I’m traveling again, which means I’ve got a hankering for portable coffee. I know that coffee flavored chocolates don’t have the same caffeinated kick as actual coffee, but a little snacking on some coffee-ish candy probably has some sort of placebo effect.

I’ve written about Feodora Moccas before. When I was in Germany I actually visited the factory where Feodora and Hachez chocolate is made and picked up both versions of their chocolate coffee beans. Even at the factory store, they’re still not cheap, though certainly less expensive than the prices I pay in the United States.

The Feodora Moccals Zart-Bitter is the most common version, but I was eager to try their Feodora Mocca’s Vollmilch because Feodora is so well known for their extremely smooth milk chocolate. The Feodora website had a product page for them in English:

Besides the well-known chocolate specialty FEODORA Mochas – mocha beans of superior semi-dark chocolate with coffee – a new product was introduced in September 2009: FEODORA Mochas WHOLE MILK. The premium whole milk chocolate refined with coffee gives the Mochas new momentum.

The handy, resealable pack is easy to use and the compact size fits ideally in any shirt pocket and handbag. FEODORA Mochas – the ideal companions for chocolate gourmets and everyone who wants to become one!

The previous review of these holds up, as I still feel the same way about the slightly grainy texture. They’re quite strong in flavor, on the bitter side but not too acidic. They’re very woodsy but also sweet and have a note of cinnamon to them.

The pieces are excellently detailed, larger than a real coffee bean but with the little crease down the middle. They fit well in the mouth, and one is actually a great portion. There chocolate is mixed with 3% coffee beans ... I don’t know what that means for caffeine content, but I’d probably put it at least than 20 mg per portion.

I was a little disappointed by the Vollmilch variety (called Superior Milk Chocolate with Coffee on the back of the box in English). The Feodora chocolate is extremely smooth and milky, slick and cool on the tongue. However, the Moccas lack that smoothness, probably because of the addition of the actual coffee beans. It’s a little bit grainy, bitter and the milky flavors are more toffee and almost molasses.

Much to my surprise though, I went through the milk chocolate variety much quicker than the dark chocolate. It really shouldn’t surprise me, I prefer my coffee with a bit of milk in its liquid form. My favorite coffee flavored chocolate lentil is still the Meiji Coffee Beat from Japan, but this one does have an authentic coffee kick to it.

Related Candies

1. Askinosie Intelligentsia Coffee Bar
2. Sukoka Soft Coffee Candy
3. Ginger Chews: Hot Coffee
4. Coffee Rio
5. Coffee Nips
6. Feodora Chocolates
7. Pocket Coffee
8. Coffee Beat

Madre Chocolate is a newer bean to bar chocolate maker based on O’ahu in Hawaii. The logo for Madre Chocolate tells a lot: it’s the Maya glyph for cacao. You can see a larger version in this Archeology magazine article. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be “smiling” on the Madre version, but that’s the way it looks to me.

Madre makes their chocolate in Hawaii, but uses personally sourced beans from Central America, where chocolate was born. The Madre Chocolate Dominican Dark Chocolate bar is made with fair trade beans, and is 70% chocolate using organic sugar and Mexican vanilla. There are no emulsifiers.

The bars are absolutely beautiful. They’re wrapped well, too. The bars come in a tough and really re-usable foil then inside a printed kraft paper sleeve. Many bars come in foil, but the foil tends to protect the bars only in the store, not after they’re opened. Here I was able to open the wrapper and rewrap the bar without any difficulty or mess.

The bar itself has a beautiful mold, with designs inspired by Central America art and iconography. The Dominican Dark Chocolate bar is a deep reddish brown color with an excellent, crisp snap.

The bar has a strong dried cherry note to it and some deep, oaky smoked flavors. It’s on the bitter side with a lot of berry and spice to it, there are notes of hibiscus, black pepper, chipotle and black tea.

The melt is smooth, there’s some slight grit every once in a while, but for a chocolate with no emulsifiers, it’s exceptionally smooth with a crisp and brief dry finish.

