Peeps are now available in dozens of varieties throughout the year. Just Born’s newest limited edition version is Red Velvet Peeps.

They’re described on the front as Red Velvet Flavored Marshmallow Dipped in Cream Flavored Fudge. The package is white and features a big window on front to see the three individually dipped Peeps nested in their tray.

This is far from the first Peeps variety flavored like a baked good, so far we’ve had: Birthday Cake Peeps, Gingerbread Peeps and Sugar Cookie Peeps,

I have to say that as odd as this Peep looks, it’s an impressive accomplishment. It really looks velvety. The deep red sugar crust also has a bit of shimmer to it, with little gold flecks. The base of the Peep is dipped in a white fudge to simulate the cream cheese frosting usually associated with Red Velvet Cake.

I’m not a fan of Red Velvet Cake, but I’ll go on record to say that this is one of the best candies to evoke the Red Velvet experience I’ve had. I’m not sure that’s a compliment, but that’s why I gave this a 6 out of 10 and not a 4 out of 10.

The marshmallow inside is a cocoa flavor. It smells like cake batter, which isn’t a bad thing either. The red sugar crust taste like red food dye. The white dip on the base of the Peep tastes like sugary wax. So, we have all the components of a red velvet cake: a cake that is neither vanilla nor chocolate, some extra red food coloring to give it an off flavor, and a solidified palm kernel oil coating.

The marshmallow is fine, it is lightly sweet but the cocoa helps to cut it. The cream base could have a little more salt in it, to evoke the cream cheese frosting a bit better. But overall, it’s just an entirely weird Peep. And at least it’s different from the regular Peeps.

Related Candies

1. Peeps Minis Chocolate Creme
2. Candy Made to Taste Like Cake
3. M&Ms Milk Chocolate Red Velvet
4. Bubble Gum Flavored Peeps
5. Russell Stover Red Velvet Santa
6. Peeps Gingerbread Men
7. Peeps Chocolate Dipped Sugar Cookie & Candy Cane
8. Godiva Cake Truffles

Hershey’s has a lot of returning holiday favorites for Halloween, but hasn’t neglected to introduce a few new items. Hershey’s Candy Corn Creme with Candy Bits was one of the odd items that really has no name (I think the best adaptation of an existing name to Halloween would be the Cadbury S’creme Egg).

A few years back Hershey’s had a seasonal variety of Kisses called Candy Corn Kisses. It made perfect sense, Kisses are kind of triangular and the layered look was a nice adaptation of the idea. The white confectionery base was simple enough, just a sort of honey/strawberry flavored version.

In the Hershey’s brand scheme, though, the Cookies n Creme bar has already captured the white confection lovers, so they’re more likely to spark to the new Hershey’s Candy Corn Creme with Candy Bits.

The bar is simply a white chocolate style confection (Hershey’s uses a combination of cocoa butter and other oils instead of just cocoa butter which it would need to be a true white chocolate). Scattered within the bar are orange and yellow candy sprinkles. The effect is that it does have a similar coloring to candy corn, though the yellow-white of the creme is dominant instead of the yellow-orange of Candy Corn.

If you’ve always wanted Candy Corn to have fat in it, that would be why you’d want to buy this.

The snack size bars are simple, they’re long and have four little segments with the name Hershey’s inside each.

The bars smell sweet and milky, with a hint of strawberry. It reminds me of a glass of Strawberry Qwik in smell only (certainly not in color). The melt is decent, not creamy smooth, but a little waxy. It’s quite sugary and extremely sweet, though the flavor and a hint of salt moderates that slightly. The sprinkles are annoying. They’re waxy and add no actual flavor or real textural interest. I would have preferred either nonpareils or perhaps if they swirled different colors of confection into it instead.

I think the Kiss version was more successful visually, but I didn’t care for the butter flavoring. This one is definitely less intense, but neither is great to eat. If Hershey’s wants to capitalize on their Cookies n Creme bar, I think making a seasonal version with a cookie in it, a la Golden Oreos might actually be more tasty.

There are all sorts of ingredients in here, including partially hydrogenated oils, PGPR, resinous glaze (on the jimmies), tocopherols and artificial colors. The candy contains milk products and soy and is made on shared equipment with almonds. There is no statement about gluten or peanuts.

