ZOMG, Candy!

Starburst Choozers are “fruit flavoured chews with liquid centre made with real fruit juices.” Did you catch those UK spellings? Yup – these guys are, at least for now, only available abroad.

My pack had 10 Choozers unevenly distributed amongst 3 flavors: 6 pineapple & orange, 3 orange & mango, and 1 raspberry & orange. Though the unbalanced flavor distribution was a tad annoying, the pineapple & orange were my favorite, so that worked out well for me.

Starburst Choozers are basically like Gushers, just with a Starburst chew outside. The chew was slightly stiffer than that of regular Starbursts, while the liquid centers were a cool, non-oozy goo.

Pineapple & orange had a nicely pineapple-astringent chew. It was hard to get a feel or taste for the liquid center in this chew. Still, I enjoyed this one the most, and it made me wish that Starburst fruit chews came in pineapple.

In orange & mango, both flavors were distinguishable. Mango overpowers at first, then gives way to a tart orange. In raspberry & orange, it’s all the taste of seedy raspberry, with a slightly plasticy aftertaste.

I wish I could buy a pack of all pineapple chews (I guess they do make a pineapple Hi-Chew for that). The pineapple & orange get an OM, the orange & mango gets an O, and the raspberry & orange gets a –. Overall, I give the pack an O, as I doubt all packs are as favorably flavor imbalanced as mine was.

Here’s the second of the two Balisto bars I bought in Cambridge. In case you missed it, the other Balisto that I bought, a Muesli-Mix bar, was reviewed last Friday.

The ingredients for this bar are biscuit à la farine complete, crème au miel et amandes, enrobe de chocolat au lait (39%). I believe that translates to a whole-wheat cookie, cream of honey, and almonds enrobed in milk chocolate.

The composition of this bar was similar to that of the Muesli-Mix, and it was the same wholesome-tasting cookie with a similar fake-milk-cream thing, all covered in milk chocolate. I didn’t notice any almonds or almond bits, perhaps because the fake-milk-cream thing had a honeyed tinge that was pretty overpowering.

I thought the cross-section of this bar looked better than that of the Muesli-Mix, but unfortunately, it didn’t really taste better. The honey cream give the bar a strange finish that really doesn’t work for me. I finished the two bars, but that’s enough for me. An O.

So the honey-almond-mix wasn’t quite right. Still, after two bars, I’m going to keep my eye out for the rest of the line while I’m in Europe, as I’d love to try more variations.

I’m hopping a plane to Paris today, so I thought it fitting to trot out a review of a French candy bar that I ate last summer. I found these two Balisto bars in Le Gros Franck, the same Cambridge cafe where I found the Carambars I reviewed a while back. I’ll review the Muesli-Mix bar today and the Honey-Almond-Mix on Monday.

Muesli is a breakfast cereal made with oats, dried fruits, and nuts. It’s fairly popular in the UK. The ingredients in this Muesli Mix bar are: biscuit à la farine complète, crème au lait (16%), raisins et noisettes, enrobe de chocolat au lait (39%).

Thinking back to my high school and freshmen year French, I believe that means a whole-wheat cookie, cream, raisins, and hazelnuts, enrobed in milk chocolate.

The bulk of the bar was a fine-grained but grittily textured cookie that tasted wholesomely yummy. A thin layer of white cream topped the chocolate. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was – it reminded me of the fake milk stuff in General Mill’s Milk and Cereal bars.

Whole raisins randomly studded the top under the milk chocolate enrobing. The hazelnuts must have been quite finely chopped, as I didn’t notice any hazelnut pieces, but the whole bar had a nicely nutty tinge. I liked the Muesli-Mix bar. It tasted wholesome but was still a nice treat. An OMG.

Dove Promises’s newest product, milk chocolate with peanut butter, is heading into bold territory by trying to hone in on Reese’s audience. Challenging Reese’s is no small feat – they’ve really perfected the chocolate/peanut butter balance, both flavor and texture-wise, and they’re a brand behemoth. It may not be entirely fair to judge Dove against Reese’s, but the comparison is unavoidable.

So how’d they do? The Promises are covered in classic smooth and creamy Dove milk chocolate and filled with a similarly silky peanut butter filling. The milk chocolate was soft rather than snappy, making the whole Promise rather pliable.

