It’s fun to see the new iterations of favorite candy bars for Halloween. Some get new shapes or packages, but Mars has gone a little further with their Limited Edition Milky Way Caramel Apple Minis.

They say, “Combining the irresistible tastes of chocolate, rich and creamy caramel and apple, this new item brings a unique, new flavor to trick-or-treating, decorating and snacking.”

I had a tough time finding them in Los Angeles, but spotted them at CVS in Pennsylvania last week and managed to stash a bag in my luggage before leaving.

The Minis part of the Mars line is rather interesting. They’re far smaller than a snack sized bar, taken out of the mylar wrappers, you could easily tuck them in little fluted cups and put them in a candy box.

Each piece is .3 ounces (or 8.6 grams) and about 38 calories. They’re .8 inches square (a little shorter than a cube, about .7 inches tall). A suggested serving size is 5 pieces for 190 calories.

The big difference between the mini and the regular bar is the proportion of chocolate. The chocolate here is a thin veneer, just enough shell to hold the fillings.

The candies look no different inside than a normal Milky Way Mini. (Not like those Shrek Snickers which had green nougat.) This is comforting, as the candy smells more like apple pie a la mode than green apple Jolly Ranchers.

The scent has a light touch of milk and sweetness along with a hint of cinnamon and baked apple. The caramel and nougat are distinct layers. The nougat is a little on the mellow spice size, with notes of nutmeg and chai. The caramel seems to be where the apple flavors come from, more like apple cider and apple peels than an artificial apple flavor but it’s exceptionally mild.

Of all the formats for Milky Way, I prefer the mini, as it’s not too sweet and three can satisfy me quickly. I was not looking forward to this version, but was pleasantly surprised. That’s not to say that I thought they were transcendent and there are far better flavor combinations that I think would translate well to this, like Chai Spice.

For a Green Halloween for ethically sourced and clean ingredients, this candy doesn’t make the grade. Mars is making great strides towards using certified chocolate, starting in the US with their Dove line, but has not rolled it out in the Milky Way line in the US as yet.

Related Candies

1. Werther’s Original Caramel Apple Filled
2. Tootsie Caramel Apple Pops
3. Wonka Exceptionals Fruit Jellies: Grapefruit, Goji Berry & Red Apple
4. Milky Way Simply Caramel
5. Milk Maid Caramel Apple Candy Corn
6. Caramel Apple Sugar Babies
7. Head to Head: Milky Way & Mars (Canada & UK)

The classic combination of chocolate and peanuts meet in this new version of Brach’s Peanut Clusters. The package promises that this is their “Best Chocolate Ever!”

Brach’s has been around since 1904 and has been through a lot, especially in the past 20 years. The company, founded by Emil Brach, was bought by American Home Products in 1966. In 1987, Jacobs Suchard, a coffee & confectionery giant, bought Brach’s. By 1990, as Suchard was being swallowed up by the tobacco company of Phillip Morris, the Jacobs part of the company, Klaus Jacobs, retained Brach’s. Then in 2003 it was sold to Callebaut and only a few years later, in 2008, Brach’s was bought by Farley’s and Sathers. Just this year, Farley’s and Sathers agreed to merge with Ferrara Pan to become the Ferrera Candy Company.

Through all of that, the candy brand remained intact and the favorite confections in their repertoire continued. However, manufacturing changes happened, and the formulas, manufacturing techniques and quality was uneven. Farley’s & Sathers has been trying hard to resurrect the comforting and inexpensive brand by improving the quality for the past two years.

The clusters are made with simple ingredients, plain old milk chocolate and some peanuts.

Ingredients:Milk Chocolate (Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Whole Milk, Chocolate Liquor, Lactose, Soy Lecithin, Butter Oil, Salt, Vanillin), Peanuts with TBHQ, Sugar, Modified Food Starch

The clusters vary in size, from little lines of three or four nuts to a full clump of a dozen peanuts. The overall flavor is fake vanilla. A soft and comforting sort of sweetness, like an angora sweater.

The chocolate isn’t particularly smooth, nor even noteworthy. As far as it being their best chocolate ever, well, it’s not the worst. It tasted fresh though not creamy. The cocoa notes are bland and the dairy is clean but not particularly buttery. What works here is the touch of salt and the peanuts. They’re fresh, small and crunchy. The ratios are heavier on the chocolate than the nuts, but once it’s chewed, it works well.

I don’t think I’d buy these again. In fact, I’ve had them sitting around for review for quite a while but felt no desire to eat them even though I love chocolate and nuts.They’re friendly candy and certainly well priced, but I’ll stick to the sugar confections Brach’s makes.

