ZOMG, Candy!

More reviews from the ginormous box of Russian candy sent by my friend Leslie nearly a year ago. Don’t worry; the tasting was done back when they were more fresh out of the box (though I still have a few remnants of her box left).

Candy “Korovka”(Little Cow)

What I called “Cow Caramel,” this was caramel-flavored candy that tastes of mildly sweet caramel but has the texture of something completely different. It was grainy and broke up in my mouth, almost like a fudge, but not as creamy. The taste/texture disparity threw me a bit, and I found it overly sweet. An O.

“Ptich’ya slast” (Bird’s Enjoyment) and “Raiskaya Penka” (Heavenly Song)

This candy was WEIRD! It had a spongy marshmallow center surrounded by chocolate shell. The texture of marshmallow is terrible! The red version (left) had a weird aftertaste - definitely not of vanilla - that made me feel ill. Like nauseated ill. There were these weird sugar granules between chocolate and marshmallow that didn’t help matters. I don’t know if those were supposed to be there or if they were a product of the various temperature changes this candy went through.

The brown-checked version (right) was slightly better. The texture of the marshmallow was less spongy, but it still fell short of being pillowy. Thankfully, this had no weird aftertaste and no sugar grains, but I still didn’t enjoy it. Another O.

Mocha Hard Candies

These individually wrapped lovely hard candies had gorgeous light and dark brown swirls, like a Cream Saver. The coffee taste was strong and definitely present, but it wasn’t at all bitter. Also like a Cream Saver, the candy had a light, creamy finish. It cleaved cleanly, which of course meant I was chomping it to death. I’m not a big fan of coffee flavored candy, but my mother is, and she’d love this. An OM.

In addition to a bag of Crunch Ball Crispy Candy, Nana and Justin also mailed me a nice assortment of Hi-Chew candies in strawberry, grape, and green apple. They were so good that when Asian Food Grocer, an online retailer of Asian food, snacks, and candies contacted me with an offer to send me my choice of their products to review, I asked for a pack of pineapple flavored Hi-Chew. In hindsight, I should’ve asked for Hi-Chew in every flavor they sold; they’re good, and Asian Food Grocer sells Hi-Chew in flavors that I haven’t seen at my local Asian grocery store. Missed opportunity, I guess. But I’m not too sad, as I got other Asian candy goodies, the reviews for which will post later.

Let’s start with the three Hi-Chew from Nana and Justin.  If you’ve never had them before, Hi-Chew are small rectangular chewy candies with wonderfully bright fruit flavors. They come in a stick of individually wrapped candies, and their chew is fairy non-sticky and almost bouncy. I think they’re like the Starburst of Asia, but better because their fruit flavors actually taste like fruit. For example, I usually don’t especially like strawberry flavored candy, but I enjoyed the strawberry Hi-Chew because it tasted so genuine - you could almost taste a tinge of strawberry seeds.

Similarly, grape Hi-Chews actually taste like grapes, without any whiff of cough syrup artificial grape flavor. They taste like sweet black grapes. The apple didn’t taste at all like an apple Jolly Rancher. Its flavor was more subtle, more Fuji/Braeburn sweet than Granny Smith tart.

My favorite of the Hi-Chews I had was the pineapple. I can’t express often enough how Hi-Chew taste so vibrantly of actual fruit. The pineapple Hi-Chews were bright, sweet, slighty tart, and carried just a hint of the slight bitter astringency of a real pineapple’s core. Pineapple flavored candies aren’t too common in the U.S. I wish they were more ubiquitous, and I wish they all tasted like a pineapple Hi-Chew.

The pineapple Hi-Chew gets an OMG; the other flavors get an OM. Hi-Chew in general are pretty easy to find near the checkout counters of Asian grocery stores, though flavor selection does vary.

