Yes, I’m the type of person who eats sugar straight. Mostly brown sugar, but sometimes raw sugar and of course honey. Then there’s maple sugar. That’s a kind of sugar that’s actually marketed in little molded shapes to be eaten straight by non-sugar-obsessed folks.

Big Sky Brands of Canada is known for their little compressed sugar candies like Jones Soda Carbonated Candies and Yogen Fruz Smoothies. Their new Maple Ice Mints Original are far more subtle and dare I say, elegant.

The tin is rather ordinary but does the job. It has all the convincing faux wood grain of a early 1980s station wagon. It’s about 3.25 inches long and 1.75 inches wide.

Inside the tin are 30 little mints, each is about the size of an extra strength aspirin. They have a small maple leaf on one side. They smooth but leave a little powdery residue. They smell woodsy and sweet, like maple. The ingredients list both cane sugar and maple sugar, the color of them is a light sandy white and since there are no artificial colors in there, I’m guessing that’s the maple sugar that does that.

They’re sweet and have a light fresh mint hint far in the back, but mostly they’re a soft maple flavor. The great thing about the maple flavor is that it’s not sticky like the syrup and other sugar candies.

The problem with them is the price, I suppose. They were about $2 for less than an ounce. It’s tough in a Tic Tac and Altoids world to sink twice as much money into these. They’re not minty enough for me to consider them a mint, in that mints are consumed one or two at a time and then set aside for another day. Nope, I wanted to eat the whole box of them at once. I succeeded in eating them in three separate sittings. They still leave my mouth fresh and were wonderful with tea or just as a little delight in the middle of computer frustrations.

The package doesn’t say anything about the gluten status or nuts but they do appear to be all natural and probably vegan. (There’s calcium stearate in there, but I’ve never seen a candy that uses an animal source for the ingredient since the vegetable version is so cheap.)

Related Candies

1. Rogers’ Chocolates Victoria Creams
2. Yogen Fruz Smoothies
3. Russell Stover Eggs (2009 edition)
4. Caramilk Maple
5. VerMints
6. Jones Soda Grape Carbonated Candy

Godiva Chocolatier has been moving into more stores lately - places like Cost Plus World Market and even drug stores like CVS. This holiday was the first time I saw them in my ordinary grocery store (Von’s). The mass-market fare isn’t quite like the stuff in their shops, it’s small bites (Gems) and bars along with their Chocoiste line of little pearls.

They’re still rather expensive, this bag of Godiva Gems Peppermint Truffles was selling for $6.00 before Christmas. Though the bag looks pretty big (similar to the stand up bags from Ghirardelli which holds nearly 3 times as much), it only holds 3.5 ounces. But after Christmas I snagged this for only $2.64 ... a fair price for a real white chocolate product.

The package says: White chocolate with creamy candy cane filling.

The package warns that some settling of contents may occur in shipping, and they’re not kidding. There are 10 individually wrapped Gems inside, making two layers - that’s a lot of empty space in the bag. Each sphere is wrapped in a candy cane striped mylar twist.

The truffles are about 1 inch in diameter. They’re not completely spherical, they’re slightly faceted, I’m guessing to go with the Gems part of the name. They remind me of well-used polyhedral dice.

They’re formed from two hemispheres, so there’s a distinct seam in the center. Sometimes with a little gentle pressure on opposite sides of the seam, I can pop the sides apart. They’re each filled with the pink cream and then joined together with some more white chocolate.

The pieces are soft, the shell yields easily when bitten. The center is a soft cream made of white chocolate, sugar alcohols, butter and some palm oil along with some red food coloring and peppermint flavor. There’s just a little dash of salt in there. The sorbitol and xylitol are used as sweeteners to good effect. Both of them are lower in calories but they also are less sweet and provide a cooling effect on the tongue. (Some folks cannot tolerate sugar alcohols, but I don’t think there’s much in here.)

They were good quality, I liked that the ganache filling wasn’t greasy and thin tasting like the Lindt Lindor Truffles, which I see these as competing with. But the flavor combo wasn’t really best for me, I wanted a rich, silky dark chocolate shell and the white chocolate, minty ganache center. White chocolate lovers may disagree though. They’re not too sweet, which is also refreshing.

