ZOMG, Candy!

Starburst Flavor Morph is a new-ish addition to the Starburst line. Cybele covered them back in November, but I didn’t get mine until very recently, both as free samples from CandyFavorites.com and from the press room at Sweets and Snacks.

Though they’ve been out for at least six months, my package still called them “New!” It also touted the candy’s “flavor changing beads!”, which made them sound all fancy and technologically advanced.

Those flavor changing beads were actually visible in the Starburst square. I could also sometimes feel them in the sticky chew of the Starburst as little hard pellets between my molars.

There were only two flavors in the pack. One was orange that morphed to orange strawberry, and the other was cherry that morphed to cherry lime. It seems like they don’t so much morph as gain a second flavor.

Orange to orange strawberry started off as a much more mild form of the usual orange Starburst flavor. It was not nearly as sour or bright or citrusy.

The strawberry flavor came in quickly and further mellowed the flavor, giving it a slightly plasticky floral edge that finished like strawberry Starburst (the pink ones).

Orange strawberry was a weird combination for me. I think I prefer those flavors separately to them together. An O.

Cherry to cherry lime was much better. It started off like a regular cherry Starburst, with a slight tartness to the start. The lime then came through in a few chews with a strong, limey bite of zestiness.

It was like a chewable form of a Sonic cherry limeade. Sort of Shirley Temple-esque, but tangier from the lime. The mix of sweet berry fruitiness and the zesty lime flavor was a winner for me. An OM.

These Dorval Sour Power Straws were a free sample of a new flavor: Pink Lemonade. The rest of their line-up includes blue raspberry, watermelon, strawberry, and green apple, which I’d tried before under their Sortz name.

I really enjoyed these Pink Lemonade straws. They didn’t have any of the stiff plastic taste or over-wheaty flavor that put me off the Sortz and that you get in Sour Punch Straws.

Instead, they were soft and pliable tubes, about 6-7 inches long, with an easy chew. They were much softer, and thus much more texturally pleasant, than Twizzlers. Also unlike Twizzlers, they didn’t get stuck in the cracks of my teeth.

The sour sugar sand on the surface of the straws was mostly sweet with a little tartness. The pink lemonade flavor of the actual straws was sweet with a light, mild citrus note.

There was no lemon zestiness, but a definite lemonade/lemon drop flavor persisted throughout the chew. The sour came through in the middle when the sour sand started melting on my tongue, and the final finish was just the sweet fruitiness of the straw.

I thought these were quite well done for a relatively simple treat. The texture was spot on, while the taste was sweet and sour – but not too sour – without any off notes. An OM.

Dorval will be at the Sweets and Snacks Expo. I plan to revisit the Sortz to see if my original batch was past its prime (though I did taste it before its best-by date).

Today I’m reviewing a second Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Bar on the heels of Wednesday’s review (that I briefly accidentally posted on Tuesday; oops!). This time, it’s toffee with walnuts and pecans. Here’s its epic description from the back of the box:

“The beauty of caramelized sugar reveals itself in flying colors when mixed with butter and artisinal sea salt to create rich toffee. Add walnuts and pecans to that toffee, then pair it all with our sophisticated deep, dark chocolate…”

This solid bar was scored into 8 rectangles. Mine had slightly bloomed, but I didn’t notice any detriment to its flavor or texture.

It had a sharp snap that revealed bits of toffee and nuts along the break. The roasted nuts and cleanly cleaving toffee added a pleasant, dry crunch that made me want to chomp this bar rather than let it melt.

The nuttiness of this bar was immediately noticeable. Walnut’s mild, acrid nuttiness and pecan’s darker nutty tinge were both present, and the whole thing finished on a strongly salty note.

The toffee added a light sweetness. Though I didn’t get any caramel complexity, the sweetness played off the salty and nutty quite well. It would’ve been nice to get more scorchiness, but it served its role just fine as is.

I’ll call this bar a win for Trader Joe’s. Though I thought it was a tad too salty at the finish, I enjoyed the toffee and loved the strength of flavor of the nuts. An OM.