What’s your favorite ice cream flavor? I’m hard pressed to choose just one (I’m a horribly indecisive person), but for me, mint chocolate chip is definitely up there. I used to hate it when the dining halls would put out pistachio ice cream because it was always a dead ringer for Andes mint chocolate chip. I would happily start to scoop myself a dish, only to discover that, blech, it was pistachio. Thus, when Baskin Robbins offered to send me samples of some of their latest candies, I was happy to see that they included a package mint chocolate chip soft candy.

The mint chocolate chip soft candy came individually wrapped in a pink foil bag in a cardboard, movie candy-like box. I could smell the mintiness through the silver wrapper. The candies were shaped in little rectangular blocks, slightly smaller than Hi-Chew blocks. Volume-wise, I’d guesstimate them to be about the same as Starbursts. The wrappers were slick with grease when I picked them up, and unwrapping them revealed the shiny, greasy, unnaturally green Baskin Robbins candy within. The greasiness was off-putting, and the color was slightly alarming, but in retrospect, mint chocolate chip ice cream is also pretty unnaturally colored.

The candy had a soft, non-sticky, vaguely grainy chew. I think the greasiness strongly contributed to the non-sticky factor. Taste-wise, the candy was quite minty and fake chocolatey. I thought it did a great job of capturing mint chocolate chip ice cream, since the chocolate chips in the ice cream are chilled and in such small pieces that they don’t quite taste like normal chocolate does. Despite the greasiness, I rather liked these guys. I’ll never stick them in my pocket or purse for fear of leaving a grease stain, and I’m not compulsively polishing them off, but I think I’ll keep the rest of the box for myself. If they weren’t so greasy, I’d give them an OM, but because they are, they get an O.

In addition to mint chocolate chip, I also got a box of very berry strawberry soft candy. Though the boxes were the same size on the outside, the strawberry one was heavier and had more candies inside(my mint chocolate chip box was only 2 oz, unlike the 3.1 oz box in the professional PR photos from Baskin Robbins). I guess the strawberry ones are cheaper to make, somehow.

The strawberry candies were the same size, had the same texture, and were just as slick with grease as the mint chocolate chip ones. They also had a much stronger smell (of artificial strawberry rather than of mint, of course) that was immediately perceptible upon opening the bag. And they tasted like they smelled - of super sweet, super artificially fruity strawberry ice cream. I don’t really like strawberry ice cream, so I was pretty ambivalent about the Baskin Robbins candy version, and they get an O.

Elsewhere in the candyblogosphere, Monica tried these and their sugar-free counterparts at CandyAddict, and Cybele tasted the mint chocolate chip.

There’s a wonderful restaurant in Cambridge (England) called Le Gros Franck near the city’s train station. Apparently, at night it’s a fine dining establishment. I only went there during the day, when it’s a French cafe that serves a deliciously decadent salmon crepe. Nom nom. They also had a wide selection of Carambars, which are these French taffy/chew type candies. They definitely cost more than 5 cents (what Wikipedia gives as their suggested retail price) at Le Gros Franck, but I forgive them for upselling a bit. With import costs and the weak dollar, some things can’t be helped.

Carambars are long, thin rectangular prisms of a soft and chewy taffy that’s not at all sticky. See above photo for size reference. If you check the Wikipedia page, you can see that Carambars come in a bazillion flavors. And if you can read French, you can check out the Carambar website for another list under la marque Carambar, des gouts pour tout (tastes for all, I think). I bought one of every flavor Le Gros Franck carried, so here’s the quickshot list and mini-reviews:

• strawberry - surprisingly bright and unartificial
• raspberry - strong seediness
• lemon - bright and fake
• pomme d’amour - caramel apple? like a chewy taffy version of those caramel apple lollipops. Yum!
• big oouu pomme cassis - blech. seedy raspberryness. I looked it up - it’s blackcurrant and apple

• pineapple - WHOA! So pineappley; fresh with a tinge of acid. A clear ZOMG!
• mango - also whoa for it’s genuine flavor, carried through by a slightly bitter bite. It almost tastes stringy, if there’s a way to taste like a texture.
• diabolo cassis - more blackcurrant? Good, but not really blackcurranty. I get more citrus and fizz
• peach tea - like peaches with a tea finish rather than like tea with a peach finish.

