Milka is a popular brand of chocolate confections that originated in Switzerland and is now run by Kraft under their Mondelez snack division. The bars are kid friendly, and marketing with attention to their high milk content. They also have a touch of hazelnut paste, too. The box says that Milka is Europe’s #1 brand of chocolate.

Milka comes in dozens and dozens of varieties. In Europe, they can take up six or eight feet of aisle space with their products (photo) and often retail for less than a Euro for a 100 gram bar (photo).

Milka Milkinis are a milk chocolate confection with creamy filling. The box holds eight slender, foil-wrapped bars and weighs 3.08 ounces.

I’ve seen these at Target for a while, usually for about $2.50 a box, but the 99 Cent Only Store also has them for only a buck.

Of course you get what you pay for. Though it says milk chocolate, that’s used as an adjective, not a noun. It’s a confection made from:

Sugar, fractionated palm oil, whey, cocoa butter, skim milk, chocolate, milkfat, cream, hazelnut paste, soy lecithin, artificial flavor, sunflower lecithin, natural flavor.

A serving is 4 bars, or about 1.5 ounces, which tallies to 260 calories - a whopping 173 calories per ounce ... a peek at the rest of the nutritional panel reveals that’s 17 grams of fat, 10 of which are saturated and account for 50% of your RDA of saturated fat. (I don’t usually mind as much if it’s cocoa butter, but I do mind palm oil).

The bars are about 3 inches long and about 2/3 of an inch wide. They’re rather flat and have four segments with the Milka cow icon on each.

The chocolate coating is quite thin, as you can see from the cross section. This candy is mostly filling. The filling does have a good milky flavor to it, there’s a light hint of malt or a mellow note of something more minerally (there’s 8% of your daily RDA of calcium). There’s also a bit of salt in there, about 75 mg per serving, which is odd because the ingredients don’t list it. It’s soft and kind of pasty. It’s not like a chocolate bar, not quite like fudge. More like a bar of frosting.

I didn’t love them. They were okay, I can see children enjoying them, they’re attractive and the small portion of the individual bars at least makes it easier to moderate intake. If I wanted this sort of creamy thing, I’d probably opt for the Lindt Lindor truffles, even though they’re more expensive.

Milka contains hazelnuts and dairy products, as well as soy. (It’s confusing that they use both soy and sunflower lecithin, maybe they’re in transition.) They’re made in a facility that also processes wheat and almonds. There’s no statement about peanuts at all. Mondelez is currently buys 50% of their palm oil from certified sustainable sources and should be 100% by the end of 2015 (source). They have no stated plans for their cacao sourcing, though some is sourced through Rainforest Alliance and noted as such on their packages.

Related Candies

1. Milka Bars, Milka Drops and some Li’l Milka
2. Milka L’il Scoops
3. Milka NAPS Mix (Assortment)
4. UK vs US Cadbury Dairy Milk
5. Lindt Lindor Truffle Eggs
6. Milka Alpenmilch

Hershey’s has answered the call for a holiday candy bar. The bar is actually a candy they’ve been selling for quite a few years, just a new format. It’s a white confection flavored with peppermint and studded with crunchy nonpareils formed into the standard Hershey bar mold. It’s pretty simple and named that way, too, Hershey’s Candy Cane Bar.

The bar is available in two formats, the large 3.5 ounce king sized bar I picked up or a regular 1.5 ounce single serving bar. Both feature the simple packaging design of the white background with little striped fringes at the ends and the bold Hershey’s logo across the front.

Hershey’s is also offering their regular bars in this same 3.5 ounce size in Holiday packaging, so you can get the Hershey’s Milk Chocolate with a snowman on the front and Cookies n Creme bar with a nutcracker on it. I’ve seen these on sale quite widely in both versions at Target, KMart and other drug store chains, so it shouldn’t be hard to find. Hershey’s did a Mint Miniatures mix years back that included a version of this. (I always though it would be good as a Nugget.) It’s also available as the Hershey’s Candy Cane Kiss (with less food coloring) as well.

The bar is 4 sections by 4 sections, and the package suggests that 6 pieces is a portion. The white confection is a creamy color, a little on the yellow side with lots of red nonpareil crunchies evident. The ingredients show that this is a hybrid confection, not quite true white chocolate, though it does have some cocoa butter in it, it also has some other tropical oil. However, there are no other fillers like whey.

The snap shows the crunchies and the texture of the bar. It’s a little soft, no hard snap of a high-cacao chocolate bar here. There’s lots of sugar and that’s fine with me.