Related Candies

1. Russell Stover Peppermint Bark Snowman
2. Wonka Exceptionals Peppermint Shortbread Chocolate Pieces
3. Godiva Shamrock Truffles
4. Fannie May Mint Meltaway
5. Dove Peppermint Bark
6. Ghirardelli Holiday Squares
7. Lindt Lindor Truffle Eggs

I’ve often made fun of R.M. Palmer as a maker of horrible candy. I do my best though to keep an open mind whenever I approach a candy from them that I’ve never had. Sometimes I’m rewarded.

I picked up their Peppermint Patties since they were on display as a “great value” at RiteAid. It was only $1.00 for a 5 ounce bag of individually wrapped patties. Each little pattie is about 1.5 inches in diameter.

They’re molded instead of enrobed, which is kind of odd. (More like the Russell Stover version I mentioned last week in construction than the Haviland.) The molding has ripples on it to make them look liked they’ve been enrobed, but it’s easy to tell around the edge that they’re made in a mold. (And they look nothing like the image on the package, which I seem to have lost.)

The big difference between these and most other peppermint patties is the coating. This is not chocolate, it’s mockolate. The first ingredient on the list is sugar and the second is partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (palm kernel, coconut and/or palm oil). It’s really evident upon biting into them. The coating has a decent melt and the whole thing has a cool and fresh minty scent. The cocoa flavors are just that, plain old cocoa, like I’m eating that paste that you make with water and hot cocoa mix, not actual chocolate. The minty center is creamy and smooth and has a very subtle flavor, almost like peppermint bubble gum instead of a strong breath mint style.

Since there’s more coating than filling, these are very high on the calorie count for a peppermint pattie. York Peppermint Patties are about 115 calories per ounce, which is great for a product that contains real chocolate. These clock in at 152 calories per ounce. For that you can have an actual chocolate truffle (sure, it’ll cost more) and enjoy the real fats instead of this partially hydrogenated artery clogging crud.

They’re not horrible, they’re just not that good. I don’t plan on finishing the bag.

Related Candies

1. Russell Stover Assorted Wrapped Chocolates
2. Haviland Dark Chocolate Covered Thin Mints
3. King Leo Dark Chocolate Crunchy Patties
4. Sunspire Peppermint Pattie
5. Manhattan Chocolates Dipped Mint Cremes
6. Christmas Mint Round Up
7. Junior Mints Deluxe

I mentioned in the 2010 Christmas Candy Spotting rundown that I picked up this package of the new Russell Stover Peppermint Bark Snowman.

I love Peppermint Bark and I’m kind of disappointed that it’s not available year round. There are a lot of different variations on the idea of peppermint bark, but most involves layering different kinds of chocolate (dark or milk with white chocolate) along with a peppermint flavoring and probably crushed peppermint hard candies.

This package holds a cardboard try with six individually wrapped Peppermint Bark Snowmen. I got them for $1.99 but I expect they’re on sale some places.

Each molded snowman is rather small. They’re only 7/8 of an ounce and about 135 calories each, so this is a nice way to control portions.

It’s a two tone mold, the base is dark chocolate and the top layer is white chocolate. The package notes in bold and all caps type on the back that its MADE WITH 100% REAL CHOCOLATE. This is what spurred me to buy it. There are so many minty holiday candies that aren’t made with all cocoa butter these days, like the Hershey’s Candy Cane Kisses and even Andes Mints.

I can say that after eating these, it’s so obvious that real cocoa butter is superior to fractionated or partially hydrogenated tropical oils (and though all are high in calories, at least cocoa butter isn’t bad for your heart).

The fact that these “bark” snowmen are molded does ruin the rustic illusion of bark, but I have to say, I’m not really that fond of bark. I’m a believer in integration. If you want to put something in your chocolate bar, put it in there, get it all covered up. Don’t just let it float on top and get knocked off. Commit!

