Saint Patrick’s Day isn’t exactly a big candy holiday. Potato and shamrock flavored candies, thought they exist, aren’t exactly mainstream.

Godiva, who is always good at merchandising, has a limited edition Shamrock Mint Truffle. These dipped bonbons are right up my alley, they’re a a classic mint ganache with Godiva chocolate chips enrobed in a dark chocolate shell and strung with a lucky green shamrock.

Godiva was kind enough to send a box of them to me, you can also get them as singles in the store. A box of 5 retails for $12. (The samples I got came in a box of six ... dunno why that was.)

The spheres are beautiful. I’ve mentioned before that I prefer enrobed chocolate over molded pieces, there’s something about the tempering of enrobed chocolate that I think has a better mouthfeel. So these had me right away with their excellent attention to detail. The little clovers in a white chocolate colored light green were cute - the flavoring wasn’t too sweet and didn’t distract from the rest of the confection.

The pieces smelled mostly of minty chocolate. The whole thing reminded me of mint chocolate chip ice cream. The shells were thin and coated the cream filling expertly - none had any cracks or leaks.

The filling was creamy smooth with a light mint touch. They were sweet, but the dark chocolate did a good job of balancing it out. They really were the bonbon version of mint chocolate chip ice cream. The only hesitation I had with them were the colors - I don’t know what the ingredients are but the center looks like it might have a touch of coloring in it, which makes it look like grout, not some sort of decadent peppermint ganache. There’s no reason why this couldn’t be a year round item (though I could see a little peppermint candy candy decoration for Christmas).

I ate the whole box with very little help: Happy Saint Patrick’s Day.

Johnny also has a review of them.

Related Candies

1. Fannie May Mint Meltaway
2. Robitaille’s Presidential Inaugural Mints & Turtles
3. Hershey’s Nuggets Double Chocolate
4. Kohler Chocolates Garden Ganache & Toffee Mountains
5. Ritter Sport Peppermint
6. The Mint Kisses: Chocolate Mint & Candy Cane

A few months ago I discovered quite by accident that Russell Stover introduced a new candy. The Color Me Candies are little milk chocolate candy coated lentils. (Yes, the same thing as M&Ms, Nestle Smarties, Jots, Hershey-Ets and Koppers Milkies.)

Not an innovative new product, but still it warranted a tasting as far as I was concerned because they’re selling them in single color bags and for what appears to be a barn-buster price. I ordered one color about a week ago - and of course right after I ordered they introduced some color mixes based on sports teams.

There are 13 colors total, I chose the Igloo Blue, which looked like an icy powder blue. I thought it’d photograph well and have less food coloring that might influence the flavor profile.

The bags hold 8 ounces and was priced at $2.99 (plus shipping - I got a bunch of other stuff as well that I couldn’t find in stores).

The pieces are similar in shape and size to M&Ms. They’re a little thicker in the center but a sharper, thinner edge. They’re consistently shaped and colored for the most part. There were variations, but all were within what I’d call acceptable.

The only hesitation I had after opening the shipping box was that some of the candies - probably about 5% were chipped. Not terrible, but in a glass jar for display and serving it might be distracting for the light colored versions. (I expect for the darker colors it’d be less noticeable.) This might have been because I didn’t order very much, so my box had a lot of open space for shifting of the contents. If you’re ordering a large amount I don’t expect it to be as much of an issue - but maybe check with their customer service to confirm.

The shell is crispy and crunchy - far more interesting as a texture than the M&Ms (it reminded me more of the new Hershey’s Pieces). The chocolate texture is creamy and smooth, far better and silkier than M&Ms (even the Premium ones). The primary flavor notes are dairy - a rich milky and caramel along with a mellow chocolate flavor.

They’re excellent, actually. Easy to keep eating, not too sweet and different enough from M&Ms that I would probably seek them out for a special occasion.

So, the pricing scheme: I see these as a candy buffet item so the price does make a difference. At the moment these are only available (as far as I know) from Russell Stover directly on their webstore. They are sold in 8 ounce (half a pound) bags in 13 single colors and 16 “team color” mixes. The cost at the moment is $2.99 per bag, which means they’re $5.98 per pound. The rival products to this are: M&Ms which are sold on their website in 7 ounce bags with a price tag of $15.98 per pound (or $11.60 if you’re willing to buy in a 5 lb box) and Koppers Milkies which are found on various webstores, I priced them at CandyWarehouse.com and found that they’re $9.90 a pound when purchased in a 5 lb box - some sites have them for less (but fewer colors) and some for more. Russell Stover doesn’t offer a bulk purchase, but I would expect that would make them even cheaper.

