Russell Stover is often up on flavor trends with their seasonal single serve shapes. Their most recent introduction was the Red Velvet, which is now available in a Halloween version.

I spotted the listing for the Russell Stover Pumpkin Pie on the Russell Stover website about a month ago and I went on the search as soon as the stores in my area started putting out their Halloween candy.

The package looks generally the same as all the other Russell Stover pumpkins, of which there are at least a dozen now. It’s a mylar wrapping with a generic pumpkin illustration on the front an simple lettering to depict the contents.

The pumpkin is interesting to look at. I like enrobed candies and this one looks rustic and handmade. The shape isn’t specifically pumpkin though, as it has no ribs, so I can imagine this being sold as an ornament in different packaging later this year. This is the first time, though, that I’ve found the shape of the candy to actually reflect the candy flavor. Note that this is pumpkin pie, not pumpkin spice. I wanted to know what made this different from a regular spiced cream center and the ingredients list brought the answer.

It’s like pumpkin pie, including the crust. There’s wheat flour in the ingredients. In fact the ingredients list “spice cake mix” which includes wheat flour, egg whites and nonfat milk in addition to the spices. So the center here is more like cookie dough than a cream, rather like the Red Velvet piece they’re also making now.

So, after I got my head around that weirdness, I just adjusted my expectations. This is like a chocolate covered cookie dough, but instead of those lackluster Cookie Dough Bites, these are actually made with pretty good milk chocolate and some nice proportions.

The milk chocolate is creamy, the center is a bit doughy and has a slight sugar grain to it. It’s dense but not too sticky. The spices are light, not overwhelming but also not terribly distinct. It’s a generic background of cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg with a touch of clove.

I appreciate that it’s different from other sticky cream candies right now. I would have preferred a dark chocolate and maybe a little more powerful spice, but overall, for a 50 cent candy, it’s pretty good.

Russell Stover Dark Chocolate Orange CreamThe Russell Stover Dark Chocolate Orange Cream is also new, though I couldn’t find it on the Russell Stover website.

This pumpkin is a bit thicker than the Pumpkin Pie version. The glossy dark chocolate looks great, with robust swirls on top. It smells like dark chocolate with a hint of orange zest. The cream filling is actually something like a meringue. It has egg whites in it, though I ended up calling it a marshmallow, it’s actually okay for vegetarians. The texture is wonderfully smooth and though it tastes like it’s creamy, there’s far fewer calories in this treat than the other creams that Russell Stover sells. (120 calories per ounce, so this is a pretty slim little candy if you’re watching calories but want something fulfilling.)

The filling has a sweetness, but it’s not as cloying as some of the more fudgy creams. There are bits of orange zest and an authentic orange flavor to the whole thing (though some artificial coloring which I thought was unnecessary). The chocolate is thick and stands up well to the center and doesn’t fall apart as you eat it.

Russell Stover Coconut & Almond is also a new twist on an old favorite from Russell Stover.

The center is coconut cream and the milk chocolate enrobing includes lots of crushed almonds on top. Think of it like an Almond Joy, but without the large lumps on top. This is also a new item, and unfortunately doesn’t seem to come in dark chocolate right now.

Russell Stover makes two coconut seasonal candies right now. There’s the Nest, which is just coconut and milk chocolate. They also make their coconut creams, which are covered in either milk chocolate or dark chocolate.

Each of these elements is well balanced. The coconut is soft and chewy, a bit sweeter than I care for, but still fresh and tasty. The almonds, though not spread evenly are crunchy and big enough to provide the added texture to the experience. The milk chocolate, though also sweet, is far and away better than the Hershey’s version on Almond Joy bars. This is a bit on the milky side, but creamy and fudgy. I would definitely buy this again, but what would put it over the top would be a dark chocolate version. It’s a good value at 50 cents for a one ounce piece made with real chocolate right here in the United States.