The base layer looks very dark, almost black. The ingredients mention that it’s made with chocolate processed with alkali, which often gives it that almost-black color. The flavor of the chocolate base reminded me of Oreos, it’s a toasted and smoky flavor. The melt is rich and smooth and though the chocolate flavor stands up to the others, it’s not overwhelming or bitter. The white chocolate is smooth and creamy, it has an excellent fresh dairy taste to it, more like butter than dried milk. Then there’s a light touch of peppermint. Though I think there are supposed to be peppermint candies in here, I didn’t get much. I ate three of the snowmen for this review and at first I thought that it was just a variation in the production run. But there were all rather sparse on the candy. This didn’t bother me.

It was like a good quality ice cream. Not too sweet, a good balance of flavors, clean and neat. I liked the portion and the molding was nicely done. I preferred the crispness of the flavors and clean distinction between the layers to the slightly more expensive Dove Peppermint Bark.

I really can’t find much fault with these at all. They’re not the most sophisticated candies in the world, but they were very well done. There are some artificial ingredients in there (there’s some red dye in the hard candy chips) but overall it tastes like a quality product considering the price (about 33 cents each). It would be nice if they can do other variations of the snowman for other holidays - I wouldn’t even mind seeing other flavor variations like strawberry for Valentine’s Day or Orange for Halloween. (I think Mint could return for Easter.)

Russell Stover really seems to shine with their holiday treats. These are easy to afford and stash in stockings or pass around at the office.

Related Candies

1. Florida Tropic Oranges
2. Dove Peppermint Bark
3. Ritter Sport Peppermint
4. Ghirardelli Holiday Squares
5. Trader Joe’s Peppermint Bark White Chocolate Bar
6. Jo’s Peppermint Crunch

For the past few months I’ve noticed this king sized bag of Russell Stover Assorted Fine Chocolates {individually wrapped} at CVS and RiteAid. It’s a rather simple looking bag and perhaps this photo doesn’t convey the massive size of it. It holds 20 ounces (1.4 pounds), so it’s kind of like picking up a gallon of milk.

The price wasn’t bad, both places were selling them for $9.99. But I didn’t really want them, so I didn’t buy them. Then I saw them on sale at Rite Aid for $7.88 and thought this was as good an opportunity as any ... especially when the price was down to a little more than $6 a pound for American made candy that uses real chocolate.

Inside unassuming bag are individually wrapped pieces of some of Russell Stover’s most popular “handcrafted in small batches” pieces of candy: Pecan Delight, Caramel, Mint Patty and Coconut. The wrappers are pretty subdued as well, just a plain white plastic with a picture of the candy and the name. They’re also a bit color coded, so it’s easy to pick them out.

The Pecan Delights really are delights. Sure they’re sweet and not terribly complex, but I get the impression that this package is all about comfort candies that satisfy a wide variety of people.

The milk chocolate coating is sweet but very smooth and has a good sticky milky quality. There caramel inside is stiff and chewy without being too hard or a danger to dental work. The pecans aren’t quite as dense as I would like, but they were fresh and crunchy.

I’ve tried the organic version of these before and thought they were good but not great. These were actually better as far as I was concerned than the DeMets Pecan Turtles, which I find sweet and lacking a strong toasted sugar flavor from the caramel.

The Caramel is a small patty, with an appealing artisan look. The milk chocolate forms pleasing ripples on top and smells milky. The piece is about an inch and a half around.

The caramel is firm and has a good chew to it without being too tough or stiff. The flavor is salty and has adequate burnt sugar notes to it. It’s a nice size, about two bites for me, but I could eat it all at once if I wanted to. The caramel reminded me of Milk Duds, but of course with a much better, real chocolate coating.

The Coconut piece is simple. If you’re a Mounds fan, this will be very familiar. A moist little log of sweet coconut covered in dark chocolate. It’s not as sweet or creamy as the Easter fare, which is fine with me. The coconut is chewy and not too sweet. The dark chocolate had just the lightest haze of bloom on it, but I find that’s not uncommon with coconut products because of the moisture/fat content. The flavor of the dark chocolate is good, it’s not as chalky and rough as Mounds though not completely decadent, it holds its own.

The pieces are small but easy to pop or savor slowly as two bites.

My Mint Patty I photographed has a slight bloom on it. I opened three for the photos and found them all in a similar state. Then I started eating them for review and found the rest to be pristine - dark and glossy and nicely molded.

