Hershey’s has come out with dozens of varieties of Kisses over the past ten years or so. They’ve filled them with Peanut Butter, Cherry Cordial, Caramel and Coconut while others were flavored like Candy Corn and Mint. The new Hershey’s Kisses Air Delight are the first I can think of that are less than other Kisses. They’re not filled with chocolate, they’re filled with little air bubbles.

Aerated chocolate is nothing new, it’s actually quite popular in other countries like the United Kingdom where the Cadbury Wispa is popular and Japan where the Nestle Aero bar comes at least a half a dozen seasonal varieties. (Hershey’s says that aerated chocolate is a $500 million dollar market segment worldwide.) The new Air Delight line is a first for Hershey’s though. In addition to the new Kisses, there’s also a bar version which weighs the same as a regular bar (1.44 ounces) but has almost 20% more volume.

The Kisses are molded, but look like virtually all other non-classic Kisses. The foil wrapper is silver with brown dots on it. The little flag says Air Delight. They do actually feel lighter than a regular Kiss. The bite is soft or if you’re not a chewer, they do melt much quicker. The flavor isn’t quite the regular Hershey’s milk chocolate twang, but there are some sour notes in there. It’s not quite fudgy, but a little salty and milky. I have to say that just a half a dozen were very satisfying and they go nicely with other snacks like pretzels, nuts or Cheez-its. It’s rather smooth, but I wouldn’t call it rich. The melt is like a chocolate frosting - a little on the sugary side and not enough chocolate and certainly not enough cocoa butter. But it’s candy.

So the chocolate is lighter, because they put air bubbles in there, diluting the chocolate. The same “classic bag” of solid Kisses is 12 ounces. The Kisses Air Delight is 9.4 ounces. A standard portion size (200 calories) is 9 pieces (40 grams). For Air Delight it’s 11 pieces (41 grams). So each Air Delight Kiss is approximately 3.64 grams, while a classic Hershey’s Kiss is 4.44 grams, or approximately 18% lighter.

I like the idea of having an American version of a style of confection that seems to be available everywhere else. The addition of air does make the melt more pronounced and heighten the flavors. It’s also a darn clever way of giving consumer less for the same money. But sometimes we, apparently, want less for our money. The fact that chocolate can hold such a texture is a bit of a marvel, but like many molecular gastronomy novelties, just because you can do something doesn’t mean that it’s good. I’ve had my fair share of aerated chocolate products over the years and find that I’m not particularly enamored of them - but since Hershey’s pointed out that there’s a half a billion dollar market out there for the stuff, I guess it’d be silly of them not to try.

Hershey’s marketing information promises that this will be their largest Hershey’s Kisses Brand introduction in 5 years (I’m guessing the last was the now defunct Kissables) and the largest Hershey’s launch in 10 years. What that means for consumers is a greater likelihood that you’ll actually be able to find them in stores, if you’re looking for them. The Kisses Air Delight are supposed to be on shelves in early June 2011.

Related Candies

1. Nestle Aero 70% Dark
2. Vanilla Beans KitKat & Bitter Orange Aero
3. Candy Corn Kisses
4. Kisses Coconut Creme
5. The Mint Kisses: Chocolate Mint & Candy Cane
6. Elite Aerated & Lotte Airs
7. Dairy Milk Bubbly

Since I’m on the topic of classic candies this week (starting with Orange Slices) another favorite are what are simply called the Raspberry. They’re a simple construction that mimics the actual berry quite nicely: it’s a gummi center covered with crunchy colored nonpareils in the approximate size and shape of a real raspberry.

Quite a few companies make them, Haribo’s are probably the most famous, but there’s also a great version made here in the United States by Jelly Belly (they also come in a white grape version called Champagne Bubbles).

Today’s new item is Bebeto Premium, a line of crunchy coated gummis made in Turkey by a company called Kervan. They’re being introduced to the American market at the Sweets & Snacks Expo in Chicago this week. I picked up a few samples in Cologne at the ISM candy fair there in February, and now that I know that they may be available here, I thought I’d review them.