Related Candies

1. Russell Stover Big Bite Caramel Apple
2. M&Ms Pumpkin Spice
3. Russell Stover Cookie Dough Egg
4. Russell Stover Red Velvet Santa
5. See’s Pumpkin Spice & Root Beer Lollypops
6. Hershey’s Pumpkin Spice Kisses
7. Russell Stover Orange Marshmallow Pumpkin

Russell Stover started releasing some of their favorite items in a new, larger format called Big Bites about two years ago. Most are sold year round and represent a cross over sort of candy. They look like giant box candy chocolates but are portioned more like a traditional single serving candy bar.

The new Russell Stover Big Bite Caramel Apple come in two versions. The first is a traditional caramel pattie, flavored with apple and covered in milk chocolate. The second goes further and gives it a coating of crushed peanuts.

The candy emulates a caramel coated apple, but in this case it should be easier to eat and probably has a better shelf life.

The package says naturally flavored, which was a bit of a surprise after eating some other, well, not-so-natural green apple candies lately. The piece is very attractive, it’s a caramel center covered in milk chocolate and then drizzled with dark chocolate. Even out of the rather flimsy package, it looked nearly pristine.

There’s a light apple sauce note to the sweet chocolatey scent. The bite is soft, though the chocolate is pretty thick. I was surprised at the smoothness of the caramel center. It has a pleasant apple peel note to it but not much in the salty or caramelized sugar family. The chocolate was passable, sweet and though note exceptionally smooth, it was creamy. The overall sweetness got to me about halfway through. Basically, a two ounce caramel pattie is just too much for me. A couple of small ones and I’m pretty happy, I don’t need quite this much at once, even if the shape is done well.

The crushed peanuts on the Russell Stover Big Bite Caramel Apple with Peanuts adhered pretty well. The package had a little pile in the bottom, though, about a third more peanuts. Though the no nuts version is 2 ounces, the peanutty one is 2.25 ounces, I’m guessing that’s the nuts and no dark chocolate stripes. Overall, the peanut notes overshadowed the apple flavors, but the whole thing seemed even sweeter, giving me a sore throat in about half the time as the straight one.

I like the Russell Stover caramel, and think they do a good job, especially for the price with these items. This is, by far, one of the best caramel apple candies I’ve had, but it’s still not my thing. I’d just like to see some flavors I’m interested in, like Coffee Caramel (maybe call it a Caramel Macchiato and shape it like a coffee cup) or perhaps Bananas Foster.

Related Candies

1. Russell Stover Big Bite Dark Chocolate S’Mores
2. Limited Edition Milky Way Caramel Apple Minis
3. Russell Stover Big Bite Pecan Delight Egg
4. Russell Stover “Day of the Dead” Skeletons
5. Russell Stover Assorted Wrapped Chocolates
6. Tootsie Caramel Apple Pops
7. Russell Stover Giant S’mores Bar & Mint Dream
8. Milk Maid Caramel Apple Candy Corn
9. Sixlets & Limited Edition Dark Chocolate Flavored Sixlets

As usual, the candy shelves are stacking up with Halloween favorites and a few new novelty items.

The Pumpkin Spice M&Ms are a Target exclusive this year (just as the Candy Corn M&Ms were also exclusive their first year at WalMart). The package is cute and was easy to spot at the store. It features the orange M&M character looking like a pumpkin.

The flavor is not pumpkin pie itself, but the spices used to turn pumpkin custard into a seasonal dessert. Traditional pumpkin spices are a mix of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, allspice, and/or mace. The ingredients for these M&Ms are vague, just listing “artificial and natural flavorings” at the end of the list.

The pieces are, for the most part, the mega size. They’re larger than a standard M&M and come in three colors in the package: dark brown, orange and green.

The flavor is overwhelmingly cinnamon. Though they smell like chocolate, they taste like chocolate milk sipped in a room with too many Christmas-scented candles. The candy shell is crispy and the milk chocolate center is, well, a bit fudgy and grainy. I think I prefer the size of the regular M&Ms, since the chocolate is merely passable. In this format the amount of sugar easily overwhelms the chocolate.