The chocolate takes the center stage here because of the proportions. There’s a lot of chocolate and it has a strong woodsy and smoky flavor. The mint center is smooth and a little runny but also a bit salty. The mint flavor is subtle and has an almost toothpaste combination of both peppermint and spearmint.

I have to say that doing Candy Blog has really made me look at brands like Russell Stover again. I don’t think that I was wrong about them back in the eighties, I just think they’re a bit better than they used to be, at least they taste fresher. It’s pure luck that this assortment has all of my favorite combinations. Half the pieces are dark, there are some good quality nuts in there and for the sale price, I thought these were a good value.

The packaging isn’t really sexy or nifty, but it gets the job done. They’re a step above the Hershey’s, Mars or DeMets, so expect to pay for that. This is an assortment I plan on sharing at the office - a little something for everyone.

Related Candies

1. Haviland Dark Chocolate Covered Thin Mints
2. Mounds
3. Milky Way Simply Caramel
4. Robitaille’s Presidential Inaugural Mints & Turtles
5. Junior Mints Deluxe
6. See’s Scotchmallow

Trader Joe’s always has wonderful seasonal sweets, some return year after year; but a sharp eye yields new finds. This year’s newest addition is Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Minty Mallows.

The box says they’re Light and Fluffy Peppermint Marshmallows Drenched in Smooth, Dark Chocolate. They’re made in France and the box holds about 9 marshmallows (though the nutrition label says there are 10 in the package).

Last week I reviewed the new Peeps Chocolate Covered Peppermint Marshmallows and several people mentioned that I should try the new Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Minty Mallows. Believe me, I was right there with them. The first set of Peeps I bought, which was before Thanksgiving, were $1 each (1 ounce), so when I saw the price for the Trader Joe’s version was $2.99 (for 7 ounces), it made these a great value in comparison. I’ve since purchased additional Peeps at only 50 cents each, that’s still more expensive per ounce than Trader Joe’s.

Inside the trapezoidal box is a silver mylar pouch. The dark chocolate covered marshmallows are just tossed in there. So you can imagine that on their voyage from France they’ve gotten quite scuffed and tumbled. Some were cracked but all were intact and there was surprisingly little chocolate dust at the bottom of the bag.

Each piece is about 1.5 inches square (they’re really more rectangular, so maybe a smidge more than 1.5 on one side than the other) and about an inch high. They feel a bit heavier than I would have expected for a chocolate covered marshmallow.

It’s not that the photo above is lacking detail for the marshmallow. They’re not light and foamy like Peeps. They’re dense and quite moist, more like a cross between aerated gelatin and a gummi bear.

The texture, though not as meringue-like as I’d expected is still quite smooth. It’s like memory foam latex, chewy and lightly minty.

The chocolate outside is smooth and maybe little chalky but has enough dark chocolate punch to stand up to the strong mint. At 55% cocoa solids (and no milkfat) its strongest flavor component is woodsy and though not as creamy as I would have hoped, it still has a very smooth melt that complements the marshmallow. The chocolate also adheres nicely to the marshmallow, so even though it cracks a bit when biting, it sticks to the marshmallow to prevent messes and deliver every possible morsel of chocolate with the marshmallow.

For the most part I found these odd. One is rather rib-stickingly satisfying, so a box of 9 or 10 of these goes a long way. I didn’t try melting them for S’mores or in Hot Chocolate. I don’t know if I’ll buy them again, but I found them far superior in ingredients, satisfaction and even presentation from the Just Born Peeps. I can see these being a fun product in the future with alternate versions with different flavored marshmallows (orange, strawberry, cinnamon, licorice). I might like to see them packaged in trays, in little fluted cups or something that keeps them from tumbling around, because I bet they’re stunning right off the confectionery line.

Related Candies

1. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Mints
2. Russell Stover Giant S’mores Bar & Mint Dream
3. Trader Joe’s Gummy Tummies
4. Trader Joe’s French Truffles
5. Bubu Lubu
6. Upscale Hollow Chocolate: Michel Cluizel & Hotel Chocolat
7. Trader Joe’s Peppermint Marshmallows
8. Trader Joe’s Fleur de Sel Caramels

Just Born introduced Chocolate Covered Peeps for Easter 2010. They also made an appearance in the pumpkin shape for Halloween. But the most interesting of their new chocolate covered version of the marshmallow shapes is the Christmas introduction of the Peeps Dark Chocolate Covered Mint Flavored Marshmallow.