M&Ms and Koppers Milkies come in far more colors. M&Ms and Koppers Milkies are Kosher. None are nut free.

Related Candies

1. Godiva Spring Pearls
2. Hershey’s Special Dark Pieces
3. Russell Stover Eggs (2009 edition)
4. UK Smarties (no artificial colors)
5. Hershey Eggs
6. Best Intentions: Sun Drops

The new LifeSavers Gummies Bunnies & Eggs are charming little Easter themed gummis that come in five different shapes and six different flavors.

The bag has the old LifeSavers logo and design elements to it (the rolls are rather different these days). It also features the bug-eyed bunny that appears on the Jelly Beans.

The flavors are Lemon, Apple, Orange, Tangy Cherry, Tangy Punch and Watermelon.

All the candies are sherbet colors, soft, opaque pastels. They’re bouncy and squishy, not quite greasy but they definitely cling together readily.

I expected them to be big, about the same size as the hoops known as LifeSavers Gummies, which themselves are larger than the hard candy version. Instead they’re actually smaller than the little images on the package. These cute and plump little shapes are barely the size of a traditional gummi bear. (I threw an M&M in there for you to see the scale.)

Blue is Tangy Punch - it reminds me of Hawaiian Punch. It’s tangy of course and has an artificial flavor to go with the tropical fruit.

Green is Apple - it’s far less tart than I expected. A little like apple juice.

Orange is Orange - it looks like sherbet and tastes rather like it too, soft and mellow with a light sour note but mostly a juice flavor.

Red is Watermelon  - at first I thought it’d be cherry. The watermelon reminded me of Jolly Ranchers in the best possible way. Fresh, a little more intensely fruity than the real melon and of course an artificial version of the actual flavor.

Lemon is Yellow - I didn’t care much for this one, it had a metallic note, like drinking lemonade in a can.

Pink is Tangy Cherry -  this is not the cherry I associate with LifeSavers. It’s far too mild and though it’s called Tangy Cherry, it’s not terribly sour at all.

On the whole they’re adorable, rather mild but nothing extraordinary. Gummis for Easter aren’t that common, so it’s nice to see a themed product. There is no allergen statement on the package but it does contain gelatin and of course artificial colors & flavors. It doesn’t say anything about gluten or nuts.

Related Candies

1. Au’some Easter 3-Dees Gummy
2. Disney Pixie Perfect Gummies
3. Necco Paas Gummi Baby Bunnies
4. LifeSavers Tangy Fruits Gummies
5. Albanese Gummi Butterflies
6. Lifesavers Jellybeans

The new Wonka Exceptionals Domed Dark Chocolate pieces are No. 3 velvety dark chocolate with milk chocolate medallions.

They’re the third item in the new launch of the better quality Wonka chocolate products hitting store shelves now. The ingredients are all natural, the packaging revamped and the quality vastly improved.

Now that I’ve tried all three varieties I can say that they’re right, the quality of the chocolate is much better. The chocolate is smoother, has a bolder flavor and of course the fact that the ingredients are better should make it easier for families to choose Wonka. I’ve compared them before to Dove and Hershey’s Bliss - but what these have going for them is that the packaging is all about imagination - the bright striped foils are going to appeal more to kids than the sedate and elegant positioning of Dove or Bliss.

The pieces themselves aren’t quite as stunning to look at as the other two Exceptionals. The little domed blocks don’t stack either. I was hoping for some glossy dark chocolate, and while it’s tempered properly, the piece looks like well worn coat button instead of a sumptuous piece of dark chocolate.

The dark chocolate flavors are quite sharp. It’s acidic without being tangy, not quite chalky but a little dry. It’s smooth but I wouldn’t characterize it as the same silkiness as the milk and white chocolate from the Waterfall version. There are berry and raisin notes to the cocoa but nothing overtly complex. It’s toasty but not so dark that it’s roasty and too bitter like black coffee. The sweetness is pretty overwhelming, sugar is the first ingredient on the list.

As a dark chocolate, it’s very accessible, and probably won’t dissuade children from eating them. They remind me of eating chocolate chip cookies - the melt is similar to that in a fresh cookie.

I think Nestle has done a great job of reinvigorating the brand. It takes more inspiration from the original books and taps into the dreamy quality that Wonka has evoked in every kid who every kid who’s read it.

