ZOMG, Candy!

When I was a kid, I didn’t play with Barbies much. It wasn’t because my parents were afraid that she’d give me body image issues or anything like that (though if I had a daughter of my own, I probably wouldn’t give her Barbies for that reason) - it’s because we were too po’. My parents immigrated from China just before I was born. When I was young, we lived off my father’s tiny grad student stipend, which left little room in the family budget for Barbies. Now that we’re financially comfortable (though that financial comfort will disappear once I graduate from college and attempt to be financially independent), I’m too old for Barbies.

Or so I thought. When Mattel approached me about doing a giveaway of their new limited/collectors’ edition Hershey’s Barbie Doll, my first thought was, “I want one!” And because Mattel is so nice, I got one!

She’s “adorned with a fun and flirtatious cocktail dress in a rich milk chocolate brown, accented with twinkles of silver,” just as the press release promised. And killer shoes, which weren’t touted in the fact sheet that I got. Yes, I’ll never be able to walk en point in heels, and I’ll never have Barbie’s impossible figure, but I’m old enough to accept that and enjoy my Hershey’s Barbie for what she is - a neat collaboration between two old and beloved American institutions.

And, thanks to Mattel, I’m running a giveaway for a second doll, so that one of you can have one to enjoy as well! One randomly selected reader (U.S. only, please, unless you’re willing to pay your own shipping) will win a Hershey’s Barbie. To enter, leave a Barbie or Hershey’s related comment on this post with a valid email address by midnight on Friday, April 17th.

Good luck! And if you don’t win, you can still buy your own at Toys R Us, Hershey’s stores, select U.S. retailers, and at BarbieCollector.com .

Normally, candy blogging has lots of perks. My friends give me candy, PR companies mail me free samples, people love me for feeding them my extra candy, and I get to eat lots of candy! But eating lots of candy isn’t always fun and games. Candy doesn’t always taste good, and sometimes, it can be downright nasty. Take, for example, Junior Fruit Cremes, one of the most misguided limited edition candies I have ever had the misfortune to come across and actually spend money on.

Granted, it was just a dollar at the Dollar Tree, but still. Junior Mint, why did you even go there? You make a perfectly lovely chocolate mint confection. Why branch out into these horrible things that you call fruit cremes, which are dull and ugly while your Junior Mints are bright and shiny, which erroneously claim “creamy coated fruit centers!” and which taste of unfortunate approximations of black cherry, orange, and raspberry?

Seriously, these guys were gnarly nasty. I’ll give Junior Mints the benefit of the doubt - maybe my box was a bit old, and that’s why the fruit centers had solidified into greasy messes. But that doesn’t excuse the greasy crumbly coatings or the strangely artificial, can’t-find-anything-close-to-it-in-nature waxy “fruit” flavors. I took a nibble of each and just couldn’t bring myself to taste more. These guys went straight into the trash, earning them an O. I want my dollar back. Actually, I want Tootsie Roll to pay me for eating these horrible things. I don’t understand how they ever made it onto the shelves.

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.

Reese’s is awesome at churning out limited edition stuff. The newest iteration is their Limited Edition Crunchy Peanut Butter Cups, which I picked up as an impulse buy at the counter of my local Walgreen’s. Hooray marketing!

My friend Steve just asked what makes it crunchy. Just like peanut butter, the peanut butter cups are crunchified by the presence of peanuts. The peanut butter cup doesn’t look any different on the outside, but the peanut bits are visible in the pb cup cross section.

The peanut bits add a nice textural component to the cup and contributes a strong peanut scent, though I don’t have a regular pb cup to compare it to. Even without a regular pb cup handy, I can tell that the peanut butter filling in the crunchy cup is sweeter and less salty than its non-limited edition counterpart.

I think the crunchy is an improvement on peanut butter cups. The peanuts aren’t too intrusive and don’t get stuck in your teeth, and the peanut butter cup texture is more exciting. I do wish the nuts were roastier but still give this limited edition a solid OMG.

In continuing with Wednesday’s spirit of cleaning notes out of my candy tasting notebook, more quick reviews of candies that I didn’t have much to say about. These, like Wednesday’s, were all gifts, but they are not all international.

South African Nestle Chocolates from former suitemate, future roommate Catherine (who doesn’t like chocolate!), who got them from a YDN friend

Tex - milk chocolate coating around two wafers sandwiching an aerated chocolate middle. Meh chocolate quality, but coolness and novelty points. I’ll definitely seek this out if Concert Band tour is in South Africa next summer. OM.