The peanut butter filling was nutty, but not roasty, and could have been saltier. Reese’s has done so well precisely because its peanut butter is salty enough to really stand up against the chocolate. Dove’s could have been stronger. Still, Dove did at least manage a decently balanced chocolate to peanut butter ratio.

All in all, not a bad effort. They look slightly nicer than Reese’s miniatures, and they’d fit in nicely with a mix of Promises for a living room candy bowl. But if I have a peanut butter/milk chocolate craving while I’m in the candy aisle, I’d go with a Reese’s instead. An O.

I was excited/mad when I read this Jezebel post about Mars’s new Fling bar. Excited because my press packet and free samples were in the mail; mad because they were still in the mail and ugh, if I’d already reviewed them I might’ve been able to nab a link from Jezebel, like CandyBlog and CandyAddict did, which would’ve been huge free publicity for this site! Oh well. I still got to try them, at least. And I got to page through the hilarious/horrible press packet they came with.

Fling chocolates are marketed as portion controlled chocolate indulgences that are “naughty but not too naughty.” Now, I’m all for portion control, but I hate the way Mars went about marketing these guys. Here are some of my favorite quotes from my press packet, with my thoughts in italics:

• FLING offers chocolate liberation – freeing every woman from the guilt of indulging in chocolate pleasure. Why do women need to feel guilty about eating chocolate?! Guilt implies wrongdoing, and there’s nothing wrong with eating chocolate.
•  California women confess that they enjoy chocolate as much as passionate kissing (77% enjoy chocolate, 75% enjoy passionate kissing). That’s not how statistics work, Mars.
• Your boyfriend doesn’t need to know. If this is a legit concern for you, you deserve a better boyfriend who isn’t judgmental about your chocolate consumption habits. 

Those press notes bothered me far more than the hot pink wrappers or the sparkles in the chocolate (which I thought were kind of neat) because they embody how society can dictate how women should behave and eat and look. On a non-candy note, Frito-Lay is running a similarly annoying and sexist promotion for Baked Lays, SmartFood, and Flat Earth chips.

But that’s enough of my feminist rantings. How do the Fling bars taste? Not bad, actually, but not great. They come in three flavors: from left to right, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, and hazelnut. The milk chocolate is described as “a delicate truffle on a subtle crisp layer enrobed in shimmering chocolate,” and the same could describe all three bars. I initially thought the “crisp layer” was like the inside of a malted milk ball, just minus the malt flavors. After perusing the press packet, I learned that it’s a bit of meringue cookie. The same meringue is in all three bars and is consistently light, airy, and crisp. The chocolate literally shimmers, thanks to some added pixie dust (a.k.a. mica). Yes, it’s a bit irritating to think that Mars made the chocolate SHINY! to appeal to women, but I’ll admit it – I like shiny things. I thought the shimmer was neat, it wasn’t nearly as horrid as it looked in the press photos Mars sent me (see below), and it didn’t affect the taste at all, so why not?

The truffle of the milk chocolate bar reminds me of a 3 musketeers’ nougat filling. It had a slightly dairy finish, but there was something a bit off about the flavor, perhaps due to PGPR being listed in the ingredients.

The dark chocolate had a slightly deeper cocoa flavor and a sweet finish. It didn’t taste as dark as it looked. The ingredients for the dark bar didn’t have PGPR, but it did have “chocolate processed with alkali,” which is where the dark coloring came from.

I was most excited about the hazelnut, as chocolate and hazelnut are a great flavor combination. Unfortunately, the hazelnuttiness was far too light and not enough to really distinguish it from the milk bar. And it has more PGRP. Yay!

Overall, I give these an O. I really enjoy the novelty of the meringue cookie, but I wish the chocolate was nicer. Better chocolate and more nuttiness to the hazelnut could’ve pushed these up to the next rating. As for their marketing… Right now they’re just being test marketed in California (others can buy online). We’ll just have to wait and see how much further they get.

Did you manage to catch the limited edition run of Cherry 3 Musketeers that were out for Valentine’s Day? I didn’t. But I did get mailed a free sample bag of 3 Musketeers Raspberry minis, a limited edition for Easter. I also got a couple of their non-limited edition mint bars, but since I’ve reviewed those way back when I first started this blog, I won’t write them up again.