The product line boasts all natural flavorings and colorings. They’re packaged in stand up bags with zip lock tops for freshness and each variety comes with two flavors in the mix. I got to try three of their new varieties: Tropical, Berry & Turkish Coffee

Tropical: The crunchy bits outside are sweet and have a very light fruity flavor. It isn’t until I got to the gummi center that the flavor really developed. The Tropical Ananas (Pineapple) was intense, a good blend of tartness and those pine and rosemary notes that fresh pineapples have. It was more like the fresh flavors than the canned ones. The Tropical Orange was a little more subdued, but with a good dose of zest in there to carry off a fully developed fruit flavor.

The

When it comes to classic American candies, the fruit slices are right up there at the top. They’re a simple mix of sugar, fruit flavors and a bit of thickener in the form of corn starch. You can even make them at home, but since the ingredients are so inexpensive they’re a great value as a store bought item.

Brach’s is currently updating their line of candies with new packaging and some new formulas. They’re also adding a twist to some old favorites, including the fruit slices with their new Brach’s Mandarin Orange Slices. In this case they’re calling them Mandarin Orange Jellies Made with Real Fruit Juice.

Personally, I’ve always loved Orange Slices, and their companion jelly candy, the Spearmint Leaves. I never really thought they needed much tinkering, though the best version I think I’ve had are the gourmet Gumdrops that Whole Foods sells that are made with all natural flavors and colors along with some more exotic flavors.

These fruit jellies are lovely to look at. They’re about the size of an actual mandarin section in this case, though a bit more stylized in their format with heavy little segments making them rounded and bulbous. The color is quite orange. I even noticed that the sugar sanding on the outside is colored. (Most jelly slices just have a plain, large grain sugar sanding to keep them from sticking together.)

These were obviously fresh, since they’re a new product. They’re soft but still firm enough to have a stiff bite to them. The smell was great, just opening the bag (or even re-opening the bag) was like peeling a fresh orange. As a jelly they’re smooth and dissolve easily in the mouth. (A gelatin based candy would be chewier and have a longer melting process.) The flavor has many different elements. There’s the typical orange juice note which has the distinct orange flavor and a mellow note of tartness. Then there’s a large hit of zest to the whole thing, a slight bitterness that pops in and then disappears. Incredibly there is something rather “mandarin” about the flavor that made it a bit different from the generic orange. The other item of note here is that the sugar sanding has flavor as well, just a hint of the zest.

They’re soothing. They’re not the most exciting candy in the world, but even with all of my choices (and believe me, at any given moment I have at least fifty different things to choose from), I still found myself eating these.

It’s hard to sell folks on a brand name item for a classic candy where there are so many different brands and generics available. I don’t know if I’d always reach for Brach’s when it came to Spearmint Leaves or Orange Slices, but if the price is the same or close enough, these are a step above.

Scho-Ka-Kola has a cult following, especially in Germany. The concept is simple, it’s a caffeine enhanced chocolate. They use both coffee and cola nut to boost the stimulant content which is where the name comes from, Schokolade (chocolate), Kaffee (coffee) and Kola (cola) . It was introduced at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin by Hildebrand as a “sport chocolate”. Later it was used during the war, especially by German pilots. Today it’s made by Sarotti, which is owned by Stollwerk which itself is now owned by international chocolate giant, Barry Callebaut. It’s still made in Berlin and the packaging has changed little over the years.

The tin is easy to carry in a roomy pocket (though I’d worry about melting). It’s about 3.5 inches in diameter and one inch high. There’s a helpful little thumb-print impression on one side of the lid, press it and the tin opens easily.

The round tin holds little “slices” of the chocolate disk. There are eight slices on each layer of the tin, separated by a stiff piece of waxed paper. A serving which would contain the equivalent caffeine as a cup of espresso. My guess (and part of this is from translating the package) is that a serving is four pieces and the actual caffeine content is about 50 mg. So it’s not a lot, but it’s a mild and even boost. It says to me that munching a few pieces an hour would be a good way to keep a steady dose of caffeine in your system without getting all jittered up.