Overall, Carambars earn an OM from me, with a hearty ZOMG! for the pineapple. I think there are a few more flavors that I bought that I have yet to taste too. If I ever get around to those, you’ll get a Carambar, Part II review.

In addition to the malted milk balls I reviewed last week, I also got free samples of Swiss Petite Fruits from Oh Nuts!, per my request. The tiny fruit candies looked so cute and tasty on the website that I just had to see them in person.

Honestly, I found myself disappointed at how they looked at first glance. I had imagine adorable little Runts-sized fruit candies. Instead, the Swiss Petite Fruits were more grape to gumball-sized, making them less cute and more normal. And while I was impressed at how the lemon, orange, and pear were pretty true to the form and texture of their larger, real fruit counterparts, I found that the bananas (neglected in my photo, the long yellow tube in the Amazon photo) and apples (light yellow-green spheres) to be insufficiently cute.

As best as I could tell from taste and shape, the fruits were banana, orange, lemon, cherry, raspberry, grape, apple, and blueberry. They all consisted of the same white innards covered by a varying colored shell. That meant they all tasted of a sweet, vaguely citrus-y sugar bomb with a bright, rotund, Jolly Rancher-y finish of whatever the fruit was supposed to be. The lemon and orange were my favorites, as their citrus tangs went nicely with the sugar bomb innards. Banana wasn’t great, but at least it didn’t taste that banana-y (I hate banana Runts).

I hated the Swiss Petite Fruits. I also couldn’t stop popping them. I would eat one and blanch at the intense, cloying sweetness while simultaneously enjoying the fruity finish. And then, about thirty-seconds or so later when my palate recovered, I’d be overcome with the urge to pop a second. And a third. Then I’d have to go drink some water and maybe brush my teeth.

If you really like super sweet things, I suggest you give them a try if you ever find them in a candy store bulk bin or something. I give them an O. Even though I found them sort of addictive, I also couldn’t eat more than three or four at a sitting.

In the US, Wham is probably best known for “Wake Me Up (Before You Go Go).” In the UK, Wham is also the name of a fairly ubiquitous “tongue tingling chew bar.” It’s super cheap (about 10-15 pence, or 20-30 cents) and seems to be similar to an Air Head. But what is this Super Fizz! they promise?

Out of the wrapper, the Wham turns out to be far softer, stickier, and greasier than Air Heads are. The Super Fizz! are this little white crystals, like the fizzy innards of a Zotz rather than like the popping crackle of Pop Rocks. They do tingle a bit, but I would’ve liked even more tingle. And they were unevenly distributed; my tingles all seemed to cluster on one side of the chew bar. The citrus flavor of the crystals was nice, though.

The bar itself is raspberry flavored, which surprised me. Yes, I know it says raspberry flavour on the wrapper, but the print was tiny, so I didn’t notice it. Raspberry strikes me as a funny flavor to be standard enough for an “original.” I probably would’ve chosen a different flavor had I known it was raspberry, as I have mixed feelings about the flavor. I dislike it when it tastes super seedy in candy, and the Wham did a pretty good job of capturing that seediness.

Consequently, I am not a Wham fan and give it an O. I may eat it again if it came in a variety pack, and it was the only flavor left, but then again, maybe not. I had access to a mix of candies (Nerds, SweeTarts, Shockers, and Laffy Taffy) the other day, and when only banana Laffy Taffys were left, I was tempted but ended up passing instead.

I’ve already reviewed the vanilla version of the Charleston Chew once with tepid results. So why do they warrant a re-review? Because I’ve tried them in chocolate (not much of a difference and certainly not worth mentioning), and I’ve tried them frozen. Frozen Charleston Chews are a candy revelation if you’ve only had the non-frozen version.

The Chocolatey Charleston Chew features a thin chocolate (probably mockolate) shell around a light chocolate nougat-y filling. Like its vanilla brethen, the nougat is soft, yielding, and just slightly sticky. I wish the “Chocolatey”-ness of the bar came through better. It could definitely use amping up in the chocolate flavor realm. An OM.

