There are a lot of candy bars that try to emulate fresh fireside S’mores. Russell Stover may have hit on the closest thing.

The Girl Scout Handbook is the first recorded transcription of the recipe. For the uninitiated, S’mores are constructed like this: a fresh toasted marshmallow is mashed on top of a piece of milk chocolate between two graham crackers. Three great tastes are made better by their association.

I don’t consider S’mores themselves to be a candy, because they violate one of the primary rules of candy: it must be ready to eat and require no cooking or assembly.

The Russell Stover Giant S’mores Bar takes the assembly and toasting out of the equation.

I had to buy my bars online at the Russell Stover webstore because I couldn’t find them in any of the shops near me. At $1.49 it’s a bit more expensive than other candy bars, but it’s also unique so I figured it was worth it.

The bar looks exactly as it’s depicted on the wrapper. The 2.5” graham cracker squares sandwich a large square of milk chocolate covered marshmallow.

In all instances at least one of my graham crackers wasn’t quite stuck to my marshmallow, but reassembly was simple.

It was messy, biting into the corners was fine, but the deeper I got into the bar the more crumbling of the graham cracker and flaking of the chocolate I got. The marshmallow center was moist and fluffy, just like all the other chocolate marshmallow products from Russell Stover. The chocolate tasted milky and fresh. The graham cracker tasted like cereal and kept it all from being too sickly sweet.

In case you’re wondering, yes, you can microwave it. I put it in the microwave for 15 seconds, but took it out at 12 when the innards came oozing out. It makes a horrible gooey mess and the marshmallow deflates into a sticky latex bonding agent that gets dry and tacky. I lost a lot of it to the plate.

I’d say in the future I will just lay in a stockpile of whatever seasonal marshmallow product is around, like the Marshmallow Egg and then get my own graham crackers to make my own since these are so hard to find. It’s a great idea and pretty well executed with good quality ingredients.

The other item that prompted me to do my web order was the Russell Stover Dark Chocolate Mint Dream. They’ve been out for about a year, but I hadn’t seen them in stores. (I thought for sure they’d do an Easter version.)

The dark chocolate puck is a fluffy mint cream covered in dark chocolate.

It’s about the same size as the holiday Eggs, at 1.125 ounces it’s a nicely sized portion and rather economical on the calorie front with only 140 calories.

I bought three of them and all of them had cracks with innards leaking out. But still, they’re handsome and well proportioned at about two inches in diameter and about 1.25 inches high.

I feel a little bad reviewing these because of the cracking problem. I can’t say for sure what the filling is supposed to be, as I wasn’t sure if the leaking problem meant that the texture changed. The inside was similar in texture to the Raspberry Whip, but perhaps smoother. It’s almost a marshmallow, just as fluffy but the ingredients list no gelatin.

The mint is light and fresh, the center has a little salty note to it to even out the sugary sweetness. The dark chocolate isn’t terribly rich but it’s still creamy and not so sweet that it makes it all too cloying. It’s different from the fondant style of a Junior Mint, far fluffier and creamier. It’s enrobed instead of panned with a light glaze, so the chocolate melt is better. I would probably buy these again and would be willing to re-evaluate the breakage and seeping issue at that time.

Related Candies

1. Russell Stover Color Me Candies
2. Peeps Mash Ups - Savory
3. Russell Stover Marshmallow Rabbits
4. Snickers Rockin’ Nut Road Bar
5. Junior Mints Deluxe
6. Russell Stover Eggs (2007 edition)
7. Artisan Marshmallows: Plush Puffs
8. Hershey’s S’mores

There’s very little that’s appealing about this bag of Cracker Corn Choco. It’s a peg bag and was featured adjacent to a few other products with similar generic wrappings of red, black and white.

The window in the bag is nice in that it shows the big, beefy looking pieces. I really wasn’t sure what the candy was, but I was pretty sure they were chocolate (or in this case decent quality mockolate) covered corn puffs.

The package is proud to state that it contains 63 grams. Is this an appealing amount? But what drew me to look closer were the little icons of milk, corn and soy. And then above that was the motto for the company:

Each time while you are relaxing we can make you more comfortable.

More comfortable, you say? Well, I could be more comfortable when I’m relaxing (not that I actually know how to relax).

The nuggets are like lumpy, nubby chocolate thumbs. They smell like cocoa cereal, like Cocoa Krispies - a little chalky and sweet. The ingredients are okay, I think it’s a mockolate coating because the first five ingredients are sugar, cacao, palm oil, corn, lactose. I suspect it’s chocolate with additional palm oil, the smell and texture is convincing the the flavor not so much.

