Candy Blog

Last year Mars announced a new season flavor for their Twix candy: Twix Sugar Cookie. Sadly, they never showed up in stores in this dimension. Then this year they made their announcements for the holidays with nothing noted for the Twix line, so I was blindsided to find out that there is in fact a holiday version of Twix this year: Twix Gingerbread. (There’s also seasonal Gingerbread M&Ms out, but they are a Walmart exclusive.)

The description is a short listing of the elements: cookie bars - gingerbread caramel - milk chocolate. So it’s not a gingerbread cookie; it’s the caramel that’s flavored like gingerbread.

What I’ve always loved about gingerbread, whether in cake form or crunchy cookie, is the wonderful base of molasses that gives a touch of sweetness but mostly an earthy base for the spices. Recipes obviously call for ginger but also include clove, cinnamon, black pepper, nutmeg, allspice and/or coriander. The ingredients for Twix Gingerbread doesn’t specify the spice array and does not list molasses at all.

The Twix minis are a little over a half an ounce each. They’re not quite as big as the regular bar you buy in pairs. The calorie count, though, is pretty low at 80 per piece and they’re about 2.3 inches long ... it’s a nice little snack.

They smell quite sweet and cinnamony, with a hint of woodsy but undefined spices.

The overwhelming flavor profile of the caramel is cinnamon and nutmeg with hints of black pepper and ginger. There is no molasses, it’s completely missing that earthy sort of beet flavor. The chew is great, the milk chocolate was creamy and fresh and the cookie has an excellent crunch and texture to offset the caramel. It’s a good iteration of the classic candy. It doesn’t really ring as a gingerbread item. I wish the cookie was different, was an actual gingerbread cookie, but I’ll forgive them for their manufacturing limitations.

My overall feeling about these seasonal flavors like Snickerdoodle, Pumpkin Spice and Gingerbread is they’re pretty much the same thing (we may as well throw Spiced Chai in there). It’s just a mix of those cinnamon spice flavors ... all pretty generic when the end up in a mass produced candy. The Pumpkin Spice M&Ms didn’t end up that different from the Cinnamon M&Ms and probably aren’t that different from the Gingerbread M&Ms. I like the infusion of new flavors into classic candies, but when they start thinking outside the box, I’d like them to be a little more faithful to the inspiration and allow for more differentiation.

Related Candies

1. Twix Egg
2. Peeps Gingerbread Men
3. Twix Coconut (Limited Edition)
4. Triple Chocolate Twixels
5. Trader Joe’s Chocolate Covered Gingersnaps
6. Java Twix

A quick preview of an upcoming review: Twix Gingerbread.

My European candy blogging friends latched onto a new product last year, the Peanut M&Ms Intense 65% Cacao which are made in France but sold in quite a few European countries. When I had the opportunity to do a candy swap with Kristian at CandyBrain.de, this was on my wishlist of items.

I have to admit that the United States has the most diverse selection of M&MS, and we’ve even had Dark Chocolate Peanut M&Ms in stores before. So, I was mightily surprised to see that France got 65% cacao M&Ms before we did.

The bag is pretty big, with 9 ounces in a stand up gusset package. Instead of the zip top that many snack sized packages are getting the US, this on has a little sticker on the back you can peel off to use to hold it closed after you roll the top down.

The color variety for these is interesting. I looked at the ingredient panel to check if these were all natural, and it appears that it’s nearly so. I looked up all the colorings and found the following listed:

e100 is Turmeric, a yellow-orange dye (derived from plants)
e120 is Carmine, a red dye (derived from insects)
e132 is Indigo Carmine, a blue dye (derived from plants)
e133 is Brilliant Blue, a blue dye (synthetic)
e160e is Apocarotenal, a red-orange dye (derived from plants)
e162 is Beetroot Red, a purple dye (derived from plants)
e171 is Titanium dioxide, a white pigment (derived from minerals)

Here’s the weird thing about the coloring used on the shells. I could tell what some of the colors were without looking by the taste. The red one had a banana note and the orange one had a hint of curry.

The shell is quite the same as in the US version. It’s crunchy and not too thick but doesn’t crack easily. They smell nicely of cocoa and a hint of roasted peanuts. The chocolate inside is quite dark, with an immediate bitter note and a little bit of a dry undertone. It’s creamy and a little chalky but not in a grainy way. The peanuts however, were weird. I found most of mine were over-roasted, too dark, bitter and just plain ... well, not right. Maybe they’re not American peanuts, which I admit I’m quite acclimated to.

I wanted to like these more than I did, though I had no trouble eating them all. Of course the fact that they’re not available in the United States solves any issues I’d have if I did love them a little too much. Now ... maybe if they started putting Marcona almonds or Hazelnuts in there along with the dark chocolate ... then we might have something that would drive me to order from eBay regularly. I would be even better if the M&Ms World Stores would stock these international versions.

Some other reviews in the local territories:
CandyBrain (German)
Frau Shopping (German)
Grocery Gems (UK)
Foodstuff Finds (UK)

Related Candies

1. Sugarfina: The Chocolates
2. UNREAL #41 & #54 Candy Coated Chocolates
3. Crispy M&Ms
4. William diCarlo Perle di dolcezza
5. M&Ms Premiums: Dark Chocolate
6. Boston Baked Beans
7. Dark Chocolate Peanut M&Ms

Walgreen’s has a house brand of candy called Good & Delish which includes bars, chocolate clusters, mints, chocolate sticks and Belgian chocolate gems.

One of the items I’ve been eying for almost a year are the Good & Delish Milk Chocolate Maple Cream Charms. It’s hard to find good maple creams; my favorites were once the See’s Maple Cream, but now that my walnut allergy has developed, they’re off my list of edibles. It seems like these Maple Cream Charms are too good to be true. They were on sale for $2.99 for an 8 ounce bag. The ingredients looked good: real milk chocolate, real vanilla and whole milk without any weird fillers.

