Since I knew I was going to be traveling, I thought I’d pick up some easy to carry chocolate for my trip a few weeks ago. I know that I’m guilty of ignoring Godiva here on the blog, even though it’s a major upscale brand of chocolate here in the United States, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to give some of their chocolate a go.

Godiva introduced their Chocoiste line which features all sorts of fun goodies that are convenient to carry for a little pick-me-up and sold at lots of stores, not just their outlets.

I chose the Godiva Chocoiste Dark Chocolate Pearls as a way to experience their dark chocolate without any of the muss of fuss of their fancy boxes.

The tin is lovely, tall and narrow with an elegant simplicity and holds 1.5 ounces.

I ran into trouble quickly though. I couldn’t and still can’t get the frelling thing open. Once I did get it open, my thumbtips were sore and this experience repeated each bowb-bowb time I wanted to try a little more. (I even thought it’d losen up, but after three weeks with this frakking thing, I feel like I’m demonstrating my inability to learn from my ficky-fick mistakes and I should just dump them into a ziploc.)

Each of the little pearls are the size of garden peas. Glossy and dark, they are attractive and ready to prove they’re spherical by rolling around the airplane tray table. (Yes, I put down a napkin first, I do have some standards of sanitation.) Luckily they also sit easily on my keyboard near lesser used keys.

The dark chocolate isn’t particularly dark (and contains dairy products like butteroil and milk) but is mellow and rich with a smooth melt. It’s certainly a step up from M&Ms, but at this price ($3.95 a tin) it’s hardly worth it. I would enjoy the tin if it weren’t so expletively frustrating.

Though I tried the dark chocolate first, I spent more time with the Godiva Chocoiste Dark Chocolate Pearls with Mint simply because the tin worked. It opened easily but stayed snapped shut firmly during all my travels.

The pearls looked exactly the same as the plain dark chocolate ones. They smelled like freshly crushed peppermint and spearmint leaves. The chocolate was smooth and had a cool touch of mint that tasted absolutely fresh and authentic.

Both pearl varieties use a resinous glaze, so are unsuitable for strict vegetarians.

Godiva also makes a Mandarin Orange version of the Dark Chocolate that I think I would like very much. Their other versions include Milk Chocolate Pearls, White Chocolate Pearls and Milk Chocolate Caffe Latte Pearls. Other items in the Chocoiste line include chocolate panned nuts & fruits, and solid chocolate bars.

I can see these being a nice gift item or stocking stuffer and the tins are wonderfully shaped and reusable (you could stuff your iPod earbuds in there or just refill with some other treat of your choice). As an everyday item, in this economy and most others I’ve experienced, I’d have to pass.

Other Chocoiste reviews: Sugar Hog tried the Milk Chocolate Domes, The Eating Well tried the Raspberry Bar and Food Mayhem sampled many of the Chocoiste products.

Related Candies

1. Godiva Spring Pearls
2. Russell Stover Color Me Candies
3. Hershey-ets
4. Chuao Chocolate Blocks from LEGOLAND
5. Hershey’s Special Dark Pieces
6. M&Ms Premiums

I’ve been searching high and low for the Hershey’s Caramel Apple Kisses and finally found them in the Hershey’s homeland, Hershey’s Chocolate World in Pennsylvania.

The Kisses join the large array of Limited Edition Kisses. The Fall themed ones this year are the return of the Candy Corn Kisses and the new Pumpkin Spice Kisses. These are the only milk chocolate Kisses in the bunch.

Caramel apples are kind of fun, and a rather simple idea. An apple, on a stick, dipped into caramel. This candy is like dipping an apple into caramel and then dipping that into chocolate. (Well, it’s actually more like flavoring some caramel with apple and injecting that into a Kiss shaped chocolate mold. The wholesomeness of the actual apple is completely missing here.)

As usual, Hershey’s has created an appealing package. The foils are swirls of orange and red with flags that say Caramel Apple on them.

Since I picked these up right at the factory, they were fresh and stored well. Each Kiss was glossy and firm, nicely molded.

They smell mostly of chocolate. The caramel innards are soft and flowing, more like a sauce than a chewy caramel. It’s smooth and has an apple peel flavor to it along with the caramel flavor. The authentic caramel notes of burnt sugar are absolutely missing as is the butter flavor.

It’s pleasant though, but throat-searingly sweet after two or three. I can say that I appreciate them, and it’s a nice flavor combo without tasting overly artificial but lacks any of the experience of a true Caramel Apple.

