One of the most popular chocolate brands in Europe is Milka. It’s currently distributed by the international food conglomerate Kraft but began its existence as a family chocolate brand made by Suchard back in the early 20th century. I tried the version that’s available in the States about four years ago.

Milka is, of course, known as milky chocolate, very similar in profile and price to Cadbury. However, instead of putting vegetable oil in the chocolate, Milka uses just a touch of hazelnut paste.

Milka is now widely available in the United States but I wanted to pick up some while I was in Europe, just in case it was a little different. I did find this assortment called Milka NAPS Mix in Germany. It features four different varieties of tiny bars: Alpenmilch, Crunchy Caramel, Erdbeer & Creme au Cacao.

The little bars are about 4.25 grams, individually wrapped and easy to identify your favorite. The bars are about 1.5 inches long.

The traditional Milka is just as I remember it. Milky, sweet, smooth and not very chocolatey. They’re a good candy and at this size, and excellent little tough-covering pick me up. The hazelnut is just a light hint of roasted nuts, not like a thick gianduia. It’s much creamier than I recall the American packaged bar I tried, though as someone who likes a lot of either chocolate in my chocolate or hazelnuts in my gianduia, this didn’t quite fit my personal profile.

The Milka Crunchy Caramel is the same little bar with some toffee chips in it. (Not Daim chips, for some reason.) I liked the crunchy texture and light salty hint, though sometimes they tasted a bit like butterscotch and not quite like toffee. This was my favorite of the mix, now I’m sorry I didn’t pick up the Daim version of Milka.

The Milka Erdbeer is the milk chocolate with dried strawberry bits in it. The strawberry bits taste real, but have a grainy quality to them that kind of ruins the texture of the chocolate at time. Still, the milk and strawberry flavor was great, it reminded me of neapolitan ice cream.

This was the only filled bar in the mix. The center was a thin little strip of chocolate creme. It really didn’t taste that much different than the standard Milka Bar, mostly because of the proportions. It had more of a chocolate frosting flavor to it though. It was my least favorite of the mix.

I like that Milka comes in so many different varieties and that the European versions also come in different sizes and seasonal variations. This box of chocolate though was a bit on the expensive side, compared to the large 100 gram (3.5 ounce) tablet bars at 3 Euros (about $4). Basically, I could have bought one of each of these varieties as a full sized bar for about the same amount of money, but had more than 3 times as much candy.

I have a dark chocolate version of a Milka bar at home, I’m hoping that’s a bit more to my personal liking, but mixes like this always have something to please most folks. (And I did finish most of the box without any help from anyone else.)

Related Candies

1. Kraft Daim
2. UK vs US Cadbury Dairy Milk
3. Terry’s Chocolate Toffee Crunch Orange
4. Toblerone Single Peaks
5. Milka Alpenmilch
6. Caffarel Gianduias

Damla is a chewy candy made by Tayas in Turkey. They’re known throughout the Middle East and Europe and are even seen in ethnic stores here in the States from time to time.

Damla comes in a wide variety of flavors, including the most common fruits, which I tried: Raspberry, Strawberry, Orange and Grape. They come in single flavor packages and mixes. Each piece is individually wrapped with an inner wax wrap and an outer twist wrapper that features a picture of the fruit and color coding. Inside all the pieces are white, there are no colorings added to the candy. I got my sample bags directly from Tayas at their exhibit at ISM Cologne last month.

The chew is smooth and soft, similar to Starburst but a little more like HiCHEW from Japan. They’re not quite bouncy but have a great texture that doesn’t become grainy like some true taffy does. (This has gelatin in it, which I think is what keeps it so well emulsified.) The feature that sets them apart from those two though is the jammy filling.

Raspberry - I opened this package first and shared it around. These were fantastic, creamy and light with a decent berry flavor. The “sauce” center didn’t really do much except keep the candy moist, the taffy outside was more than flavorful enough.

Strawberry - sweet, floral and lightly tangy with a faint creamy note towards the end like cheesecake.

Cherry - this one came in a purple package and at first I thought it was blackcurrant. This is not the standard American black cherry or wild cherry flavor. This is something akin to actual cherry. It’s woodsy and a little bit tannic. It’s strange and something that I actually liked.

Orange - I was expecting great things from this but the orange ended up being very ordinary. Not that this is a bad thing, it was a lot like a softer Starburst - intense and fruity with mostly juice notes and a light creamsicle finish.