The chocolate isn’t very intense or dark, it’s 52.5%, but the rest of the content isn’t all sugar either. It’s 2.6% coffee and 1.6% cola nut powder. Kola nuts (or cola nuts) are closely related to cacao and have a fair amount of theobromine as well as caffeine in them but far less fat.

The pieces are thick (just shy of a half an inch) and have these great ridges that make it easier to hold them without getting too warm from your hands and bite. (One piece is less than a quarter of an ounce, so it’s a fine mouthful if you won’t want to bite.) The flavors are quite deep and on the woodsy side. There’s a dry and bitter note to it in the flavor, but it didn’t leave me wanting a lot of water. The coffee flavor is muted, it’s mostly a roasted and charcoal sort of chocolate. Not intense but also not pansy. There were no acrid caffeine flavors for me, so the fact that the caffeine was still integrated into their natural sources probably helped. It probably also means that the caffeine is metabolized a little slower.

I picked up this little tin for 2 Euros, but in the States these things sell for about $6 retail. For $6 I could buy a truly extraordinary bar of chocolate. But if I were traveling in Europe and wanted an alternative pick-me-up to the sub-par coffee that’s found in far too many places, then this is the way to go. Easy to carry and share and with a reliable dosing scheme.

There is a little milk in there, so it’s not a vegan product. The tin also says that it may contain traces of almonds, hazelnuts and gluten.

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3. Trader Joe’s Espresso Pillows
4. Feodora Chocolates
5. Caffe Acapella - Coffee Confections
6. Pocket Coffee

Farley’s and Sathers bought Brach’s, the iconic pick-a-mix candy manufacturer back in 2007 from Barry Callebaut. For a while it seemed that the candy quality was getting worse, not better for the attention. But Brach’s is being rebooted, it appears. They’re getting a new look plus a new focus on their target demographic, women - especially mothers. So they’re focusing on quality and traditional favorites. One of the selling points is that they’re using real milk chocolate. Their newest product is Brach’s Peanut Butter Poppins.

They’re described as creamy peanut butter center coated in 100% milk chocolate.

It’s hard to discuss any chocolate and peanut butter product without referencing the most popular version of the combination, the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. There used to be a product called Reese’s Peanut Butter Bites. They weren’t extraordinary, but had the advantage of being a Reese’s product that didn’t have individual wrappers or fluted cups. Those were discontinued and replaced just recently with Reese’s Peanut Butter Minis, which are a molded product.

The new Peanut Butter Poppins are a panned chocolate. It’s a sphere of “peanut butter” covered in milk chocolate and then sealed with a little glaze to make them shiny and keep them from sticking together. I say peanut butter because I don’t think that’s what it actually is. While they’re boasting that they now have their best tasting chocolate ever, have a look at the ingredients for the peanut butter center:

Sugar, Palm Kernel Oil, Partially Defatted Peanut Flour, Peanuts, Nonfat Dry Milk Solids, Dextrose, Salt, Soy Lecithin, Modified Food Starch, Gum Arabic, Corn Syrup, Coconut Oil.

In my world, the first ingredient in peanut butter would be peanuts. This is not a whole peanut product, but instead it’s like juice from concentrate, they took out some of the natural peanut oils and replaced them with palm kernel oil.

They’re really lovely looking morsels. Though they vary a bit in size, they’re all spherical and shiny. Some are the size of a garden pea and a few were the size of a garbanzo. The smell sweet, milky and like roasted peanuts or freshly baked peanut butter cookies.

The waxy glaze on the outside is a little difficult to dissolve and leaves a little film in the mouth. Though they’re advertising this new milk chocolate, it’s not noteworthy. It’s not creamy and not even that chocolatey. It does its job of containing the peanut butter candy center. The center is smooth with little crunchy bits that I can only describe as sweet crunches, not peanuts. It’s like there’s a sugar crust in there that creates these little crystals that give it texture. It took me a long time to figure out if it was in the chocolate shell or the center. The center is very salty, in fact a serving of 25 pieces has 160 mg of salt, a lot for a confection.

