ZOMG, Candy!

Maoam is a German candy brand that’s been owned by Haribo since the late 1980s. They’re sold under the Maoam name, but the packaging is quite Haribo-esque, and the Haribo name and website are on the back.

I first came across Maoam in England in the form of taffy, and they were also in a selection of Swedish “Saturday candies” that my college’s associate master gave me. This bag of Maoam Happy Chews was purchased in France, but I also saw them in Spain, further (highly unscientific) evidence that Haribo is king of non-chocolate candy in Europe.

Each Happy Chew is about the size of my first thumb joint. They’re shiny and colorful, and I like how the color is kind of sparse in places, so that the white under layer peeks through.

Happy Chews are kind of like giant, cylindrical Skittles. They’re covered with a hard sugar shell, and inside is a sweet, grainy, flavored chew. Like Skittles, the candies take a while to completely dissolve.

They come in six flavors. Orange is orange, which tastes like sweet orange juice with just a tinge of tartness. Yellow is lemon. It starts off dryly tart, then mellows out into sweet and natural lemony flavor.

I’m pretty sure green is apple, except it doesn’t really taste like apples. It is reminiscent of apple-flavored bon-bons, in that it’s so sweetly, generically fruity that it burns the back of my throat, but there’s nothing about it that recalls actual apples.

Pink is raspberry. I usually dislike raspberry flavored stuff, as I hate the seedy flavors, but this candy manages to make those characteristically seedy raspberry notes pleasant and plummy, making it not at all upsetting to my olfactory system.

Red (not pictured) is cherry. It packs quite a cherry bite and has an evolving flavor profile. It starts off sweet, then goes to tart, and finally the deep almost-but-not-quite medicinal cherry flavors come through.

Last, but certainly not least (as it was my favorite) is brown, which is cola flavored. It’s wonderfully complex and captures all the nuance of real soda. It starts of generically sweet, then melds into a bright and fruity cola flavor with just a twinge of bitterness and a lemony finish. It’s like Haribo cola gummies to the umpteenth power.

Overall, these guys are pretty good but only in moderation. While their sweetness isn’t cloying, they are throat-burningly sweet after a while. After eating six in a row for tasting, I felt oversugared. While I wouldn’t turn them down if a friend offered me one from his or her bag, I wouldn’t buy them again. An O.

The Provencal city of Avignon was stop number two in my recent jaunt through France. The Michelin guide in the Avignon tourist office recommended two places that piqued my candy-blogger interest: a confiserie and a chocolaterie. While we never managed to find the confiserie (despite the best efforts of the kind locals we asked for directions), we did make it to the Chocolaterie de Puyricard.

The beautiful shop was quite classy, with glass cases filled with a wide variety of gorgeous truffles. Unfortunately, they didn’t label anything, and though the saleslady patiently answered all of my questions, I did feel bad pointing to everything and asking, “qu’est-ce que c’est?”(my pidgin way of asking “What is it?”)

I only nabbed one picture of the chocolates, as it was hottt at the time, and the chocolates were pretty melty by the time we biked back to our hotel room (by the way, if you ever visit Avignon, I highly recommend Sun Valley. We paid 42 euro/night for a studio double, complete with private bath and mini kitchen and fridge.), so I had to eat them quickly. We’ll go clockwise, starting from the left.

The two-toned chocolate was their praline. It turned out to be a nutty, creamy praline that was prettily piped into a thin-shelled dark chocolate trough (so there’s more praline than meets the eye; what you can see is only about half of what you get). The praline was soft, with the texture of a thick creamy frosting, and it tasted strongly of hazelnuts and chocolate. The dark chocolate trough had a nice snap, but its flavor was pretty thoroughly dominated by the praline.

The scalloped triangle was their praline fort - a strong praline. It was thicker, heavier, and nuttier than it’s weaker counterpart, like uber-concentrated Nutella on steroids. Lip-smackingly good.

The cylinder was a dark chocolate honey. The dark chocolate shell was so snappy that it crunched, revealing a sweet, flowy center. While the textural contrast was nice, the honey innards were throat-burningly sweet, too much for me to handle.