Not the nicest looking list of ingredients, the chocolate wasn’t stellar and the combination of flavors was still way too sweet. I give them a 5 out of 10. (Kosher)

The second caramel apple themed item I stumbled on last week are the Goetze’s Apple Caramel Creams.

Bullseyes are a bit harder to find on the West Coast, but I ran across lots in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

As is often the case with Goetze’s, this is a repack of the individually wrapped product under the Giant Eagle “Candy Place” label. But they were also only a dollar, so I can’t complain about the house branding.

They’re rather odd looking, but only because I’m used to the mellow caramel color and the shocking white center.

Here it’s the same caramel donut shape with a filling of intense red. For some reason these are a little greasier on the surface than other Bullseyes that I get, but they were also soft, so maybe that’s a side effect of freshness.

They smell more like Green Apple Jolly Ranchers than caramel and sugar.

I didn’t know what to expect, so I what I got was a shock. The cream center is tart. It’s like a cream paste of apple SweeTarts. It’s soft and tangy and does have a nice artificial apple flavor. In a way this is more “authentic” to the experience of combining an actual apple with caramel. Apples are tangy. But here it’s a very tangy apple, soft and cool on the tongue.

I’ve eaten quite a few of them now and I’m still debating whether I enjoy them or not. The stick-to-your-ribs, cookie-dough-like caramel is satisfying and filling, but the chemical aftertaste of the apple cream center is very odd and it just makes me want a regular Bullseye (and the bitter aftertaste from the Red 40 coloring is never pleasant for me, but your mileage may vary).

I give them a 5 out of 10 as well. This may be my overall feeling about real caramel apples as well.

Related Candies

1. Milk Maid Caramel Apple Candy Corn
2. Caramel Apple Sugar Babies
3. Limited Edition Hot Cocoa Kisses
4. Mary Jane Peanut Butter Kisses
5. Goetze’s Caramel Creams
6. Head to Head: Rolo vs Caramel Kisses
7. Cow Tails

Tiramisu is another one of those desserts that I’d always assumed was around forever. That perhaps it originated in Italy, that every valley in Italy had a different regional take on it and every Italian-American grandma put their own twist on it.

Nope, totally invented, perhaps sometime in the 1970s, by a restaurant. But hey, traditions have to start somewhere.

Tiramisu is an odd dessert if you ask me, the recipe reminds me of other strange dessert concoctions torn from women’s magazines that require store bought cookies, flavored gelatins, saltines or pre-made syrups.

The flavors of tiramisu are coffee and sweet creamy cheese with a little cocoa thrown in. So it’s sort of like a mocha cheesecake.

The wrappers on these are more enticing that the day-glo yellow of the Bananas Foster, an attractive bronze with difficult to read gold print.

Caramel: corn syrup, hydrogenated palm kernel and/or palm oil, sugar, skim milk, milkfat, lactose, salt, artificial and natural flavors, potassium sorbate.

The Dove Desserts Tiramisu starts with a dark chocolate shell. It has a pleasant cocoa and light espresso aroma.

The caramel center has a light salty flavor, a custardy smooth texture. So the creamy marscapone aspect is missing, as are the spongy ladyfingers.

Does it scream Tiramisu to me? Nope. Caramel mocha is more like it, not that it’s a bad thing.

Related Candies

1. Dove Silky Smooth Milk Chocolate Bars
2. Banana n Cream & Red Orange Mentos
3. Zotter Candy Bars
4. Dove Promises (Caramel & Almonds)
5. Elvis Reese’s Peanut Butter and Banana Cup
6. Chuao ChocoPod Collection
7. Dove Jewels

I’m still on my quest to replace the Krackel bar and have been finding all sorts of chocolate and crisped rice bars that area actually better than I remember the Krackel ever being.

Not to spoil the ending of this review but I’ll say right now that the Ghiaradelli Luxe Milk Crisp bar vaults to the second slot on that list. Not that there are a lot of bars on the list at the moment. (Seeds of Change Isle of Skye is above it, seeing how it’s similarly priced and organic.)

This bar is new, part of Ghirardelli new expanded line of gourmet bars. It comes at a gourmet price though, I paid $2.99 for this 2.81 ounce bar. It is all natural, Kosher and made in the USA.

Their gourmet-ification of such a simple bar is kind of amusing. Here’s their description of it:

This rich and creamy milk chocolate made from the finest cocoa beans is perfectly complemented with lightly toasted crisped rice. Take in the heavenly aroma and let the ultimate chocolate pleasure linger.