Bar-one - nougat and chocolate. Reminds me of a Tootsie Roll’s flavor. O.

Quality Street - the name confused me, because Quality Street is a whole line-up of assorted and individually wrapped chocolate miniatures in the UK. In this case, the treat labeled “chocolate nut toffee creme” had caramel and was vaguely hazelnutty. Another O.

Hershey’s Limited Edition Hot Cocoa Kisses from a YPMB scavenger hunt group, submitted as “Candy Rosa’s never tried before”

I think these kisses had melted a bit, then reformed, hence the kind of lumpy look on the wrapped one. I wonder if they have a lower melting point because truffling the filling means adding vegetable fat or something.

Like many of the overabundant Kiss varieties (seriously thorough round-up from Cybele here; awesome photographic round-up here) that Hershey’s rolled out recently, these are molded truffles rather than “kissed” out like traditional kisses. The hot cocoa kiss had a milk chocolate shell surrounding a soft truffle center with a cocoa powder finish. It was soft and sweet and so-so. An O for something that was awfully similar to the plain old truffle kisses.

Long Grove Confectionary Chocolates from Mrs. Cobb that didn’t make it to Chicago Week

Clockwise from the top: Kahlua, raspberry, vanilla buttercream, and dark chocolate.

Kahlua - nice whole coffee bean on top. A thick and creamy ganache with a slightly sweet finish. Not much chocolate or coffee flavor.

Raspberry - nicely sweet raspberry flavored filling without the bitter seeds

Vanilla buttercream - strong maple notes with a super sweet maple finish. Slight grain to the ganache.

Dark chocolate - doesn’t taste very chocolatey or very dark, but the ganache is lovely, as it’s thick and creamy and smooth.

A good assortment that’s better than most grocery-store bought boxed chocolates, but nothing that really sets it apart from other not mass-distributed chocolates. An O.

I’m a little late to the game on reviewing the Wildly Cherry M&M’s, as I am on many Limited Edition candies. That’s what happens when you’re a college student on a meal plan who doesn’t go grocery shopping. I found these at one of the many gas stations we stopped at on my spring break roadtrips. The cashier saw me buy two bags (one to eat in the car, as I couldn’t wait to taste them, and the other to photograph and review later) and remarked that she liked the Razzberry ones better (my review of the Razzberry M&M’s). I agree.

I love the cute little bag design that makes Red look like a cherry. As you can see, the Wildly Cherry M&M’s come in two colors, red and a darker maroon. They’re slightly larger than regular M&M’s, like the Razzberry ones, and also like the Razzberry ones, the larger size makes the sugar shell feel a little thicker and a little crunchier. I found the flavor to be reminiscent of artificial black cherry rather than of fresh cherries. It was quite faithful to the slightly medicinal flavor of a cherry cordial. They’re not as intoxicating as the Razzberry M&M’s, possibly because the slightly medicinal cherry flavor is far more common and therefore less interesting than it’s slightly medicinal raspberry counterpart. An OM from me. I passed the first bag around the car, where it was favorably received by my road tripping companions. I popped a couple of the second bag to take tasting notes but have since had no desire to pop more.

Check out Sera on Candy Addict and Heather on Chocolate Bytes for other takes. I wonder if they’re the same as the Cherry Cordial M&Ms from last Christmas the Sugarhog.net reviewed.

Oh Limited Edition items, how you appeal to my candy blogger impulses! The bright orange wrapper on the Snickers Limited Edition Nut ‘n Butter Crunch (I’m fond of pointing out how Reese’s has driven us to associate orange candy bar wrappers with peanut butter) promises “milk chocolate, peanuts and creamy peanut butter taste.”

Peanut butter taste? That worries me. Why not just creamy peanut butter? It must be some horrid substitute made from oil or something. Yum…

I must admit that I’ve never been a Snickers fan, as I don’t really like peanuts that much. I used to hate nuts in things. Now that I’ve been candy blogging for a while, I’ve learned to tolerate and even enjoy eating nuts. But I’ve still never had the urge to grab a Snickers bar. I don’t even think I’ve ever had a standard-sized Snickers (just the mini versions), so though I felt that the Nut ‘n Butter Crunch was smaller than usual, I couldn’t be sure. It weighed in at 1.71 ounces.