And finally, the poor crushed chestnut-shaped chocolate was chestnut and rum. The flowy, translucent ganache had the mild nuttiness of chestnut paste, followed by a whoa! boozy kick. The rum component is a strong tastebud wallop that really catches you by surprise.

If I ever make it back to Avignon, the Chocolaterie de Puyricard is definitely on my revist list, as is the praline fort. It gets an OM while the rest get an O. I wanted to try more of Puyricard’s flavors, and at approximately 1 euro per truffle, they’re an affordable indulgence. It’s really too bad we weren’t in Avignon longer; I could’ve happily tasted my way through them all, one day at a time.

Most people are pretty familiar with Ferrero’s Kinder Surprise eggs. They’re banned in the U.S. and some other countries because they mix edibles and toys with tiny parts, which is a no-no. Kinder Joy, which I came across for the first time in Europe, is a newer addition to the Kinder egg line. It too, mixes edibles and toys, so it’s also not allowed in the U.S.

The two halves of Joy egg are split. One half contains a toy (in my case, a lame Ice Age 3 - yes, they apparently made an Ice Age 3 - badge), while the other half is a creamy spread studded with two chocolate cookie balls. Each half is individually sealed so that the spread doesn’t get on the toy (and vice-versa, I suppose). Finally, a flat plastic “spoon” is included to scoop up the spread.

The spread is a layer of white chocolate on hazelnut chocolate. It has the viscosity of Nutella - smooth and thick and glossy, but just short of the runniness of honey. Inside the spread are two chocolate balls comprised of chocolate ganache surrounded by a thin wafer shell covered in chocolate and crunchy chocolate sprinkles. They’re similar to Rocher balls, but smaller and without hazelnuts.

If you try to pry the balls out of the spread, a half shell of chocolate and sprinkles gets left behind, which imparts a nice crunch to the spread. Overall, I found this treat too sweet to eat on its own. The balls are managable, as their wafer shells help cut the cloy, but eating the spread is akin to eating straight frosting: okay for a lick or two, but too much beyond that. It did go nicely on bread, however.

All in all, a nice treat, but I’d rather buy a normal Kinder chocolate treat, like a Happy Hippo, Bueno, Rocher, or Duplo, and just put Nutella on my bread. The Joy gets an O, with the caveat that it would be great for gift-giving as soon as they stop coming with lame-O Ice Age 3 toys.

Europe had more varieties of Haribo than we get here in the states. There was a flier for a Haribo Factory in the tourism office of Avignon, but alas, you needed a car to get there, and we had none. Still, I managed to purchase/eat a variety of Haribo treats from grocery and convenience stores, including these Haribo Super Mini Frites.

My bag of Mini Frites was a mini bag with around a dozen or so frite gummies (French for fries). They’re sugar-coated rectangular fry shaped gummies with a sproingy chew that cleaves rather than sticks.  Each fry is about the size of the first two joints of my pinky nail, so they can be dispatched in one bite or two.

There are four flavors of frites: green is lime, orange is orange, yellow is lemon, and red is strawberry. Lime is zesty, orange is bright and citrusy, lemon is a rounder citrus flavor, with a light lemony finish, and strawberry is mellow in its fruitiness. They tasted like Sour Patch Kids, but brighter and more fun to chew (thanks to the sproinginess). If these were offered in the U.S., I’d go for them over Sour Patch Kids any day. An OMG.

As promised, today begins a series of reviews of the goodies I picked up on my recent trip to Europe. First up is four chocolates from Jadis et Gourmande in Paris.

Jadis et Gourmande seems to be best known for their molded chocolate bars in the shapes of letters or objects (like ties), but I wanted to try their chocolates and truffles. I picked out four that looked good and promptly forgot what they were. Oops.

First up is the milk chocolate square covered in bits. The bits turned out to be crunchy balls of rice praline. Not just plain old puffed rice; rice praline, meaning that it was bits of puffed rice coated in a sugar glaze, a wonderful touch! The smooth filling inside was fresh hazelnut, making it more peanutty in flavor than the more familiar Nutella. An OM.