The flavor is like a Smooth n Melty mint. It’s peppermint with a clean dairy flavor to it, it’s rather like eating a room temperature ice cream. It’s quite sweet, but not quite as cloying as I’ve experienced with the Cookies n Creme bar or the lesser quality RM Palmer white confections. I don’t care for the flavoring the red food coloring of the nonpareils imparts, but it’s far less than I notice on the holiday Smooth n Melty Mints which are also out on store shelves right now. (A white confection drop with red and green nonpariels on the bottom.)

I like it. I had no trouble eating the whole bar. It’s different from the slick smoothness of the real white chocolate Dove Peppermint Bark. It’s more candy than chocolate.

Related Candies

1. R.M. Palmer Candy Cane Cups
2. Hershey’s Peppermint Bark Bells
3. Peeps Chocolate Dipped Sugar Cookie & Candy Cane
4. M&Ms White Chocolate Peppermint
5. Dove Peppermint Bark
6. Christmas Mint Round Up
7. Andes Mints & Dessert Indulgence
8. Short & Sweet: Butterfinger Jingles and Mint Miniatures

I’m not usually a fan of R.M. Palmer candies (I can’t call their the vast majority of their products chocolate with any accuracy) but I do appreciate their packaging and design. I browsed their new Christmas offerings a few weeks ago and was actually excited by just the name of their R.M. Palmer Candy Cane Cups. Luckily at only $1.00 at the 99 Cent Only Store, the risk was low and possible rewards were high.

They kind of lost me at the description on the ribbon on the front of the package: Your Two Favorites ... Candy Cane Crunch in a Chocolaty Shell. I happen to know a lot of undiscerning people, but I can’t think of any of them that would call anything “chocolaty” their favorite thing. They might eat it pretty happily ... but most folks prefer the real stuff.

The ingredients include a lot of sugar and partially hydrogenated oils ... I’m not sure what will happen to these if the FDA bans artificial trans fats, though the nutrition panel lists that a serving of 4 cups contains 65% of your RDA of saturated fat, it doesn’t actually show any trans fats (though if it’s less than .5 grams, they can say there’s 0).

Ingredients: Sugar, Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil (Palm Kernel, Coconut and/or Palm Oil), Cocoa (processed with alkali), Whey, Skim Milk, Corn Syrup, Soy Lecithin, Peppermint Oil, Modified Corn Starch, Vanillin, Salt and Red #40

The cups are nicely designed. The foil is clean red & white stripes and easy to identify if you were to put them in a candy dish. The cup is a nice size, could be one bit or two small ones. (I always like to look inside.)

They smell quite pepperminty. The chocolate coating is oily but does have a melt-in-your-mouth quality because of all the tropical oils. It has a light cocoa note to it, but it’s barely discernible. The filling is firm but also has a melty but slightly grainy quality. There are little bits of peppermint candy in it that give a slight crunch and texture.

I was prepared to hate these, but it’s a great idea and though not executed with premium ingredients, they’re still passable. Now ... let’s see some real chocolate companies do better.

Related Candies

1. Hershey’s Peppermint Bark Bells
2. RM Palmer Giant 1/4 Lb. Peanut Butter Cup
3. Sun Cups Dark Chocolate Mint Cups
4. RM Palmer Peppermint Patties
5. Russell Stover Peppermint Bark Snowman
6. Dove Peppermint Bark
7. R.M. Palmer Quax - The Yummy Ducky
8. Palmer Milk Chocolate Balls

Candy Crush Saga is one of the popular tablet/phone games on the market right now. The concept is simple, you just move one “candy” match three or more of the same “candies” in a row to eliminate them from the board.

Since the game is candy-themed, it’s only natural that someone would get a license to develop a line of candy to go along with it. King.com granted its license to Healthy Food Brands, who already makes the Angry Birds gummies in stores now. The initial offerings for the Candy Crush line are: Candy Crush Sour Fruit Gummies, Fruit Mix Gummies, Jelly Fish and Color Bombs. Yesterday I reviewed the two gummies, today I have the Candy Crush Color Bombs.

The box for the Color Bombs features some sort of a horse creature (or maybe that’s a dinosaur), the package describes them as Chocolaty Drops with Rainbow Sprinkles. Note that it doesn’t say that they’re chocolate, which is disappointing. The box was $4.00 (though the retail price on the press release says they’re supposed to be $1.99) and it only holds 3 ounces. It’s a really big box for such as small amount of candy. It’s 7 inches long and 4.25 inches wide. I compared it to the more standard Mike and Ike box which was 6 inches by 3.25 and holds 5 ounces. The candies in this line are also inside a white plastic pouch inside the box. For freshness. But it highlights the fact that the candy only takes up one third of the volume of the box.

Sugar, assorted nonpareils (sugar, corn starch, confectioners glaze, red 40, yellow 5, yellow 6, blue 1, carnauba wax), hydrogenated palm kernel oil, whey protein concentrate (milk), cocoa powder, chocolate liquor, cocoa powder processed with alkali, soy lecithin, natural flavor.