Related Candies

1. Brach’s Carrot Cake Candy Corn
2. Charms Super Candy Corn Blow Pop
3. 6 Candy Corn Candies That Aren’t Candy Corn
4. M&Ms White Chocolate Candy Corn
5. Cookies ‘n’ Cream Bites
6. Hershey’s Drops: Milk Chocolate & Cookies n Creme
7. Ritter Sport White Chocolate with Hazelnuts
8. Candy Corn Kisses
9. Green and Black’s White Chocolate

In the battle for marketshare in the confectionery sector, it seems that some candy companies are more interested in getting our business by eliminating competition than gaining brand loyalty with exemplary products.

The latest battle involves old rivals Hershey and Mars, this time over malted milk balls. Mars makes Maltesers and Hershey’s makes Whoppers. But Hershey’s is also trying to assert the exclusive right to also make something called Malteser in the United States.

I don’t have the figures, but I’m going to guess that Hershey’s holds more than 70% of the market in malted milk balls with their Whoppers brand, but not necessarily because they’re the best but because they’re ubiquitous. Though I don’t have current figures, I’d estimate the brand is worth about $40 to $50 million in sales a year.

Here’s a little history. Mars Maltesers were first sold in the United Kingdom in 1937. They were created as a diet candy; a chocolate candy with less chocolate and therefore less fat and calories. They’re also sold in Canada, New Zealand and Australia and exported to many other European countries. They can be purchased in shops that specialize in UK imports. Based on the number of brand extensions I’ve seen for Maltesers on my recent trip to London, I’d say that the candy is a much more important brand to Mars than Whoppers are to Hershey’s. Which may make them appear a threat.

In 1939 an American candy company called Overland, introduced a malted milk ball candy sold under the name Giants, as they were larger than earlier versions called Malt-ettes. In 1949, two years after the company was sold to Leaf Inc, they were renamed Whoppers. There were many other companies that came and went that sold malted milk balls, but Whoppers have been made continuously ever since, even if their corporate overlords have changed.

Leaf Inc was once a formidable sugar candy company, the fourth largest in the US. They acquired many favorite American candy brands, including Jolly Rancher, Hollywood Brands (maker of Payday bars), Heath Bar, and Now and Later. Sometime in the 1960s Leaf started making something called Malteser and even registered a trademark for the name in 1962. I doubt they were widely distributed or advertised, as I can’t find any record of them . In 1983 Leaf was bought out by Huhtamäki Oyj, a Finnish company, which maintained the trademark registration. Mars sued Leaf over this trademark in 1993 and later settled out of court (so we don’t know the details) but Leaf retained the trademark.

For reasons I don’t quite understand, Leaf Inc divested and sold off many of its best brands, most to Hershey’s: Whoppers, Payday, Jolly Rancher and Heath Bar.
So, Hershey’s didn’t invent malted milk balls, and as far as I know, never had a national brand of their own until acquiring one.

Fast forward and lately Hershey’s has been releasing a product called Matleser: a malted milk ball that in all ways except packaging is identical to Whoppers. Though it’s a singular in the name, not Maltesers as the Mars product is, it’s also packaged in red.

The way trademarks work, not only do you need to register the trademark in all territories you plan to exercise it, you also need to use it. So if Hershey’s wanted to keep Mars from using Malteser in the US, by claiming it was an abandoned trademark, they had to demonstrate that Hershey’s wasn’t using it. I was able to find Hershey’s Malteser for sale on both the Hershey’s site and Amazon. I bought a box to confirm that they are just Whoppers in a different package. (They are.)

Mars contends that not only is Hershey’s squatting on the trademark in the United States, but that their packaging is intentionally confusing consumers to think that they’re purchasing the Mars version. I admit, they do look similar and even though I’m the candy blogger, I couldn’t remember of the top of my head if the Mars version was plural or singular until I started this research.

American trademark law is governed for the most part under the Lanham Act which covers trademark infringement and false advertising. The act was also revised in 1999 to encompass cybersquatting, the practice of registering domain names and then sitting on them or directing them to a competitor.

