ZOMG, Candy!

I’ve been off caffeine for several years. Nowadays, if I have a glass of caffeinated soda in the afternoon, it’ll keep me up all night! Thus, I’m probably not Foosh Energy Mints’s target consumer. But when their maker, Vroom Foods, offered to send me free samples, I decided to try them for your sakes, readers.

Each mint contains 100 mg of caffeine, the equivalent of a cup of coffee. They wanted me to keep in mind that such a high caffeine content gives them a unique texture.

The texture definitely stood out as being different. The mints melted with little bumpy grains all over them. It was unusual but not off-putting. What was off-putting, however, was the taste. Or rather, the aftertaste.

They tasted strongly of strong peppermint, which was great and breath-freshening. But they also had a horrid under/aftertaste of artificial sweetener.

Such an aftertaste is bearable when it lasts just a few seconds after you swallow your Diet Coke. In the mints, unfortunately, it lasted the entire time the mint was melting in my mouth. About halfway through, I just couldn’t stand that undertone of fake saccharine-ness and had to spit the thing out.

I didn’t like the taste of these, and I have no need for its caffeine content, so they weren’t for me and get a – solely based on taste. But my caffeine addict friend loved them. To each his or her own, I suppose.

When Q.bel debuted, I got a chance to review their line-up of wafer bars and wafer rolls. They’ve recently added a Double Dark Chocolate and a Dark Chocolate Mint to their selection of wafer bars, and I got free samples to try!

Like all of their line, these new wafer bars are all natural. The Double Dark Chocolate wafer bars are made with 70% dark chocolate, and they’re vegan to boot.

They’re dark chocolate cream sandwiched between airy, crispy, and crunchy wafer cookies, all covered in dark chocolate. Each pack has two bars.

The wafers have a nice toasty note, and the texture is just awesome. The dark chocolate is on the sweet and fruity side. It was a tad sweeter than what I prefer, but the wafers helped mediate that sweetness.

The Mint wafer bars came in a brightly cheery green wrapper. They smelled nicely pepperminty, and they tasted that way too. The mintiness was mild rather than assertive, but the dark chocolate and mint flavors melded well, with the mint mostly coming through in the finish.

The wafers in this bar lacked the burnt, toasty notes of the double dark wafer bars, but they still brought a wonderful light crunch. The wafer-chocolate-cream combination was another win in both texture and flavor.

These guys were great, and I’m sorry to admit that I polished off my samples within a few days. An OM, and a plea for Q.bel to come out with mint wafer rolls, please?

My favorite part about Whole Foods is their bulk food bins. I can pick out as much or as little as I want! Instead of buying a whole jar of a spice when I only need a pinch, I can buy just a pinch. Instead of buying a whole tub full of chocolate-covered almonds when I have a craving, I can buy just a handful.

And instead of buying a whole box or bag or whatever these usually come in, I can pick out just the SunDome flavors that I want to try: Chip ‘N Mint, Cashew Coconut Crunch, Mocha Jolt, and Chocolate Almond Toffee.

I’m currently having a hard time finding out more about these, as the SunRidge Farms website is under construction as of the time I’m writing this post. Best I can tell, they fit into Whole Foods’ image of crunchy-granola (literally) save-the-earth ethos pretty well. I can’t tell you, unfortunately, how many different kinds of SunDomes there are. I do remember the bin having at least twice as many different kinds as I bought - I wanted to get one of each, but that got heavy and too expensive.

The SunDomes are, expectedly, dome-shaped blocks of chocolate flavored in accordance with their names. The chocolate blocks are solid and thick, so not that easy to bite through and also not that easy to share. Each dome is sizeable, about half the size of a hockey puck.

Chip ‘N Mint had a strong, pepperminty scent with little bits of cookie or rice crisp that gave it a hint of crunch. The peppermint was nicely balanced - noticeable, but not too strong.

Mocha Jolt had a strong, genuine coffee taste that was quite enjoyable. There was a slight grit to the texture, which I’m pretty sure was ground up bits of coffee beans. Both of these were solid and thick, with a hefty, dull snap.

Cashew Coconut Crunch turned out to be a surprise. Its chocolate was a bit softer and milkier. It smelled strongly of coconut and had a hint of toasted dry coconut flavor that mingled with the slight nuttiness imparted by tiny bits of cashews sprinkled throughout. The surprise? Raisins! They added a fruity-raisin taste that sort of worked and sort of didn’t. For me, at least, that’s also how I feel about raisins. They sort of work as a snack, but they sort of don’t.