Though they’re ostensibly for Easter, the bars’ packaging didn’t seem that Easter-y to me. It had the requisite daisies and pastel eggs on the wrappers, but I think the shiny hot pink and silver foil wrappers went against the Easter mood. The packaging exhorts you to “bring the spring feeling home,” but they just don’t look like spring to me.

The Minis are perfect little squares (about quarter-sized) of pink-tinged nougat covered in dark chocolate. The nougat is typical 3 Musketeers nougat, soft and fluffy. The packaging promised “whipped up, fluffy chocolate-on-raspberry taste. ” They smell medicinally fruity, and they kind of taste that way too, with a seedy, artificially and overly sweet fruitiness that mingles with the mild dark chocolate coating.

I didn’t particularly care for these myself, so they get an O, but that’s a personal taste preference. I also wouldn’t care for a See’s version of the same thing. The people I shared these with liked them, and one of my friends even remarked that they taste remarkably high end for a Mars mass-produced product. So if chocolate covered fruity-nougat is your thing, by all means, add these to your Easter basket.

About a month ago, I gave two types of Dove chocolates, their Dark Chocolate Promises and their Dark Chocolate Mint Flavored Caramel Promises, a bad review. They were mailed to me as a contest prize, and they showed up bloomed and sub-par. Well, Dove saw my review and asked if I would give them a second chance if they mailed me more chocolates. This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to me, and as before, I was happy to give the offending chocolate another try. Dove sent me a generous box of samples that included several of their Promises line, and it all arrived in pristine, unbloomed condition.

First up, another shot at their Dark Chocolate Promises. This time, I got a much larger bag that arrived in fine shape. The individually foil-wrapped bite-sized chocolates had a lovely melt that was thick and creamy. It had a dusky finish with slightly dry overtones, making it solid, affordable, and portion-controlled snacking chocolate. An OM.

Dove also sent along a big bag of their Almond Dark Chocolate Promises that were packaged for Valentine’s Day. The Promises were heart shaped and wrapped in gold and pink heart-printed foil, and the messages inside these were more romantically themed than their usual inspirational fare. The pieces of almond inside were tiny, which I appreciated, as it meant they were too small to get stuck in between your teeth. The Dove dark chocolate was the same as in the Dark Chocolate Promise, and it paired nicely with the nutty, roasted almond flavor, earning them an OM.

Dove also sent along their Tiramisu Promises (at my request) and their Blackberry Caramel Promises (a nice surprise, not at my request). As you can see from above, both are square dark chocolates with a gooey caramel inside. The caramel of the Tiramisu had a strong coffee liqueur flavor that was quite tasty, if a tad on the sweet side. An OM.

The caramel of the Blackberry Caramel (possibly packaged for Valentine’s Day? It seems strange that it would always be patterned with hearts) had an overarching bright sweetness to it that tasted a bit seedy and a bit artificial. This wasn’t for me and only gets an O.

Dove’s Promises can’t compete with the high end truffle makers that charge upwards of $50 a pound, but they definitely hold their own against the usual riff-raff that clogs the seasonal aisle of the supermarket around Valentine’s Day. They’re a solid buy and quite worth their pricetag (especially when they’re free).

I have no idea how long Starburst GummiBursts have been on the market. The bag says New!, but I bought it at a Big Lots. If you don’t know, Big Lots sells closeout goods of all kinds, including candy, making it a great place to go for random candy finds. For example, my neighborhood Big Lots still has giant bags of Limited Edition Indiana Jones Mint Crisp M&Ms available. I almost bought one (they’re pretty good), but this was at home, and the bag was too big and heavy to fly back to school. Anywho, on to the Starbursts.

Like regular Starbursts, the GummiBursts come in four flavors: strawberry, cherry, orange, and lemon. Unlike regular Starbursts, these are “liquid filled gummies” rather than candy chews.

They have the texture of a soft gummi (though not as soft as fruit gems) with just the right amount of springiness. The liquid inside is clear and oozy and gooey, similar to the goo inside Gushers, but less sticky. GummiBursts are much easier to eat than Gushers, as they don’t get stuck in your teeth, and the textural combination of the gummi and the goo makes them quite palatable.