Madre Chocolate: Jaguar Cacao Chocolate from Central America was the bar that spurred me to get to know Madre Chocolate.

I’ve often wondered about the plants that chocolate comes from, like the diversity of citrus fruits. Theobroma is in the same family as the Mallows - which includes things like Kola Nut, Marshmallow, Okra and Cotton. Most chocolate aficinados already know about the three varieties of beans: criollo, forastero, and trinitario. So I was really excited to see that Madre Chocolate uses jaguar cacao, or mocambo which comes from the plant Theobroma bicolor. It’s another species of Theobroma and fruits in a similar fashion, in a large pod. The tree looks remarkably different but the beans can be treated in the same way: fermented, dried, roasted and conched. You can see more about all the Theobroma species on Wikipedia and pictures of the Mocambo on Fruitipedia.

The ingredients are organic cacao beans, organic sugar, organic cocoa butter, jaguar cacao and vanilla. So this is not a pure jaguar bar, but a combination. It is definitely lighter than the Dominican, looking almost like a milk chocolate bar.

The texture is softer, almost lighter on the tongue than the Dominican. The flavors are also rather strange. There’s the standard cocoa notes, it’s woodsy and a smidge grassy. But then there are other flavors like ginger but also something more savory. I want to say leeks, but it’s not as obvious as something like onions, it’s just something faint in the background that isn’t quite “chocolate” in the traditional sense.

The melt is smooth, a little sticky but not sweet. There’s a milky quality to it, but of course there’s no milk in it at all. For folks looking for a dark chocolate or a dairy-less chocolate that’s not so bitter or astringent, this is that bar.

The final bar I have is the Madre Chocolate Rosita de Cacao which features cacahuaxochitl blossoms. The plant, Quararibea funebris, is also in the mallow family so distantly related to cacao. The blossoms were used to flavor the original Mayan chocolate drinks.

This bar also features the Dominican cacao of the first one I tried. The ingredients are the same: organic cacao beans, organic sugar, organic cocoa butter and then rosita de cacao and Mexican whole vanilla.

That’s the Jaguar on top and the Dominican bar on the bottom, to show the difference in the color.

I’d read that rosita de cacao smells like maple sugar and I found it’s absolutely true. The woodsy, sweet notes of maple syrup were front and center when I unwrapped the foil.

This bar was a little grittier than the plain Dominican, but had a very different flavor profile. The dried berry notes were still evident, but the woodsy profile was much stronger. It was very oaky, very vanilla with strong bourbon, leather and pipe tobacco flavors. The texture did have a little fibery grit to it, which I’m guessing is the flower. At times it was like fig seeds and seemed to intensify the soft florals if I chewed them.

As part of a drink, I think I’d enjoy them more than in a bar. It wasn’t just the texture but the strength of the very perfumey vanilla that seemed to overwhelm some of the deep chocolate notes. It really softened the profile overall of the intense Dominican beans.

This exploration into the flavors and influences of modern chocolate was fascinating. It provided a lot more than just the few lines in books and articles that talk about the more savory foamy chocolate drink that was first served to Westerners.

Like many of the new bean to bar artisan chocolate makers, Madre is interested in many of the historical and sociological aspects of chocolate, responsible sourcing as well as exploring and recreating the rich history of chocolate for modern humans. It’s more expensive than buying a history book to try them all, but I guarantee you won’t forget it. I got my bars because I sponsored the group’s initiative to source Mexican cacao on Kickstarter. You can buy them on their website and they list stores that also carry the bars there.

Related Candies

1. Zotter Scotch Whisky
2. European Bars in Brief
3. Amano Dos Rios 70% Chocolate
4. Askinosie White Chocolate (Plain, Nibble & Pistachio)
5. TCHO Fruity
6. Amano Single Origin Bars: Madagascar & Ocumare
7. Theo 3400 Phinney Bars

Pocky, the popular Japanese sweet snack, comes in a wide variety of flavors. One of the more popular versions has been the Almond Crush (which also spawned a tastyCookie Crush version). It only makes sense that other nuts would be tried, so today I have Glico Pocky Chocolate Peanut Crush.