I didn’t actually notice that much of a difference from the previous limited edition Cinnamon M&Ms from two years ago. Maybe a little more note of clove. I would have preferred more of the nutmeg and ginger spices than the Tic Tac notes of cinnamon candies.

Pumpkin Spice seems to be a pretty hot flavor these days (though the Hershey’s Kisses version has been around since 2008), a lot of seasonal candies are being released (see list below of previous reviews). If you like Spiced Chai or cinnamon in general, it’s a great time to pick up this twist on old candy favorites. If not, wait a few months and the Candy Cane and Egg Nog versions will emerge.

Finally, with all the crazy flavors of M&Ms that have come out over the years, I’m a loss to why they’d go with something like peanut butter and jelly before coffee.

Related Candies

1. See’s Holiday Pie Truffles
2. M&Ms White Chocolate Peppermint
3. Halloween Candy Spotting 2012
4. M&Ms White Chocolate Candy Corn
5. Pumpkin Pie Gourmet Candy Corn
6. Limited Edition Strawberried Peanut Butter M&Ms
7. See’s Pumpkin Spice & Root Beer Lollypops
8. Hershey’s Pumpkin Spice Kisses

I couple of years ago I found out that Haribo had a Smurfs candy, but it wasn’t sold widely in the United States. I did track them down when I was in Germany, and bought a single one, for half a Euro at a Christmas Market in Schmalkalden (here’s a photo of me buying it). The individual pieces were large, about half an ounce (see photo) and a generic berry flavored jelly candy.

Now that the second Smurfs movie has been released worldwide (and a third planned since the first one has already made a quarter of a billion dollars worldwide) Haribo did decide to release a version to the United States in pouch packaging. I picked this bag up at Cost Plus World Market about a month after the movie came out.

This version has smaller candies in the traditional gelatin-based gummi style. The bag a little more expensive than usual Haribo candies at Cost Plus - not the sticker price, but the fact that the bag holds 4 ounces instead of the usual 5 ounces for products like the Gold Bears or Happy Cola.

The candies are shaped like the Smurfs. They’re predominantly blue with different colors on top. Most are clear on top, to emulate the standard white Smurf Phrygian cap. Papa Smurf has a red hat and Smurfette has blonde (yellow) hair.

The pieces are big, about an inch and half tall.

The blue flavor of the Smurf body is berry. I’d say it might be raspberry and it might be strawberry, it’s hard to tell. It’s jammy and it’s tart and overall, has a good flavor. The colored head coverings are a different flavor though.

Smurfette’s hair is lemon. It’s mild and pleasant, not as intense as the Haribo Gold Bears, but still goes well with the berry blue body.

The standard clear headed Smurf is pineapple, which I love and think goes great with the berry.

Papa Smurf’s red hat is, well, hard to distinguish. If I had to say, maybe it’s raspberry and the body is strawberry ... maybe they’re the same.

The candies are well done, a little monotonous because of the mostly single flavor but the molding and different shapes are pretty good. If you’re keen on Swedish Fish, this might be a fun treat, though they are a gummi, not a jelly candy so they’re not for vegetarians. They’re flat, not dimensional like the Au’some 3 Dees candies that have also come out with licensing agreements with characters from Nintendo, Monopoly and Kung Fu Panda. Maybe the time has passed when I would have been interested in a Smurf themed candy, but for someone who really likes them, and you’re planning on screening the movie, it’d be a fun themed snack.

Related Candies

1. Candy Tease: Sweets & Snacks Expo - Part 1
2. Haribo Gold Bears from Turkey and Germany
3. Angry Birds Fruit Gummies
4. Life Savers Gummies Spooky Shapes
5. Trolli Gummi Bear-Rings
6. Au’some Easter 3-Dees Gummy
7. Haribo Happy Cola
8. Disney Pixie Perfect Gummies

I’ve only been to Amsterdam once, so I’m not certain whether the name of this chocolate bar is compelling in its native culture, but I found it a little odd: Droste Cookie Milkchocolate XXL Pastille. It’s also possible that in the year 2013, all the good candy bar names have been taken and now confectioners are just using random word sequence generators based on the elements within the bar.