While Hershey’s practices up to the point where they created similar packaging were probably within the letter, though not the spirit of the law, my opinion after looking at the history, reading Mars’ brief on the case leads me to conclude that Hershey’s is just acting scummy. Whoppers are known by 300 million people in this country ... and if it’s not a favorable brand then Hershey’s should improve their quality, price point or packaging to the point where people are loyal to them.

(Mars Maltesers on the left and Hershey’s Malteser on the right.)

I tried both again, just to check. Neither is great, but the do differ. Both have a mockolate coating, though the Mars version does have some cocoa butter in there. The centers, though both malty, have different textures. The Mars version is more honeycombed and has a easier crunch. The Hershey’s version is more milky tasting with a firm crunch that dissolves nicely. Both are excellent centers ... both have disappointing coatings. I prefer the Mars Maltesers.

(Mars Maltesers package circa 2005 which exhorts it’s “no ordinary chocolate”)

I’m a extremely curious if Mars were to introduced Maltesers in the United States if they would change the coating to real chocolate, as they do not make any mockolate products for the American market. However, Mars does not have a good track record for introducing the European candies to the US when there is another similar candy already on the market. They tried this with the Bounty bars, which are similar to Mounds and Almond Joy and they never took hold. Twix was a European launch that was then introduced in the US, but is a unique candy construction, which is how it established itself in its niche.

This is not an isolated issue in the candy business. Many candy companies go head to head in the courts instead of on the store shelves.

- The UK the courts have been deciding whether Cadbury should have exclusive rights to their shade of purple. Currently, the answer is no.
- The Seven Up Bar, which predates the 7-Up soda, ended up in a battle over the trademark of the name, which likely led to the demise of the bar when they sold the rights to the name, then licensed them back. (And a candy bar and a soda are two different categories.)
- Nestle owns the rights to the name Smarties everywhere in the world except the United States, where the name was already in use by the tangy tablets made by CeDe Candy. CeDe then had to rename their Smarties to Rockets when they introduced them in Canada.
- Nestle is trying to trademark the shape and construction of the KitKat bar in Europe, though it may be too late as there are already several knock off products.

For more reading on the issue, here are some other trade articles on the case:
Candy Industry: Mars Sues Hershey Over Trademark Infringement
Law360: Mars Not Sweet on Hershey’s Fake Maltesers Candy
Confectionery News: Hershey ‘tricking US consumers with fake Maltesers,’ claims Mars
Trademarkia: 1962 US Trademark registration for Malteser
Collecting Candy: The Visual History of Whoppers (via candy wrappers & advertising)

Related Candies

1. Mars MaltEaster Bunnies
2. Ovomaltine Chocolate Bar
3. Hershey’s Whoppers
4. Target’s Market Pantry Malted Milk Balls
5. Eat with your Eyes: White Malteasers
6. Trader Joe’s Milk Chocolate Malted Milk Eggs (Plus a Bonus)
7. Mighty Malts
8. Jelly Belly Chocolate Malt Balls
9. Mars Maltesers

The trend of making little poppable versions of popular candies extends to Europe, so when I saw these new Cadbury Dairy Milk Pebbles in London, I picked them up. Cadbury already makes several morsel versions of their popular Dairy Milk chocolate. They make Buttons, which are little disks and of course the Easter version, the Cadbury Mini Eggs which have a shell.

Now Cadbury has a shell candy for all year round consumption, completing their entry into the world of morselization. I’ve also seen that Cadbury’s parent company, Mondelez (once part of Kraft) has created bagged mixes that include the Pebbles, mini Oreos, and Maynard’s gummi candies. Kind of like the M&Ms Sweet & Salty Snack Mix that came out from Mars.

Like most Cadbury chocolate products in the United Kingdom, this is not real milk chocolate. It’s what’s commonly called “family chocolate” which is a nice way of saying, “We don’t need to waste expensive cocoa butter on children, we’ll substitute some oil in there.” So it’s a quasi-mockolate product that uses some cocoa butter and some vegetable oil. Still, it’s not like it’s R. M. Palmer mockolate, it’s made from 23% milk content and 20% cocoa content ... then, you know, some sugar and a few oils, natural colors and shellac.