My expat friends, Nana and Justin, sent me a bag of Okinawa Brown Sugar Candy in their last generous shipment of foreign candies. At first I thought that making sugar-flavored candy was strange, but then I realized it’s not that different from honey candies or straight up shooting honey sticks.

The prettily matte bag was mostly covered in Japanese. I was able to recognize the character for bamboo on the top right corner, but otherwise I had to rely on the English letters to know what it contained.

The back of the bag described them as “Nature’s blessed ‘Okinawa Kokuto (brown sugar)’ made from sugar cane grown in Okinawa”. I think that makes them a regional specialty.

The candies were individually wrapped in plastic that echoed the bamboo motif of the larger bag. They were smooth flat cylinders, like butterscotch hard candies.

The candies and their melt was perfectly smooth on the tongue, with nary an air bubble to break its glossy surface. The flavor was simple – that of dark brown sugar, sweet with a burnt molasses edge to keep it from being cloying.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed such a simple treat. They didn’t taste revolutionary, but if you’ve ever sneaked a pinch of brown sugar while baking or making oatmeal, you’d enjoy these. An OM.

After my last two part review of French Broad Chocolates (part 1 and part 2) that I had purchased at A Southern Season, Logan from French Broad left a nice comment addressing some of my criticisms.

He agreed with my assessment that there were some freshness issues because I’d purchased them through a reseller and offered to send me a fresh batch of free samples. I’ll review three today and three on Wednesday.

First up, a redo on the vanilla bourbon that I’d already tried. I enjoyed it enough the first time, but it was even better fresh.

It started off sweetly, then took on an increasingly intense level of bourbon booziness. Again, it was all the flavor of bourbon without any of the alcohol’s burn, but it was so much more deliciously intense when the truffle was fresh.

The little pecan topper added a nice, fresh crunch, but the boozy ganache was the star here. It gets upgraded to an OM.

Vanilla bourbon caramel was a caramel version of the above, described as “organic vanilla bean and Knob Creek bourbon in a liquid caramel.” It was a pretty molded dark chocolate pinwheel filled with a smooth, liquid caramel.

That caramel melted in my mouth. It started with a light, fruity sweetness before yielding any boozy notes.

The presence of the bourbon came through, but it wasn’t as strong as that of the vanilla bourbon truffle, and I really loved the buttery scorch to the end of the caramel melt.

The dark chocolate shell finished it all off with a nice degree of cocoa depth. An OMG.

And last for today, their salted honey caramel, described as “local wildflower honey, organic cream and butter, and grey salt. Dipped in dark chocolate.”

There was a hefty dose of fine grained salt. In addition to the slash the cut across the diagonal, lots of salt was stuck to the bottom as well. On sight I worried that it was too much, but on taste, the salt balance was spot on.

The caramel was chewy with a bearably small amount of stickiness. It was sweet with the golden tones of honey – smooth and light rather than the burnt depth that I’m used to in salted caramels – and well highlighted by the added salt.

The honey flavor really came through in the finish, more floral than sugar’s comparatively bland sweetness. Finally, the dark chocolate shell added a nice cocoa flavor.

I like my caramels just shy of burnt, but this lighter version was quite enjoyable as well. An OM.

Stay tuned for Wednesday when I cover the canela picante, pomegranate ginger, and maple.

Here’s one more review of a Ricolino product that I bought at a local Hispanic grocery store: Chocoretas. The bag described them as “chocolate and artificially mint flavored candy”.

I appreciate the honesty of the “artificially mint flavored” designation. I think just about all mass-market mint candies are artificially flavored, but not all are so forthright about it.

The Chocoretas were little pale mint green balls, about a centimeter in diameter. They had a thin and super crunchy sugar shell – much more substantial than that of an M&M – and a pepperminty chocolate center.

The chocolate flavor was light and mostly tasted of peppermint that carried a lightly cooling sensation. There was an overall creamy sensation to the finish.

These were like a candy version of mint chocolate chip ice cream, plus some added textural contrast from the crunchy sugar shells. I found them to be pretty good, and I bet they’d make great ice cream or cupcake toppers. An OM.

