I got today’s candies the best possible way: the mall See’s stand had a little basket of individually wrapped candies by the register, and the owner told me to help myself to as many as I wanted. I nabbed a Cafe Latte Krispy and Mint Krispy, along with a Butterscotch Square and Dark Butterchew.

Both pieces were squares of flavored toffee covered with a thin layer of chocolate. The Cafe Latte Krispy was a golden brown coffee toffee hidden in milk chocolate.

The toffee chip cleaved into shards with a great crunch. It had a bit of a tendency to gather as grit in my molars but mostly melted on my tongue.

The thin milk chocolate coating melted thickly and tasted of malt and caramel. The toffee had a nice coffee flavor without any bitterness. Combined with the chocolate, it had a nice mocha frappucino effect.

The toffee crispness kept the whole treat feeling light. It was a nice mix of texture and flavor and OM-worthy.

The Mint Krispy was a white mint toffee covered in dark chocolate. The texture of the mint toffee was the same as that of the Cafe Latte: light and crisp.

The minty center was powerful in flavor and scent. It tasted strongly of peppermint oil and was nearly spicy in how it set my mouth a-tingling, with just a hint of bitterness to the finish.

The strength of that mintiness overpowered the dark chocolate, which came through as just a hint of cocoa flavor undertone. I enjoyed the treat but it was too minty. An O.

See’s has long been one of my favorite confectioners for good reason. They make delicious treats at reasonable price points, and they may be enough impetus to get me back to the mall more than once every six months.

Thus, I had lived in Durham for nearly six months before I finally set foot in a mall for an Apple store errand. Lo and behold, the mall had a See’s stand! I picked up enough treats to make this week another See’s week.

The See’s Awesome Peanut Brittle Bar was a 1 oz. bar that they described as “crunchy peanut brittle drenched in milk chocolate.” It was a beautifully enrobed slab.

The brittle cleaved cleanly and was full of peanuts, some whole and some in pieces. When chewed, some of the brittle shards came together and got a bit stuck in my molars, but it was mostly a clean chomp.

It was salty and buttery with a hearty nuttiness thanks to the roasted peanuts. The milk chocolate added a light duskiness that was a great pairing with the salty sweet brittle.

I’m generally meh about peanuts, but I really enjoyed this treat. I love toffee that cleaves like this brittle did, and the flavors were great – predominantly that of roasted peanuts with a nice balance of salty and sweet. An OM.

If you want other opinions, Cybele and Sera both reviewed this on their sites long before I did. In my defense, I’ve never lived in a city with any sort of See’s shop before!

The Perennial Sweets was a box of “dark chocolates inspired by the garden.” My box of 16 contained 4 Nantucket Baskets, 4 Topiary Toffees, and 8 Sweet Irises, each individually wrapped in gold foil.

The chocolates themselves reminded me of cameo jewelry due to their oval shapes and raised (really molded) decorations. As with the Sand Castle bar, I was impressed by the detail captured by the molding, as well as the lack of air bubbles in the chocolate.

The Nantucket Basket was a “rich, dark chocolate with dry roasted almonds” with a pretty basket of plants as its molding. The thick oval of chocolate was snappy with a smooth melt.

The chocolate carried a hint of cherry sweetness and was studded with whole almonds. While the almonds were nutty with a nice roasted flavor, they got bitter at their gritty end. I thought they were a tad too tannic.

Topiary Toffee had a potted tree decoration and was described as “rich, dark chocolate with almond butter crunch.”

It was also thick with a solid snap, and though the dark chocolate looked identical to that of the Nantucket Basket, I thought it tasted just a hair sweeter and had a thicker melt.

I expected the almond butter crunch to be dispersed throughout the treat as little nuggets. Instead, there was a big triangular slab of almond butter toffee hidden inside.

The toffee was simply lovely and paired well with the dusky, thick chocolate. It had the just-shy-of-burnt sugar taste that I love with just a hint of nuttiness. It cleaved cleanly, shattering into shards of deliciousness when bitten into.

Sweet Iris, “rich, dark chocolate with raspberry crunch,” was markedly thinner than the other two. Each Sweet Iris well held two chocolates while the Nantucket Basket and Topiary Toffee were one per well.

The Sweet Iris smelled extremely fruity. There was a light grit to the chocolate that I thought maybe came from raspberry seeds or bits of dehydrated raspberry but actually were bits of “lemon crunch,” according to the ingredients list.

The dark chocolate had a nice cocoa duskiness from the chocolate and a brightly sweet fruitiness. It was nice but a bit too artificially fruity sweet for my taste.

The Topiary Toffee was my favorite of the bunch and gets an OMG, while the other two get Os. They get high marks for prettiness, though. If I owned a bed and breakfast, I’d leave these on the pillows.

The fat nuggets of popcorn looked so tantalizing, tumbling out of the bag with their slight sheen. Their outer coating was a thin layer of milk chocolate. Beneath that was a thin layer of toffee glaze, and then the fattest, fluffiest popcorn I’ve ever seen.

I wonder if Trader Joe’s is starting with some seriously genetically modified corn or something. Every piece was nearly all lovely puffy popped part and barely any noticeable gets-stuck-in-your-teeth kernel part.

The milk chocolate was malty and sugary sweet. The toffee added a bit of crunch and a light buttery scorchiness, and the popcorn fluffiness capped it all off as a light, neutral foil.

This treat was a great synthesis of flavors and textures. Chocolate-covered popcorn style treats tend to be pricy (looking at you, Moose Munch), but this was only $2.99 for the 8 oz bag. Sold!

My only complaint is that it got a tad too sweet in the finish after a few pieces in a row so it gets a slight downgrade for that. An OM.