The package is big (and came with a similarly hefty price tag) with six little packages of four sticks in a cool flip top box. The serving suggestion is black coffee served in fine china on a gold tray. I’m going to just eat it out of the cellophane package with some water.

They smell great. It’s a dark roasted scent that’s fresh and reminded me immediately (oddly enough) of a really good Nutty Buddy ice cream cone. The crushed peanuts adhere to the short cookie stick with some middling milk chocolate (it might be mockolate, a chocolate compound with some extra vegetable fat in it). The flavors really are about the peanuts and the chocolate is just there to keep it all stuck together and add a little sweet creamy note.

The cookie stick of Pocky isn’t very sweet and though it’s crispy, I woudn’t really call it light either. It has a light toasted flavor ... think of it as the difference between a biscuit and a scone.

The whole thing is barely sweet, more like a snack, thought’s not salty either. I would definitely buy these again if not for the expense - it was $5.49 for the box which means almost a buck for each little packet inside. But each package was rather filling and satisfying, a good blend of protein, carbs and easy sugar.

I have no idea about Glico’s environmental standing or their ethical sourcing of ingredients. The product contains peanuts, wheat, dairy, almonds and soy. But maybe it’s shellfish and egg free, you’ll have to check with the maker.

Related Candies

1. Glico Pocky Cookie Crush
2. Snyder’s Peanut Butter Pretzel Sandwich Dips
3. Q.Bel Crispy Wafer Bars
4. Almond Crush Pocky
5. Pocky Kurogoma (Black Sesame)
6. Men’s Pocky

In 1976 David Klein began selling a new kind of jelly bean he commissioned at a small ice cream parlor, Fosselman’s, in Alhambra, California. It was different in a lot of ways than the jelly beans folks usually sold. They were sold as individual flavors and included new flavors like Root Beer and Cream Soda along with the traditional fruity flavors like Very Cherry and Green Apple plus the required Black Licorice. This was the start of Jelly Belly and a revolution in the way that Americans viewed their sugar candy. Notably, it got people interested in intense and more unusual flavors as well as moving the bar on how much someone would pay for a pound of jelly beans.

The collaboration of David Klein with the Herman Goelitz Candy Co. came to an end when Klein was bought out. His settlement meant that he was paid a royalty for every bean sold (with a yearly cap) but couldn’t compete in the jelly bean category until that contract came to an end. Since its recent expiration, Klein has been collaborating with Marich Confectionery with family members of those that developed the original Jelly Belly in the 70s. The new line of David’s Signature Beyond Gourmet Jelly Beans are now available.

The beans are made with real fruit, flavorings and all natural colors. It’s a little frustrating to find out definitive information about the product line, the Leaf website has a couple of press releases, but no standard product information. The Facebook page for the product has a picture of their flavor offerings, which include wasabi, habanero, Thai chili and chipotle, but those weren’t in my sampler.

I found this sampler box on Amazon (sold by Oregon Trail Foods) for $16.95 for a half pound assortment of 16 flavors (plus shipping). I ordered it on Thursday and it arrived the following Monday. The box is a bit problematic, the little sections of the tray allow the beans to hop from one bin to another when the box is tipped, so when I opened mine I had to re-sort my beans. This was difficult for several of the colors which were extremely similar.

While the beans inside look great, I was disappointed at the flimsy and generic package that really didn’t entice me or create any excitement about what was inside. For something over $32 a pound, I expect a little of it to go into packaging.

David’s Signature Beans are unbranded and look like little pieces of polished glass. Each one was nearly perfect and consistently shaped. They’re a little larger than the Jelly Belly, which is on the right above. (The flavor on the left is cranberry, the one on the right is the Jelly Belly Snapple Cranberry-Raspberry, which is also all natural.)

