Candy Blog

It’s easy to think of Russell Stover as a stuffy boxed chocolate brand for old people, but I have to say that they are consistently on trend with their new flavors. Last year they introduced Red Velvet Santa, this year was a Pumpkin Pie Pumpkin and today I’m going to start my review with the Russell Stover Gingerbread in Dark Chocolate.

The packaging is simple, just a lump of Santa shaped candy in a sleeve with a Santa picture on the front. If there’s one unifying element with the Russell Stover Santa candies, it’s that they have a picture of a Santa on the front, but that the style will be different from the others. There’s really nothing cohesive in the branding.

They’re priced very well, at only 50 cents each for one ounce when on sale, they’re easy to find at most drug store chains. (I don’t see them at Target or KMart, though. Walgreen’s usually has the best selection, but RiteAid and CVS are pretty dependable for the most popular varieties.)

Like the Cookie Dough Egg, Pumpkin Pie and Red Velvet, the center for this piece contains flour. It’s like a cookie dough, in this case, more like a cake batter for gingerbread. It’s pretty mild, with more clove and ginger notes with a little hint of brown sugar. It’s not really fudgy, but more like a thick and chilled cookie dough. I liked it. It’s kind of weird, not at all like a high-end truffle, but just like a fun seasonal sweet.

Russell Stover Peppermint Cream Santa is similar to the Big Bite Mint Dream I ordered from them some years back. It’s a fluffed cream, not a fondant like Junior Mints or York Peppermint Patties.

The peppermint is clean and strong. The dark chocolate is bittersweet, glossy and crisp. The filling is light and frothy, though a little grainy and extremely sweet. It’s much sweeter than the Maple I tried later on. It’s a good peppermint product, and certainly very spare on the calories, a full piece is only 120 calories if you’re tying to indulge on a dietary budget.

The label doesn’t list any real sourcing information for the ingredients, specifically the chocolate. Since Russell Stover manufactures such a wide variety of confections there are lots of allergen warnings. The Gingerbread has flour (gluten) in it, the Mint and Maple have egg whites plus they all have soy and milk. Then there’s the peanuts and tree nuts warning.

All the Santa pieces are ill formed. I don’t know what the shape is supposed to be, but they’re enrobed, not molded so they’re rather amorphous. The Gingerbread piece (middle) is more dense than the Peppermint Cream and Maple Cream, so it’s not quite as high.

Russell Stover Dark Chocolate & Maple Cream is just a dark chocolate version of the milk chocolate version I reviewed a couple of years ago. It’s also available in the Easter Egg version, which I also reviewed ages ago and liked. (And also didn’t get a picture of the inside.)

The dark chocolate is glossy and pretty creamy. It’s not terribly rich in flavor, but its semisweet cocoa notes balance out the fluffy maple cream center. The filling is sweet and light with a hint of salt and a woodsy, pecan scent of maple.

Related Candies

1. Twix Gingerbread
2. Good and Delish Maple Cream Charms
3. Russell Stover Pumpkin Pie
4. Russell Stover Red Velvet Santa
5. Peeps Gingerbread Men
6. Russell Stover Peppermint Bark Snowman
7. Russell Stover Santas

Hershey’s has answered the call for a holiday candy bar. The bar is actually a candy they’ve been selling for quite a few years, just a new format. It’s a white confection flavored with peppermint and studded with crunchy nonpareils formed into the standard Hershey bar mold. It’s pretty simple and named that way, too, Hershey’s Candy Cane Bar.

The bar is available in two formats, the large 3.5 ounce king sized bar I picked up or a regular 1.5 ounce single serving bar. Both feature the simple packaging design of the white background with little striped fringes at the ends and the bold Hershey’s logo across the front.

Hershey’s is also offering their regular bars in this same 3.5 ounce size in Holiday packaging, so you can get the Hershey’s Milk Chocolate with a snowman on the front and Cookies n Creme bar with a nutcracker on it. I’ve seen these on sale quite widely in both versions at Target, KMart and other drug store chains, so it shouldn’t be hard to find. Hershey’s did a Mint Miniatures mix years back that included a version of this. (I always though it would be good as a Nugget.) It’s also available as the Hershey’s Candy Cane Kiss (with less food coloring) as well.

