Candy Blog

I’m not sure why they call these Whispers. They’re crunchy. Maybe it’s their delicate taste.

They’re just chocolate covered malted milk balls, but for some reason they don’t call them that in the UK (then again, we call them Whoppers here as a rather generic term). The other UK malt balls I’ve had are Malteasers.

I picked them up at Mel & Rose’s and hoped they were the best malted milk balls ever made. (A lot of the time I buy stuff hoping it’ll be okay. Sometimes I really go to town and wind myself up that I’ve found the perfect candy to be stranded on an island with.)

Being a Cadbury product I expected some good chocolate. It was okay, the usual sweet and powdered milk tasting stuff but then again malted milk always tastes a bit like powdered milk anyway. The crispy centers were light and had a good hit of malt with a little bit of a dark salt note to it. The proportions were good, there was a nice amount of chocolate, but it wasn’t all about the chocolate, the shell was just there to protect the crispy center.

The chocolate wasn’t creamy enough for me, it had that shellac shell on it that just made it a little too waxy. If anyone’s keeping track, I think the best prepackaged malted milk balls I’ve tried so far are the Limited Edition Pop’ables ... other than that I like to pick up the bulk ones at the grocery store (Harmony brand).

These were manufactured in South Africa.

Coffee is one of my favorite flavors. I’ve been searching for the perfect coffee chocolate bar, so when Green & Black’s offered to send me some chocolate to try (including some bars I’d had trouble getting a hold of around here), I jumped at it.

Green & Black’s basically offers two different formats for their chocolate, the big 3.5 ounce bars and these boxes of 27 little tablets. I really like the boxes because I can have just a little chocolate and save it for later or share it. But it’s a lot of packaging, too, so I’m torn.

Unlike other coffee infused bars that use whole beans to flavor the chocolate, Green & Black’s doesn’t have discernible grounds in the chocolate. Here’s what the package says:

To get the ultimate smooth dark espresso chocolate we’ve taken fresh organic espresso coffee and ground it until the coffee grains can no longer be felt on the tongue. Combining this with our dark chocolate gives the sensation of a strong espresso hit followed by the intense bittersweet chocolate flavors.

Thank goodness someone realized that I don’t want coffee grounds in my chocolate!

The overwhelming scent of these little pieces is coffee, strong black coffee. On the tongue the chocolate melts readily with no graininess but some bitter notes of espresso with flavors of licorice and sandalwood apparent as well. Just as advertised on the package the chocolate flavors emerge later as a support for the espresso, kind of like cream does in your coffee.

It’s not for the faint of heart, this is high octane stuff and I imagine there’s a good hit of caffeine in there, too. I’ve had to be careful not to eat them too late in the day lest they keep me up. I enjoyed it but the price for the box of tablets is a bit up there, for a better value grab the 3.5 ounce bar at Target (here in LA they’re selling them at Ralph’s now).

If you’re a reader from the UK, be sure to check their site for current competitions to win chocolate prizes.

UPDATE: I grabbed the retail price from Chocosphere, which as them at $13.99 a box. If you find it in stores it should be $8.99.

There have been a few deaths in the news lately, and a couple of them are candy related.

First, Nathan Sloane of Charleston Chew died at the age of 97 last month. Though he didn’t invent the Charleston Chew, he bought the company in 1957 and developed the other versions of the bar, including chocolate-chocolate and strawberry. He later sold the company in 1990 to Nabisco.

Read obituary at The Boston Globe.

And just yesterday Dorothy Harmsen who co-founded Jolly Rancher passed away at the age of 91. Hers is a charming tale of an accidental candy empire. She started making chocolates to offset the dip in ice cream sales in the cold Colorado winters. Their first breakout hit was the super-cinnamon Fire Stix. One of my favorites as a child. The family later sold the business to Hershey’s in 1996.

Rest in peace, Dorothy. Read full obituary at the New York Times.

How many hazelnut crispy bars does Ferrero make? How many of them have wacky names? So far I’ve had the Happy Hippos and Kinder Bueno. This one is called Tronky.

The package says, “lo snack leggero e croccante.” Which means something about it being a light snack. Which is odd, because I think it’s supposed to look like a log.

Tronky is a crisp shell filled with a chocolate & hazelnut cream with chopped hazelnuts. It’s pretty darn good. The shell is crunchy though a little bland, but the filling is rich with a slight chocolate flavor and a good crunchy from the fresh hazelnuts. The size is great, it’s easy to eat a whole one, you don’t want to eat half and save it for later, it’ll get stale very quickly. Besides, it’s very messy if you don’t just wolf the whole bar down in three bites. Each bar is less than 100 calories, so it’s a nice treat but not too much of an indulgence. (Of course you can buy them in six pack bags.)

If you’re traveling in Europe and are sitting around in an airport, pick one up and give it a try.

Related Candies

1. Ferrero Raffaello & Rondnoir
2. Ferrero Rocher
3. Happy Hippos
4. Kinder Egg
5. Kinder Bueno

I saw George Duran while at the All Candy Expo back in June and figured I should keep an eye on his show to see how he covered it.

I haven’t seen anything on All Candy Expo pop up yet, but the Ham on the Street does have a new episode on candy that you might want to catch.

The episode has all sorts of little tidbits in it, including an explanation of how Wintergreen Lifesavers make a spark and of course Mentos and Soda Pop.

He also takes some fun candies from Aji Ichiban out on the street to see what people think of candied crabs, fruit jellies and durian hard candies.

It’s not a cooking show if he doesn’t make something, so he invents his own candy bar, which is a base of two pretzel sticks topped with fresh hazelnut paste covered in chocolate. He takes it out to have folks help him name it ... you’ll have to watch the episode to find out what wins.
Ham on the Street - Candy on Food Network:
September 07, 2006 1:30 AM ET/PT
September 10, 2006 5:00 PM ET/PT
October 28, 2006 2:30 PM ET/PT
October 29, 2006 5:00 PM ET/PT

Interesting fact: in the trivia quiz portion of the show he wears the same lollipop tee that I saw him wear at the All Candy Expo.