(Bold emphasis theirs, really!)

The bar certainly does look awesome. It was near perfect, without the scrapes and nicks that many of the bars I pick up have.

What pleased me most at first glance was how many crispies there are in the bar.

So I took a photo of the bar flipped over so you could see it, too. Instead of those little engineered ball bearing sized ones that Nestle uses for their Crunch bar these days, these look like actual crisped rice grains (made with millled rice, sugar, salt and barley malt).

There’s another thing that this photo also shows, how thin the bar is. What I like about the Hershey’s Miniatures and the World’s Finest W.F. Crisp bar was how thick they were, it allowed the rice to be completely enveloped by the chocolate. Here the rice floats almost as a separate layer from the chocolate, not blanketed by it instead just a thin sheet of chocolate.

It smells more like breakfast cereal or toast than chocolate. Kind of like milk or mozzarella and fresh baked bread.

That aside, this crisped rice is insanely crispy and fresh. Rarely do I have a chocolate bar that makes so much noise in my head.

The milk chocolate is exquisitely smooth and creamy with a strong powdered milk flavor (whole milk powder is the only dairy ingredient). It’s hearty and sweet at the same time. Notes of caramel, yeast and malt.

I was all set to give this an 8 out of 10 because of the price, but then I looked it up on the Walgreen’s website and they list it at $2.29 ... which I find much more reasonable. I’d be torn at that price though between eating this and the Ritter Sport Corn Flakes (Knusperflakes) bar. This milk chocolate is better, but I love the malty crisp of the corn flakes. I prefer the thicker bite of the Isle of Skye as well. The other option for the same price is the Wheat Chocolate I found in Little Tokyo. What a happy day to have so many choices!

I do hope that Ghirardelli comes out with these in the little individual squares, since no one else is making a single bite version of a crisped rice & milk chocolate these days.

Related Candies

1. Scharffen Berger Milk Nibby Bar
2. World’s Finest W.F. Crisp
3. Sweet Earth Chocolate Cups
4. BonBonBars: Malt Ganache & Scotch
5. Ritter Sport White Chocolate with Hazelnuts
6. Endangered Species: Peanut Butter Brittle & Rice Crisp

As the whole thing about Hershey’s and the swap of chocolate for mockolate came up on other blogs and news sites, I noticed quite a few people expressing a preference for Nestle.

I thought, “What am I missing here?” Well, first of all, plain old Nestle Milk Chocolate bars aren’t that easy to find. But with a bit of persistence I did find this fresh 5 ounce “great to share” size bar.

First, I looked at the wrapper pretty carefully. Though Nestle is a Swiss company, this bar was made in Brazil. The ingredients don’t make it sound great, but I try to keep an open mind: sugar, chocolate, cocoa butter, nonfat milk, lactose, soy lecithin, PGPR & vanillin.

So in this case the milk was much lower on the list than other milk chocolates (M&Ms and Hershey’s Milk Chocolate), so maybe it’s a darker tasting milk chocolate.

The Nestle website reveals this little tidbit about the Nestle Milk Chocolate bar’s past:

Searching far into its European and American records, NESTL? has come as close as possible to the original milk chocolate formula invented in Vevey, Switzerland in 1875 by Henri Nestle. In the U.S. NESTL? has been manufacturing milk chocolate since the early 1900s. In 1984, NESTL? Milk Chocolate candy bars were introduced.

Okay, at least I’m not crazy, because I don’t remember plain Nestle chocolate bars being around when I was a kid. There was another strange line on both Nestle’s corporate page and their chocolate classics website, NESTL? Milk Chocolate tastes the way you expect great chocolate should taste, offering a milk chocolate alternative that the entire family can enjoy any time. So what the blazes is a milk chocolate alternative? Or is it the any time part I should be clued into, is that some sort of code that means that this is a morning chocolate bar?

It does look a bit darker than many mass-marketed milk chocolate bars. It was even and glossy and has a pleasant powdered milk and chocolate scent.

The bar has a rather soft snap but look well tempered. The melt on the tongue is fudgy, not slick or silky smooth, it’s still pleasant. I got a slight aftertaste, kind of like that from powdered milk.

The taste isn’t very chocolatey. It’s not overly sweet and has a lot of milk taste to it, but really lacks much else. It would go well with inclusions like crisped rice or nuts but as a bar where this is all I had to go on, it really didn’t satisfy at all.