The center tastes a lot like peanut butter cookie dough, it’s a well rounded flavor that includes salt, nuts and sweetness along with a rather smooth and cool mouthfeel. I found them extremely salty, but I recognize that my low salt lifestyle makes me more sensitive to those things. That, of course, didn’t stop me from eating the entire 5 ounce bag in two days - what can I say, there was a new Doctor Who on.

Poppins is a trademarked word for Brach’s, so maybe they have other plans for this line of candy. A creamy mint fondant might be a good next step or other fruit creams like strawberry, raspberry and orange and of course coffee.

I think they’re a great idea that’s well executed. Yes, they’re salty and no the chocolate is not fantastic, but I’d venture to say that it’s better than the stuff on the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups these days. I’m looking forward to finding their Malted Milk Balls and seeing if they’ve successfully resurrected the classic real milk chocolate and crunchy malt center.

Related Candies

1. Brach’s Fiesta Malted Milk Eggs
2. Snyder’s Peanut Butter Pretzel Sandwich Dips
3. Trader Joe’s Soft Peanut Brittle
4. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups Minis
5. Brach’s Indulge Almonds: Coconut & Caramel
6. Dove Peanut Butter Silky Smooth Milk Chocolate
7. Brach’s Robin Eggs (Solid Milk Chocolate)
8. M&M and Reese’s Pieces Peanut Butter Eggs

The Choceur Milk Chocolate Flame Egg is 12.4 ounces of chocolate for only $3.99. It’s an impressive presentation of chocolate. The packaging is a paperboard sleeve over a huge blue or pink mylar wrapping. The egg is about six inches high and made as two separate hemispheres. Each side is wrapped in gold foil then taped together with a pretty sticker with red butterflies on it. Inside the egg is a little cellophane bag with candies. In the Pink Flame Egg is a bag of milk chocolate eggs with vanilla creme wrapped in gold foil. In the other egg is a little assortment of hazelnut chocolates.

The candy is made in Germany. The package says that it’s all real milk chocolate and has no artificial flavors or colors

They traveled quite well, considering the fact that my mother bought them in Ohio, then took the train to Philadelphia then all the way back to Los Angeles. One of the eggs had a little dent in it, like someone put a thumb through it, though none of it damaged the packaging, so I felt it was still good to eat.

The milk chocolate shell is, well, milky and sweet. It’s European style milk chocolate, so the milk flavors echo that of dried milk a bit, so there’s a little malty note. It’s smooth, but not silky like Dove or Lindt. The tempering is good, everything was shiny and crisp.

The Pink Sleeve version had a small assortment of chocolates inside. There were four different candies with an elegant presentation. They were a little scuffed up here and there, since they were inside a bag inside the egg instead of a little tray.

The dark chocolate faceted piece is Nougat in Milk Chocolate. It was a milk chocolate cream with hazelnut paste and hazelnut pieces in a very mild dark chocolate shell.

The star for me was the Soft Caramel Covered with Crisp Rice and Milk Chocolate piece that looks kind of like a miniature 100 Grand bar. And it was rather similar. The center was a milk chocolate cream nougat which was covered in caramel then the crisped rice mixed into the milk chocolate. It was sweet but had a lot of texture, a little chewy and a little crunchy.

The Hazelnut Trio was a little row of hazelnuts inside what looks like a mountain range. The white chocolate topping was sweet and quite milky while the fresh but small hazelnut at the center of each mountain lent a large crunch to the whole thing.

The red foil wrapped chocolate is Milk Chocolate with Apricot Flavored Center. I didn’t read the package before I ate the first one, so I really didn’t know what it was. The center is a very soft and creamy ganache with a fruity flavor that I thought might be some sort of fruit liqueur, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It’s sweet but has a light melon or actual apricot note to it.

The second egg in the Blue Sleeve had more than a dozen large gold foil wrapped eggs inside. The package calls them Cream Filled Milk Chocolate Eggs.

The eggs are very long and narrow, a little over 1.5 inches long. The matte foil is quite pretty and I have to say that nestling the eggs into the half of the chocolate shell and placing it on a platter is a lovely presentation.