The leaf was a lovely molded truffle. It turned out to be a dark chocolate coating around a lighter ganache filling, which, as you can see from the below photo, was neither smooth nor creamy. It had a fruity tinge to it, but was otherwise meh. An O.

The two squares were both pretty great. One was a chewy, non-sticky caramel coated with dark chocolate. The caramel filling had great, deep complexity that made me wish for more. An OMG.

Last, but certainly not least, the second square, also a caramel-filling covered in dark chocolate. The caramel in this one, however, was soft and smooth and more reminiscent of a ganache in texture. It sat atop a thin layer of nut brittle that was crisp, nutty, and delectable - a crunchy sweet surprise. The combination of flavors and texture in this truffle was just impeccable and thus earns this chocolate a ZOMG!

There you have it - a selection of chocolates that nearly runs the gamut of my ratings. If you ever visit Paris, or if you’re fortunate enough to live there, I highly recommend swinging by Jadis et Gourmande for a sampling of their chocolates. If only they had an outpost in the states!

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.

This Cadbury Starbar’s been floating around in my tasting notebook since I had it last summer while I was in England. It was on my list of candy bars to try while there, thanks to a favorable Chocablog review.

The Starbar is “shot through with peanuts and caramel,” which made me think that it would be a Snickers-like bar. Well, not exactly.

The milk chocolate coating (14% of the bar) was greasy. Immediately under the chocolate was a circular layer of gooey, sweet, and sticky caramel. A few salty peanuts studded the nougat, but they were few and far between, not exactly “shot through” with peanuts.

I think there were also little wafer bits inside the sweet nougat center that weren’t advertised on the wrapper. I don’t know why not, as it’s a nice feature. It provides an enjoyable textural contrast that gives this bar an extra edge.

I was disappointed by the lack of peanuts but pleasantly surprised by the wafer bits. Not sublime, but pretty good for a mass-produced bar. An OM.

I cannot believe that I haven’t reviewed Walkers’ Nonsuch Toffee here yet. Walkers’ and licorice pencils were my mondo UK candy loves, and when I ordered my London-raised boyfriend several boxes of his favorite UK cereal as a special treat, I made sure to slip a few slabs of Walkers’ into my order. It’s bloody difficult to find in the U.S.

Walkers’ Nonsuch Toffee is usually sold in two ways - as individually wrapped pieces or as one big slab that you could theoretically break apart to eat. I say theoretically because it’s easier said than done. If the toffee is too soft, you can pull and pull and it just gets sticky and stringy and messy, like taffy or caramel. If it was too hard (I usually chilled it in the fridge), you could whack it against another hard surface and make it shatter, but that could also make a mess by leaving little shards of toffee everywhere, which would then melt… everywhere.

Only when you got lucky did the pieces actually tear. I usually ended up just picking up the whole slab and gnawing on it - terrible manners that usually led to overindulgence, but so, soooo good. Consequently, for me, the better choice was to buy the individually wrapped pieces. As an added bonus, those came in more flavors.

I preferred the treacle toffee to the regular. It had a darkness to the sweetness, a just-short-of bitter, medicinal tinge. Think molasses - gloriously complex, deep, and delicious. And chewy - sticks to your teeth, gets caught in every nook and cranny chewy. An OMG.

The Chocolate Toffee was only so-so. It had a more manageable chew and was basically like a super creamy Tootsie Roll. I wish I had one handy now for comparative purposes - I bet it would taste an awful lot like my calcium chew supplements. An O.

The milk chocolate eclair was basically nice standard Walkers’ toffee with a bit of mockolate in the middle. It was an interesting contrast from the chewy toffee to the soft, almost frosting-like innards, but flavor-wise it wasn’t spectacular, so also an O. Walkers’ also makes a mint chocolate eclair, which I ate and photographed but didn’t take notes on, and a banana split eclair which I remember being super banana-y and not my thing.

The treacle toffee is hands down my favorite, and the regular toffee is pretty darn good too. I wish they were available in the U.S. The others are okay for eating - the next time I’m in England, I’d gladly snatch up another mixed bag or two of them - but I like the treacle and plain better. I’ve also got a couple of slabs of hazelnut toffee that I’ve been saving for a special occassion. Mmm!