Instead of going with the typical lentil shape, the pieces are like flattened Cadbury Mini Eggs. They’re kind of like guitar picks. The colors are plain, for the most part when I dumped them out of the bag they were a little chalky looking but polished up pretty easily with a paper towel. (I figured they deserved a little spa treatment after being carted partway around the world.)

The yellow ones are a bit strange though, because of the all natural colorings, the ingredients on this particular one is a little odd. It’s kind of like curry ...a little grassy. The chocolate center is smooth, a little malty but with a thin punch of chocolate flavor. The shell is wonderfully crunchy, outside of the odd yellow one. The whole combination is really a great candy, I enjoyed eating them, though it certainly didn’t satisfy my desire for chocolate. I would be interested in trying these in some sort of mixed bag with mini Oreos and perhaps a few nuts.

I doubt that Cadbury will attempt to license this to Hershey’s for production under their deal. So American’s will have to content themselves with imports or just stocking up in the Easter version.

They contain milk, corn and soy. There’s no statement about nuts or gluten. Though Cadbury has started certifying some candies with sourcing information, the Dairy Milk Pebbles did not have a the Fair Trade or Rainforest Alliance stamp.

Related Candies

1. Sugarfina Beverly Hills & Trio of Goodies
2. Snickers Unwrapped Bites
3. Milka Bars, Milka Drops and some Li’l Milka
4. Schluckwerder Fancy Marzipan Eggs
5. Hershey’s Drops: Milk Chocolate & Cookies n Creme
6. Hershey’s Almond Joy Pieces
7. Cadbury Mini Eggs

One of the things that I’ve always been surprised about British confectionery is that they’re not terribly interested in malt. They do have one malted milk ball brand, called Maltesers made by Mars. But that’s it. No Easter varieties with pastel speckled candy shells, no snowballs, no jumbo double dipped. It’s just not in their list of classic candies. However, even though Mars hasn’t tried to extend their malted milk ball range, they have done some wonderful and unique things with their malted milk flavors. They make a hot cocoa mix and for Easter they make MaltEaster Bunnies.

There are two versions of the bunnies on the market. They come in the standard single serving size of 29 grams (1.02 ounces) and also in a mini version of 11.6 grams each (.41 ounces) that come in this bag of five. (I think I paid £1.50 for it, which is about $2.50 US.)

The little bunnies are, well, just the epitome of perfection. They’re about two inches high with tall ears and little round bellies with huge feet make them very attractive. The tiny size makes them about two bites each.

Though Mars prides itself on only using real chocolate in their candy in the United States, they’re not afraid to use “family chocolate” in the UK for their confections. Basically, it’s chocolate that contains fillers and cannot be called milk chocolate under the current USDA definitions of chocolate. In the case of MaltEaster Mini Bunnies, the ingredients include extra vegetable fat instead of cocoa butter and whey, which is a milk byproduct.

I’ve had Malteser malted milk balls before, and though I like the centers, I found the milk chocolate coating a little lackluster though certainly better than the Whoppers in the US (made by Hershey’s).

The center of the MaltEaster bunnies is actually a crunchy & creamy Maltesers center. I wouldn’t exactly call it creamy, it’s just a thick sort of malty fudge thing that holds the crispy bits together. The malty bits are crunchy and fresh and have a good malt note to them.

The chocolate is very sweet and matches the center. There’s a milky malt note to the whole thing and a sort of greasy aftertaste in my mouth. They’re a lot fattier than regular malted milk balls, as they do have about 152 calories per ounce compared to about 130 for regular chocolate malted milk balls.

Of the two versions I tried, the mini and the regular, I prefer the regular one. The mound of the bunny’s belly was a much larger reservoir of malt and cream, so the proportions change as you eat it. With the mini, there was a far greater proportion of chocolate, which would be great if I thought the chocolate was good enough to eat plain.

Even though I didn’t think these were as good as they could be if they were made with better ingredients, I’d still buy them again. They’re a unique item and suit my malt leanings very successfully. I’d be curious to see Mars bring this whole line to the United States, though I understand they’ve tried to compete before with existing brands. Back in the 80s they tried going head to head with Peter Paul with their Bounty Bars which are similar to Mounds and nutless Almond Joy.