Finally, the Chocolate Almond Toffee, which also had a bit more give when bitten into. It starts with a slight nuttiness, thanks to the tiny bits of almond embedded throughout, that’s more roasty than that of the Cashew Coconut Crunch. That nuttiness then gives way to a burnt sugar note from the toffee aspect. I appreciated its complexity and flavor development.

I wish these came in smaller portions. I ate them across several sessions because they were just so big, and one bite of each was plenty satisfying. If they came in little tasting disks or something, I’d buy all of them again. As is, I think the Mocha Jolt and the Chocolate Almond Toffee are worth buying again, so they get OMs, while the Cashew Coconut Crunch and the Chip ‘N Mint are too big for their own good and get Os.

As promised yesterday (I rearranged things to publish this review two days early; yesterday’s post originally promised the gum review for Friday), I’ve got a new gum review for y’all courtesy of a generous box of free samples from Wrigley. By the way, they called me the wrong name in the form email they sent me, which I found amusing.

Orbit Mist is a new line from Orbit that’s distinguished by its inclusion of “micro-bursts”, which give you a hydrating sensation when the gum is chewed. I’ve never before wished that my chewing gum could be more hydrating, but it seems like a nice enough touch. Orbit Mist currently comes in three flavors, Mango Surf, Watermelon Spring, and Peppermint Spray.

I thought Mango Surf was an interesting flavor choice for a product launch, as it’s not a conventional flavor of gum or candy. The gum is the familiar little rectangle shape that all Orbit gum has, but it’s visibly flecked with the “micro-bursts”. In this case, it’s orange on orange. I appreciated the little design touch of the circles on the wrapper - very mod.

The “micro-bursts” add an initial crunch when you first chew the gum. And I don’t know how they work, but they work. They make the gum incredibly juicy for the first minute or so of chewing, after which the gum mellows into a soft, lightly flavored chew. The mango flavor is pretty impressively authentic at first - they captured that uniquely seedy flavor of mango, especially that of the flesh nearest to the pit- an even as it fades, a light fruity sweetness is maintained for a good chunk of time.

Watermelon Spring is green gum flecked with red “micro-bursts”. It’s surprisingly sour to start. Nothing too intensely puckery, but enough to make you notice. The juicy sourness quickly gives way to a pretty standard artificial watermelon flavor, like that of a watermelon Jolly Rancher. Again, the flavor holds up well enough and lingers as a mellow sweetness.

I started with the two fruit flavored gums, so I was interested as to how the juiciness, expected from fruits, would translate to a peppermint flavor. It’s anticlimactically totally okay and not at all weird.  I did find the “micro-bursts” to be extra crunchy/poppy in this, but it could have been my imagination. The peppermint is freshly minty with just a tinge of sweetness to the finish, and it’s that slight sweetness that lingers in the gum after most of the mint flavor is gone.

All in all, I’m a fan of the “micro-bursts”. Contrary to what Conde Nast Portfolio will tell you, I’m not actually a gum addict, and I gave most of my extra packs away. If I were a gum addict, these would get a higher rating because they’re good, as far as gum goes. I think the fruit ones are worth an OM, while the peppermint gets an O because it’s hard to make peppermint gum exciting. In fact, the Peppermint Spray was about as exciting as peppermint gum can get. I’m hoping that Orbit continues to expand the Mist line to more flavors, especially citrus fruit flavors.

In addition to sponsoring a giveaway, the folks at Tootsie Roll sent me free samples of two of their newer products for a review. Today, we’ll cover the Junior Mints Deluxe or, as I liked to oxymoronically refer to them, giant Junior Mints. A friend joked that they could be called Senior Mints, but those have actually already been made (they were just like Junior Mints but bigger).

The composition of Junior Mints Deluxe is similar to that of Junior Mints, “creamy mints coated in pure dark chocolate.” The Deluxe version, however, was like Junior Mints on steroids: much larger and differently shaped. Junior Mints are ellipsoid shaped (think M&Ms) while Junior Mints Deluxe are dome-shaped molded truffles (think cherry cordials). I appreciate the extra touch of the JM stamp on the top.

Each Junior Mints Deluxe was individually foil-wrapped, so they look like a fancier treat than their more poppable, theater candy counterparts. They’re nice enough for setting out in a candy dish or for casual company. I’m not exactly sure, as I don’t have regular Junior Mints handy for comparison purposes, but I’m pretty sure the dark chocolate shell of the Junior Mints Deluxe is a higher quality chocolate than that of Junior Mints. It’s glossy, well-tempered, and carries a nice snap.