Black Cherry is the flavor I heard that was really startling in this mix. The color is quite dark, a milky maroon color. The shell is firm and crunchy with a light and consistent graininess right beneath that.

The flavor is a little bit tart and a little bit sweet. But it’s nothing like real fresh cherries or fake cherries to me. It reminds me of cherry juice, in that it’s a deep and has a sort of boiled berry jam note to it, but nothing distinct.

The construction of the beans is very consistent. The centers were mostly colored, though not with some sort of imposed artificiality, it’s just whatever the combination of real fruits made them.

In some cases the centers matched the shell like the Black Cherry. In other cases they were colorless.

Blueberry is really blue. The combination of coconut, blueberry and pomegranate is very patriotic looking.

The flavor is floral, at first it’s like a raspberry flavor, but then it gets that little kick that I associate with blueberry. It’s a tannin note, kind of like tea. It’s a rather confused tasting bean though, because it ends with a little creamy note, almost a vanilla. So think of it more like a blueberry smoothie.

Coconut is like a perfect little white bead.

The shell is crisp, but not thick. The flavor is a very strong coconut milk, sweet and with that aromatic nuttiness. There’s no actual shredded coconut in the center, but the flavor is really authentic. It didn’t have that oily note that brings to mind hot and humid days by the pool with suntan oil, it was a bit cleaner than that.

The bean varieties are interesting. A mix of standard, tried and true flavors as well as a few exotics and novelties.

Bacon is something I consider a novelty.

Bacon is also not a food I eat. I’d say it’s because I don’t eat pork, which is true (though I do eat candies with gelatin) but to go further, even as an omnivorous kid I didn’t like bacon. I don’t want a jelly bean that tastes like bacon. I’m not eating it.

Cranberry is very tart and bracing. There’s a light vanilla note to it as well and maybe a little hint of concord grape. I really like a good puckery cranberry, and I think if I were designing them, I’d make it even more sour.

That said, it’s still pretty well rounded and tastes more like dried cranberries than some sort of cranberry fruit juice cocktail.

Ginger is fascinating. It’s a bit of a tougher bean, the shell seems a little crisper. The flavor is immediately rooty, with lots of woodsy notes and less of that lemony tang that fresh ginger juice can have and more of the deep honey notes of ginger ale.

I would buy a bag of these, they also went well with the lemon, which is good, because they look nearly the same.

Grape was a good flavor, it was like grape juice, but missing that concord note that the Japanese seem to have pegged really well in many of their candies.

Green Apple was also very authentic, it was like unsweetened apple sauce, a cooked apple flavor without as much sour zing as a fresh apple.

Himalayan Sea Salt was one of the weirdest and least successful in the bunch. Other folks at the office who tried them ended up spitting this one out 100% of the time.

I don’t know quite why I’d want to eat salted sugar, but there it is. I can understand a salted caramel jelly bean, but just a salted jelly bean is mystifying. It was a cross between eating cake batter and licking my own sweat off my arms. It was kind of like a sports drink, but without the actual flavor of fruit juice.

Lemon is exactly what I’d expect from a lemonade flavored jelly bean. It’s all tartness and a sort of pasteurized juice flavor.

I didn’t catch much in the way of zest, which is too bad, because I think that would have sent this one over the top.

Though I wasn’t as keen on this one as I’d hoped, it paired very well with other beans such as strawberry and ginger.

Orange Punch is quite a deep tangerine color. This one describes the flavor better than the lemon, as this did taste more like an orange beverage than an actual orange.

Again the zest notes were missing, so it was more like a really good glass of Tang with an extra spoonful of the concentrate added to it.

Of course if this was called Fanta Orange, I’d want to add it to my soda pop mix and call it fabulous. 

Peach was mind-blowingly good. In most instances I do not care for peach candies, though I love fresh peaches. Here the flavor was well rounded without some sort of artificial note on top.