After Wednesday’s disaster of a Ricolino product review, I thought it would be nice to close out the week with a Ricolino product that I really liked. This bag of Kranky K was also purchased at a local Hispanic grocery store.

The wrapper described them as “corn flakes with chocolate flavoring coating”. Again, the “chocolate flavoring” was a little worrisome – would this be another mockolate disaster?

While the ingredients list had hydrogenated palm oil instead of cocoa butter, it did at least have cocoa. And the amount of chocolate flavoring was so thin that it masked the lack of true chocolate.

The cornflakes brought a wonderfully firm and crisp crunch and a hearty toastiness in flavor. They were solid, stiff flakes; no Special K-style flimsy wimpiness here.

The coating had a light cocoa flavor with an undertone of maltiness. They were understated in their sweetness and acted as a great foil against the starch of the cornflakes.

My only complaint is that there was a slight hint of chalkiness to the finish. I bet that could’ve been helped by using actual chocolate!

I was surprised at how well this simple, unassuming treat worked. It was a nice mix of textures and flavors. An OM.

This week I’ll be reviewing some candies that I picked up at a local Hispanic grocery store. First up are Ricolino’s Moritas Sour Gummies, which the bag describes as “pectin gummies with artificial blackberry and strawberry flavors [sic] sugar dots.”

At first glance, they looked like standard raspberry/blackberry gummi candies, though these were strawberry rather than raspberry. In fact, I found them to be better than other versions that I’ve had!

The sugar dots on the outside were what made these stand out. They were little balls of compressed sugar that crumbled into a burst of bright fruity, slightly sour flavor into my mouth. They carried all the flavor punch.

The soft jelly center had the instant give of fruit pate and a perfectly smooth texture. There was no chewy sproing that the gummi descriptor led me to expect.

The dark black/purple ones reminded me of currant flavors but without any tannic bite. The red ones had a lighter, more floral note and was like a sour strawberry.

These were nicely flavorful and tart. I’d buy them again if I needed a sweet pick-me-up. An OM.

Hey candy lovers! Today we’ve got another post on candy from the Netherlands, courtesy of Neil. ~Rosa

Hoi hoi! I’ve been “hamstering” candy over the past few months, so I have a whole lot of posts in the queue. The first is grocery store brand Albert Heijn‘s Zachte Frisse Vruchten, or Soft Fresh/Bright Fruits.

The bag advertises “six.. flavors” but only shows five varieties. There are, indeed, six different types of candy inside: banana, orange, pear, green apple, strawberry, and elderberry. My friend Jana helped me review and provide some global perspective.

Banana’s flavor came through very slowly and when it did, it was much like a circus peanut. That time waiting for flavor was spent chewing, as the body of it was more like plastic than elastic. I also took this time to explain circus peanuts to Jana, because they’re not available in Germany. One must wonder sometimes about globalization. O

The orange slice was the one most visually similar to its real life counterpart. It had a sweetness like an orange soda rather than a real orange, however. Based on its appearance, Jana expected it to specifically taste like a clementine. An unexciting O.

One piece looked look a bicycle seat. For Jana, it looked exactly like a pear, and “if it hadn’t, [she] wouldn’t have been able to tell what it was.” I must confess that I don’t really know what pears taste like. I mostly tasted lemon, neither overly sweet nor sour, just pleasantly inoffensive. The pear pieces had the hardest bite at first, but rapidly became chewy. An O.

The green apple’s classic flavor made me very happy after the pear disappointment. Jana thought it was too sweet to be “sour” apple, but that’s exactly what made it so perfect for me. This one really stuck to my teeth. OM

Strawberry, the pink piece, had the most intense flavor of any and it was like a Starburst, which also haven’t made their way into Germany yet. They’re really missing out! Jana compared the flavor to German Schnüre, which are something like Red Vines. I would happily eat a whole bag of these. Definitely an OM from me.