At the center of each 1.5” long piece is a foamy corn puff. They’re about the size and shape of a foam packing peanut. The centers are airy and crunchy but lacking a definitive corn meal flavor. In fact there’s very little to the center at all - just some texture. Not even a hint of salt. The chocolatey coating is mild and has a good creamy melt, but the cocoa flavors are a little thin and watery.

I’ve had them for a few months and find myself drawn to them expecting a good mix of textures ... and it does provide that. But the flavors just don’t rise to the occasion. I really enjoyed my Choco Mugi, which is chocolate covered barley or wheat puffs and was hoping these would be a corn version. (I’ve had several brands of the Choco Mugi and even though some are mockolate, I find it still satisfies my cereal & chocolate craving.) So I’ll stick with the Mugi in the future or maybe try to find the Kimmie Milk Chocolate Kettle Corn Nuggets.

Related Candies

1. Kimmie Sweet & Salty Corn Bits
2. Hot Chocolate Mochi Krunch
3. Q.Bel Crispy Wafer Bars
4. Wheat Chocolate
5. Ritter Sport Assortment

Finding gluten free candy isn’t all that hard any longer, but a gluten free candy bar that also has a crispy cookie-like center? I’ll bet there are lots of folks looking for that.

The Glutino Gluten Free Candy Bar comes in Milk Chocolate and Dark Chocolate varieties. I couldn’t seem to find them in single serve purchase size so I had to buy a full box of them - which was $4.99. So I picked the dark chocolate ones since it appeared by the ingredients list that they’re also vegan.

The candy bar is rather simple, a potato-flour wafer stack with chocolate cream centers is covered with dark chocolate. It reminded me of the old Bar None except it doesn’t have crushed peanuts.

The bar is crispy, the foamy wafers are rather flavorless but provide a rice cake type crunch. The cream in between is smooth and melts well; it’s more buttery and sweet than chocolatey. The chocolate coating is rather thick on the top and bottom so there’s a lot more chocolate than I expected. It’s nicely tempered, so it had its own crunch. The flavor was mellow, like semi-sweet chocolate chips - rather woodsy.

I liked them and for a gluten free and vegan bar it doesn’t taste like there are any compromises in there. Sure there are palm oils in the cream filling, so that’s something to be aware of but it is organic (I don’t know about the sustainability of organic palm oil). But as far as taste and texture profile, if you didn’t know it was gluten free, you wouldn’t know the difference.

As one bar is under an ounce, it’s not quite satisfying. The box was rather weird, as you can see from the top photo, it’s much taller than it needs to be so I’d say there’s an overpackaging issue (I wonder if they have standard size boxes and just kind of shrugged it off). So I felt a little duped by that. Also, the nutrition panel says that a bar has 140 calories. That doesn’t make sense to me. It’s less than an ounce, which should put it at about 110 or even 100 calories considering the fact that it has those fat-free wafers in there. Even a solid bar of dark chocolate has about 145 calories per ounce.

There are five bars in the box which cost $4.99, so the bars are expensive for something that’s a “snack size” and not a “dessert size”. I’ll finish the ones I have but unless I needed to have a bar that fit the gluten free parameter, I’ll probably stick with the Q.bel Double Dark.

Related Candies

1. Go Max Go Jokerz Candy Bar
2. Ritter Sport Neapolitan Wafers
3. Crispy Cat
4. Nestle Crunch Crisp
5. KitKat Bitter & White

One of my favorite chocolate bars as a kid was the Nestle Crunch or Krackel. Both of them went downhill in the nineties (Hershey’s Krackel isn’t even a chocolate bar any longer) but the Nestle Crunch seems to be inching its way back to respectable. About two years ago Nestle released their “Now Even Richer” tweak, which improved the bar but it wasn’t hard when it was so waxy and flavorless before.

Nestle is going for it again with their Nestle Crunch Even More Scrumptious version. Since we’re in a crossover period where both the “Now Even Richer” and “Even More Scrumptious” version are on shelves, I picked up two for comparison.

The bar’s shape and size is exactly the same. Same package design with the familiar red, white and blue colors that have been used for at least 50 years but of course updated from time to time. The mold has the bold CRUNCH lettering that lets you know what it is inside or out of the mylar. I prefer a bar with segments. While pretty molding is nice if you’re eating the whole bar yourself and don’t care about the sanitariness of biting right into it, I usually break my bar into pieces so I can share or portion. Though the ingredients on the old and new version are identical as is the nutrition information, flipping both bars over reveals the most significant difference:

(Now Even Richer version on the left - Even More Scrumptious on the right)

Sometime in the mid-2000s (I think), Nestle started using these little BB shaped & sized crisped rice pieces. Not just in the Crunch bar but also in the 100 Grand Bar. I don’t like them. They lack the irregular air pockets that gives a Crunch bar its more rustic texture. But the big rice pieces are back, I took this as a good sign.