Related Candies

1. Wonka Exceptionals: Chocolate Waterfall
2. Wonka Exceptionals Scrumdiddlyumptious
3. Nestle Milk Chocolate
4. Nestle Noir
5. Upscale Hollow Chocolate: Michel Cluizel & Hotel Chocolat
6. Dark Raisinets

The new line of Wonka Exceptionals are better quality chocolate candies. Nestle calls them The world’s most incomparably imaginative chocolate. The initial launch includes three chocolate products and to increase consumer interest a Golden Ticket giveaway for 5 trips around the world valued at $40,000 (that’s 5 different prizes, not 5 circumnavigations for one person).

Since the products are just being rolled out, they may not be on shelves everywhere yet. I found the Wonka Exceptionals Chocolate Waterfall Pieces at Ralph’s at a rather shocking price point of $4.99. The bars, which are 3.5 ounces are supposed to retail for $2.49. The package is gaudy and rather befitting the proud Willy Wonky tradition. The back of the package has the fun quote from the original Golden Ticket text from the book and exhorts folks to read the original book by Roald Dahl. (How many candies encourage that?)

The Waterfall chocolate is logged on the package as Bar No 99: Delectable combination of swirled milk & white chocolate.

The pieces are wrapped in blue and purple striped foil. They’re a nicely sized block of one or two bites (9.25 grams or 1/3 of an ounce). They’re 1.25” long, 1” wide and about .33” high.

The package (which is sometimes hard to read because of how busy it is) says that it’s truly amazing chocolate made with natural ingredients and then says refer to the ingredients list. The list is then asterisked with only one ingredient not flagged as all natural - the soy lecithin. I’m guessing it’s because it’s from genetically modified (GMO) soy. Still, it’s all real chocolate - basically sugar, milk and cacao with a little vanilla & emulsifiers (lecithin - no PGPR).

The milk and white swirl is nicely done, usually in three expertly centered spokes.

The pieces smell milky and sweet. The bite is quite soft, but still has a good snap to it for a high-milkfat chocolate. The texture does not disappoint. It’s very smooth and silky with a good fatty melt. The chocolate flavors are eclipsed by the dairy, but it’s still a comforting cocoa note that sticks to the woodsy and malty side of things. It’s very, very sweet though. They’re quite different from the Hershey’s Bliss White Chocolate Meltaway, which is not as sweet but of course doesn’t have the milk chocolate component.

There aren’t that many milk and white combination chocolates here in the United States, so this is a fun and original option. It’s probably not one I’d choose for myself but I don’t see the folks at the office complaining about them. (I’ve had the selection of all three versions in a jar for about a week on my desk.)

Related Candies

1. Wonka Exceptionals Domed Dark Chocolate
2. Wonka Exceptionals Scrumdiddlyumptious
3. Hershey’s White Chocolate Meltaway Bliss
4. Guylian Twists
5. Choceur Coffee & Cream
6. M&Ms Premiums
7. Dove Silky Smooth Milk Chocolate Bars
8. Hershey’s Bliss

Nestle has wisely decided to up their support for the Wonka brand.

The Wonka brand of candies was launched shortly after the release of the 1971 movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. They were originally made by Sunline but Nestle bought up Sunline (also the maker of SweeTarts and Pixy Stix) in 1988.  At that time the Wonka brand consisted of a combination of candies mentioned in the book, such as Everlasting Gobstoppers but mostly fanciful original creations such as Peanut Butter Oompas (picture here), Super Scrunch (picture here). They later focusing more on profitable and successful sugar candies such as Wacky Wafers (picture here), Dweebs, Runts, DinaSour Eggs (picture here) and of course Nerds.

The early Wonka Scrumdidilyumptious bar was a “chocolately caramel crisp” - the format was rather long, thick and narrow. (See this counter display.)

Nestle is reinvigorating the brand, both the sugar candy side (new gummis like Sluggles & Puckerooms, sour filled licorice like Kazoozles and chocolate popping candy like Tinglerz). Their chocolate line called Wonka Exceptionals capitalizes both on the imaginative side of the Wonka character from the Roald Dahl books as well as the quality aspect which has been largely lacking in previous chocolate products. The launch is with three different bars and foil wrapped pieces: Scrumdiddlyumptious, Domed Dark Chocolate & Chocolate Waterfall.

