ZOMG, Candy!

The Cadbury Picnic is a UK bar composed of milk chocolate with toffee, wafer, peanuts, sultanas, and a crispy cereal centre. You can tell it’s British not only from the spelling of centre but also from the “toffee,” which in British vernacular is actually what we would call caramel. That is, cooked sugar that is still sticky and viscous rather than solid and crunchy.

In case you’re wondering, like I was when I first read the wrapper, sultanas are basically raisins made with a specific grape. Not that it mattered much in the case of this bar. The chocolate that coated it was way too blandly sweet and overpowered all the “Picnic” treats. The toffee/caramel ribbon that sat under the wafers (or was that supposed to be the crispy cereal centre? hard to tell) could barely be tasted, and the peanuts that studded the bar were unroasted, a wasted flavor opportunity.

Overall, the bar was at least texturally interesting. It was a shame that so much went into this bar, so little actually managed to flavor it. A disappointing O.

I found the British Cadbury Crunchie (BUY!) at Coco Moka in Houston’s airport.

The wrapper promised “milk chocolate with a golden honeycomb centre,” so I expected that it would be something similar to the Violet Crumble, and I was right. However, I liked the Cadbury Crunchie more. The honeycomb center (or centre) of the Cadbury Crunchie was darker and had a more complex burnt sugar flavor. It was also less styrofoamy than the Violet Crumble, so it was less dry on the tongue.

Despite being better than the Violet Crumble, the Cadbury Crunchie still falls far short of the chocolate/honeycomb perfection attained by the Dark Sponge of Economy Candy because its honeycomb center is that fake foamy thing. My first two bites made me want to give it an OMG, but a third bite put me in sweetness overload, so I demoted its ranking to an OM. Perhaps if I’d tasted the treat sized version (BUY!), I would’ve let it keep that higher rating. Even the nice touch of the decorated bottom couldn’t change the fact that the sweet milk chocolate plus the dense and sweet honeycomb adds up to an overly cloying bar.

I personally rather like the ad campaign that Stride (BUY!) has been running. The commercials I’ve seen revolve around the company and those that sell it going out of business because the flavor lasts so long that people don’t need to buy new packs.

The packaging is like that of Dentyne’s soft gum, which makes sense because they’re made by the same company. It’s clever. You can finish the bottom flap’s worth of gum, tear it off, and still reseal the rest of your pack in the top half’s notch.

The Forever Fruit flavor smells delicious - sweet and citrus-y and quite appetizing. If only it tasted as good as it smells! It’s rather generically fruity, and that generic flavor isn’t bad; it’s just nothing to crow about. After a bit, the fruity flavor degrades into a faint artificial sweetness that lasts for a long time. I chewed my way through the movie Superbad, and the flavor made it pretty much the whole way through the movie. That long-lasting flavor, however, isn’t exactly one that’s enjoyable for an extended period of time.

I’d like to try the other flavors of Stride that maybe won’t taste so much of aspartame. It also comes in sweet peppermint, winterblue (which I assume is wintergreen), and spearmint, but alas, no cinnamon yet. For my fruit flavored soft gum needs, I’ll stick to Orbit (I particularly like their raspberry mint).