Related Candies

1. M&Ms Sweet & Salty Snack Mix
2. Brach’s Fiesta Malted Milk Eggs (2012)
3. Brach’s Milk Chocolate Stars
4. Brach’s Peanut Butter Poppins
5. Dove Peanut Butter Silky Smooth Milk Chocolate
6. Brach’s Chocolate Candy Corn & Halloween Mix
7. Sno-Caps, Goobers & Raisinets
8. M&Ms Line

Poco Dolce is a small confectioner based in San Francisco known mostly for their lovely toffee tiles (really, take a look). A few years ago they started making specialty chocolate bars as well.

The one I picked up in San Francisco was one I was particularly looking forward to. It’s simply called Hazelnut Bar made with bittersweet chocolate. The ingredients are exceptionally simple, chocolate, hazelnut butter and sea salt. Since it’s a dark chocolate, it’s also vegan (though processed where it may have come in contact with milk proteins, other tree nuts or peanuts and there’s no statement about the sourcing of the sugar).

Poco Dolce sources their chocolate from nearby Guittard Chocolate Company, choosing from their Rainforest Alliance certified chocolate. The hazelnut butter comes from Oregon.

The bar is not that large, though the box makes it seem like it would be close to one of those 3 ounce tablets. Instead this one is 1.763 ounces ... or what I’d consider a very generous single portion.

The dark bar is nicely tempered and the smooth hazelnut butter is well integrated. The texture is smooth, no hint of hazelnut bits but a strong hazelnut flavor. The bar is bitter, but in a roasted way. The melt is good, though a little firmer than a regular dark bar at first, but has a lighter feel on the tongue than a straight chocolate. It’s lightly sweet and lightly salty, deeply chocolatey and nutty. It’s also exceptionally filling. About two pieces were a great pick me up. So while the bar was expensive and small, I felt like it lasted a long time.

One of my complaints about hazelnut paste (gianduia) as I’ve gotten older is that it’s too sticky and too sweet. This bar has none of those issues, yet still remains decadent.

Related Candies

1. Poco Dolce Popcorn Toffee
2. Pernigotti Gianduia: Piedmont Hazelnut Paste
3. William diCarlo Perle di dolcezza
4. Eat with your Eyes: Poco Dolce
5. Guittard Akoma Fair Trade Chocolate Chips
6. Ice Cubes
7. Caffarel Gianduias
8. Scharffen Berger Gianduja

Tree Hugger Bubble Gum is a new line of all natural gum balls made from natural flavors, natural colors and a natural gum base made from chicle.

Right now the gumballs are sold in small bags of assorted flavors, a mix of fruits, mint and spice. It’s made with real sugar, no artificial sweeteners or sugar alcohols (which can cause stomach upset in some people). Gum made with just sugar these days is particularly rare, and finding it in a fun and familiar shape is a big selling point.

The price for the bag was $1.59 on sale, but I see these on the internet going for about $3 for a 2 ounce bag, which seems a bit steep for gum, even if it is all natural. But when there are so few alternatives when you’re sensitive about ingredients, it’s the going rate.

The gumballs are nicely soft. The colors are consistent though not extremely strong or bright. The balls are a bit denser than I expected. I knew they were hollow, but each piece is a good sized chew and two are an appropriate portion, three a little too much for me.

Cinnamon Spice = Red tastes like those amazing hot toothpicks I was obsessed with as a preteen. The cinnamon is strong and has a woodsy note along with the spicy heat. It’s sweet and has a warming feeling on the back of my throat and a light note of cloves. It’s like a chewable Atomic Fireball, except there was no hint of bitterness from artificial colors, because there were none. I quite liked this one and would love to have more than three in my bag.

Tangerine Dream = Orange is soft and mellow. The orange flavor is more like a scent, there’s no tang but plenty of zest. Because there’s no sour note, it never verged into Aspergum territory (an orange flavored pain relieving gum with aspirin in it).

Orange Mandarin Berry = Pink was actually quite fruity and pleasant. I was expecting something more along the lines of Juicyfruit, instead it does actually have berry notes in it, like blueberry and raspberry and then a sort of citrus zest undertone. The flavor fades rather quickly, but still has a lingering freshness to it.

Peppermint T = Green is extremely strong. It’s truly like an Altoid gum, bold and natural. The flavor, like the others, fades, though the cooling effect of the peppermint lingers for quite a while. I liked these a lot and would like to just buy a bag of the green balls if possible.

Lemon E. Lemonade = Yellow was subtle. It was not at all tangy and has a light hint of fresh lemon or lemongrass. But that’s about it. It’s sweet and has a nice, soft but not sticky chew. Bubbles were appropriate after most of the sugar was gone, though never quite large.