I was a little concerned that they were just going to be a sticky mass inside the bag, however, they’re individually wrapped. They’re even marked, so you could buy several bags of different candies from this line and be able to mix them in a candy dish and still be completely sanitary.

The pieces are nicely domed and a little over an inch at the base and an inch tall. They’re each about a half an ounce and come in at 75 calories each.

They don’t smell like much other than sweet. I didn’t get any maple hints, but perhaps a more woodsy note to the milk chocolate.

The filling is only lightly tinted on the caramel side. The fondant (made with egg whites) is soft and slight grainy. But there’s no hint of maple, only sweetness. It’s more sweet than possible for the size of the candy. The milk chocolate is similarly sweet but at least has the light milk notes, though not much in the way of cocoa flavors.

They’re terribly disappointing, given the packaging and the ingredients. I guess I shouldn’t have expected so much for a candy that’s only $8.00 per pound at regular price.

I was thinking these were also made by Harry London like the Cornflake Clusters, but they have a different Kosher certification, so now I’m stumped. It could be Bloomer’s in Ohio, which also does all natural chocolates at quite an affordable price. It appears that there are a lot of different sources for the Good and Delish line, so it’s hard give the brand my full confidence. Some of the Belgian bars and treats I also recognize from good companies as well, like their Belgian Crisps (they look like Pringles made out of chocolate).

Here’s another review: Hunting for the Very Best: Delish is Delish

Have you tried anything else from the Walgreen’s Good & Delish line you’d like to recommend or steer others away from?

Related Candies

1. Walgreen’s Good and Delish Milk Chocolate Cornflake Clusters
2. Zitners: Butter Krak, Peanut Butter, Double Cocoanut & Butter Cream Eggs
3. Brach’s Maple Nut Goodies
4. Cream Drops versus Creme Drops
5. Caramilk Maple

Candy Crush is a line of candy based on a game based on candy. Got that?

The candies are licensed by King.com and made by Healthy Food Brands, which also makes the Angry Birds gummi candies (snacks) and licenses the Sunkist brand as well.

The initial offerings for the Candy Crush line are: Candy Crush Sour Fruit Gummies, Fruit Mix Gummies, Jelly Fish and Color Bombs.

Earlier this week I reviewed the Gummies and Color Bombs, today I have the Candy Crush Jelly Fish.

Like the other candies, the boxes are big but they contain very little. They’re 7” x 4.25” - which is bigger than the more typical theater box that you’d see from Mike and Ike, Hot Tamales or Starburst, which are about 6” x 3.25” and holds 4-6 ounces. The Candy Crush line gives you between 3 ounces and 3.5 ounces in each box. I can’t fault the graphic design though. They’re bold and easy to tell apart but also easy to spot from a distance. The happy mermaid character on the front and depiction of the candy is great. At first I didn’t like package artwork but they grew on me this week.

Here’s the weird thing that you might notice right away. The flavor set listed on the box for the Jelly Fish is exactly the same as the Gummies: Blue Raspberry, Lemon, Lime, Cherry, Orange, Grape. I thought this was a great selling point, because Swedish Fish only come in four flavors. So this would be a similar candy with a different flavor variety. However, it’s pretty clear that the colors are Orange, Yellow, Green and Red. I thought maybe I didn’t get a full variety, but checking the Dylan’s Candy Bar website (which says it’s selling them exclusively in the first few weeks of the roll-out), I saw that they had the exact same description but still only showed the four colors.

The fish are soft with a matte finish to them. They didn’t stick together, but tended to tear and break when bent instead of just, well, bending. My assortment was in perfect ratios - four of each.

Red is Swedish Fish (Lingonberry) - lovely, sweet, floral and jammy. They’re soft and chewy and maybe stick a bit to my teeth.

Green is Lime - this is a dying flavor, so it’s rather strange to get it in a box (especially one that says that it’s going to be green apple). Tangy, zesty. Done.

Yellow is Lemon - a well rounded lemon flavor, a little on the zesty side without much of a tangy note.

Orange is Orange - this was good. Zesty, sweet with a hint of juicy tartness.

Even though the candies were purchased four days after their announced release, came in a sealed pouch inside a sealed box, they seemed a bit stale. Three of my fish were broken. Yes, jelly fish that were broken. They weren’t different from Swedish Fish. I love Swedish Fish, but there’s really no reason for me to buy these instead of Swedish Fish.

They’re expensive. Only 16 fish in the box. This is a sugar candy, not made with organic ingredients or all natural flavorings, yet it’s more than $22 per pound. It’s not even a unique set of flavors like it promised on the front of the box ... there’s no grape! (Which is missed by many in the Assorted Swedish Fish world.) The Mixed Fruit Gummies and Sour Gummies were at least in themed shapes that matched the game. These Jelly Fish had nothing about them that indicated they were anything other than a repacked existing product. Swedish Fish have either Swedish or Malaaco on them. Albanese Gummi Bears have a little A on their bellies. These have nothing that says anything other than generic. (Okay, I do recognize that in the game they don’t actually have a name on them either. But Jelly Bellies and M&Ms have little brands on them as well.)

For the entire Candy Crush line I can only say I’m disappointed. There’s really nothing here that’s new or innovative and since they’re more expensive than many other candies of similar quality, I can only surmise that the premium goes to the licensing fee.

Related Candies

1. Candy Crush Color Bombs
2. Candy Crush: Mixed Fruit and Sour Gummies
3. Swedish Fish Eggs
4. All Gummies Gourmet Fruity Fish (Swedish Fish knock-off)
5. Gummy Fishies
6. Swedish Aqua Life