First of all, this bar doesn’t live up to its name, as it’s not that crunchy. The peanuts are the only thing providing texture to the bar. It had a strong peanut smell, probably thanks to whatever provided the peanut butter tate. The milk chocolate coating was slight sweet and covered a thick filling of peanuts in a pasty… thing… that’s definitely not peanut butter, as its texture is not at all creamy. The Nut ‘n Butter Crunch was an extremely salty bar (14- mg of sodium), possibly due to the peanuts and the nuts. The sweet and salty mix of the bar works well, and the texture is pretty good as well.

I give the Nut ‘n Butter Crunch an OM. All the peanuts make it high in protein, and it tastes better than most of those supposedly healthy protein bars that are covered in chocolate and full of sugar. Maybe this is a candy indulgence that you can pretend is good for you!

With their limited edition Razzberry M&M’s (BUY!), Mars has further added to an already fairly expansive line of M&M (BUY!) varieties. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! These guys were tasty. I brought them to a party, and they disappeared in about ten minutes.

If Mars had made the packaging and the M&M’s a pale pink instead of this red color, they could’ve seriously capitalized on October being breast cancer awareness month. Then again, this purplish-reddish pink does a better job of capturing the color of raspberries. Sort of.

The M&M’s are the same shade of razzberry. I think it’s a pretty shade, if a bit jarring because it’s not what we’re used to. The Razzberry M&M’s are bigger than milk chocolate M&M’s - close to the size of peanut M&M’s but not oblong due to the lack of needing to accommodate peanut shapes - and unevenly sized, as you can see from the photo. My favorite one is the dented one, I think. Perhaps it was dropped on its head as a child.

These are sweet with a lightly fruity raspberry flavor. The flavor is quite artificial but still enjoyable. The candy sugar shell feels thicker, making these M&M’s a tad more tiring to chew. As far as I can tell, the shell isn’t Razzberry flavored. I think it’s too thick, which makes the M&M’s too sweet. I found them more enjoyable when I let the sugar shell dissolve for a bit and then crunched through the remaining thin shell. An OM. Tasty; could be tastier.

The Reese’s line of candies (BUY!) has grown immensely since I was a kid. Now Reese’s peanut buttery treats literally come in several shapes and sizes, not to mention fillings and coatings and textures. The classic peanut butter cups (specifically, the miniature ones) are still my personal favorite, with Reese’s pieces coming in a close second.

I’m pretty late in the game to the Elvis PB cup. They made such a splash in the candy review blog world when they first debuted that I didn’t see a point in adding my voice to the chorus. But I saw these in the campus convenience store the other day, vaguely remembered reading somewhere that they were no longer being made, and figured I’d give them a shot before they disappeared off the shelves.

I’m too young to really get all the Elvis hoopla - my strongest Elvis associations are with Uncle Jesse’s Elvis worship on Full House - but I did know about his love for (fried?) peanut butter and banana sandwiches. Hence the flavor combo in these Reese’s cups.

I don’t know which came first in the development of these cups, the Elvis branding or the banana flavor addition, but it works. These smell like regular Reese’s, but when I ate a tiny piece of chocolate that had flaked off the cup, it tasted strongly of banana. In the cup itself, however, with the chocolate and hefty peanut butter layer, the banana creme layer isn’t overwhelming at all.

Elvis’s Reese’s cups have earned an OM. I still like regular Reese’s better, but I’d go for one of these any time I felt like something a little different.

I got super excited when I saw the Take 5 Marshmallow at Party City. The Take 5 (BUY!) is one of my favorite candies, as is the See’s Scotchmallow, so maybe the combination of the two would be candy perfection!

Sadly it was not a candy revelation. To the contrary, it was rather unremarkable and forgettable. The Take 5 Marshmallow just didn’t have that magic combination of sweet and salty that the original mastered so well. The marshmallow creme was intended to replace the caramel, but it did so unsuccessfully.

While the caramel imparted a burnt sweetness to complement the salty peanut butter, the marshmallow creme is too one-dimensionally sweet. And while the caramel brought a wonderfully moist and sticky chewiness to the bar to balance the dry stickiness of the peanut butter, the marshmallow was fluffy when it needed to be chewy and, as you can see in the photo, was as dry as the peanut butter.

I’m not surprised that this Limited Edition version didn’t make it into the regular line-up. The Chocolate Cookie Take 5 was released around the same time as the Marshmallow and still seems to be available.

Remember to enter my 5 gum giveaway!