The candies come individually wrapped and weigh 1 ounce exactly. (There’s also a milk chocolate version, but both that I bought were crushed & sticky so I’ll have to find more.) Like the other chocolate covered versions before, they’re not just a chocolate covered classic Peep, they lack the sugar crust so the chocolate is the cloak it gets instead of the grainy coating.

The tree shaped minty Christmas Peep is just shy of three inches long and pretty tall at about an inch thick. The dark chocolate shell contains a bit of milkfat but is otherwise has a pleasing dark sheen and makes a convincing tree shape. The package says that they’re gluten free, but of course aren’t vegan (gelatin & milk) and may contain peanuts, tree nuts, eggs and coconut.

They actually smell more like sweet dark chocolate out of the package than mint, which I thought was a good sign after the overly sweet and underwhelming Easter and Halloween versions.

Biting into it, I found what I expected, which was a bright green, soft and moist marshmallow flavored with peppermint. The marshmallow is interesting, it’s fluffy without being foamy or latexy. The mint flavor is appropriately strong - strong enough to have a distinctive taste but not so strong to overwhelm the chocolate chip qualities of the dark coating. The smooth dissolve of the marshmallow is better than the slightly grainy and chalky chocolate.

I don’t generally get an aftertaste from green food colorings (blue & yellow), so my repulsion at the color was aesthetic, not technical. It did go far to convince me that this was something flavored like Creme de Menthe.

The product idea is sound, a flavored marshmallow in a festive, seasonal shape covered in chocolate. There aren’t any other mass-marketed candies like that. I still question the necessity of the strong food colorings (and maybe some sprinkles on there would serve a similar purpose of the tree “decoration.” I’m still not much of a marshmallow fan, so these don’t suit me, but I’m sure there are some fans who will enjoy these. They could benefit from higher quality chocolate and eschew the strong colors.

Related Candies

1. Russell Stover Giant S’mores Bar & Mint Dream
2. Chocolate Covered Peeps
3. Pete’s Gourmet Confections: Marshmallows
4. Christmas Mint Round Up
5. Peeps Chocolate Mousse (Bears & Bunnies)
6. Peeps inside a Milk Chocolate Egg
7. Peppermint Peep Stars

Christmas is filled with classic candies, many that simply aren’t found outside of these months.

Brach’s Christmas Nougats are classics. The disk shaped, mostly circular candies are wrapped in clear cellophane with green triangles on a red band at the edges where the wrappers are twisted. They’re about an inch and a half around. The style highlights the look of the candy, which features a green triangle (Christmas tree) in the center of the white chew. There are little red bands around the edge as well. To make the pattern, the candy is constructed like a giant burrito, the triangular green piece at the center, a little red piece for the “trunk” and then the mass of white nougat is wrapped around that with the strips of red added at the end. Then the whole thing is rolled out into a long rope and sliced to reveal the design.

The base of the candy is called nougat and I admit that there is some egg white in there, but the texture isn’t quite nougat as far as I’m concerned. It’s not as chewy as a taffy, but not as fluffy as most nougats. So I’m just going to call it a chew.

They’re soft and easy to chew, not stringy or particularly sticky but could be considered clingy. They’re strongly flavored with peppermint, but it’s a clean flavor. The texture is mostly smooth, though there were some grainy bits of sugar now and then. They dissolve pretty quickly, so I found it easy to eat them one after the other. There’s a little hint of salt to keep them from tasting far too sweet. They’re fresh, most definitely, I’m sure that old ones get tacky and stiff.

I can see why these are a classic for the holidays. They’re a little on the bland side for me, not quite enough like true nougats and I didn’t care for the aftertaste from the artificial colors. They’re quite pretty and easy to share.

They also come in Wintergreen and Cinnamon (I haven’t found those in stores).

Related Candies

1. Ritter Sport Peppermint
2. Nestle Toll House Mint Holiday Gems
3. Whoppers Sno-Balls
4. Peppermint Peep Stars
5. Nougat de Montelimar