Candy Blog

Take out last month’s holiday searches and this month’s search strings are remarkably similar. Folks are looking for info abou Reese’s, Kissables, Butterfingers and Rockaleta.

1. reeses
2. butterfinger
3. kissables
4. razzles
5. choxie
6. lemonheads
7. bonkers candy
8. japanese candy
9. pecan log roll
10. rockaleta

I think the biggest surprise after being Farked over the weekend is that KitKat isn’t on the list (and hasn’t even made it into the top 20 before).

I picked up some more of the Cacao Reserve line at the 7-11. I figured it would be interesting to give them a try after my chocolate overload at the Fancy Food Show (and fancy should not always be confused with gourmet or even good).

I’ve already tried two of the Cacao Reserve bars, the Hazelnut in Milk Chocolate and 65% Dark Nibby Bar. And they were pretty good. I know that there are some folks who turn up their nose at Hershey’s attempt at upscale chocolate, but I don’t call this upscale ... it’s simply better quality. If I’m stuck making a chocolate choice at 7-11, I’m going to go for the Cacao Reserve Nibby bar over the waxy Ghirardelli every time.

The little tin is quite fun. It’s the same size as an Altoids tin. Yes, there are eight truffles in that wee little box. You know how they fit them in there? They’re wee truffles!

They look all homespun and enrobed/dipped but don’t be fooled, these are molded truffles. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Appearance accounts for a lot in candy and these are nice looking little chocolates.

Each is an easy single bite or two very small bites. The chocolate coating is a bit sweet and has a light acidic tang to it. It’s not terribly complex in the flavor area, just smooth and a bit on the smoky side with a mild dry finish. The truffle filling is rather bland, not as creamy as I would like but has a light salt hit in it that sets it apart from the shell.

The tin is a nice idea, an easy way to carry the little truffles without smashing them in some sort of wonky plastic tray. The price was a little steep, however. At $2.99 for the little tin that holds 1.8 ounces, that means a full pound purchased this way is $26.58. (Compare that with See’s selling a little 4 ounce Valentine’s heart for $5.25 a box which would mean the chocolate is going for $21 a pound.) Of course I wouldn’t go into 7-11 and buy things for the price, I’m sure these are available for quite a bit less at drug stores or mega-marts.

Overall, I wasn’t that impressed with this effort into high end chocolates. The centers were not smooth and creamy enough for my tastes when it comes to a truffle indulgence. However, this has not put me off from my curiosity about the other bars in the Cacao Reserve line.

That’s right, for the first full week of February it’ll be all Valentines all the time. I’ll even have profiles of at least a half a dozen upscale chocolatiers to add to the Chocolate Gift Guide.

Following up on the Munch Bar post a few weeks ago, this is the competing product: Planters Peanut Bar Original.

As pointed out in the comments on the Munch Bar review, the Planters bar isn’t as toffee-like. In fact, there are no dairy products at all in this bar.

It’s a heavily peanut bar, as you can see. The peanuts are jam packed together with the hard candy part just there to keep it all in one cohesive unit. The peanuts are toasty tasting and fresh with a nice salty hit from the candy.

It’s pretty satisfying even though it’s only 1.6 ounces. It also keeps well in harsh conditions, like warm summers or maybe in the car. It does just fine if it gets broken.

Of the two that I’ve had now (Planters Peanut Bar and Munch Bar), I think I prefer the Munch because of the more toffee-like candy cement. But I wouldn’t turn this one down. Both are a little hard to find. Drug stores seem to have a good selection, but I didn’t see this or the Munch bar at my usual 7-11s.

100 Grand was one of my favorite bars when I was a kid. Back then they were called $100,000 Bars and there was some sort of jingle that went with it that I’ve forgotten (and I know a lot of jingles). The bars when first introduced were one piece, a long log of caramel, crispies and chocolate. Later when the name changed they made it into two pieces, which I fully supported in theory, but didn’t try at the time because of the Nestle boycott (which I followed from 1983 until 1989 or so).

The 100 Grand was a bar I missed (and I have to admit that I had a few fun sized ones during that boycott period because they were around in office candy dishes or brought home as Halloween booty by someone). There’s nothing else like it on the market.

Of course it hasn’t been immune to the Limited Edition craze and has undergone at least two versions, the Dark (yummy) and the Peanut (shrug). What’s especially confusing is that this 100 Grand with Coconut is not a limited edition version of the bar. It appears to be an actual addition to the line. CandyAddict’s commenters spotted them a full year ago, yet there’s no mention of them on Nestle’s website (well, there’s very little mention of the 100 Grand bar on Nestle’s site, period). 

I saw this on SugarSavvy.net a few weeks ago. Joanna got a hold of two new items from Nestle, the 100 Grand with Coconut and the Crunch Bar with Coconut. I have to say that I was skeptical about this version, but I had to pick it up when I saw it.

The bar looks the same as always. The difference is inside. Instead of putting the coconut shreds in the milk chocolate coating with the crisped rice, they put it into the caramel center. What this does, however, is ruin the texture of the chewy, stringy caramel. It’s now more solid and a bit grainier. (See the 100 Grand Dark photo for a better view of what the caramel is supposed to look like.) Joanna pegs it when she calls it a version of Brach’s Neapolitan.

The final curiosity of this bar is that it’s bilingual. It’s in both English and Spanish. I don’t know if it’s supposed to be marketed in Hispanic neighborhoods or if it’s for export and they’ve decided to carry it in the States as well.