I’m not one to be disrespectful towards other people’s preferences (ya like whatcha like!)  and this bar was certainly inexpensive, but I wouldn’t rank it higher in quality than Hershey’s Milk Chocolate or M&Ms Milk Chocolate. In fact, I think I throw it a notch below Hershey’s, just because I didn’t enjoy the flavor. (That doesn’t make it a bad bar, before you go thinking I’m a hater, I just didn’t like it.)

Now, just so you know, Nestle does make other true Swiss chocolate and I have tried that and found it quite tasty, just not American (North or South, as the case may be) and also costs four times as much.

Thank goodness the wrapper tells me it’s great to share, otherwise I wouldn’t know what to do with it.

Related Candies

1. Carlos V: Dark Knight
2. Nestle Noir
3. Nestle Crunch (Now Even Richer Milk Chocolate)
4. Chunky
5. Head-to-Head: Smarties vs. M&Ms

While I’m probably painted as something of an anti-mockolate crusader, I don’t hate all quasi-chocolate products. Things like Andes Mints and Goldenberg’s Peanut Chew are pretty good even though they’re not quite real chocolate candies.

So I thought I’d give the Andes Fall Harvet limited edition mix a try.

It includes three flavors: toffee, orange and cocoa. Each little plank of candy is individually wrapped and comes in a nicely designed bag with orange leaf outlines all over it. Instead of the usual Andes logo on each piece of candy, these have three random embossed harvest themed designs.

The ingredients aren’t promising: Sugar, partially hydrogenated vegetable oils (palm kernel & palm), nonfat milk, cocoa, lactose, milk protein concentrate, cocoa processed wtih alkalai, corn syrup solids, soy lecithin, salt, baking soda, molasses, orange oil, natural and artificial flavors, artificial colors (yellow 5 & 6).

The burnt yellow wrapper makes me think more of mustard than Toffee. It smells of butter and sugar, which is a very encouraging sign.

This piece is the only one of the set that’s not layered like Andes Mints. Instead it’s a milk chocolatey confection with toffee bits mixed in.

The toffee bits are very crisp and crunchy and remind me more of a brittle (which is often a bit foamy but not quite a honeycomb or sponge candy). The crunches are a little salty as well. The mockolate confection is very sweet but doesn’t have much cocoa flavor to it. A little on the waxy side at room temperature, it does okay texture-wise in the mouth.

I love the combo of orange and chocolate. The Orange was really what got me to buy this bag.

It smells like orange confection, kind of like a cheap version of Terry’s Chocolate Orange.

It’s quite sweet and a little grainy on the tongue (kind of like a Terry’s Chocolate Orange). The orange essence is quite pronounced with a strong zest and slight bitterness to it. To balance that there’s plenty of sugar. But don’t expect any dash of chocolate flavor in there. It might be a cocoa colored confection on the top and bottom, but the orange flavor goes straight through.

The least appealing of the assortment was Cocoa.

It’s the same light colored mockolate confection as the other two, this time with a darker mockolate sandwiched in the middle.

It’s a little saltier than the orange one, which helps. It does taste a bit like hot cocoa, but also a little like cardboard and Tootsie Rolls.

Four pieces provided 50% of my daily intake of saturated fat ... and not even a good one like cocoa butter.

I think I’ll stick with the original from now on.

Related Candies

1. Goldie’s Premium Carob Bar
2. Bel Chocolatey Bars
3. Kissables (Reformulated)
4. M&Ms Premiums
5. Dove Silky Smooth Milk Chocolate Bars
6. Roca Buttercrunch Thins

A few keen eyed readers and Candy Forums friends spotted the new Reese’s Bar. (I’m not sure what this is actually called. The wrapper says: Milk Chocolate Reese’s filled with Reese’s Peanut Butter. But that sounds infinitely silly and doesn’t even include that it’s a bar and not a cup.)

I’ve only seen it so far in a 4.5 ounce size and only at Walgreen’s. But it was on sale for $1.00 and has disappeared in the weeks since I purchased it.

It was easy to spot what with the Reese’s orange wrapper.

The ingredients list is incredibly long:

Milk chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, chocolate, nonfat milk, milk fat, corn syrup solids, soy lecithin, TBHQ), peanuts, sugar, dextrose, cocoa butter, chcoolate, nonfat milk, milk fat & contains 2% or less of partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (plam kernel and palm oil), salt, wheat flour, cornstarch, vegetable oil (cocoa butter, palm, palm kernel, shea, sunflower and/or safflower oil), whey, TBHQ, soy lecithin, leavening (sodium bicarbonate & sodium aluminium phosphate), vanillin.