But wait! There’s more! Pop the Chew in the freezer, forget it’s there for a while, and rediscover it later. Now frozen, the Chew cleaves like toffee when you bite or break it, but once in your mouth, it melts into that pleasant chew. It’s an awesome textural change, and suddenly this mediocre bar becomes something quite addictive, deserving of an OMG.

A few more notes - the Charleston Chew is relatively low cal and low fat and lasts a long time if you eat it frozen, making it a pretty diet-friendly indulgence. And Yale Med School’s dining hall sells them at room temperature and out of the freezer. I had a nice chat with the guy running the register when I complimented them on their thoughtfulness. Clearly, Yale Med knows their stuff.

And finally, happy Independence Day! Won’t be much celebrating of that here in England, I’m sure, so you readers in the states will have to have a veggie burger for me.

I think the unofficial theme for this week is something along the lines of “Candy that’s so fake tasting it may actually be a crime against nature.” Had I been paying attention when I picked these Brach’s Rich and Dreamy Chocolatey Cremes out of the bulk candy bins at my local HEB in Austin, TX, I never would have bought them in the first place. In the candy world, “chocolatey” is code for “not made of real chocolate” and is usually an indicator of candy badness. In this case, it was a sign of candy terribleness. Please note that they are not filed under chocolate.

The Chocolatey Cremes came in Orange Sorbet, Cherry Jubilee, Double Dutch, Raspberry Parfait, and Vanilla Bean. I guess you could call the shapes of these to be like oversized Rolos. I only got a photo of the Double Dutch out of the wrapper (below) because I was too busy tasting nasty candy and spitting it out to remember to take pictures of the others. I think the orange, cherry, raspberry, and vanilla ones had unnaturally colored fillings, but I’m not sure. My notes on these are pretty sparse because I was so distracted by the terrible taste. In fact, I think it’s best if I just reproduce my notes below.

Double dutch - EWW. fake and sugary

Orange Sorbet - like orange creamsicle

Cherry Jubilee - bright cherry popsicle flavor

Raspberry Parfait - gritty raspberry (translation - I was referring to the slightly bitter, seedy olfactory taste artificial raspberry can have, as described here in one of my first ever reviews)

Vanilla bean - caramel vanilla

What is left off of my notes was exactly how mindblowingly terrible they all were. Fortunately for this review, unfortunately for me, I still remember. My tasting process for these basically consisted of take bite, make blech face, spit out bite, hurriedly jot down notes so that I could taste the next one to get the taste of the previous one out of my mouth, make blech face, and so on. Texturally, they were awful - gritty and grainy with a fake chocolate shell that cracked because it was so dry - and the fake chocolate just made the fake fillings taste worse. A –, coupled with a wish to rebrand them as Poor and Nightmarish and a temptation to tag these as “not candy”.

On the heels of Monday’s review of a strongly artificial tasting candy that I just couldn’t stomach comes a review of more strongly artificial tasting candy. Only this time, I’m ashamed to say that I completely polished off my bag of Bassetts Allsorts of the Fabulously Fruity variety. It’s also my first review of UK candy that I bought and ate in the UK.

These were on display at Sainsbury’s, and I immediately snatched them up. I hate licorice (or liquorice here) and therefore have never been able to fully try normal licorice Allsorts. I say fully try because I’ve occasionally bitten into one, fooled by its bright, non-black colors, and then spat it out once I tasted it for what it really was. At any rate, I was happy to see that they also came in Fabulously Fruity flavors.

The fruit Allsorts were red strawberry licorice (which I don’t love but can tolerate) paired with fruity flavors like lemon, lime, and orange. The fat round ones with the red dots are Round Lemon and Round Orange, the long tubular round ones are Lime Rock and Orange Rock, the three-layered ones are Lime, Lemon, and Orange Sandwiches, the five-layered ones are Lemon, Orange, and Blueberry (the one with three white layers) Cubes, the checkerboard prisms were Lemon and Strawberry (white and red) Check, and the buttons were Bobbly Blackcurrant (purple) and Bobbly Strawberry. Phew!