I tried combining flavors, the orange went well with lemon or berry. The mint and cinnamon were both very strong and sort of fought at first before cinnamon won out.

The chew of the gum base is smooth, except for the sugary crunch from the shell. The chicle doesn’t stick to my teeth and stays soft and chewy without becoming stiff like a wad of paper like some gums can get. But it does lose flavor quickly and the bubbles are much stickier than the synthetic versions and can’t get very big. I wouldn’t recommend this for little kids, but older kids looking for something that appears mainstream might like this. Adults like me who like to chew the flavor out and refresh quickly will also like the variety.

The package doesn’t say where they’re made but did list that they’re gluten free, nut free, dairy free and Kosher, but they do contain beeswax so wouldn’t be appropriate for vegans.

Related Candies

1. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Honey Mints
2. UNREAL #41 & #54 Candy Coated Chocolates
3. PUR Gum: Xylitol Sweetened
4. Wee Glee Gum
5. Classic Gums: Black Jack, Clove, Beemans & Teaberry
6. Three Pink Bubble Gums
7. Razzles

Brand extensions are nothing new in the world of candy. Little things get giant versions, milk chocolate coatings become dark chocolate. In the case of Wonka’s iconic SweeTarts, they’ve gone gummi.

The new SweeTarts Gummies are not exactly new. There have been a few versions around, but they didn’t invoke the classic candies in shape and flavor variety.

The new gummies come in six flavors and though they’re in a bag, they are a similar tablet shape.

The assortment in the bag is soft and fresh and smells like SweeTarts. The pieces are a similar little disk shape as the classic roll version of SweeTarts, complete with a little divot in the center of one side. They’re about .75 inches around and .3 inches thick. They’re coated in a sweet sanding of sugar (not the sour sanding I expected).

What I found interesting about this new product is the list of ingredients indicates that most of these are made from natural colorings ... except for the use of Blue #1. Of course the blue gummi uses blue coloring, but I have to wonder if it’s also in the purple one, too. The other ingredients include cochineal, but also gelatin, so it’s off limits to vegetarians. It’s made in a facility with wheat, soy, peanuts, milk and eggs as well.

Orange = Orange - starts out sweet and then gets more tangy. And when I say tangy, I mean like the one-note drink, Tang. Not that it’s a bad thing, it’s actually very satisfying for a gummi.

Yellow = Lemon - is quite fun. The lemon flavor is well rounded, very sour towards the end but smooth overall. Its flavor is quite close to the classic dry SweeTart.

Green = Green Apple - the spongy texture is fun and the flavor more tangy than apple-y. It’s a generic green apple flavor, but less pronounced than the compressed dextrose candies.

Blue = Fruit Punch - I’m old enough to remember when the Blue SweeTarts came out, and still carry a grudge (this is also when the green switched from Lime to Apple). They’re the one flavor that I usually don’t eat, as I never cared much for the punch flavor itself. That said, these are actually really punch. Smooth, vibrant and the flavor gets less fruit and more sour as your chew or let it dissolve.

Purple = Grape - is one of my favorite SweeTarts as it is. The purple color is vibrant and appealing, but it also indicates a hefty bit of food coloring is in there. The moist and bouncy gummi, like the others, gets more tart as you chew. The flavor is artificial and not quite as subtle as the chalky SweeTart. Instead it has more floral notes that are not at all in keeping with actual grape or even fake grape, it’s more like an ink flavor. I was disappointed with it, but only because I had high expectations.

Hot Pink = Cherry - is medicinal and woodsy, it almost has a raspberry flavor to it at first, but then as it gets more sour, it tastes more like cherry.

My true love has always been the classic chalky candies, but I’m sure there are some people who are looking for the texture experience of a gummi with the bold artificial flavors of SweeTarts. As far as tart gummis go, I’m a little more grown up now when it comes to sour and probably won’t even want to stray from the Haribo Ingwer-Zitrone.

Related Candies

1. Wonka Springy Mini Chewy SweeTarts
2. Wonka SweeTarts Chicks, Ducks & Bunnies (2012)
3. Storck Mamba Sour Gummies
4. Wonka Springy Double Yummy Gummies
5. Wonka SweeTarts Jelly Beans 2010
6. Big Bite Gummy Bear
7. Sour Gummi Bears
8. Lifesaver Gummies

It’s amazing the diversity of candy bars that are still available, many of the most popular bars we eat today have been around for over 70 years. One regional classic that started right near where I live now is the Christopher’s Big Cherry (original review).