The bar is 4 sections by 4 sections, and the package suggests that 6 pieces is a portion. The white confection is a creamy color, a little on the yellow side with lots of red nonpareil crunchies evident. The ingredients show that this is a hybrid confection, not quite true white chocolate, though it does have some cocoa butter in it, it also has some other tropical oil. However, there are no other fillers like whey.

The snap shows the crunchies and the texture of the bar. It’s a little soft, no hard snap of a high-cacao chocolate bar here. There’s lots of sugar and that’s fine with me.

The flavor is like a Smooth n Melty mint. It’s peppermint with a clean dairy flavor to it, it’s rather like eating a room temperature ice cream. It’s quite sweet, but not quite as cloying as I’ve experienced with the Cookies n Creme bar or the lesser quality RM Palmer white confections. I don’t care for the flavoring the red food coloring of the nonpareils imparts, but it’s far less than I notice on the holiday Smooth n Melty Mints which are also out on store shelves right now. (A white confection drop with red and green nonpariels on the bottom.)

I like it. I had no trouble eating the whole bar. It’s different from the slick smoothness of the real white chocolate Dove Peppermint Bark. It’s more candy than chocolate.

Related Candies

1. R.M. Palmer Candy Cane Cups
2. Hershey’s Peppermint Bark Bells
3. Peeps Chocolate Dipped Sugar Cookie & Candy Cane
4. M&Ms White Chocolate Peppermint
5. Dove Peppermint Bark
6. Christmas Mint Round Up
7. Andes Mints & Dessert Indulgence
8. Short & Sweet: Butterfinger Jingles and Mint Miniatures

It’s not a particularly new development to see giant versions of classic candies on shelves, but I have seen more than usual lately. Here’s a rundown of what’s available these days:

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (review)
Details: 1 pound total weight - each cup is one half pound, kind of like a peanut butter pot pie made of chocolate.
Price: $12.99 regularly
Where to Find: These are sold widely on the web and in stores. Check mass market retailers like Target, KMart and drug store chains.

Giant York Peppermint Patties (review)
Details: 1 pound total weight - like the Reese’s, each pattie is one half pound.
Price: $12.99 regularly
Where to Find: These are sold widely on the web and in stores. Check mass market retailers like Target, KMart and drug store chains.

Hershey’s 1 Pound Bar
Details: 1 pound total weight
Price: $12.99 regularly
Where to Find: These are sold widely on the web and in stores. Check mass market retailers like Target, KMart and drug store chains.

World’s Largest Hershey Bar
Details: 5 pounds total weight
Price: $34.99 regularly
Where to Find: These are sold on the web and some specialty stores, I also saw them at KMart.

Snickers Slice n Share (review)
Details: 1 pound total weight, all one bar.
Price: $12.99 regularly
Where to Find: These are sold widely on the web and in stores. Check mass market retailers like Target, KMart and drug store chains.

Toblerone 14 ounces
Details: 14 ounces (just shy of a full pound) in a long, triangular box. Some boxes are the standard creamy yellow, but there are other light blue winter-themed boxes available as well.
Price: $8.99
Where to Find: I spotted these both at Target and Cost Plus World Market. They’re a good value, compared to the other giant bars. 

Mike and Ike and Hot Tamales Giant Box
Details: 1.5 pounds in a large box containing 48 snack sized packets.
Price: $19.99 (spotted at KMart)
Where to Find: I’ve only seen them in stores at KMart, but the JustBorn.com webstore also sells them.

A better value when it comes to these is really the vending packages, which are 5 pounds, about the size of an airplane pillow and cost less, they’re usually available at places like Smart & Final or on the web. (Amazon link.)