The center is soft and creamy with only a slight grain to it, like a good vanilla buttercream frosting. The flavors aren’t intense though the milky notes of the chocolate do take over. It’s a lot of sweet at all once, but thankfully there’s a light salty note to it as well. The center is made from palm fat, so I’d suggest a little moderation on that front and perhaps stick to the milk chocolate egg shell.

While I don’t think I’d just buy these for eating, I loved the look of them and for less than $4 for 3/4 of a pound of actual chocolate, I’d call it an excellent value. It’s a great option for a household with children, who are more likely to dig into the sweeter sides and of course everyone like gigantic versions of everyday items.

The Choceur Milk Chocolate Bunny is 5.29 ounces and made of German chocolate. It resembles the Lindt chocolate bunny quite a bit, though when unwrapped it has some little molded details that the Lindt rabbit lacks. At $1.99, it’s an excellent deal. It’s sizable and easy to eat, as it’s a hollow bunny.

The foil decorating is charming and nicely done to accentuate the shapes like legs, ear contours and mouth.

The bunny looks great. Again, these little friends traveled all the way across the country by rail protected only by their foil and placed inside another bag.

It’s absolutely charming as well, and by that I mean the little collar it wears has an actual metal charm with a rabbit silhouette on it. The elastic gold band is sized about right for a child or small adult (I had it around my wrist for a few hours this morning without any loss of circulation).

A Lindt Rabbit is about twice the price (I saw them for $3.99 this season) and weighs only 3.5 ounces. This rabbit is 5.29 ounces. It should be noted that this is not Lindt chocolate. Choceur, Aldi’s house brand of chocolate, is made in Germany. It’s the same, as far as I can tell, as the egg shells of the Flame Eggs. It’s sweet and milky and with only the slightest cocoa notes to it. Still, it’s pleasant and if you’re presenting this to a child, they will not be disappointed. It’s a beefy looking, rotund little rabbit with thick walls and a good shape. So if you’re going for true chocolate quality and flavor, go for Lindt (or even more upscale with Lake Champlain or See’s). The value here is certainly better than the American options but the flavor profile is certainly in the European style.

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2. The All American Chocolate Bunny Battle
3. Happy Christmas Sweet Friends
4. Riegelein Confiserie Hollow Chocolate
5. Lake Champlain & See’s Bunny Battle
6. See’s Hollow Eggs with Novelty
7. Upscale Hollow Chocolate: Michel Cluizel & Hotel Chocolat
8. Palmer Hollow Chocolate Flavored Bunny
9. Russell Stover Hollow Milk Chocolate Bunny

Tony’s Chocolonely is a rather funny name for a chocolate company. They make fair trade chocolate in the Netherlands and can be found in much of Western Europe. (I saw them in department stores in both Amsterdam and Cologne.)

The packaging is eye catching with its bold use of primary colors and large friendly typefaces.

The issue of slavery, particularly child slavery, in cacao growing regions of Africa has been well documented. You can read more on Tony’s website. The aim of Tony’s Chocolonely is to source their cacao directly in Ivory Coast and Ghana from fair trade plantations in order to create a more responsible supply chain model and provide living wages for farmers. But really, it can’t happen overnight and this sort of widespread change needs more than just niche producers, it requires the involvement of the price-conscious, major chocolate buyers like Hershey’s, ADM, Mars, Kraft, Nestle and Cargill.

The packaging of Tony’s Chocolonely is friendly and casual, and probably a lot more attractive to children than many other fair trade options out there. So it’s a great choice around a holiday when you want to give kids a treat that might include a lesson but also include, well, the actual goodness of the treat they expect. The chocolate levels are not as intense, I’d say we’re close to the family chocolate range instead of the gourmet intense end of things.

The Easter Egg range that they gave me as a sample comes in this cute little egg carton that holds a full dozen eggs, which are about 1.5” inches high - a little larger than the size of a quail’s egg.

The Milk Chocolate Eggs are quite decadent. The chocolate is definitely kid friendly, but not without its appeal to candy lovers of all ages. The bite is soft, like a Cadbury though the cacao density is much higher at 30%. The milky flavors are in the Belgian style, clean but rather thick and sticky.