The lump of a candy bar was introduced by the Christopher Candy Company, which started in 1887 in Southern California. (That company was later bought out by Ben Meyerson, who made the Sunkist Fruit Gems, who then sold out to Jelly Belly in 2006 who kept the Fruit Gems line but sold off the Christopher’s line to Adams & Brooks, keeping it in Southern California.)

More recently the folks at Adams & Brooks introduced the Christopher’s Big Cherry Dark. The wrapper is a rich brick red instead of the bright pink of the classic bar.

The bar looks terrible. It’s a big, golf ball sized mass. It’s lumpy and irregular but at least smells good, like roasted peanuts and hot cocoa.

The ingredients are, well, barely passable as an edible item, very high in partially hydrogenated oil:

Sugar, Coating (Sugar, Partially Hydrogenated Palm Kernel Oil, Cocoa Powder, Whey Powder, Nonfat Milk Powder, Soy Lecithin, Natural Vanilla), Cherries, Peanuts, Corn Syrup, Water, Invert Sugar, Red #40, Invertase, Artificial Flavor, Citric Acid, Egg Whites and Cream of Tartar

The previous review I did of the classic Christopher’s Big Cherry didn’t have a cross section. So I wanted to be sure this review fully documented the innards of this candy. What does set it apart from all others (Cherry Mash and Twin Bing) is the fact that it uses a whole cherry in the center. That auspicious fact aside, it’s marginally satisfying.

The center is sweet and slightly grainy. The mararschino cherry is sweet and heavily artificially flavored and colored. The mockolate coating is supposed to be “dark” but still has milk products in it and really doesn’t do much for me except that it’s less sweet than the original version. The peanut bits in the mockolate are the shining star here, they’re fresh and crunchy and flavorful. The combination of flavors is odd, the peanuts come across as rather savory, the fudgy mockolate has a vague brownie flavor to it but at least isn’t sweet and the cherry center is a blast in the face of fake cherry and sugar.

It’s certainly not a candy for me. The fakeness on so many levels is disappointing, especially for $1.89 which I could spend on things with real chocolate and real cherries in it. But it’s unique, if that’s still a selling point. If chocolate covered bacon can be all the rage, I suppose this can find a home somewhere.

Related Candies

1. Die Besten von Ferrero: Mon Cheri, Kusschen & Rondnoir
2. Nestle Cherry Raisinets
3. Cadbury Cherry Ripe
4. Gimbal’s Cherry Lovers
5. Cherry Cordial Creme Kisses
6. Christopher’s Big Cherry is Big Peanuts

Squirrel Nut Zippers were introduced by the Squirrel Brand Company in 1926 as a vanilla caramel with peanuts, part of a line of caramel candies. The name, which sounds more like a collection of nouns than an enticing candy, came from a local alcohol drink called Nut Zipper (this was prohibition).

The Squirrel Brand Company or Massachusetts was sold off to Southern Style Nuts in 1999 and moved to Texas. A mere 5 years later, Necco bought the rights to Squirrel Nut Zippers, and the lesser known Squirrel Caramel Chews, and moved production back to the Boston area. In case you’re wondering, the Squirrel Nut Zippers swing band named themselves after the candy (with permission from Squirrel Brand Company).

The candies are a simple format, a little bite sized chew wrapped in wax paper. They’re sold in bulk bins or pre-packaged bags. I found mine at Rocket Fizz, a small chain of candy & soda pop shops that started in Southern California.

Like Mary Janes (also made by Necco now), a good Squirrel Nut Zipper will be slight soft. Don’t be dismayed if you pick some up and they’re hard. The trick is to put it in your pocket or hold them in your palm for a few minutes or someplace slightly warm just before eating. That way the oils rise slightly to the surface to help the wrapper release from the candy and it’s soft enough to chew easily.

A SNZ is an easy to like candy, it’s quite simple. It’s a vanilla caramel with bits of peanuts in it. The flavor of the caramel is mild and sweet, not as earthy as a Mary Jane, which has molasses in it, and not as toffee like as a Sugar Daddy.

I’m sure I’ve had them before when I was a kid, but they didn’t make much of an impression on me. As an adult, well, there are other candies I’d prefer to have, such as a Mary Jane or some Sugar Babies.

I have no clue about possible allergens, but the ingredients show dairy, soy and peanuts.

Related Candies

1. Mary Jane & Mary Jane Wicked Mix
2. Necco Slap Stix Caramel
3. Nips: Butter Rum & Peanut Butter Parfait
4. Walkers Nonsuch Toffee
5. Sugar Babies
6. Necco Mint Julep
7. Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews

Early this year Katrina Markoff of Vosges Haut-Chocolate spun off a new mass-market brand called Wild Ophelia.