Related Candies

1. Ghirardelli Milk & Crisp Chocolate Eggs
2. Ovomaltine Chocolate Bar
3. Ferrero Eggs: Hazelnut & Cocoa
4. Brach’s Fiesta Malted Milk Eggs (2012)
5. Target’s Market Pantry Malted Milk Balls
6. Trader Joe’s Milk Chocolate Malted Milk Eggs (Plus a Bonus)
7. Mighty Malts
8. Jelly Belly Chocolate Malt Balls
9. Mars Maltesers

The R.M. Palmer Giant Cake Batter Cup answers a need no one has addressed before. It’s a fake chocolate cup filled with a solid oil-based confection that emulates raw cake.

The wrapper is pink and the launch of the product coincides with spring, so I’m going to call it an Easter candy even though there are no rabbits on the package, just a couple of pasty kids in chef’s hats making some sort of bowl of batter.

It weighs a quarter of a pound, which is giant compared to the mini foil wrapped peanut butter cups R.M. Palmer usually makes, but it’s not as large as the half pound peanut butter cups that Reese’s sells in pairs around Christmas. But this isn’t peanut butter, where most of us think more is better. This is cake batter, which is pretty much a room temperature cookie dough smoothie.

The cup is huge, at a quarter of a pound, it’s the size of a small saucer and weighs, well, four ounces. This is not R.M. Palmer’s first attempt at a quarter pound cup, they make a passable Peanut Butter Cup version. The package says that it’s two servings, but that’s a staggering thought when I looked at the ingredients:

Sugar, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (palm kernel, coconut and/or palm oil), whey, cocoa, lactose, skim milk, corn syrup solids, soy lecithin, natural and artificial flavors

The chocolate flavored coating looks like bad chocolate, but that’s about the only thing that it succeeds at. There are no chocolate notes in it, it has no chocolate texture, it’s filled with sugar, milk by-products and oils. The filling isn’t like the Russell Stover cake fillings, there’s no flour in there; it’s just more oil and sugar and fake vanilla.

I’ve never been much for eating cake batter, so the idea of a candy that re-creates this is not up my alley. Add to that, vanilla cake is the least interesting kind of cake. Why would I want to eat that batter? Spice cake, lemon pound cake, devil’s food ... these are interesting. Vanilla cake batter is not.

Related Candies

1. Birthday Cake M&Ms
2. M&Ms Milk Chocolate Red Velvet
3. Russell Stover Santas: Gingerbread, Peppermint and Maple
4. Russell Stover Red Velvet Santa
5. Godiva Cake Truffles
6. RM Palmer Giant 1/4 Lb. Peanut Butter Cup
7. Cinnamon Bun Bites
8. Cupcake Bites
9. R.M. Palmer Quax - The Yummy Ducky

One of the favorite Easter candies is the Cadbury Milk Chocolate Mini Eggs. They’re unlike any other candy on the market, they’re not quite M&Ms, as the candy coating is soft and has a flavor of its own. A Dark Chocolate version came out a few years ago and though hard to find, returned again this year.

The big news is the new Target Exclusive version of Cadbury White Mini Eggs. Notice that they’re just called white, not white chocolate, just white. Though there is cocoa butter in the ingredients list (which is in real white chocolate), there are also other vegetable fats. I picked up a 9 ounce bag, which was helpfully on sale.

The eggs were not the shape I expected. The standard Cadbury Mini Egg is egg shaped, truly egg shaped, with a wider bottom and almost pointy top. The White Eggs are not, they’re symmetrical ovals. What occurred to me when I saw them was that they were actually a resurrection of last year’s Hershey’s White Chocolate Flavored Eggs.

So, I looked up the ingredients:

Hershey’s White Eggs 2013: Sugar, vegetable oil (cocoa butter, palm, shea, sunflower and/or safflower oil), nonfat milk, corn syrup, milk fat, contains 2% or less of the following: cornstarch, artificial color (yellow 5, blue 1, red 40 and yellow 6), soy lecithin, resinous glaze, gum acacia, carnauba wax, vanillin, tocopherols (preservative) and PGPR.

