list. Second, they were only polling those people who visited their site ... I’m sure the great majority of LifeSavers consumers do not visit CandyStand.com, which appears to be designed for kids.

But I digress. Or ramble. And will continue to ... this is just one of those posts.

I had a yard sale over the weekend and my neighbor Robin brought some stuff over, which included a bunch of stuff from her desk that included a roll of LifeSavers. I, of course, wanted them. They looked like the original flavors (you can tell because it doesn’t have the purple stripe) but I wasn’t sure because it listed CandyStand.com.

I took them up to the Candy Blog labs for a look and found that they were in fact the original Five Flavor roll (the ones pictured above, not here to the left). They were not in great condition, as hard candies often get milky looking after about three years. But there they were, the original Five Flavors: Orange, Lemon, Cherry, Pineapple and Lime. They were stuck together and stood up easily for the photo. The package also spells out the word Five, and important distinction.

The new roll heralds that it has NEW FLAVORS! though it makes no mention of what they are. I understand not mentioning the flavors on the old roll, they’d been around since 1935 ... LifeSavers, a part of living.

The new roll also saves copoius amounts of ink by calling itself 5 Flavors, thus saving on those icky and expensive letters.

The flavors, in case you’re wondering are: Pineapple, Blackberry, Cherry, Watermelon & Orange. (This article points out that Orange was dropped in ‘03 in favor of Blackberry, but it appears it was quietly restored ... or maybe that’s the new flavor they’re talking about on the package.) It could also be because Nabisco sold LifeSavers to Wrigley’s in 2004.

Raspberry is good, nice and fruity with a good wine robustness. Watermelon is nice, fruity and floral. And of course the original pineapple is a glorious song that I hope will never end, orange is dependable and citrusy and cherry continues to be the epitome of medicinal-tasting candy. The old flavor set held one candy I would always give away ... the new one has three I don’t care for. I can’t just buy a LifeSavers 5 Flavor roll for orange and pineapple.

The saddest part of the whole LifeSavers story is that they stopped making the single flavor rolls that I loved so much. Tangerine was simply marvelous. More juicy, more zesty and more tangy that the simple orange, I could eat a whole roll in one sitting, no matter how long I was sitting down. While I might complain at the loss of flavors, I do have to applaud them for putting more in a roll. (I believe the old rolls used to hold 12 candies, the newer ones hold 14.) I might have to switch to Tropical Fruit as my go-to roll ... I wonder how much they’ve mucked that up lately.

Note: LifeSavers are now made in Canada. They also don’t have those little green strings that help you start a roll anymore.

UPDATE 2008: LifeSavers are now: Watermelon, Pineapple, Cherry, Raspberry, Orange ... so blackberry is now raspberry but pretty much looks the same.