Luckily the picture on the package does most of the communication. It’s a chocolate bar, made with milk chocolate, in the form of a sectioned circular disk, filled with cookie bits.

The bar is only 50 grams (1.75 ounces) so it’s a generous single serving or two petite portions.

The disk is three inches across, and if my math is sufficient, each section is about 7/16th of an ounce.

The chocolate smells very milky, quite sweet and has a hint of malt to it (my guess is from the cookie). The snap is good and the distribution of the cookie bits looks generous but well balanced with the chocolate.

The melt is nice, silky even. It’s a little sticky but the cookie dust cuts through that. The chocolate tastes a bit salty, which is odd because the sodium content isn’t alarming (55 mg). The cookie bits are like digestives, quite dry and crumbly with a little hint of salt and malt and barely sweet at all. On the whole, it was very munchable and it reminded me how much I loved Droste as a kid. It was the premium chocolate I remember getting the most (the pastilles in the hexagonal box) and helped me to appreciate dark chocolate.

The price as a little steep, $2 for a single serving. The Ritter Sport Biscuit bar, with 100 grams (twice as much) for only 50 cents more at Cost Plus is probably what I’d put in my basket next time.

The bar contains gluten and may have traces of peanuts and tree nuts. There’s no statement about sustainability or ethical sourcing, but the Droste website is mostly in Dutch and the English part isn’t very well written. There are other versions of this bar at Cost Plus World Market, so I might try some as the weather cools off. (The “feels like” temp here in the neighborhood is 119 today.)

Related Candies

1. Russell Stover Big Bite Dark Chocolate S’Mores
2. M&Ms Sweet & Salty Snack Mix
3. Glico Pocky Cookie Crush
4. Ritter Sport Neapolitan Wafers
5. Ferrara Dark Chocolate Covered Biscotti
6. Twix Triple Chocolate
7. Ritter Sport Assortment
8. Droste Pastilles: Extra Dark

Ritter Sport is the brand of German chocolate bars that come in a square format and more than a dozen different varieties. The newest is Ritter Sport Coconut in milk chocolate.  The package says it’s with tropical coconut flakes in a coconut and milk filling.

I like how inexpensive Ritter Sport is compared to other consumer brands from Europe, like Cadbury Dairy Milk or Lindt, and balances quality and munchability. No, it’s not exquisitely fine chocolate, but it’s fantastic chocolate candy.

I tried another version of a coconut bar from Ritter Sport a few years ago, a sample bar from their store in Waldenbuch, Germany called the Ritter Sport Kokosmakrone which also had some corn flakes in the coconut cream. The cream center is a common format for Ritter Sport, in fact, a lot of German candy bars like those from Milka also use this style.

The ingredients were a little disappointing. Ingredient #1 is Sugar and ingredient #2 is Palm Oil. This is similar to the Amarena Cherry I had earlier this year, which is also a filled bar. The saturated fat content is 45% of your daily RDA in 6 pieces. The other interesting ingredient, though far down the list, is hazelnut paste.

The milk chocolate is rich, sweet and smooth. The coconut center is interesting, because the coconut is actually crunchy and the filling with it is quite smooth and creamy, unlike the moist and chewy Mounds bar filling. I liked the filling quite a bit, and had no trouble finishing the bar. Coconut is not my favorite of all of their inclusions and I don’t usually like their white cream filled bars either. So I’ll probably stick to the Corn Flakes bar over this one.

Though Ritter Sport has a sustainability pact for their cocoa, there’s no mention of the source of their palm oil.