It’s a combination of apricot and peach, with a lot of tartness, quite a bit of “fuzz” flavor and a clean finish. It reminded me of baby food, really good peach puree.

Pomegranate was nearly impossible to tell apart from cranberry on sight and for a while I wasn’t even sure I was tasting the right flavor since they all got mixed up in the box.

I think what distinguishes pomegranate from cranberry is the floral notes for pomegranate. It was quite reminiscent of raspberry with a sort of dry finish like Key limes have when compared to Persian limes.

Root Beer is fantastic. All root beer candies should take a hint from this one. It certainly puts the other root beer jelly beans to shame, it’s far more intense and vibrant. There’s a lot of flavor without that artificial red aftertaste that I can get from Root Beer Barrel hard candies.

Of course this makes me wish for a whole set of soda flavored beans in exotics like tonic water, birch beer and guarana.

Strawberry is easy to tell apart from the other beans, as it’s speckled. Of course just being pink would have been sufficient to distinguish it.

It’s sweet and tangy, but missing a bit of the floral note that I get with many other strawberry flavors. Instead this was more like jam than fresh strawberry. But these also varied, some were larger than others and some were tarter than others.

It’s best in combination and actually went well with coconut.

Vanilla Bean was also great. The vanilla flavor was creamy and rich with a lot of dimension. There’s the sweet and soft note of the vanilla extract and then the deeper bourbon notes of the vanilla beans.

There were real little bits of vanilla seeds from the pod which stuck with me for a while. That’s fine because vanilla went well with most of the other flavors, including ginger, root beer and strawberry.

Overall, they’re wonderfully vibrant even if I’m not fond of the direction of each of the beans. However, the price is prohibitive and not quite justified by the product. While I like the use of real, whole ingredients, the packaging was not worthy of a product that’s so expensive. My guess is that if they do catch on they economies of scale might bring things more into line with my expectations ($10 a pound is still steep in my world). The thing that would set them apart though would be the quirkier flavors such as ginger and perhaps other spices. I am curious to try the other more exotic flavors, but I’ll wait to find them in stores when I’m not paying shipping on top.

Other bean flavors I am interested in, if someone wants to make them: cola, lemon cola, rum, gin, molasses, peppermint, cucumber, celery, spearmint, cardamom, lavender honey and an intense all natural black licorice.

You can read more about the history of David Klein and Jelly Belly on MSNBC.

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2. Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans by Jelly Belly
3. Trader Joe’s Jelly Beans & Citrus Gum Drops
4. Lemonhead & Friends Jelly Beans
5. Sandy Candy
6. Starburst and Jelly Belly Jelly Beans

Europeans have an appreciation for malt beverages. I’m not talking about beer, I mean malted milk. One of the most popular is Ovomaltine, which is sold as Ovaltine in the United States.

Of interest to Candy Blog readers though is the line of confections made by Wander, the Swiss company that makes Ovomaltine. I picked up this 100 gram (3.5 ounce) Ovomaltine Milk Chocolate Bar, called Schweizer Milkchschokolade mit Ovomaltine in Germany.

The front of the wrapper is bold and uncomplicated, just the familiar logo of the drink and some squares of chocolate.

The bar isn’t really that attractive. The squares all bear the logo for the Ovomaltine, but the inclusion of the actual malted milk powder makes the surface of the chocolate bar itself a bit dusty looking. The segments are nicely sized and scored for easy breaking and sharing.

Ovaltine is not just a flavoring for milk, it’s also supercharged with vitamins and minerals. The chocolate bar is no different, though it’s not exactly the same as swallowing a couple of multivitams there are a few B vitamins and minerals in there.

The bar smells just like a jar or Chocolate Ovaltine. There’s a light milky and malty note to it along with that scent of B Vitamins. I don’t know what that smell is, but it reminds me of baby formula.

The bar is grainy, the flavors are bold, the malt is front and center. The milk chocolate is passable, it’s smooth but barely gives a cocoa kick to the bar. There’s a strange umami quality to the whole thing, it’s not too sweet but still tastes like a treat. I would definitely eat this bar regularly if I could find it.