The bar is attractive and thick. Each lightly rounded section holds a portion of crumbly yet smooth Reese’s Peanut Butter filling.

What’s clearly evident about this bar is that it’s all about chocolate and less about the peanut butter than the traditional cups.

I usually prefer the high ratio of peanut butter such as the Reese’s Eggs around Easter, but for those looking for the opposite end of the spectrum, this is an interesting flip.

The difference in ratios aside, this bar is far harder to eat and share though certainly a good value.

What confused me most about this bar was that Hershey’s already has a peanut butter filled bar. I’ve even reviewed it.

It looks pretty much the same - 4.5 ounces and the same number of sections. Really the only difference in looking at them is that this bar says Hershey’s on top of each section instead of Reese’s.

But it is different. The center here is smoother and a bit stickier and perhaps even saltier.

The ingredients list is shorter by about a third:

Milk chocolate (sugar, milk, chocolate, cocoa butter, mikl fat, soy lecithin, PGPR, vanillin), peanuts, sugar, dextrose, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (palm kernel and palm oil), cocoa butter and contains 2% or less of salt, cornstarch & TBHQ.

I questioned the purpose of this bar the first time I tried it and why it was under the Hershey’s label and not Reese’s. I don’t know if both bars will continue to co-exist but if they have a limited number of slots I’d recommend dumping them both and concentrating on the quality of their core products. It’s not that it’s bad, but it’s just superfluous.

Some Reese’s products are gluten free, but this one lists wheat in the ingredients.

Related Candies

1. Hershey’s Miniatures
2. Hershey’s Heart’s Desire
3. Reese’s Pieces
4. Reese’s Whipps
5. The Great Pumpkin Roundup
6. Trader Joe’s Mini Peanut Butter Cups
7. Reese’s Bars

One of the classic and more distinctive products that See’s makes is their line of Lollypops. They’re made with cream and are more like a hard caramel than a normal boiled sugar hard candy pop.

The regular flavors shift around but right now they sell: Butterscotch, Chocolate, Vanilla and Caf? Latt?. I like all of them except for the chocolate. It tends to be grainier and if I have the option of actual chocolate right there at See’s, well that’s what I’m going to go for. But the one thing the pops have going for them is that they’re so darn durable. Summer-safe, creamy candy is pretty hard to find.

Every once in a while they bring out new flavors. This fall they have a limited edition Pumpkin Spice Lollypops that should be available until Thanksgiving.

The ingredients are pretty simple: corn syrup, cream, sugar, natural and artificial flavors, butter and yellow #5. I don’t know why they have to put artificial colors in there, but I guess I’m guessing that they’d look fine without it, maybe they don’t.

The packages are a little box that holds a bag of eight pops. Not a bad price either at only $4.80 for the set (60 cents each). Each paper stick pop is wrapped in orange mylar

See’s pops are big blocks. Kind of chunky and perhaps a little big for easy-to-eat suckers. (Sometimes I pull them off the stick and eat them as hard candies.)

These are rather light in color and don’t smell like much other than maybe caramel.

They’re very smooth and melt slowly. Extremely creamy and not overly sweet they’re also a bit bland.

I had the first one and thought maybe it was that my allergies were acting up and I couldn’t taste any of these pumpkin spices, so I waited a few days and checked my sinuses and had another. They sweet and creamy and taste a bit like creme brulee ... but I’m not getting any actual spices I associate with pumpkin custard like cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice or ginger.

I wouldn’t call them bad, just nothing like the name would imply.

As a side note, earlier this summer they had a limited edition Root Beer. I got a hold of this while shopping with Sera of The Candy Enthusiast in July. She bought a whole package (the limited edition flavors are not sold individually like the classic ones are) and graciously shared two with me.

I loved them and went back in August to pick up a whole package for myself and was told they were all gone.

These pops were a wonderful mix of creamy smoothness, light sweetness and the spicy bite of root beer. It was kind of like a root beer float, but warmer. Root beer floats often suffer from tasting watered down when the ice cream mixes with the root beer, instead this had all the creaminess of ice cream and the intense flavor of root beer mixed together.

They’ll have Cinnamon Lollypops for Christmas. Each pop is 70 calories and they’re Kosher.

Related Candies

1. Nips: Caramel & Dulce de Leche
2. J Morgan Caramels
3. Melville Candy Company Honey Spoons
4. Vertigo Pops
5. Regennas Clear Toys