Related Candies

1. 3 Musketeers Coconut
2. Snow Angell Organic Candy Bar
3. Dove Milk Chocolate Coconut Creme Eggs
4. Mounds
5. Ritter Schokowurfel
6. Kisses Coconut Creme
7. Ritter Sport Assortment

The Boyer Candy Company may be best known for their Mallo Cups, which they’ve been making since the 1930s which they claim is the first “cup candy”. (Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups were introduced in 1928, but were not actually sold in little fluted paper cups at first.)

It’s natural for there to be other versions of the chocolate cup with a marshmallow filling and coconut topping. The Boyer Dark Chocolate Mallo Cup is really just the same, even the simple packaging looks like they’ve been making this version for 50 years.

The bumpy top of the cup shows that there is actually some coconut underneath. Like every Mallo Cup I think I’ve had in the past 20 years, the bottom stuck to the wrapper (I think freezing them prevents this, but changes the textures). It smells a bit like coconut and of course chocolate with a strong whiff of vanilla.

The interesting thing to note about the Mallo Cups is that they’re not actually marshmallow. (Though the name is Mallo Cup, the description on the package says that the center is whipped creme.) Marshmallow, for the most part, is made with gelatin. The Mallo Cups are made with egg whites. That would mean that these are really a meringue creme. The center is a great texture, it’s soft and creamy without too much stickiness and no grain whatsoever.

The dark chocolate has a decent flavor to it, though not complex or overpowering, it has a nice chocolate candy contribution to the whole. The coconut flakes within give some texture ... overall, it’s a good modernization of the classic candy cups. I’d love it if they spent a little time fixing the production issue of the oozing and insufficient base.

Related Candies

1. Sun Cups
2. Elmer’s Dark Chocolate Heavenly Hash & Gold Brick Eggs
3. Idaho Spud
4. Boyer Smoothie
5. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Line
6. Boyer’s Mallo Cup
7. Cup-O-Gold

The final of the three vegan and organic Eli’s Earth Bars made by Sjaak’s Chocolates I have for review is called the Treasure Bar.

A solid layer of crunchy peanut butter topped with caramel and coated in creamy ‘milk’ chocolate. Vegan

It’s made with dairy-free rice “milk” chocolate which can’t actually be called chocolate according to the FDA, which has strict standards about such things. However, there are no other fillers in it, just cacao, cocoa butter and some evaporated cane juice. It’s an actual vegan candy bar that’s also fair trade and organic. That’s a rare thing. Of course, feeling good before you eat the candy is nice, but not really very productive if it doesn’t actually taste good. Now that I’ve tried all three of Eli’s Earth Bars multiple times, I’m ready to say that they’re actually good, but a little funky.

There’s really no comparison for this bar to a commercial bar on shelves today. The center is like a crushed Butterfinger bar (or if you prefer, the vegan version would be an Atkinson’s Chick-o-Stick) mixed in with some peanut butter and then a layer of caramel then covered in chocolate.

It smells peanutty and sweet and a little like Cap’n Crunch. The rice milk chocolate coating is a little greasy and thin tasting, it’s more like a chocolate milk taste than an actual chocolate taste. The soft center is sweet peanut butter with a bunch of crunchy, peanut crisp lumps. Then there’s a stripe of caramel on the top that gives the whole thing a chew.

It’s odd, not quite successful but still compelling enough that I always eat the whole bar. (I’ve tried this bar three times now.) If you don’t or can’t eat dairy, this is a very tasty approximation of a dairy bar (but it’s made on equipment that does use dairy, so not for those with true allergies). But I’d prefer to just eat Chick-o-Sticks if I need a vegan peanut candy fix.

Related Candies

1. Eli’s Earth Bars - Dream Big Bar
2. Eli’s Earth Bars - Celebrate Bar
3. Justin’s Organic Peanut Butter Cups
4. Q.Bel Double Dark Chocolate Wafer Bar
5. Goldie’s Premium Carob Bar
6. Sjaak’s Vegan Chocolate Assortment
7. Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews
8. Chick-o-Stick