Nestle Crunch 1 Pound Bar
Details: 1 pound total weight
Price: $12.99
Where to Find: I’ve spotted these at KMart and Target

Russell Stover 2 Giant Bars S’Mores (review of regular size)
Details: 1 pound total weight - two bars.
Price: $9.99
Where to Find: I’ve spotted these at KMart and Walgreen’s so far, but you can also get them directly from RussellStover.com

Russell Stover 2 Giant Bars Pecan Delight (review of regular size)
Details: 1 pound total weight - two bars.
Price: $9.99
Where to Find: I’ve spotted these at KMart and Walgreen’s so far, but you can also get them directly from RussellStover.com

RM Palmer Giant 1/4 Peanut Butter Cup (review)
Details: 4 ounce peanut butter cup
Price: $1.00
Where to Find: RiteAid and other drug stores

Giant Tootsie Pop
Details: 8 Tootsie Pops in a giant Tootsie Pop shaped dome on a stick
Price: $8.99
Where to Find: I’ve spotted these at Cost Plus World Market

Giant versions of standard candies are rarely better than the originals. They’re a novelty and play off the notion that more is better. But mostly more is fun, more is sharing and more is delightful. If someone doesn’t like the standard version, they’re unlikely to enjoy the giant, so choose carefully. But the good news is that these are rather inexpensive and make a fun item for a child to give to an adult in their life.

Have you seen any other giant versions of candies for the holidays?

Related Candies

1. Trader Joe’s Holiday Roundup 2012
2. Christmas Candy Spotting 2010
3. Jumbo Gum Ball Eggs
4. Big Tex Giant Jelly Beans
5. Giant Pixy Stix

The hot flavor trend this season is gingerbread. Well, not as hot as pumpkin spice, which spans Halloween and Christmas holidays. There’s little difference between the spices in pumpkin pie and gingerbread, though the proportions of the actual spices are often different and gingerbread has a background of molasses or brown sugar.

The M&Ms Milk Chocolate Gingerbread are sold only at Walmart this season, though their companion Twix Gingerbread are sold at most stores stocking seasonal bagged candy.

The design on the front of the package looks like most of the other holiday M&Ms. In this instance the Red M&M is just holding a plate with a gingerbread cookie and pointing at it. Kind of lazy.

The Gingerbread M&Ms are a milk chocolate base with some spices added in. They come in three colors, red, green and brown. Not terribly exciting. The milk chocolate is the normal sweet stuff, creamy but on the fudgy and sugary side. The added spices give it a warm flavor but nothing distinct. Maybe there’s ginger, maybe some cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg. They add a light chalky note to the texture but I didn’t specifically get any ginger or black pepper in there.

What would have been extraordinary would have been a real piece of gingerbread, in the format of the Pretzel M&Ms. Or Sugar Cookie, or Snickerdoodle. There are so many exciting seasonal variations on the cookie center that could be accomplished. Even just the Pretzel M&M with this flavored chocolate on the outside would have propelled this to another level of specialness.

Intellectually, I know they’re not the same as the Pumpkin Spice M&Ms from earlier this year, but they don’t feel that different - just swap out the orange ones for red and tone down the cinnamon. No, Mars still hasn’t come out with the Egg Nog White Chocolate M&Ms I’ve been longing for. I guess they’re just not into nutmeg.

Today is the day many blogs decided to review the new M&Ms Milk Chocolate Gingerbread. The Impulsive Buy and ZOMG, Candy! would be the two that I’ve seen so far and previously Junk Food Guy and Serious Sweets. I think most of us are agreed, it’s a nice idea but not really a great M&M.

Related Candies

1. Twix Gingerbread
2. M&Ms Pumpkin Spice
3. Peeps Gingerbread Men
4. Kraft Jet-Puffed Marshmallows + Vanilla, Cinnamon Bun, Strawberry, Chocolate Royale, Gingerbread
5. Limited Edition M&Ms Cinnamon Milk Chocolate
6. Crispy M&Ms
7. Pretzel M&Ms

This is a one ounce chocolate turkey from SweetWorks. It’s all natural chocolate, kosher and of course wrapped in colorful foil to look like a turkey.

This one was sent as a sample, but I have seen them for sale at Dylan’s Candy Bar. I have a whole array of the different foil wrapped hollow chocolate figures from SweetWorks, I’ll be posting a review in a few weeks.

I hope you have a tasty and safe Thanksgiving with all your dearest loved ones.