This new version of the Wonka Scrumdiddlyumptious Bar is spelled slightly differently: diddly instead of didily. It’s listed on the back of the package as Bar No. 17 and described as Milk chocolate with scrumptious toffee, crispy cookie & crunchy peanuts. Sounds good! No one else is making a bar quite like this, so it’s exciting to see them creating something original instead of a different packaging format of an existing product.

The little foil wrapped pieces are cute. They’re 1.25” long, 1” wide and about .33” high. They smell lightly chocolatey, but not as peanutty as I expected. The texture of the milk chocolate is super smooth and silky - a far cry from the waxy stuff in other Nestle products. It’s exceptionally sweet though, so too much of it and it burned my throat. The inclusions were little bits of graham cracker like cookies (digestive biscuits is perhaps more appropriate for comparison), little buttery toffee nuggets and peanut bits.

The variations in the nuggets meant that some pieces and bites were more interesting than others. The toffee had a good crunch to it and a salty note. The peanuts were not deeply roasted and were more grassy but still gave a different chew. The cookie pieces were mild and gave a malty cereal note to it.

The chocolate quality is a huge upgrade from the Wonka Bar (which is now discontinued - these will replace it). I don’t think I’d spend the premium for this in a bar format mostly because the Green & Black’s Peanut bar is truly scrumptious, similarly price but also organic & soon to be Fair Trade). However, foil wrapped pieces are different enough to warrant consideration.

Each piece is less than 50 calories, so if you have trouble controlling portions with a large bar, these are a nice option.

The packaging is fanciful, though definitely cluttered and not that easy to read as most of the colors are the same value. The holographic plastic is a bit of overkill as far as I’m concerned (and probably resource intensive) but I’m guessing the bags without the “Golden Ticket” giveaway will be a bit clearer. I was most impressed with the fact that they were even creative with the bar code on the package.

The product line is expensive, we’re talking Dove or Hershey’s Bliss level, not the ordinary Nestle Crunch prices. The bags I picked up hold 9.5 ounces and were $4.99 each. (The press release from the company said retail is $4.49 and I’m guessing there will be sales where you can find them for about $3 a bag.) The bars are 3.5 ounces and retail for $2.49 each.

Related Candies

1. Wonka Exceptionals Domed Dark Chocolate
2. Wonka Exceptionals: Chocolate Waterfall
3. Wolfgang Skipjacks & Jungle Jacks
4. Hershey’s Bliss
5. Wonka Nerds Jelly Beans
6. Wonka Golden Egg
7. Dove Chocolate
8. Wonka Bar

Easter is the season for foil wrapper chocolate, probably more than Christmas. So I thought I’d include these Florida Tropic Milk Chocolate Balls here now.

I have three varieties, which are all small foil-wrapped milk chocolate balls in a fruit flavor. Key Lime, Raspberry and Orange. The flavors are familiar to those who have had the Florida Tropic Oranges (which come in far more flavors).

The little stand up bags are nicely formatted, cleanly designed and compact. Of course they’re color coded - raspberry is hot pink, orange is orange and lime is green. (They’re also bilingual, half is in French.) There’s 5.3 ounces in there, so it’s enough to share, but not quite enough to fill up an ample candy dish like a bag of Hershey’s Kisses might.

Each 3/4” ball of milk chocolate is wrapped in matte foil keyed to the flavor. While they’re not quite Easter eggs, they colors, the fact that they’re individually wrapped & ready to nestle in some basket grass makes them an ideal choice. Especially since there really isn’t much out there like this.

The first is Florida Tropic Milk Chocolate Key Lime. Key lime is an interesting flavor. While it’s tempting to call all lime flavors the same, there is a perceptible difference between key limes (sometimes called Mexican limes) and the larger Persian limes that are found in most grocery stores. Key lime juice isn’t clear, it’s rather milky and has a more zesty and chalky flavor to it.

The flavor profile is softer than the Persian lime notes, which are a dichotomy of bitter zest and sour juice but little in between. In this case the slightly floral notes and powerful zest goes well with the milk chocolate. It doesn’t immediately call to mind cleaning products like Persian limes do. The aftertaste is strong though, strong enough to make me want to either eat more or something else.

The milk chocolate itself isn’t particularly notable - it’s smooth enough, better than the Terry’s Chocolate Orange I was once accustomed to. The milk and dairy notes are good, and give this a bit of a yogurty note.