I enjoyed these, especially since the flavors seemed so clear and distinct and they didn’t feel the need to use artificial colors on them. I like getting single flavor packages because I usually don’t like every flavor in a mix as well. These are unique enough that I can see them making great inroads in North America just as HiCHEW has.

Here’s another review from Candy Addict.

I couldn’t figure out if these were Halal or not, but they do seem to contain gelatin so they’re not for vegetarians. The printing on the back was so tiny, I can’t tell you anything else except that they can do some tiny printing in Turkey.

Related Candies

1. HiCHEW Japan vs HiCHEW Taiwan
2. Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy - Chocolate, Vanilla & Strawberry
3. Strawberry Yoghurt Mentos
4. Eiffel BonBons
5. Russell Stover Organic Pecan Delight
6. HiCHEW Assortment

Caramels are best when they’re made fresh with only a few ingredients. There are decent caramel simulations found in commercial stores, but the true stuff cannot be readily imitated with the shelf life necessary for large scale business.

These small boxes from Helliemae’s Caramels contain a half a pound each; they’re like little sugar and dairy bricks. The caramels themselves are made from the classic ingredients and nothing else - sugar, butter, cream, vanilla and sea salt.

Each caramel is a large square, about 1.3 inches across and a little less than an inch high. They appear to be molded instead of cut, because they have slightly angled sides, like ice cubes. The Classic Salt Caramels have a generous dusting of flaky sea salt on top.

When I first bit into them I was impressed by the smooth texture, firm chew that wasn’t too tough. They’re a bit sticky but when consumed with some hot tea or coffee that dissolves quickly. But the salt on top was too much for me. The caramel itself was perfectly salted to begin with ... a few grains up there would have done me fine, but it wasn’t a flurry, it was a blizzard with consistent accumulation.

I’m a bit more sensitive to salt than many of my pals, so I handed some off and found the same comment - far too salty. So for the rest of them I found myself scraping the salt off as completely as possible or eating from the bottom and discarding the crusty tops. 7 out of 10

I was also given a single sample of the Cardamom Caramels. Cardamom is a hard spice to use, especially with a confection like caramel which tends to boil away the intensity of flavors. In this case the cardamom is added as a coarse powder of the seeds of the pod itself. The cardamom has flavor notes of pine, bergamot, lemon, vanilla, nutmeg, cola and eucalyptus. In some candies I’ve had the cardamom seeds can be intense and distracting though still imparting an amazing flavor that still manages to make up for it by being so engaging. In this case the grain was smaller than ground espresso so it was virtually unnoticeable. The flavor was citrusy and really brought out the vanilla and toffee notes.

In this case there was no salt on top, so I was quite pleased. 9 out of 10

The final flavor I tried was another half pound sampling of the Coffee Caramels. These were pure perfection. The coffee flavors were intense but smooth, like a fine espresso with the perfect head of creama. They were bitter and had loads of toffee and roasted java notes but also an appealing tangy note of woodsy coffee that rounded it out.

Since there was no salt on top, I found this to be exactly how I like my caramels. 9 out of 10

Fresh caramels need to be consumed immediately. I ate and shared the majority of these within two weeks of getting them, but the few that I saved for review did kind of lose their mojo after about three weeks - getting sticky and grainy around the edges. I liked that the format that was easy to bite and that the wax paper was easy to unwrap. A chocolate coated version might be stupendous, especially if it was a super dark that offset the sweetness and salt.

They’re a bit expensive for me but for an impulse item if I lived in the area and saw one at the cash register at the store of a cafe, I would definitely go for one even at $3 a pop.

Related Candies

1. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Tahitian Vanilla Caramels
2. Bequet Gourmet Caramels
3. Grandma’s Caramels
4. Das French Salted Caramels
5. Fran’s Gray Salt Caramels

Christopher’s Good News bar is something of a mystery to me. It’s currently made locally in Los Angeles by Adams-Brooks but before that it was created back in the late thirties by Ben Myerson for his newly founded Ben Myerson Candy Company. In 1955 the Ben Myerson Candy Company acquired Christopher’s Candy which was already a venerable confectioner in Southern California since 1887. In 2006 Ben Myerson was bought up by Jelly Belly, who quickly gobbled up the Sunkist Fruit Gems brand and spun off the chocolate products like the Good News bar and Christopher’s Big Cherry to Adams-Brooks.