For a company that’s making Better for You Confections, that’s a lot of stuff that’s not chocolate in a chocolate confection.

The drops are about 3/4 of an inch across. They’re covered in nonpareils in orange, white, yellow, blue and purple. It’s a festive look, though you can imagine that some come off in transit so the bottom of the bag is a rather substantial puddle of maddeningly rolly sprinkles.

They’re sweet and have a comforting cocoa flavor to them. It’s like eating a paste made from hot cocoa mix. There’s a cardboard note to it and the crunchies add even more sweetness. The melt isn’t much, it becomes fudgy but never smooth. They’re passable for decorations, but not something I would ever spend my own money on for actual eating.

So, they’re chocolate flavored disks with colorful nonpareils ... that cost over $21.00 for a pound. There are some excellent, beautiful chocolates available at that price that taste terrific, are sourced well and have exceptional ingredients. They might not come in a box that references a game, but they’re probably more satisfying. (If you must, buy this box and then refill it with something good, heck, I bought some Ghirardelli 60% cacao chocolate chips for $2.49 for 12 ounces at Target over the weekend, they’d fit well in here. Or if you must go colorful, Nuts.com has some semi-sweet buttons with colorful crunchies for only $6.00 a pound.)

In short, a dismal disappointment. Bad ingredients, deceptive package size and just regrettable candy. Probably not unlike the feeling of accomplishment when you finish a level of one of these video games ...sure, you finished it, but how satisfying was it really?

Related Candies

1. Candy Crush Jelly Fish
2. Candy Crush: Mixed Fruit and Sour Gummies
3. Klondike Mint Chocolate Chip: The Candy!
4. Sockerbit Swedish Candy Selections
5. Six Kilos of Felchlin Arriba 72% Chocolate
6. Tjerrild Flicks
7. Nestle Toll House Mint Holiday Gems
8. Sno-Caps, Goobers & Raisinets
9. Krunchy Bears

Hershey’s hasn’t announced much that’s new for Christmas this year, and it’s a little early for Holiday candy in some stores, but I did spy these new Hershey’s Peppermint Bark Bells at Target over the weekend.

As you’d guess with Hershey’s, the white confection is a quasi-mockolate like their Candy Cane Kisses. It’s made from sugar and a mix of vegetable oils including cocoa butter, palm, shea, sunflower and/or safflower. The ingredients list on the package is long, so long that it might account for why there’s no other marketing or propaganda on there. There’s the name of the product on the front and bag but nothing else ... no description, really nothing other than the obligatory ingredients and nutritional panel.

They’re pretty big, probably bigger than you’d think. A Hershey’s Kiss is about 4.75 grams while a Peppermint Bark Bell is 9.5 grams ... twice the mass. So a single serving is only 4 pieces for a total of 190 calories. The swirled foil is a mix of red, green and black (or maybe that’s brown) on silver.

The candy is simple structure: the top of the bell is a minty flavored white confection with nonpareil crunchies on top of a thin base of semi-sweet chocolate.

I can’t help myself, I like these. I like Smooth and Melty Mints even though I know they’re not real white chocolate. I don’t care. The white confection has a decent melt and mouth feel, it’s not quite silky-creamy but not completely grainy. There’s a good dairy note to it, it’s clean and fresh tasting with the peppermint addition. The dark chocolate base is dark enough that it balances out the sweetness of the bell. It’s a little on the dry side, but that’s okay.

It’s a very sugary confection, and one goes a long way (remember, it’s twice the size of a Hershey’s Kiss) but it’s just enough for me to get my white minty fix. I’ll probably still stick with the M&Ms White Chocolate Peppermint, since it’s all cocoa butter, but the foil wrapping on these would still be great in a candy bowl. The Dove Peppermint Bark is very similar, though quite a bit creamier but a bit more tame on flavors, and is still tops especially in ingredients.

Hershey’s is slowly rolling out its Rainforest Alliance certified line, starting with Bliss. I don’t know when they’ll get around to the holiday products but all of their chocolate is supposed to be ethically certified by 2020. Ingredients also include palm oil which should be RSPO certified by 2014. Other ingredients of note, artificial colors (in the nonpareils) and PGPR in the chocolate.

Related Candies

1. M&Ms White Chocolate Peppermint
2. Dove Promises White Chocolate
3. Russell Stover Peppermint Bark Snowman
4. Dove Peppermint Bark
5. The Mint Kisses: Chocolate Mint & Candy Cane

For me, Klondike Bars always seemed like a candified version of ice cream. So it seemed a bit odd to see that there was a new line of Klondike Bar themed candies, under license from Unilver and made by Flix Candy.