(Now Even Richer version on the left - Even More Scrumptious on the right)

The color of the two bars is slightly different. It could be age, the new formula is obviously a fresher bar though both are within their freshness dates.

But what’s the difference in taste, how did they make it better without actually changing the ingredients or nutritional profile?

Well, it’s creamier. Not by much but the fact that the rice pieces are larger seems to make a difference as well. The bigger crunch makes the chocolate texture difference more noticeable. Is it really that much more scrumptious?, I’d say yes, there is some notable improvement in the creaminess and sweetness level of the chocolate. It still lacks a well-rounded chocolate flavor and texture. It’s far too sugar intense and not chocolatey enough for me, or even milky enough. It’s an entertaining enough piece of candy for the price, but not a satisfying bar of chocolate. It does earn the right to scootch up from at 6 out of 10 to a 7 out of 10. I hope the other holiday versions get this changeover, too.

(I think that’s Jenilee Harrison as the first bar-eater. What I got from this commercial is that it’s a candy bar that white people like.)

Related Candies

1. Malley’s Chocolates
2. Wilbur Milk Chocolate Crisp
3. Nestle Milk Chocolate
4. World’s Finest W.F. Crisp
5. Nestle Crunch Crisp
6. Nestle Crunch with Peanuts

Lately The Man and I have been searching for a new dog. As we’ve visited quite a few pounds and rescue organizations it’s startling to see how many rabbits there are. Rabbits are great pets, but too many of them are taken home by families that don’t know what’s involved with their care. Easter is a prime impulse season for pet rabbits (and chicks & ducks) so there’s an organization called Make Mine Chocolate that urges people to reconsider live animal gifts and instead keep the pet decisions out of the Easter basket. So make your Easter basket pet a chocolate one.

I am always drawn to RM Palmer’s package and product design. Their products go downhill after that, but how could I resist this cute little chocolate bunny in a little hutch? It plays on a kid’s desire to nurture without resorting to anthropomorphism. 

The My Little Bunny is actually a fun little teaching toy. It’s a bit more realistic that the regular seated bunny or cartoon style one carrying a basket. This one is about the size of a little baby bunny or a dwarf. It comes in a small box shaped and designed like a carrying hutch with simulated chicken wire on the plastic window. I picked the blue wood-grained box version, but there’s a pink one as well. Also, I think the rabbits come in different colors, I only saw tan ones at the store.

The foil design makes the bunny look a little bit stylized with its vague smile, but for the most part it’s very bunny-like in the crouched position on all fours. The box is far larger than the candy, which is a good thing for a pet, though kind of wasteful as far as packaging. (The bunny is 5 inches long and 3 inches high, the box is 6.5 inches long and four inches high.)

I liked the little box and thought a clever or motivated child might enjoy making use of it to keep a small stuffed animal or other light toys. Unfortunately it’s poorly designed. The little tab in the top that tucks in comes undone when the little carrying handle is used, even when the box is empty. A little tape will fix that (that’s the way it comes in the store), but a bit more thought would have made this far more useful with probably no extra work or weight in the packaging.

There’s a web page just for the My Little Bunny where kids can download an adoption certificate or play games.

The candy itself is subpar. I’ve had the chocolate flavored rabbit before which looked completely fake, like some sort of vinyl dog toy. This one looks like chocolate and is called chocolatey n’ smooth crisp n’ crunchy candy which I figure is a Nestle Crunch simulation.

Since there are no easily accessible ears, I just smashed the hollow bunny instead.

It smells like caramel and chocolate cake, not actual chocolate. The ingredients are sugar, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (Palm Kernel and/or Palm Oil), whey, lactose, crisp rice, cocoa, skim milk, soy lecithin and vanillin. My goodness, cocoa is really far down on that list. On top of that look at the second ingredient, palm oil. Nestle has being going through a huge issue recently for not moving to sustainable palm oil - that campaign has targeted the KitKat bar, which uses a little dash of the stuff, for most RM Palmer products it’s a major component. It’s short sighted to encourage kids to “adopt” a chocolate bunny instead of a real one but then not use sustainable ingredients in the product itself. (Save a bunny, trash a rainforest?)