The idea was to be able to reach more consumers with Markoff’s taste creations without sacrificing the artisan scale of the original Vosges but still reach more consumers. (Source) I have trouble believing that Vosges is truly artisan any longer since they’re a $30 million company. The Wild Ophelia website feature a hokey story about this mascot for the brand that dipped beef jerky in milk chocolate instead of the traditional lemonade stand as a kid. The story reads like a non-traditional innovator’s checklist:

I was nicknamed “Wild Ophelia” following a few smart plans I hatched during my childhood years, while running the sweet stand at our summer garage sales. Instead of the typical, boring lemonade, I decided to serve beef jerky dipped in molten milk chocolate that I melted in the hot sun. From there, my little side-street menu swiftly transitioned to other chocolate experimentations… fresh peaches and hibiscus, sweet cherries and pecans, BBQ potato chips.

Though I’m most at peace watching the sun set from my front porch swing, I also have an itch for the open road. I’ve crossed this great country a number of times, usually without an agenda and primarily on 2-lane roads. Through my adventures, I’ve befriended a number of like-minded American farmers and food artisans who have inspired my creations.

Welcome to my world of chocolate with a flair for the unexpected. (source)

But again, it’s all just made up. The real story of someone wanting to extend their brand isn’t good enough, yet with this pure fiction they want us to also come on board with the real stories of the artisans that provide some of the key ingredients in the bar flavors.

The Wild Ophelia line features bars that cost one third less than the Vosges bars, but of course are about one third smaller in size. That’s fine with me in principal at least, since I often find the 3 ounce bars a bit too much for me and my short attention span. The new line of bars feature flavors like Beef Jerky, Southern Hibiscus Peach, Salted Chowchilla Almond, New Orleans Chili, Sweet Cherry Pecan, Mount Sequoia Granola, Smokehouse BBQ Potato Chips and the final one, Peanut Butter & Banana is what I picked up.

The Milk Chocolate Bar Peanut Butter & Banana is made with a dark milk chocolate of 41% cacao. Then it’s mixed with pieces of dried Williams Banana, which is grown on the island of Kauai in Hawaii. Peanut butter is mixed into the chocolate.

It sounds great, though I wish I knew as much about the chocolate and the origin of the peanuts as I now do about the bananas.

The bar is soft and has a smooth break. It looks like the pieces are quite small and well mixed in. It has a strong scent of roasted peanuts and a little note of maple or sweet hot cocoa.

Though the bar has a peanutty aroma, the chocolate, it tastes of both chocolate and peanut butter, like someone melted and mixed together a peanut butter cup. It’s a little grittier and fudgier than a standard milk chocolate bar. The heartiness is then highlighted with bits of dried bananas. They’re soft and chewy, but still kind of tough. They’re sweet and have a strong banana flavor with a fair bit of tanginess.

I found the leathery and sticky banana bits a little off-putting, they’d get stuck in my teeth. But the overall ratios and the fact that it’s not a sweet bar but still has that satisfaction of a sweet snack is really quite good. There are little bits of salt in it as well, and though it tastes like a lot because they’re little granules, it’s actually only 30mg for a serving.

Now for the transparency part. The company says “Wild Ophelia is a uniquely American chocolate brand that features all-natural and often organic ingredients sourced from small farms and artisans to tell an American story. All Wild Ophelia products are made with 100% renewable energy and packaged in 100% recycled board. Proudly, the Wild Ophelia line is developed by a certified women’s business enterprise.” Nowhere could I find a statement about the sourcing of the chocolate (none was listed as organic, the only organic ingredient in this bar was the peanut butter). So I can’t say anything about the ethics of the sourcing of the cacao and at $5 for a 2 ounce bar of chocolate, I’d prefer that the dairy products in it also be organic.

Wild Ophelia is gluten free, but their facility uses dairy, soy, peanuts, tree nuts and sesame. I love many of Vosges products, but have had to stop eating them because of walnut contamination issues (which is fully disclosed on the packages). I did not have any problems with this bar and none of the Wild Opheila products have walnuts in them (my only allergy).

For a more complete rundown of the line of bars, check out Jess at Foodette Reviews.

Related Candies

1. Vosges Bombalinas - Black Pearl Cashews
2. Dove Desserts Bananas Foster
3. Christopher Elbow: No. 6 - Dark Rocks
4. Elvis Reese’s Peanut Butter and Banana Cup
5. Chuao ChocoPod Collection
6. Limited Edition Marshmallows
7. Chuao Chocolatier
8. Trader Joe’s Chocolate Covered Banana Chips