I was curious as to exactly what World Market meant by toffee caramel. Generally speaking, your basic combination of sugar and butter is either toffee or caramel, depending on the texture, so how could something be both? I guess they were just trying to cover all their bases.

The chocolate bar had an unusual appearance. Flecked with bits of toffee throughout, it was funnily speckled and rather visually unappetizing in my opinion.

The toffee bits were visible along the break of the bar. Some looked craggy, while others looked light and full of air pockets.

It smelled strangely of spices with a strong overtone of anise. Blech. I hate anise, hence my aversion to licorice and fennel and absinthe.

Alas, that anise scent crossed over to the flavor of the bar. It just tasted off, like no toffee/caramel I’ve ever had, and I couldn’t handle more than a bite.

The texture didn’t help matters either. It had the same poor melt and deficient mouthfeel as their dark chocolate. A –.

The back of the box lovingly described it as, “luxuriously deep and velvety dark chocolate … infused with crunchy toffee and caramelized almonds delivering unrivaled chocolate intensity.” They’ve got some stellar copywriters!

Like most Ghirardelli bars, this was lightly scored into 8 squares, each embossed with their distinctive soaring eagle logo. The chocolate smelled lightly woodsy and smoky.

It was crammed full of generous bits of toffee and slivers of almond that were clearly visible in the break. The toffee pieces were about as thick as the chocolate itself.

The chocolate was indeed decadent, with a smooth matte melt. I got light coffee notes and a sweet and slightly sour finish.

The toffee was the obvious star here. It was crunchy and cleanly cleaving, with a great buttery sweetness. Occasional bits of almond snuck through as well, adding a tinge of nutty praline.

I found it to be an addictively indulgent mix of creamy and crunchy and buttery and nutty. An OM.

The box’s description called it “the perfect blend of sweet cream butter, pure cane sugar, and California almonds, drenched in creamy milk chocolate and sprinkled with crushed almonds.” The box itself was quite pretty, a cream-colored lid with a deep chocolate-colored bottom.

The toffee came in giant slabs that were a bit unwieldy. It was covered in chocolate that was, in turn, covered in crushed almonds. The almonds were so thoroughly pulverized that they were practically almond dust, so breaking apart the thick slabs was a messy affair.

The toffee was thick – thick enough to have whole almonds fully embedded in it. It cleaved and crumbled cleanly with a pleasant crunch. And, importantly for toffee, it had a minimal “getting-stuck-in-your-molars” aspect.

The toffee was the star here, and it definitely shone. It was buttery and sweet with lovely caramel notes and tasted scorchy, just shy of burnt.

The almonds within the toffee added a wonderful nuttiness; I believe they were toasted to bring out their flavor. The chocolate was mild with a sweet sugar finish and minimal cocoa flavors, while the crushed almonds on top were so finely ground that they didn’t contribute much more nuttiness.

I love a good toffee, especially one that doesn’t leave me trying to discretely pick bits of candy out of my teeth. The flavors and texture were perfect here; my only complaint was that it was a bit messy to parcel out.

I brought this into work to share, and it quickly disappeared. A clear OMG winner.

The back of the Toffee & Almonds in Milk Chocolate bar described its contents as “Chunks of almond toffee in smooth milk chocolate. Creamy milk chocolate releases chunks of buttery sweet toffee and dry roasted almonds.”

Thanks to summer in my non-air conditioned house, the 33% milk chocolate that was the base of this bar was very soft, almost like putty. It melted in my fingers.

The melt of the chocolate was lovely – thick and tongue-coatingly luxurious. It tasted of caramel and sugar.

The tiny bits of toffee distributed throughout the bar were the best part. They were dry and crunchy with a great scorchiness. The almond bits were visually indistinguishable from the toffee, but I was able to detect the light nutty flavor that they added.

My only complaint about this bar was that it was too sweet in the finish, with a cloy that burned the throat. Otherwise, I loved the mix of crunchy and thick, sweet and burnt and nutty. An OM.

Both bars were lightly scored into 12 rectangular segments, each prettily imprinted with Green and Black’s apostrophe/leaf logo.

The Dark 70% was simply described as “dark chocolate with 70% cocoa content.” It had incredibly deep burnt coffee notes and a strong earthy intensity.

I enjoyed the start, but the finish was rather chalky and lightly astringent. If it weren’t for that lingering unpleasantness, it would merit an OM. With the finish that it does have, an O.

The Toffee was described as “milk chocolate with toffee.” The milk chocolate on its own was only so-so. It was grainy and lacked any thickness to the melt.

The toffee was what really made this treat. It had a great crunch and a clean cleave. Strong notes of butterscotch candy (think Brach’s discs) were tempered with a slight sourness and saltiness that really brought out the toffee notes.

This was quite enjoyable. Not nearly as delicious as Vosges’s take on milk chocolate and toffee, but definitely far cheaper and decently delicious for the dinero. An OM.

The first, immediately noticeable thing about this bar was the toffee. Holy cow was it delicious!

The toffee cleaved cleanly with a great, satisfying crunch. It tasted deep and scorched with a light hint of saltiness that really highlighted the sweetness of the toffee and chocolate.

The chocolate was thick with caramel notes. There was a light nuttiness from the walnuts and pecans that was sparsely distributed. The nuts weren’t in every bite, but their presence, when it was there, was appreciated.

If my boyfriend hadn’t been sitting next to me while I tasted this bar, I would’ve polished off the whole thing on my own. Instead, I had to share it – and the two of us polished it off within minutes.

The combination of sweet and salty crunchy toffee and dusky, thick milk chocolate was irresistible. A ZOMG!