The flavor is sweet, the texture is grainy and there aren’t nearly enough crisped rice bits to make each bite crunchy. The cocoa notes are like cardboard and there’s a greasy film on the roof of my mouth by the time I finished three bites.

Blech. At least I can wrap what’s left back up in the foil and put it back in the little box and look at it instead.

Related Candies

1. Cookies ‘n’ Creme Showdown
2. R.M. Palmer Quax - The Yummy Ducky
3. Palmer Hollow Chocolate Flavored Bunny
4. Palmer Bee Mine

Nestle has wisely decided to up their support for the Wonka brand.

The Wonka brand of candies was launched shortly after the release of the 1971 movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. They were originally made by Sunline but Nestle bought up Sunline (also the maker of SweeTarts and Pixy Stix) in 1988.  At that time the Wonka brand consisted of a combination of candies mentioned in the book, such as Everlasting Gobstoppers but mostly fanciful original creations such as Peanut Butter Oompas (picture here), Super Scrunch (picture here). They later focusing more on profitable and successful sugar candies such as Wacky Wafers (picture here), Dweebs, Runts, DinaSour Eggs (picture here) and of course Nerds.

The early Wonka Scrumdidilyumptious bar was a “chocolately caramel crisp” - the format was rather long, thick and narrow. (See this counter display.)

Nestle is reinvigorating the brand, both the sugar candy side (new gummis like Sluggles & Puckerooms, sour filled licorice like Kazoozles and chocolate popping candy like Tinglerz). Their chocolate line called Wonka Exceptionals capitalizes both on the imaginative side of the Wonka character from the Roald Dahl books as well as the quality aspect which has been largely lacking in previous chocolate products. The launch is with three different bars and foil wrapped pieces: Scrumdiddlyumptious, Domed Dark Chocolate & Chocolate Waterfall.

This new version of the Wonka Scrumdiddlyumptious Bar is spelled slightly differently: diddly instead of didily. It’s listed on the back of the package as Bar No. 17 and described as Milk chocolate with scrumptious toffee, crispy cookie & crunchy peanuts. Sounds good! No one else is making a bar quite like this, so it’s exciting to see them creating something original instead of a different packaging format of an existing product.

The little foil wrapped pieces are cute. They’re 1.25” long, 1” wide and about .33” high. They smell lightly chocolatey, but not as peanutty as I expected. The texture of the milk chocolate is super smooth and silky - a far cry from the waxy stuff in other Nestle products. It’s exceptionally sweet though, so too much of it and it burned my throat. The inclusions were little bits of graham cracker like cookies (digestive biscuits is perhaps more appropriate for comparison), little buttery toffee nuggets and peanut bits.

The variations in the nuggets meant that some pieces and bites were more interesting than others. The toffee had a good crunch to it and a salty note. The peanuts were not deeply roasted and were more grassy but still gave a different chew. The cookie pieces were mild and gave a malty cereal note to it.

The chocolate quality is a huge upgrade from the Wonka Bar (which is now discontinued - these will replace it). I don’t think I’d spend the premium for this in a bar format mostly because the Green & Black’s Peanut bar is truly scrumptious, similarly price but also organic & soon to be Fair Trade). However, foil wrapped pieces are different enough to warrant consideration.

Each piece is less than 50 calories, so if you have trouble controlling portions with a large bar, these are a nice option.

The packaging is fanciful, though definitely cluttered and not that easy to read as most of the colors are the same value. The holographic plastic is a bit of overkill as far as I’m concerned (and probably resource intensive) but I’m guessing the bags without the “Golden Ticket” giveaway will be a bit clearer. I was most impressed with the fact that they were even creative with the bar code on the package.

The product line is expensive, we’re talking Dove or Hershey’s Bliss level, not the ordinary Nestle Crunch prices. The bags I picked up hold 9.5 ounces and were $4.99 each. (The press release from the company said retail is $4.49 and I’m guessing there will be sales where you can find them for about $3 a bag.) The bars are 3.5 ounces and retail for $2.49 each.

Related Candies

1. Wonka Exceptionals Domed Dark Chocolate
2. Wonka Exceptionals: Chocolate Waterfall
3. Wolfgang Skipjacks & Jungle Jacks
4. Hershey’s Bliss
5. Wonka Nerds Jelly Beans
6. Wonka Golden Egg
7. Dove Chocolate
8. Wonka Bar

I reckon there are some very excited people out there to find the new Q.Bel 70% Double Dark Wafer Bars. Not because they’re all natural, preservative free and free of hydrogenated oils. Nope, it’s because they’re vegan. No dairy, no honey, no glazes and no colorings.