In real life, they’re a bit more neony and a bit less pastel-y than they look in the photo above. Unfortunately, I don’t have my usual candy shooting set-up while I’m abroad. I’ve been trying to shoot in sunlight near my room’s window, but it’s England. The sun doesn’t come out all that often, so most of my photos came out too dark and had to be more photo-edited than usual. My deepest apologies.

I don’t know what to make of Allsorts. I didn’t like them, exactly, but I also polished off the whole bag in three days (I guess that’s what happens when I don’t have my friends around to eat my candy leftovers for me). The red licorice bits are smooth and slippery while the rest of the colors are this weird grainy texture. The ingredients list wheat flour and dessicated coconut; one or both of those may be the cause of that. Strangely enough, the textural combination worked well in the cubes and sandwiches and checks; I only found the graininess to be overpoweringly unpleasant in the Rounds when there wasn’t enough strawberry licorice for balance. The fruity flavors were super brightly artificial, but in a tasty way, which may be why I found them strangely addictive. It also helped that they were mostly citrus flavors, which are my favorite.

The Bobbly pieces were tough gummi buttons covered in tiny nonpareils. I’ve seen the licorice versions sold on their own around here in bulk candy stores, but I don’t know about the fruity ones. They were okay, mildly fruity and pleasant enough, but they don’t hold a candle to the deliciously bright fruitiness of Jelly Belly’s Raspberries and Blackberries.

I kind of wish I had more of these to eat, but I also know better than to buy another bag. Actually, no, maybe I’ll buy another bag right before I leave. As quickly as I ate them, I’m unsure as to how much I actually enjoyed them in the eating process. An OM, I think, but proceed with caution. And for those who want a review of Bassett’s Licorice Allsorts, you’ll have to go to Cybele and Candy Blog for that, because you sure ain’t gonna get one out of me.

This Easter, Nestle/Wonka introduced a new jelly bean: Nerds Bumpy Jelly Beans. The candy blog world pretty much raved about them (Candy Blog and Candy Addict were just two who gave them high marks). When I picked up a couple of bags in post-Easter sale season, I loved them too, but because they had already been so written about, I saw no need to add my voice to the chorus.

Until now, that is. Easter is all about rebirth - resurrection from a religious standpoint, spring and green things and baby animals from a non-religious perspective - and, fortunately for candy lovers, Nerds Bumpy Jelly Beans have been reborn as Giant Chewy Nerds (for the record, the Nerds Bumpy Jelly Beans I bought; the Giant Chewy Nerds were sent to me from Nestle). The Giant Chewy Nerds packaging may not be as cute without the bunny eared Nerds characters, but the candy itself is the same and just as addictive.

As Candy Addict Blog noted, these are ridiculously addictive. They have a soft jellybean inside covered with a thin, hard, bumpy, crumbly flavored Nerds shell. I really think it’s the textural contrast between the crunchy shell and the chewy inside that make these so darn hard to stop popping in your mouth.

Pink is strawberry, a sweet and fruity/floral flavor with a lightly sour tinge. Grape is artificial, grape-soda niceness. Green I thought was green apple (Candy Addict says its watermelon), which I found to be the weakest of the bunch. Too much sugary sweetness, not enough tart, fruity flavor. Orange was tart and tangy and orangey and delightful. The yellow lemon is my favorite of the bunch, a strong and bright lemon juice flavor that’s not at all floor-cleaner artificial.

These get an OMG from me. I personally think they could go even more sour or a little less sweet, but they’re deliciously addictive as is. While I’m glad that they’re back, I don’t think I would buy them again for purely selfish, lack of self-control issues, as it frightens me how quickly I can chomp through a bag of these. And then I feel ill and guilty. Incidentally, the sales rep who sent me these also included a bunch of SweeTarts in the package because she’d read about how I loved them. I have the same issue with SweeTarts in that I’ll eat too many at once and then will feel sick.