While in Amsterdam in January 2011, I also picked up this bar called Wander Ovolino, though I don’t recall where (I think it was at Jamin). It was a little on the small side but very light. The center was a creamy, malty nougatine. I would have bought more but I never saw them at the stores again on my trip. It had more of a hazelnut note to it instead of the sort of multivitamin flavor that Ovaltine sometimes has.

If you want to know more about the origin of Ovaltine, here’s a good article from Slate shortly after Nestle scooped up the rights to the powdered mix in the US. Also, Wikipedia explains why it’s called Ovaltine in English speaking regions instead of Ovomaltine ... there was a typo on the trademark registration. More importantly, in France they have a version that’s spreadable like Nutella or Speculoos. Please, someone send this to me!

Related Candies

1. Brach’s Fiesta Malted Milk Eggs (2012)
2. Target’s Market Pantry Malted Milk Balls
3. Nestle Milo Bar
4. Trader Joe’s Milk Chocolate Malted Milk Eggs (Plus a Bonus)
5. Villars Swiss Milk Chocolate
6. Mighty Malts

I saw this box of Wonka Springy Mini Chewy SweeTarts at KMart and was excited by the idea of special Chewy SweeTarts for Easter.

But I should have known better, considering how disappointed I am that Nestle has replaced the beautiful large Easter SweeTarts with little ones this year.

This isn’t so much a review as a reveal, for those who were curious about the product. (I reviewed them back in 2006.)

Mini Chewy SweeTarts have been around for at least 10 years, I think. They’ve been packages in different ways, they came in little single serving packs and these plastic flip top tubes. I like these theater boxes, they were certainly inexpensive at $1.00 per 4.5 ounce package.

The box calls them Springy, which sets them apart from the regular item. But there’s nothing different about them except for the box design ...which isn’t really better, just different.

The little banded spheres are made of a chewy, tangy compressed dextrose candy. They’re coated in a little glaze to keep them from sticking together. They’re firm but chewy. They’re grainy, but have a satisfying cool and quick dissolve on the tongue with a nice blend of tartness, artificial flavor and weird texture.

I like them, I had no problem eating both boxes (except for the cherry and green apple, which I set aside). I was glad they didn’t have that blue punch in there as well. I was just irritated that they weren’t cute little seasonal shapes.

They’re made with egg whites, so not appropriate for those with egg sensitivities or vegans. Also made in a facility that processes wheat. There are no other allergen ingredients (except all those artificial colors) nor any statements about nuts.

Related Candies

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2. Easter Sugar Babies
3. Au’some Easter 3-Dees Gummy
4. Easter Novelty Toys (with candy)
5. Jelly Belly Deluxe Easter Mix
6. Head to Head: Chewy SweeTarts vs Chewy Tart n Tinys
7. Head to Head: Mentos Sours & SweeTarts Shockers

In the past five years it’s gotten a little easier to find ethically sourced candies for the holidays.

Divine Chocolate makes Fair Trade certified chocolate using cocoa from the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative in Ghana. For the most part in the United States we just get their bars, but for the past two or three years, I’ve seen some of their holiday items at stores like Whole Foods.

The Divine Milk Chocolate Praline Mini Eggs are described as milk chocolate eggs with hazelnut praline filling. The upright box comes in the palest pearl blue color with some very light icons in the background in the same style as their bars. The box only holds 3.5 ounces, which is about 8 foil wrapped praline filled eggs. At Whole Foods they cost $4.49 per package.

These remind me an awful lot of the fair trade Tony’s Chocolonely Easter Eggs available in Europe. So much that I’m wondering if there’s a common production facility in common.

The eggs are 1.5 inches long and about an inch at the widest. They come in two different foil colors: gold and pale blue. Inside the foil the eggs have an interesting shell pattern that reminds me of crocodile.