The final was the most mysterious. A translation of “vlierbessen” led to the conclusion that these grape-bunch-lookalikes were elderberry flavored! So unexpected! The flavor struck me as herbal and liqueur-like, perhaps because I’ve had the elderberry liqueur St. Germain before. Being so confused by what it was supposed to be, I have to give it an O.

Overall, the bag was not a bad thing to nibble through for the evening, but I’m not rushing out to pick up more. Oh, let’s be honest: I only bought it because it was on sale.

I went back to Rochester over spring “break” to work on some brain data I left there. Grad students don’t get vacation! Fortunately, my visit was timed so that I was able to pick up a free sample of Hedonist Artisan Chocolates’s new Spring Collection (full description and “artist’s notes” here).

While in the shop, I got a chance to chat with head chocolatier Nathaniel Mich about his creative process in developing the collection. He was inspired by spring gardens and put together a collection that utilized a variety of flavors, textures, and techniques.

Strawberry Rhubarb is Hedonist’s first layered truffle. It was gorgeous to behold, with a bottom layer comprised of a creamy pink strawberry ganache and a top layer that was a translucent rhubarb fruit pate.

The strawberry ganache reminded me of super flavor-concentrated strawberry yogurt, a great mix of fruity sweetness mixed with dairy creaminess and just a tinge of tartness. The rhubarb layer was a soft gel that was bright and sweet. Apparently it’s made with a local rhubarb wine – who knew there was such a thing?

I loved the berry brightness of this treat, and its dusky chocolate chaser was a great ending note. It was like a perfectly ripe chocolate-covered strawberry distilled into one creamy bite. Easily my favorite of the collection.

The Earl Grey Caramel was a dark chocolate dipped caramel that was infused and topped with organic tea leaves. The dark chocolate coating cracked and flaked off when I bit into it, revealing a speckled caramel center.

The caramel was chewy and slightly sticky with just a bit of grit and grain to the texture.

I usually like chewing caramels, but I preferred to let this one melt into my mouth so that I could savor its depth of flavor – a deep burnt sugar caramel with woodsy tea notes that had a hit of salt and a slight bitterness at the end.

Porcini Thyme was a rolled truffle coated in chocolate and dusted with cocoa. It was deep and woodsy and earthy with a dash of smokiness. The thyme brought a mild herbal grassiness to the finish.

Mushroom and chocolate is a unique flavor combination that I’ve only had once before. The bittersweet and savory blend was well-balanced here. It’s definitely an unusual surprise for the tastebuds and harkens back to chocolate truffles’ original namesake.

Tarragon Carrot was a dipped truffle topped with a tiny piece of chewy dried carrot. It started off sweet from the chocolate, then turned earthy with a vegetal rootiness, and finished with carrot’s sweetness.

The tarragon added an herbal undertone that was hinted at throughout the flavor profile. The sizeable dried carrot bit on my pieces added a chewiness that distracted from the truffle. From the looks of the website, they’ve replaced it with a sprinkle of smaller dried carrot bits, so that’s probably no longer an issue.

Cardamom Rosewater was a pink striped dipped truffle that started off chocolatey sweet, then became full-on gingery (cardamom is a member of the ginger family!). The ginger flavor was more like what I associate with powdered ginger spice rather than fresh ginger – it had a light edge of dry bitterness to the finish.

This truffle was sweeter than the others, either because of its milk chocolate base or the addition of honey. I wonder if the honey was what also gave the ganache an unusually smooth look?

Nathaniel said the cardamom rosewater was his favorite of the collection. I feel bad for admitting that it was my least favorite – I liked it, but something has to be on the relative bottom! I just don’t like ginger enough to embrace the intensity of the gingery cardamom flavor here.

Cardamom rosewater gets an O, the tarragon carrot and porcini thyme get OMs, earl grey caramel gets an OMG, and the strawberry rhubarb earned a ZOMG! for its combination of flavor, texture, and sheer beauty in construction.

As a whole, this collection is a truly unique assortment with inventive flavor combinations that really set them apart. Compare that to Godiva’s more conventional (i.e. boring) and more expensive spring collection – there’s no question where your money should be going!