The bars were extremely popular as a gift parents would hand out to friends heralding the birth of their baby. The package design to this day looks like a newspaper masthead and my bar even had a little sticker that said “it’s a girl”. But the curious thing about this bar was instead of going national, as other brands within Ben Myerson’s company did, the Good News bar became hyper-regional. In fact, the only place it’s still sold widely is in Hawaii. I happened to find my bar at Marukai Market in Torrance, CA which is a Japanese grocery store that also carries a lot of Hawaiian favorites (as many Southern California Japanese folks either immigrated through Hawaii or have relatives there).

The bar’s description is rich milk chocolate, peanuts, caramel. What the description doesn’t mention is that there’s also crisped rice in there. Looking at all that, you can see that it’s actually a unique bar, there are no other nationally distributed bars that match this element combination.

The bar is beautifully enrobed in a rippled, dark looking milk chocolate. The center is a combination of caramel, peanuts and crisped rice. The ingredients are wholesome and easy to understand and probably the worse thing on the list is a little bit of hydrogenated cottonseed oil towards the end.

The chew is firm and light with a good balance of crisped rice. There weren’t that many peanuts in my bar, enough to impart a nutty flavor but the cereal flavors of the crisped rice definitely won out. The caramel had a milky flavor that was far stronger than the chocolate, which was passable and well-tempered. I was afraid the bar would be messy to eat, as sometimes chocolate coatings flake off, but this was easy to bite even slice.

I’m not sure why these bars aren’t more popular. The elements are similar to a 100 Grand but with a few peanuts tossed in (and an extra quarter ounce for the same price).

Related Candies

1. Sunkist Fruit Gems
2. Snickers Xtreme
3. Nestle Lion
4. 100 Grand with Peanuts
5. Christopher’s Big Cherry is Big Peanuts

Last year Mars announced a new Limited Edition Twix that would hit store shelves this spring: Twix Coconut.

It seems like a natural extension, since they also made a Coconut version of M&Ms as a limited edition that went over so well they added them as a regular item.

The Twix package will be easy to spot, it has a white background but features the gold metallic background and red Twix logo in the center.

The coconut scent is convincing, it’s rich and buttery with that inimitable tropical note. The cookie is crunchy and sandy giving a great textural counterpoint to the chewy pull of the caramel. The chocolate is passable, it’s creamy and sweet but doesn’t pack much chocolate punch overall. The coconut flavor permeates all parts of the bar but actual coconut is nowhere to be found. So for fans of the Coconut M&Ms, these will be of equal fascination. For folks who were hoping for something more like a cross between a Mounds Bar and the old Cookies n Creme Twix (in this case the cream would be a real layer of coconut), well, you’ll be disappointed.

The first stick I ate, I wasn’t really that impressed. Twix really aren’t my favorite candy bar, I find them too sweet. But by the time I ate the second bar (which was admittedly months later), I really enjoyed how the coconut flavor moderated the sweetness and brought the textures together.

Like other limited edition Twix products, this was made in Russia. They are not Kosher and of course contain dairy, soy and wheat but also traces of peanuts, tree nuts and eggs. They’ll be available in stores in April 2011 (and sometimes these things pop up a little sooner due to eager store owners putting out the inventory early).

Related Candies

1. Eat with your Eyes: Twix Coconut
2. Limited Edition M&Ms Coconut
3. Hershey’s Almond Joy Pieces
4. Triple Chocolate Twixels
5. Java Twix
6. Twix PB
7. Kisses Coconut Creme

It’s funny that I first found out about the new Dots Pink Grapefruit Sour Slices in Germany instead of right here in the United States. I was cruising by the American Pavillion at the ISM Cologne candy fair and spotted them right away on display as a new item. And of course the fact that they were grapefruit really made them stand out.

Tootsie has really expanded their Dots over the past five years with more than just new flavor assortments like Tropical and Yogurt. They also make seasonal varieties for Christmas, Valentines and even an Independence Day version. What’s interesting about these Dots, aside from the fact that they’re sour and sanded instead of smooth is that they’re also a single flavor.

The Dots are made of two colors, to mimic the layering of colors on a wedge of pink grapefruit. The base is supposed to be yellow and the top is pink. Though the package calls them Sour Slices, they’re the same gumdrop shape we’re all used to. They smell soft and sweet and were fresh and bouncy.

The outside coating is sweet and sour though lacking much in the way of other flavors. But the gumdrop center is all about grapefruit flavor. There’s a good, well rounded grapefruit zest base, a hint of bitterness and a long, sweet finish to it. The citrus oils linger with a satisfying ring.

