Candy Blog

Lately there’s a lot of talk about the economy in the news and how people are downsizing their summer trips to staycations, eating out less and even driving less. What hasn’t change is sweets sales. In fact, history shows us that candy is recession-proof (even thrives in bad times as people can always spare something for a bit of sugar).

But what is happening is people are choosing their treats more carefully, with price being a key factor. I’m not one to shy away from house brands and generics, so I thought maybe I should give some design impostor candies a try. First up on my list is Foxes Five Flavor roll. I saw these in the vending machine at work. They were economical, at only 60 cents when all the other candy items were 85 cents to a dollar. Of course the roll was also smaller.

They’re meant to compete with LifeSavers 5 Flavors, so I put them to the test, head to head.

LifeSavers have a few competitors in the “small roll of hard candy” field. Mostly Charms, which are pretty hard to come by and Jolly Ranchers. I’m not terribly picky when it comes to hard candies, flavor is usually the first reason for me to buy something, brand is second or third. (Ingredients are also important.)

Here’s the specs on each:

LifeSavers 5 Flavors
Flavors: Watermelon, Pineapple, Cherry, Raspberry, Orange
Size: 14 candies, 1.14 ounces (.081 ounces each)
Ingredients: Sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, natural and artificial flavors, colors (red 40, yellow 5 & blue 1), soy lecithin.
Origin: Canada

I’ve been very unhappy with the flavor change in the LifeSavers 5 Flavor roll for many years now, and the hiatus from the product hasn’t changed my mind. There are only two flavors worth beans in here Pineapple & Orange. Raspberry is actually good but not what I want in my Favorite Five. Watermelon and Cherry can take a flying leap. (I actually don’t want cherry to leave the mix, I know it’s a legacy flavor and it’s a good way for me to make friends, by offering it to others.)

Foxes Five Flavor
Flavors: Orange, Lemon, Lime, Raspberry & Strawberry
Size: 11 candies, .81 ounces (.074 ounces each)
Ingredients: Sugar, corn syrup, citric acid, natural and artificial flavors, white grape juice concentrate, colors (red 40 & 3, blue 1 & yellow 5 & 6), sodium benzoate.
Origin: USA

The disks are attractive, translucent and sparkly. They remind me of the old Brach’s Sparklers. They are exceptionally smooth with very few voids so there’s nothing to tear up the mouth. The little divot in the middle makes it easy to run the tongue over it to deliver more flavor, or tuck it in the roof of the mouth comfortably.

Orange was rather bland. A mellow mix of zest and light tanginess, it didn’t have much zip. Lemon was all about sweetness, it was more like cotton candy flavor than a lemon drop, the lemon oil flavors developed more as it dissolved but never moved past pleasant for me. Lime was more intense with both sour and zest ... pretty good. Strawberry was surprisingly peppy - tart, fragrant and a bit like jam. The raspberry was similarly tasty, a little tart, a little flowery.

Overall the flavors were good, not stellar but quality hard candies. The flavors were distinctive and consistent. I would have preferred they be more intense, especially the citrus ones but the two berries were surprise hits.

Though you get more in the LifeSavers roll, you also pay more and with the price of LifeSavers at 85 cents at 7-11, the Foxes Five Flavors win out gram for gram. So, the verdict - if the flavor variety sounds good, the Foxes is a good option when you’re stuck with vending machine fare or are looking to pinch your pennies (and yes, it’s only pennies that are at stake).

Related Candies

1. Trader Joe’s Sweet Story
2. Atkinson’s Coconut Long Boys
3. Twizzlers (Strawberry)
4. LifeSavers
5. Head to Head: Chewy SweeTarts vs Chewy Tart n Tinys
6. Goodbye Reed’s
7. Head-to-Head: Smarties vs. M&Ms

I feel like I’ve been doing a lot of reviews for candies with health claims lately. I blame it on there actually being a lot of new candy introductions that make health claims. Some tout being fat free, others have beneficial natural ingredients pumped up others are fortified with nutrients not normally found in candies.

Part of this is because of the perception that candy is to blame for the current obesity crisis. Vending machines are being removed from schools and where they still exists, the snacks must pass a rigorous test to be deemed healthy enough to be included. (Some ban high-calorie portions, others put limits on the fat ratio and/or the sugar content. More here.)

In order to maintain their marketshare many confectionery companies are tweaking their candies to stay in the diets of kids everywhere. Sunkist is pretty much synonymous with fruit so it’s a pretty good guess they’d want any candy with their name on it to be regarded as healthy. So they’ve launched some Better For You! gummi.

Not only do they have 100% of the RDA of vitamin C and are made with fruit juice but they also state that they contain 35% less sugar than average leading gummi.

The ingredients go like this:

Corn syrup, sugar, maltitol syrup, sorbitol, gelatin, fruit juice (may contain one or all apple, pineapple juice from concentrate), citric acid, malic acid, ascorbic acid, natural and artificial flavors, carnauba wax, artificial colors (Red 40, Yellow 5 & 6, Blue 1).