Each egg is about 13 grams or .46 ounces, so they’re quite a little morsel. The suggested serving is three eggs and I calculated that they’re about 70 calories each, which means 153 calories per ounce ... a rather fatty little chocolate egg. But there is one gram of protein per egg. The ingredients say that the chocolate is 27% cocoa solids and 20% milk solids. Also, the entire candy is 19% hazelnuts. The chocolate is fair trade certified, but that only makes up 67% of the ingredients.

The milk chocolate shell is filled with a thick and dense milk chocolately hazelnut cream. They smell deeply toasty and nutty. The milk chocolate is sweet and sticky and tastes pretty much the same as the filling. It’s soft and rib-sticking with a good mouthfeel and melt. It’s a little on the fudgy side, but barely grainy (the particles from the hazelnut). They’re really filling and though very sweet, it’s not to the point that it burns my throat.

Many fair trade sweets are more for adults, this one would definitely please children. It’s attractive, filling and well made. The price is a bit dear, but that’s what happens when you pay everyone involved a decent wage.

Related Candies

1. Pernigotti Gianduia: Piedmont Hazelnut Paste
2. Tony’s Chocolonely Chocolate Easter Eggs
3. Milka NAPS Mix (Assortment)
4. Real Eggshell filled with Hazelnut Chocolate Truffle
5. Choceur Nougat Bites & Marzipan Bites
6. Caffarel Gianduias
7. Lake Champlain Hazelnut Eggs

Easter is the time of cream eggs. There are so many different versions and Russell Stover makes about half of them. From caramel and peanut butter to raspberry whip and strawberry cream, they go for variety. This year their newest introduction is not another egg, but a reshaping of one of their classic eggs into a different format. Behold the Russell Stover Big Bunny Dark Chocolate & Coconut Cream.

The package design is nice, I liked it quite a bit, with its bold illustration style. Though the wrapper is a bit flimsy, it seems to do a good job of protecting the contents. It says that it’s made with 100% real chocolate, which is great news and that it’s made proudly in America. They were on sale for $1.00, which is a pretty good deal for a 2.25 ounce candy bar these days.

The bunny is large, just as the package promised. It’s a little over 5 inches tall (though one of my ears was a bit broken off because I fumbled with it when I took it out of the wrapper).

The shape is only vaguely rabbit. I’m not even sure if it’s just a giant rabbit head or supposed to be a whole rabbit body. It’s enrobed though, which is my favorite kind of chocolate coating. If you’ve ever seen a chocolate enrober, you’ll understand part of my fascination with the technique. A center is pushed through a curtain of melted chocolate, which coats it and hardens as it moves along a conveyer that cools it. (Watch it here, it’s kind of mesmerizing.)

The chocolate is thick enough to create a bit of crunchy break when I bit into it. Because of the irregular shape of the rabbit, it also meant that the ratio of chocolate to coconut would change. The center was thick and had a large density of coconut cream. The cream is light and airy with a smooth sugary grain to it and not too much coconut. The coconut is in very small pieces, less like a Mounds or Almond Joy. There’s even a light hint of salt in there.

It’s a nice product, easier to eat, oddly enough, than the egg version that’s a classic. However, it’s quite large. The package says that it’s one portion, which is 280 calories. I’d prefer to consume it in two or three sittings, as I did. The package was pretty easy to open and fold over and tape closed between those portions.

It’s a good addition to the Russell Stover line of Easter goodies. It’s not overwhelming as a huge chocolate rabbit, but a little more precious than the chocolate covered coconut cream egg.

Though it’s made with dark chocolate, there’s plenty of dairy in there and may contain traces of nuts.

Related Candies

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2. Mounds
3. Russell Stover Giant S’mores Bar & Mint Dream
4. Ferrero Prestige (Ferrero Garden)
5. Russell Stover Eggs
6. Russell Stover Eggs (2007 edition)
7. See’s Egg Quartet
8. Russell Stover Cream Eggs