Cadbury White Mini Eggs 2014: Sugar, vegetable oil (cocoa butter, palm, shea, sunflower and/or safflower oil), nonfat milk, milk, reduced protein whey, lactose, milkfat, contains 2% or less of corn syrup, artificial colors (includes yellow #5, blue #2, red #40), cornstarch, soy lecithin, natural and artificial flavors, tocopherols, salt

The difference, as far as I can tell is in the very last ingredients, that make up the shell. The white confection center is made of the same stuff. I didn’t care that much for the Hershey’s version, as I found them to be a bit too sweet and not creamy enough. Especially when compared to the pre-existing real white chocolate M&Ms.

I picked up a back of the M&Ms since I was already at Target for comparison. (And here’s the ingredients, as long as I’m transcribing.)

White Chocolate M&Ms: White chocolate (sugar, cocoa butter, skim milk, milkfat, soy lecithin, salt, natural flavor), sugar, less than 2% of cornstarch, corn syrup, dextrin, colorings (includes yellow #5, blue #1, yellow #6, red #40), gum acacia

Ultimately, the coating on these really gives them a different dimension. The soft and matte shell that the Cadbury Milk Chocolate Mini Eggs and the Cadbury White Mini Eggs share is unique and holds a special place in the textural world of Easter. I like the soft scent and interesting slick dissolve on the tongue. The vanilla pudding flavor is also pleasant and goes well with the lightly salty white center.

The one thing that was missing was that sticky, fudgy melt that the Cadbury Milk Chocolate Mini Eggs have.

I liked them better than the Hershey’s version, which is weird, because I do actually like the shell a lot on the Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Eggs. However, they’re extremely sweet and I found that after five or six I had a raging headache ... so enjoy in moderation.

Related Candies

1. Justin’s White Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups
2. Hershey’s Candy Coated White Chocolate Flavored Eggs
3. M&Ms White Chocolate (Easter)
4. Dove Promises White Chocolate
5. Whitman’s Marshmallow Eggs & Carrot
6. Hershey’s White Chocolate Meltaway Bliss
7. Green and Black’s White Chocolate

I saw that DeMet’s had some holiday themed Flipz (coated pretzels) but I skipped right over the peppermint white confection version in order to pick up Flipz Gingerbread Flavor Covered Pretzels.

To be honest, it sounds terrible, in part because I didn’t know there was something known as Gingerbread Flavor Cover in the confectionery world ... and then I probably wouldn’t have dreamed that the appropriate place to put that would be on top of pretzels. So curiosity trumped revulsion.

The DeMet’s copywriters don’t help the situation either, here’s the marketing passage from the back of the bag:

Whenever hunger strikes, make sure you’ve got FLIPZ nearby! FLIPZ are the most flippin’ awesome winter snack ever!
That’s because they combine crunchy, salty pretzels with rich and warm gingerbread for an outrageous anytime snack. Anytime is the right time for a Flippin’ Awesome snack!

They’re standard mini pretzels with big salt crystals on them. Then they’re coated in this weird, artificially colored confection that’s supposed to look like chocolate. It’s made with sugar, palm oil and dried milk but natural flavors. The texture is pretty good - it’s creamy and kind of cool on the tongue without getting too grainy or greasy. It’s not chocolate-like, but still pleasant. The flavoring is interesting. If you gave it to me without the gingerbread description, I would have called this orange spice. I don’t know why, but I was getting a light and appealing orange zest note to it the whole time. There’s a gentle spice to it, maybe a bit of ginger but nothing too biting like cinnamon or clove. The salty crunch of the fresh pretzels keeps it all from getting too sweet.

I like them. I ate them. I wouldn’t have believed it if it didn’t happen to me.

Other reviews: The Impulsive Buy found them in a tub & gave them a 7 out of 10, Metal Misfit reviewed them before Halloween.

Related Candies

1. Russell Stover Santas: Gingerbread, Peppermint and Maple
2. Twix Gingerbread
3. Sanders Chocolate Covered Gretzels
4. Snyder’s Peanut Butter Pretzel Sandwich Dips
5. Pretzel M&Ms
6. DeMet’s Turtles: Pecan & Cashew
7. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Covered Pretzel Bites