That dark chocolate, however, is pretty overwhelmed by the mint filling. The mint to chocolate ratio of the Junior Mints Deluxe is completely different from regular Junior Mints. In the Deluxe version it’s more of a MINT!!!! to chocolate ratio. I didn’t mind the extra minty flavor because I enjoyed the refreshment, but it may not be for everyone.

The texture of the filling is interesting, as it’s stiff, yet slightly flowy. It held its peaks, but if I left it sitting around for an hour, it would’ve probably oozed everywhere. The texture was also overwhelming in contrast to the snap of the dark chocolate shell, and that was the ratio imbalance that I took issue with. I didn’t mind the extra mintiness, but the extra gooey I could’ve done without.

Overall, a pretty good product that was quickly snapped up by my friends. I’d give it an OM. I won’t go out and buy more for myself anytime soon, but I’ll happily finish the few that I have left. You can check out Cybele’s Candy Blog take on them here.

Poppets are a UK treats that I came across while I was in Cambridge. I’ve seen them in Mint, Toffee and Raisin but didn’t buy the latter as I don’t really like chocolate covered raisins. The Poppets boxes have strangely eye-catching packaging with random remarks on the back. For example, here’s the front of their Mint box:

Okay, gnome, with a fishing pole. Kinda weird. Gets weirder on the back: “Dad always wondered where the fish had disappeared to… Aaahh bless, it must be his age!” The Toffee box has a pail full of sand and with a shovel inside, and the back says, “He still finds sand in his ears… Amazing as it was 3 years ago that we buried him on the beach!” Both boxes end with the tagline, “Remember when?”

Enough about the packaging; how do they taste?

The mint Poppets are a so-so dark chocolate coating around a mildy minty fondant center. The pieces were pseudo-spherical, in that they were round but irregularly shaped. They were slightly refreshing, and that combined with their poppability earns them an OM.

Toffee Poppets are similarly sized and shaped. Unlike the mint Poppets, the toffee ones have a mild milk chocolate coating. The caramel inside is hard and sticky and is pretty good at working its way into your teeth. It starts off super firm, then warms and softens. I liked them. They were like sophisticated Milk Duds, as the caramel had nice dark tones to it. Another OM.

So overall, the Poppets fared decently well. They’re worth an impulse buy at the counter, if you happen to be in the country where they’re sold.

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.

I picked this up at Sainsbury’s in Cambridge after I read Terry’s review of it on The Chocolate Review, and I wasn’t sorry. I bought them in a pack of six and brought them home to give out as “I remembered you while I was abroad!” gifts. The big six-pack contained six individually wrapped bars, all in posh matte wrappers with an eye-catching black, green, and silver design.

They are billed as “temptingly smooth mint chocolate with a crunchy biscuit base.” Basically, they’re a chocolate cookie base topped with aerated mint chocolate, all covered with milk chocolate. Each bar is imprinted with Fox’s Echo on the top.

The bar has a super strong mint smell, but it doesn’t taste as piercingly minty as its scent would suggest. Think more muted mint chocolate chip ice cream than Altoids or toothpaste. The chocolate cookie base was super crisp, almost a little too crunchy for my taste. The aerated mint chocolate melted creamily and mingled well with the chocolate coating and cookie base. Overall, I felt the bar was a little too sweet. It’s pretty small, and I only ate it about a third at a time. An OM if I were still in England and could buy more.

As I readied to write this post, I discovered that I’ve never formally reviewed any Ghirardelli chocolates on this blog, though I’ve eaten lots of Ghirardelli chocolates in my life. To remedy that, here’s a review of their Intense Dark Assortment.

First up, the Mint Bliss, a 60% cacao. It had a great snap and a creamy and smooth melt. There was just enough mint to make its presence known but not so much that it overwhelmed. And it was a nicely genuine mint flavor, not too toothpastey.  The mint did, however, mostly cover any nuance to the chocolate, but I was okay with that.

The other 60% in the collection was Espresso Escape, dark chocolate with finely ground espresso beans. So finely ground, in fact, that they didn’t affect the texture of the bar at all. I expected dark chocolate with a nice coffee finish. Instead, the chocolate was much more bitter than I thought it would be, and I loved it. It was like eating a dark chocolate espresso bean in smooth chocolate bar form.

Last but not least was a 72% pure chocolate billed as Twilight Delight. It had a dry but smooth melt without any creaminess with a lovely sweet finish.

Overall, I’d give this assortment an OMG, with the Mint and the Espresso as my favorites. Ghirardelli does a great job of making delicious chocolate at affordable prices. And Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco is fun if you ever have the chance to visit - their ice cream sundaes with Ghirardelli chocolate sauce are decadent and divine.

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.