What’s nice is that Sunkist went with a combination of sugar alcohols (sorbitol and maltitol) instead of artificial sweeteners but still kept sugar and corn syrup as the primary sweeteners here. Sugar alcohols can cause intestinal distress in some people, so I took it very slow with these.

They look gorgeous. No kid is going to look at these and not think that they’re soft and fruity gummi. As a whole they smell like fruit punch.

Each piece is formed like the fruit it’s flavored for.

Cherry - rather medicine-like. Tart and sweet, very soft.

Strawberry - looks more like a shoe tread than a fruit, but still nicely fragrant and fruity, only slightly tangy but basically tasty. There’s a slight throat burn towards the end. These were redder than the cherries so I blame my personal nemesis Red 40, your mileage may vary.

Lemon - I expect great things from a lemon product from Sunkist, which made its name on citrus. This doesn’t disappoint. The shape is perfect, the chew is soft and the flavor is a blend of tartness, sweetness and zestiness. It could be a little more intense, but overall a great middle of the road lemon gummi.

Orange - the little translucent orange slices are just lovely. They smell like orange zest and are surprisingly complex with lots of zest to back up the light tart bite.

So they make a believable candy. And nutritionally? Well the sparing use of the sugar substitutes means that these clock in at a mere 78 calories per ounce.  31 grams are carbohydrates but 11 of them are from the sugar alcohols per 40 gram serving (which amounts to 110 calories). There are no other fortifications ... no crazy fish oil or Zinc or anything to give the gummi a crazy aftertaste. Just 100% of the RDA of vitamin C in every serving.

Though the package says 35% less sugar, it’s not that significant in the whole scheme of things. Regular gummi have about 100 calories per ounce ... but really, how many are you eating? I suppose if you’re eating gummi every day you can save yourself 150 or so calories per week. (Every bit helps!) As long as you’re not sensitive to the use of sorbitol or maltitol.

On the whole only half of the flavors were of interest to me and the very soft texture and threat of an evening in the bathroom isn’t enough for me to buy them again. But they might be right for some folks.

As with all true gummi, these are made with gelatin and are unsuitable for vegetarians. (Note: while Sunkist Fruit Gems are made by Jelly Belly here in the USA, these are made under license from Sunkist by Healthy Food Brands in China.)

Related Candies

1. Loud Truck Energy Gummies
2. Brach’s Gummi+Plus & Tropical Gummis
3. Starburst GummiBursts
4. Gummi Lightning Bugs
5. Haribo Gummi Bears vs Trolli Gummi Bears

Last year I was introduced to Feodora chocolate by my husband who brought me this lovely Hazelnut bar. It was just whole hazelnuts in a rich and sticky milk chocolate. Very tasty (but had bloomed so I didn’t do a full review but somehow managed to eat it all anyway).

In order to properly review it though, I needed to find more.

Feodora is a German chocolate company who named their line of bars and chocolates after Feodora, the sister of the last German Empress and half-sister to Queen Victoria. As an imported brand it’s not as easy to find for me as some others from Germany like Hachez or Ritter Sport.

I picked up this small assortment of Feodora’s small bars at the Fancy Food Show way back in January and found them in my chocolate stash.

Vollmilch-Hochfein Chocolade - 37% Kakao mindestens - sweet but quite deep with strong raisin and grape flavors, smells a little like a mild cheesecake but very creamy.

Edel-Bitter Chocolade - 60% Kakao mindestens - has a wonderful buttery consistency, but a strong and bitter taste. The notes are of balsam woods, coffee, cherry and dark teas.

Grand’or - 75% Kakao mindestens - The Grand’or is reputed to undergo a long conching process, which results in an extra smooth chocolate, so I wasn’t concerned with the texture. It was just as buttery and creamy smooth as the 60% but really intensely flavored. Some dark cherry and tea notes were present here along with charcoal and cedar. It’s quite rich, one of these tiny bars was absolutely satisfying.

The bars are very consistent in their consistency - lovely smoothness and even flavors. The molding was pretty and the tempering spot on for each of the small pieces. They’re not that expensive for import bars, leading me to believe this is a mid-range bar. You can get them online from German Deli and I’ve seen them at Mel & Rose’s Wine & Liquors.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m often a sucker for packaging. In this case it’s the Feodora Mocca’s. Little coffee flavored dark chocolate bits shaped like coffee beans. In this case they came in a gold box with a flip open top and a very attractive cup of coffee on the front. Since I’d already tried the little chocolate bars, I thought something in their flavored line would be ideal. Still, they were $3.99 for 75 grams.

They’re actually quite a bit bigger than real coffee beans at 3/4 of an inch. Each was nicely formed, flat on one side and with a little lengthwise cinch to simulate a bean.

The bittersweet chocolate is smooth, and actually a bit bitter with the authentic taste of freshly roasted coffee infused quite strongly. (It’s 3% coffee according to the label.) It was every so slightly grainy which was disappointing after the smoothness of the bars, but forgivable compared to the gritty nature of many coffee bars I’ve had over the years.