The Dark Chocolate Egg has a great snap, though in this size it’s a little hard to bite. (So just let the whole thing melt in your mouth.)

The flavor profile is very mild. There are light fruity and woodsy notes, but it’s overall a very sweet chocolate. It’s a dark chocolate for children who can’t have milk products or perhaps vegans.

The Milk Chocolate Praline Eggs are probably the most luxurious of the bunch, perhaps it’s just me because this style is not as common in the United States. The milk chocolate shell looks the same but is easier to bite. They’re filled with a hazelnut paste, which is sweet and nutty ... there’s a light and fresh floral note, a little like the fresh feeling from jasmine tea. I like them, though they were really very sweet and I couldn’t eat more than one at a sitting.

For every day consumption Tony’s Chocolonely also makes milk chocolate and dark chocolate bars. It will be a wonderful day when there are more holiday and special occasion options available and this set is a good start. I’m still a little more inclined towards Green & Black’s for my ordinary chocolate needs, but for folks who want something a little sweeter or kid friendly, this might be the stuff.

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2. An Easter Dash - Reviews in Short
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5. Madelaine’s Foiled Milk Chocolate
6. Divine Fair Trade Chocolate
7. Theo 3400 Phinney Bars

Crispy M&Ms are made by Mars and are considered an extirpated variety of the popular candy. I know, it’s Friday, and here I am comparing species conservation with candy. But I find it interesting ... so here’s a brief digression after a tantalizing photo.

In Northern California there used to be a small sub-species of Elk called Tule Elk. They were exterminated, either hunted for their meat & hides or simply killed by ranchers to keep them from competing for food with the newly introduced domesticated grazers. Eventually they were all gone ... or so folks thought. Except a local rancher back in the late 19th century took a liking to the slightly smaller elk and took a small herd to a ranch in southern, inland California where they survived quite nicely. In 1978 a small breeding group was reintroduced to the area, thus ending their local extinction.

Perhaps North American Crispy M&Ms (shown above in their Canadian version circa 2006) were a flash in the pan, a evolutionary dead end. They were introduced in 1998 and had pretty much disappeared in the wild by 2005. But they’re still around in Australia, the Southeast Asia and Europe. In fact, in my visit earlier this year I saw them in both Amsterdam and Cologne and bought them in both locations. All the packages were identical and list France as their origin.

If you remember the Limited Edition Mint Crispy M&Ms that were released in conjunction with the last Indiana Jones movie, you might recall that they were larger than regular M&Ms, larger than Peanut M&Ms even.

The European version is about the same diameter as a regular Milk Chocolate M&M, but puffier, closer to being spherical.

The package is more square, just like bed pillows in Europe are more square than pillows in the United States, it’s just the way they do things. The packet holds only 1.27 ounces (36 grams) instead of the more calorically imbued 1.69 ounces of the American Milk Chocolate.

The colors are a little more muted than the American version and I expected this was because these were all natural. Well, some of them are, such as carmine (sorry vegetarians) and tumeric, but they also use Blue #1.

They’re sweet and crunchy and oddly nutty. I had to read over the ingredients (translating as I went, as it was in French) twice to reassure myself that there were no hazelnuts. There was something about the crispy center, it’s like a brown rice nuttiness. It’s lovely. Though there’s less chocolate than the old Crispy M&Ms, it’s still quite a cocoa punch. There is no malt flavor, but a light touch of salt.

They’re still more of a sweet snack than a chocolate candy for me. The crunch is great but there’s not quite enough chocolate satisfaction if I was looking for chocolate. It really is too bad that Mars doesn’t still make these in the United States because they do fill a certain void that the Pretzel just can’t quite touch.

But it’s still possible, that a small breeding population of Crispy M&Ms could be reintroduced to the United States, say only at M&Ms Stores or online. Just to see if the conditions are right for them to thrive.

Strangely enough, when I was traveling, I saw the Pretzel M&Ms rather often as well as the Peanut M&Ms, but less of the plain Milk Chocolate variety. In a vending machine in Amsterdam and at the grocery store.

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5. Wheat Chocolate
6. M&Ms Line
7. Head-to-Head: Smarties vs. M&Ms