I picked up the Klondike Mint Chocolate Chip: The Candy! at Dylan’s Candy Bar, which is walking distance from my office. The candy bars there are stupidly expensive, this was $2.29, which is pretty steep for something that isn’t fair trade, organic, shade grown and packaged in a reusable, recycled tin. But the back of the package does say that they’re made in the USA.

It’s been years since I’ve had a Klondike Bar, but here’s how they described this room temperature,shelf stable version: Mint chocolate chip center covered in dark chocolate flavored coating.

Though it’s easy to shudder at what the chocolate flavored coating might mean, I reminded myself that most ice cream novelties also aren’t made with real chocolate, in order to get the right mouthfeel on a frozen dessert, many use other tropical oils in addition to the chocolate solids.

sugar, whole milk, palm kernel oil, semisweet chocolate, butter, cocoa processed with alkali, corn syrup, hydrogenated palm oil, cocoa, salt, natural and artificial flavors, soy lecithin, oil of peppermint, coconut oil, yellow 5, blue 1, vanillin, TBHQ, citric acid.

First, it’s not one big block, it’s four one inch square pieces. That’s fine with me. That was always one of the most frustrating things about Klondike Bars, they were too big for me to eat before they started to melt from holding them.

The coating is actually okay. It’s not greasy or slippery or too soft or too crunchy. It’s actually chocolatey. The filling is overwhelming tough. The pieces smell strongly of peppermint. The center is kind of like a frosting cream though not grainy. The center is a little smoother, maybe a little fattier than the filling of a York Peppermint Pattie. There’s a salty note to the center, which moderates the sweetness. If there were chocolate chips anywhere in the middle, I missed them.

Ultimately, I don’t see much reason to eat this instead of a York Peppermint Pattie or if I’m really going decadent, the Trader Joe’s Honey Mints. But I admit, the packaging is pretty good.

Related Candies

1. Flix Candy Flix Mix
2. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Honey Mints
3. Nestle Girl Scout Cookie Bars - Thin Mints
4. M&Ms Mint Dark Chocolate
5. RM Palmer Peppermint Patties
6. Flix Sour Gummy Pop Corn
7. Sunspire Peppermint Pattie

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

If I were to dream big and come up with attributes of an ideal candy bar, I’d probably start with real ingredients. Each ingredient should contribute flavor or texture. It should have real chocolate. It should be organic and fair trade, as ethical as possible. (And if this is a dream, it would be one dollar and sold everywhere.)

Sjaak’s Organic Chocolate has been doing just that, with their new line called Eli’s Earth Bars. They’re organic, fair trade and some are vegan as well as being made right here in California. The bar is a nice size, the portion is 1.5 ounces, which is what I prefer for a snack. I picked up all of their bars when they first came out, diligently took their photos, ate them and then tried to find more for the review. It took me 2 years to find them in a store again.

I finally found my Eli’s Earth Bars Dream Big Bar at Erewhon, walking distance from my office. The packaging design is good, it’s attractive but not too weird looking. It looks like there’s a candy bar in there, not some mush of seed hulls and dates.

Caramel and peanut butter topped with whole peanuts and coated in creamy ‘milk’ chocolate. Vegan

The bar looks great. The milk chocolate coating is actually made with rice milk, so it’s not technically milk chocolate since there’s no dairy in it. But the chocolate is still made with real cocoa butter (none of those palm oil fillers). I was thinking the bar was going to be kind of like a Snickers, but it’s actually a bit more like a Baby Ruth.

It’s about 3.5 inches long and 1.25 inches wide. The appearance of the outside looks like chocolate, but it tastes a little, well, odd.It’s smooth, but has a bit of a milky note without thinning out the flavor. Mostly I get a rice, or cereal flavor from it.  The caramel center is stiff and a little tough to bite at first, which tears the bar apart. The peanut butter is the right balance of smooth and salty, the peanuts are fresh and crunchy. Aside from the tougher than normal chew of the caramel, the textures go well together. There’s the right amount of sweet, salt and fat going on.

The bar most certainly doesn’t taste like disappointment or shame. It tastes like a candy bar. It’s not healthier, it’s still a candy bar, but it doesn’t compromise on the core beliefs - it’s vegan and organic and ethically sourced.

Gluten free but made on shared equipment with dairy.

Related Candies

1. Theo Salted Almond Dark Chocolate
2. Eli’s Earth Bars - Celebrate Bar
3. Sweet Earth Bittersweet Chocolate Drops & Coffee Caramels
4. Dark Angell Organic Candy Bar
5. Equal Exchange Chocolate Caramel Crunch with Sea Salt
6. Go Max Go Jokerz Candy Bar
7. Rally Bar