The coffee chocolate is also available as a bar, but I think I’m willing to pay the premium for the cute box and shape of the pieces. But I reckon I’m only going to do that once or twice a year at most. But they’d make a nice stocking stuffer for any coffee fiend.

Related Candies

1. Nestle Crunch (Now Even Richer Milk Chocolate)
2. Caffe Acapella - Coffee Confections
3. Cafe Select Chocolate Coffee Trios
4. Niederegger Marzipan Orange
5. Milka Alpenmilch
6. Ritter Darks

I was enamored of the name of this new guarana boosted line of gummis called Loud Truck. (And I said so! Which prompted the company to offer me some samples, which I accepted.)

The crazy logo features a classic old truck with a gazillion different horns and loudspeakers mounted to it. It’s cute and it gives the impression that these candies can wake me up! That they’re in my face! They’re in a blazing orange bag! I’m up! The flavor is called citrus blast! I’m up already!

It’s a tiny little bag, it holds only an ounce, but then again, it’s powerful stuff. I couldn’t tell from the opaque packaging or any of the material on the Loud Truck website what they’d look like. I thought, you know, maybe like little trucks. Nope.

The gummis are little bears! Loud, truck driving bears! (Okay, they don’t have their trucks on the, but if you look very carefully I think you can see the keys to their trucks in their pockets.)

But wait, they have little As on their bellies which either means they’re adulterous bears (and being cooped up in a tiny bag with perhaps no hope of being reunited with their loved ones, you can imagine the temptations and perhaps even forgive any transgressions) or more likely it means that they’re made by Albanese Confectionery Company.

They feature a blend of nutrients, though the package is kind of odd. They recommend a pair of bears as a serving, which features 7 mgs of caffeine and a blend of things like Vitamin C, B vitamins and Taurine. A whole package (4.5 servings) has about 32 mgs of caffeine. (Red Bull has 80, a 12 ounce cup of coffee can have anywhere between 70-160.)

So even if you eat the whole package, it’s not gonna kill you. You’ll be lucky if it keeps you up at all, depending on your sensitivities.

The texture is similar to most other soft gummis. Bouncy, soft and nicely scented. The smell, on the other hand, is kind of odd. It’s more like jasmine tea than orange or lemon. The flavor is only slightly tart and has a slight zest, but not definable as citrus, per se. They are slightly bitter, at least to me.

They’re odd, not unappealing, but I don’t consider it citrus in the slightest. I think the bitterness is not zest but probably the guarana, which has a flavor of its own.

At about $2 per package, they’re not cheap, but as a non-liquid caffeine source they’re more palatable than many other items I’ve tried.

Related Candies

1. Candy Bites: The Sweet, Crunchy & Creamy
2. Snickers Charged
3. Shigekix Aha! Brain (Citrus)
4. Bawls “Mints”
5. No Time & Black Black

This is another Canadian import, the Cadbury Caramilk Deluxe.

I got it from my Canadian candy source, Amber, along with a bunch of other bars that we simply can’t get here in the States (Oh Henry!). While the Caramilk bar has an American counterpart, the Caramello bar it just doesn’t have the same profile.

It turns out the Caramilk bar is the #3 bar in Canada. Different versions seem like a no-brainer for capturing a bigger market share. (I tried the Caramilk Maple, too.) But they might want to include it on their website (I think it was launched in mid 2007, so you’d think someone might have updated the site since then).

You can tell this is a modern candy launch because Caramilk Deluxe has its own Facebook page.

Instead of the traditional bar format, the Caramilk Deluxe opted for pieces. There are four little milk chocolate molded pieces tucked into a folded paperboard tray. At only 45 grams (1.59 ounces) it’s a bit smaller portion size than a regular candy bar. But don’t worry, it still clocks in with 230 calories.

They’re a little bigger than the regular sized Rolos (which is kind of what I was expecting at that point), more like a hefty Hershey’s Kiss.

The nicely molded pieces have a little swirl on the top. Again, nice touch for something called Deluxe.

As I don’t live in Canada and didn’t think to look for this on Facebook, I just had to muddle through my first tasting. There is no description on the package of what it is, just the picture. And the picture is vague. Sure, I get that there’s a shell and caramel ... but what is that red-brown stuff at the top?

Well, even after the first bite I wasn’t sure.

The caramel is flowing, sweet and extremely smooth. The chocolate is milky and tastes kind of like pudding. The other filling is rather like dark chocolate fudge. But it tastes like Oreo cookies. A very dark, burnt cocoa flavor. While thought the slight chew of the fudge was a little offputting, the flavor it added was pretty good.

Since they seem to be marketing these to women as a little indulgence the packaging and little pieces feel upscale. But the flavor of the product is pretty ordinary. If you’re a Caramilk fan, you might like these, but I’m not going to go placing a special import order or anything.

Related Candies

1. Big Mo’ Bars: Peanut Butter & Creamy Caramel
2. Fran’s Gray Salt Caramels
3. Cadbury Eggs: Creme & Caramel
4. Head to Head: Rolo vs Caramel Kisses
5. Short & Sweet: Caramello /  Mega M&Ms / Orange Kisses