I was hoping for a little bit more pop, but then again I found it easy to eat a few handfuls (the Sour Dots were just a little too zingy for me to do that and I only liked three of the five flavors). I’m really looking forward to seeing these on shelves at stores around here. I loved the Grapefruit Dots in the Tropical Mix, now I can buy the single flavor. I know they’re already available online, so some shops may already have them. They also come as Watermelon Sour Slices and Peach Sour Slices.

Dots are made in a peanut free facility and are also free of traces of tree nuts, eggs and gluten. Kosher and I’m guessing they’d qualify as vegan, too (all artificial colors & no beeswax).

Related Candies

1. Wonka Exceptionals Fruit Jellies: Grapefruit, Goji Berry & Red Apple
2. Tic Tac Pink Grapefruit
3. Christmas Dots
4. Halloween Dots: Bat, Candy Corn & Ghost
5. Dots
6. Pink Grapefruit Mentos

I was surprised to learn at the candy fair (ISM Cologne) last week that Panda Liquorice is the #4 brand of licorice in the United States (Twizzlers, Red Vines and Good & Plenty come in ahead). What was surprising and pleasing about this little tidbit is that Panda makes all natural licorice, the real stuff with real licorice extract and no artificial colors or flavors.

Their newest introduction at the show is their Panda Blueberry Liquorice. It features a very short list of ingredients: molasses syrup, wheat flour, blueberry puree, citric acid, natural flavoring and liquorice extract. The package they gave me as a sample is 200 g (7 ounces) and features a gusseted bottom so it stands up and a zipper top to make it easier to reseal it to keep the candy fresh.

The pieces are striking in that they smell like blueberry pie: a bit like jam and a little like a fruit Danish. But they’re also quite light in color, like little caramel nibs instead of what I was expecting which would have been darker purple.

They’re very soft and have a light, easy chew. They’re not dense at all and have a tart and sweet blueberry flavor. Because of the wheat flour in there, there’s more snack satisfaction going on than candy. They’re satisfying but also feel more like little cookies than a licorice chew. The molasses keeps them from being too sweet, though the licorice extract does give it a little bit of a lighter tea-like sweetness than a straight sugar candy might have.

They’re considered vegan and have very little fat in them, so the caloric load is only 88 calories per ounce. Though I like blueberries as a fruit, a chewy candy made with blueberries isn’t quite the same thing. These would be fun as a trail mix addition (mixed with pretzels and nuts and maybe a few chocolate chips) but I don’t see myself eating them straight in one sitting. I’m sure there are other folks, though, who have been looking forward to a realistic blueberry candy like this.

Related Candies

1. Natural Vines - Black Licorice
2. Panda Soft Herb Licorice and Licorice Cremes
3. Marich Black Heart Licorice
4. Wonka Squishy Sploshberries Gummies
5. Kookaburra Licorice
6. Welch’s Fruit ‘n Yogurt Snacks
7. Panda Bars

Hawaiian Host is familiar to most folks who have either visited Hawaii or been lucky enough to be on the gift list of someone who has. Their confectionery product line emphasized locally grown items like macadamia nuts and Kona coffee.

Their Hawaiian Host MacNut Crunch is described as Chocolate covered macadamias & crisp rice. As you’ll see, the term “macadamias” is kind of loose, as they’re not whole nuts as in the dark chocolate covered version.

The pieces are in fluted cups, the base is one inch and the top is 1.25 inches.

It’s a mix of crisped rice and crushed macadamia nuts in milk chocolate. It’s a thick piece that has a good, solid bite to it. The crispy rice is the first texture I got from it, which was pleasant mostly because it offset the very sweet milk chocolate. The macadamia bits were tiny and provided a different sort of texture and that vague fresh tropical flavor, but not much else. I would have liked more macadamia playing around in there.

It’s certainly an unusual product and I enjoyed the fact that Hawaiian Host is providing all their popular candies in these single serving packages. This one might be more fun as a bar, Hawaiian Crunch Bar of sorts. None are quite to my taste as ideal iterations of macadamias and chocolate, but it’s still a good quality product at a fair price.

Related Candies

1. Hawaiian Host Maui Caramacs
2. Hawaiian Host Dark Chocolate Macadamias
3. Nestle Crunch - Even More Scrumptious
4. Malley’s Chocolates
5. World’s Finest W.F. Crisp
6. Hotel Chocolat Crostini Fruit & Nut Slab