The package doesn’t herald the vegan-ness (but the Q.bel website does). The package feels, to me, collegiate. I don’t know if it’s the colors that remind me of a library or a winter scarf (no, none of these were colors for the colleges I attended)

The bars are the same format as the Mint Wafer Bars and the Dark Wafer Bars. There are three layers of crispy flavorless wafers (like ice cream cones) with a chocolate creme between then. Then the whole thing is covered in 70% dark chocolate.

These are not a sweet treat, they are dark and a little bitter and all delicious. The chocolate punch is substantial. The bar smells like chocolate and except for the lightly malty crisp wafers, that’s really the only flavor. It has a dry and bitter bite to it, a good silky smooth texture, but probably a little too much on the smoky and bitter side for me to eat as a plain bar. But in this format with airy wafers and grainy sugary chocolate cream centers I found the perfect balance.

Q.bel gave me an insane amount of “samples”, full display boxes, again. And like the last time I put them on my bookshelf in my office and found that even the folks in my office who don’t normally go for dark chocolate liked them, and of course those who do love dark were enthralled by the textures and deep flavor. Now that I’ve found a source in stores (Whole Foods stocks them for $1.39 a bar) I will definitely buy them, now that my inventory is gone.

The only thing I’d like would be for the bars to be slightly bigger, maybe 1.3 ounces. However, the calories per ounce are pretty high, so keeping each finger below 100 calories is probably a good idea. (The package is 180 calories.)

Other reviews (I think I’m alone in my overwhelming preference for this bar but it still gets high marks): ZOMG Candy, BitterSweet, Chocolate Blog.

Related Candies

1. Ritter Sport Neapolitan Wafers
2. Q.Bel Mint Wafer Bars
3. Q.Bel Wafer Rolls
4. Q.Bel Crispy Wafer Bars
5. Fairhaven Candy Crumblz!
6. KitKat Bitter & White

Ritter Sport makes a bar for everyone. I don’t know how many different varieties they’ve actually make and I know I haven’t tried more than half of them. They have an awesome website that does everything I want a candy maker’s website to do: inform, entice and engage.

This new bar isn’t even listed on the website yet: Ritter Sport Neapolitan Wafers. The burnt orange wrapper stands out in the rainbow of bars, different enough from the saffron yellow Cornflakes bar (my favorite). I know, my photo makes it look orange-red, but it’s just one of those colors that computer monitors just don’t like to display without a lot of tinkering.

The package describes it as milk chocolate with chocolate cream filled wafers and praline. In Ritter-speak, praline is a hazelnut cream.

The bar is beautiful. All Ritter Sport bars are beautiful. A bulky square, four by four, with thick sections. In this case it’s thick enough to hold the layers inside so it’s more bitable. (Other solid varieties are a little harder to bite, there’s more gnawing involved or I suppose I just snap off the pieces.)

The bar is not quite what I expected. I thought the praline would be between the wafer layers.

Instead there are wafer layers, a kind of bland and crispy wafer like a rice cake, but between them is a thin bit of mild and sweet chocolate cream. So far so good. Then on top of that is a rather generous hazelnut paste. It’s sweet and nutty and a little rib-sticking thick. The crunch of the wafers gets a little lost, as there’s just not enough to offset the thick praline. I’m not saying it’s bad, I had no trouble finishing the bar, but I kind of wanted the ratios to be a little bit different.

As usual the Ritter Sport milk chocolate was excellent. Milky with little caramel and smoke notes, it’s a bit on the sweet side. Overall it was a little on the sweet side for me (a dark chocolate version, please!) and I’m wondering if the mini version might be a little better on the ratios of crunch to sticky thickness. The crunch sensation isn’t quite the same as a KitKat, if you were wondering. It’s simply not grainy enough and too nuanced. They also use hydrogenated palm kernel oil and palm kernel oil in the fillings, so it’s not all pure nutty, milky & cocoa ingredients in there.

Here’s a sampling of photos, many are the seasonal varieties that never show up in the US. Other reviews: Jim’s Chocolate Mission & The Candy Enthusiast.

Related Candies

1. Walkers Nonsuch Roasted Hazelnut Toffee
2. Ritter Sport Peppermint
3. Short & Sweet: Hazelnut Bites
4. Ritter Sport White Chocolate with Hazelnuts
5. KitKat Temptations: Hazelnut & Coconut
6. Ritter Darks
7. Ritter Sport Assortment