The Florida Milk Chocolate Raspberry smells strongly of floral berry notes right away. Raspberry is a tough flavor to do, it’s strong and can be cloying and put off some folks who actually like the fresh berries. This one is pretty close - there are strong flowery odors along with some good deep woodsy components. There’s a slight aftertaste again, the lingering flavoring. The chocolate combines well and the natural tang of the milk in there gives it a bit of a chocolate cheesecake vibe.

The Florida Tropic Milk Chocolate Orange is probably the crowd pleaser in the set. The chocolate is sweet but has a passably creamy melt, milky texture and well rounded orange zest flavors. I liked the texture better than the orange shaped one, and oddly it didn’t seem as orangy (maybe it’s just that they’re smaller morsels). There’s a little salt in the milk chocolate, which keeps it all from tasting too sickly sweet. It’s far better than any of the novelty-flavored Hershey’s Kisses I’ve tried recently.

I don’t have a price on these, but judging by the prices of the Oranges they make, I’d expect a bag to be tagged at less than $4 for the 5.3 ounce bag. A little more than Dove or Hershey’s but offering something they don’t ... a little fruity note.

Related Candies

1. Eat with your Eyes: Orange Dark Chocolate Shells
2. Divine 70% Dark Chocolate with Raspberries
3. Choceur After Dinner Mints: Orange & Peppermint
4. Florida Tropic Oranges
5. Regional Flavors: Key Lime, Pina Colada & Huckleberries
6. Frey Supreme: White, Lemon & Lime and Citron & Poivre
7. Short & Sweet: Caramello /  Mega M&Ms / Orange Kisses

Whitman’s is out of the box this Easter. Until I spotted these little Marshmallow Egg covered in Easter Pastelle I didn’t know that Whitman’s didn’t make anything but boxed chocolates.

Whitman’s is now owned by Russell Stover’s, so it isn’t surprising that they might move into the single serving items and it makes more sense that if they did, it wouldn’t be with an item identical to a Russell Stover product. The new line seems to be all “Easter Pastelle” covered marshmallows.

The eggs were priced as I expected, regular price was 59 cents but on sale at two for a dollar at Walgreen’s where I found them (also spotted at RiteAid).

I found them in three colors: Green, Yellow and Magenta.

I also found that they were not flavored, which might have been fun. A raspberry flavored Easter Pastelle coating with a plain marshmallow would be an innovative piece of candy. A white confection on a marshmallow is, well, ordinary.

Each egg is one ounce. They’re approximately 2.5” long and 1” high. The Easter Pastelle is thin and not quite crisp. It smells like, well, an Easter basket. A fake vanilla and sugar scent.

The Pastelle coating is made of sugar, hydrogenated palm kernel oil and milk products plus some food coloring.

The marshmallow is very soft and foamy, moist and sticky, not chewy and latexy like some. It’s all very, very sweet. In the case of the pink one shown above, I got a bitter metallic aftertaste from the pink Pastelle. The green was tastier in that it had fewer aftertastes to mess with the tastes.

The more exciting product in the new line though was this Whitman’s Marshmallow Carrot which cost a whole dollar.

The large orange carrot shaped marshmallow is covered in two different colors of Easter Pastelle, the orange body and a green carrot top. The whole thing weighs 1.75 ounces.It’s a little over 4” long, so it’s a hefty piece of fluffed sugar. This package has a little waxed card in it, I’m guessing this candy needed a little more support than the eggs. (It also helped to show off the product well in the package.

The flavor profile is similar to the Egg, except that the carrot is a little flatter, so there’s not quite as much marshmallow to Pastelle.

The marshmallow didn’t seem quite as moist either. But still, this is some intense sugar. I couldn’t eat more than two bites before I had to slip it back into its package.

These aren’t stellar, but they are different enough from what you can get in the drug store aisle from Russell Stover, RM Palmer, Hershey’s or Dove, so they have that going for them. Folks who like really high glycemic load (28 g total weight: 21g of carbs, 3g of fat) fluffed confectionery will probably go crazy for these. The carrot would make an amazing decoration on top of a carrot cake or a plate of Easter desserts.

I still think a bit of flavor thrown in would be interesting. Orange-flavored, Mint-flavored, Lemon-flavored coatings would really set this apart from the ordinary.

Related Candies

1. Chocolate Covered Peeps
2. Private Reserve Russell Stover and Whitman’s Reserve
3. Cadbury Easter Mallows
4. Elmer’s Dark Chocolate Heavenly Hash & Gold Brick Eggs
5. Elmer’s Toasted Marshmallow Eggs
6. Whitman’s Sampler Tin
7. The Great Pumpkin Roundup