The orange gummi had a muted citrus flavor, while the liquid inside was slightly more sour. Overall, it was pretty meh and not nearly as bright as orange Starburst chews. The lemon gummi was initially sweet. After a second or two, a nice lemon zestiness kicks in, and the whole thing has a good lemon-y finish. Here the goo doesn’t add much.

Strawberry was the pink/less red one (bottom right). It had a rotund berry flavor. Cherry, the darkest red, doesn’t taste like anything for a second or two. Then the cherriness comes in, and it has a nicely fruity finish.

As best as I could tell, the liquid part doesn’t add much in terms of specific flavor, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the same liquid filling was in the different flavors of gummi. Still, it was an important textural component, as it made eating the GummiBursts fun and addictive, making them OM-worthy.

Did you know that Skittles are different in the U.K. and the U.S.? When I say Skittles, I mean standard Skittles, not random limited edition/non-standard Skittles that are so varied that I have trouble keeping track of them. In the U.S., standard Skittle flavors are red – strawberry (I think), purple – grape, yellow – lemon, green – lime, and orange – orange. Friends of mine already know that I only eat the three citrus flavors (I usually don’t particularly care for red and purple candies in general) and pawn the red and purple ones off on them.

In the U.K., the purple ones are blackcurrant instead of grape. The other color/flavors remain the same, but they taste and look different. As you can see in the above photo (I apologize for the poor quality; I blame lack of natural sunlight in rainy England), U.K. Skittles are more muted in color. It’s especially noticeable in the green ones.

I bought two tiny 10 pence bags of Skittles. The first bag contained no red ones, and the second contained only two. Maybe it was just coincidence, or maybe they make fewer red Skittles in England. The red ones tasted, well, red, and as best I can remember, they seemed pretty much the same as their U.S. counterparts. Lime was also similar, but I swear the orange was zestier and the lemon sweeter and less sour across the pond.

And the one you’ve all been waiting for (I’m guessing, as it’s the one we don’t get here): blackcurrant. Blackcurrant is a pretty popular fruit flavor in the U.K., and for good reason, I think, as I enjoy it. It tastes similar to grape but has these darker raspberry undertones that make it more interesting. Overall, I give U.K. Skittles an OM. I’d buy them again if I could conveniently do so. Then again, U.S. Skittles are pretty good too, as long as you have friends on hand who’ll eat the flavors you don’t like. 

Today’s review is of two Dove chocolates with names that are each a mouthful: Dove’s Silky Smooth Dark Chocolate Promises and Dark Chocolate Mint Flavored Caramel Promises. Dove Promises are individually foil-wrapped squares with a “Promise” written on the inside of the foil, sort of a fortune cookie-type gimmick. Mine came from Candy Yum Yum’s Dove Chocolate Giveaway. First up, the Silky Smooth Dark Chocolate Promises.

I used to have fond memories of Dove chocolates being wonderfully creamy and smooth – silky, in fact. Sadly, the package that I received from Dove contained old, bloomed chocolate, and the bloom really adversely affected the texture. My “silky smooth” Promises were dry and brittle. I know I didn’t pay for the chocolate, and beggars can’t be choosers, but you’d think Dove would try a little harder if they’re giving away chocolate as a promotion.

The Promises are at least nicely sized for chocolate tasting. You can pop the whole thing in your mouth and let it melt on your tongue, or you can chomp it up in two bites. Because mine had bloomed, it didn’t melt very well, so I wasn’t really able to get a nice tongue-coating tasting melt. It tasted mostly of cocoa with a slightly sweet finish. An O.

My Dark Chocolate Mint Flavored Caramel Promises were also bloomed. Sigh. In their case, however, the bloom can’t bear all the blame for the negative review. Why make caramel mint flavored? And then why cover all that weirdness in chocolate? That combination just didn’t work for me. The mint wasn’t very strong, and it was just odd when combined with the sweet caramel. To top it all off, the whole thing left an unpleasant aftertaste. Another O. You can read Cybele’s similar take on them here.

My favorite part about the chocolates were the Promises. I happened to get two rather salacious ones in my tasting: “Naughty can be nice” and “Temptation is fun… giving in is even better.” Dove should gather all of their slightly scandalous Promises and market them for Valentine’s Day or something. If there was a way to tell what the Promises were before you unwrapped them, I could’ve used those chocolates to pick up boys. Then again, the chocolates weren’t that great, so maybe not.