ZOMG, Candy!

This NY Times Food Stuff blurb about Toffee + Pretzels + Beer is reminiscent of The Kitchn’s recipe for Ale and Pretzel Caramels. The former is probably more expensive, but you don’t have to worry about ruining your pans!

Last week, I did a 2-part (I and II) round-up of Schokowurfel, a set of 7 tiny Ritter Sports that I bought in Europe. Today and Friday, I’ll review the second set of somewhat larger mini Ritter Sport chocolates that I purchased on the same trip.

Unlike the single-squared Schokowurfel, these mini Ritter Sports were comprised of four connected squares. Basically, they were a quarter of the size of a regular 16-square Ritter Sport bar.

The set of seven contained Marzipan, Knusperkeks (butter biscuit), Knusperflakes (cornflakes), Vollmilch 30% Kakao (milk chocolate, 30% cacao), Joghurt (yogurt), Haselnuss (hazelnut), and Nugat (nougat).

I’ve already reviewed the first three (hence the above links), so I’m only reviewing the latter four here. Vollmilch and Joghurt today; Haselnuss and Nugat on Friday.

Vollmilch turned out to have a nicely snappy break at the demarcated partitions, which was surprising for a 30% cacao milk chocolate. It had a tongue-coatingly thick melt, which I love in milk chocolate.

The flavor was rich with caramel notes and a sweet fruitiness to the finish. All in all, a solidly enjoyable milk chocolate. O.

I was excited about the Joghurt/yogurt bar. I gorged myself on the intoxicating tang of yogurt gelato while in Italy, and I loved the Milka Joghurt bar.

The Ritter Sport version did not disappoint. It had a soft break, and the sweet and creamy milk chocolate coating enveloped full pods of luscious yogurt filling.

The tangy yogurt was delicious, with a just-shy-of-sour finish, but I felt that it fell short of the Milka Joghurt bar’s exhilaratingly sour filling. Thus, the Ritter Sport version gets “just” an OMG.

Despite the comparatively lower rating, I still loved the bar and wish that it was readily available in the U.S. Can we make that happen? Please?

I’ve tried, reviewed, and even given away Mars’s new Pretzel M&M’s. In case you wanted a second opinion, you can read about the Onion’s A.V. Club’s take on them in a Taste Test.

That same entry features chocolate-covered ramen. Yum? You’ll have to read them to find out.

My friend, the newly minted Dr. Neil (congratulations, Neil!), is soon moving from Rochester to the Netherlands for a post-doc position. This makes me very sad because Neil is one of my favorite people, and I will miss him lots when he’s gone.

Neil is one of my favorite people because he’s now gone to the Netherlands twice, and both times, he brought me back Dutch candy. I should note that it’s not the candy-bringing itself that makes Neil endearing (I’d like to think that my affections are not so easily purchased); it’s that the candy-bringing is just one example of how Neil is a kind and thoughtful friend.

On his last trip, he brought me back a Nestle Bros bar. I had never heard of the Bros bar before and was initially confused at Neil’s email with the subject line, “Delivery” and the body, “Bros.” Was Neil going to bring me Dutch frat boys?

Nope. Turns out that the Bros bar is an aerated chocolate bar, pseudo-separated into six segments, each with a cute little bubble imprint on the top.

The wrapper touts the bars relatively low calorie count (131). This was both unsurprising – aerated chocolate is full of air, hence the lower caloric density – and surprising – low cal doesn’t quite fit my mental image of a Bro (FYI, Keystone Light is not actually lite). Though now that I think about it, I think the calorie count marking is just a difference in European nutrition/packaging laws.

The chocolate has a beautifully bubbled interior. I love the look of aerated chocolate so much! And I love the way it feels against the tongue, when the bubbles smoosh away and dissolve in the mouth.

It tasted thick and sweet, brightly fruity, with dusky cocoa notes. I wouldn’t call it dark or milk; instead, it fits the semisweet bill. In fact, it reminded me of semisweet Nestle Tollhouse chips.

I managed to eat the whole thing in one sitting. Fortunately, the aerated factor meant that I felt no guilt for scarfing a whole candy bar in one quick go. An OM, and my repeated wish that aerated chocolate was more bountiful in the U.S.

These tangerine-lemonade flavored Sour Punch Bits came in my free goodie bag from the National Confectioners’ Association. Looks like the American Licorice Company is expanding from just making Sour Punch Straws.

They turned out to be little sour sugar covered cylinders divided into yellow and orange quadrants. Mine got a little sadly damp in this wonderfully hot and humid summer that Rochester’s been having.

Their texture was similar to that of regular Sour Punch Straws, if Sour Punch Straws were solid. That is, they had the texture of a stiff licorice wheat chew.

Citrus fruits are my favorite candy flavors, and these Bits satisfied my love of bright, sweet and tart. They tasted very orange-y with a decently powerful sour finish.

I loved the Bits’ flavor, but I didn’t like that they got all stuck in the nooks and crannies of my teeth. If the slightly softer Straws came in this Tangerine Lemonade flavor, I’d be a happy candy blogger. An O.

When I recapped Serious Eats’s write-ups of this year’s Sweets and Snacks Expo, I didn’t realize that the Onion’s A.V. Club also got to go. Check out their recap here. It features video footage!

Here’s the continuation of Monday’s review of Ritter Sport’s Schokowurfel. Monday, I reviewed the Creme Coco, the Mandel Split, and the Caramel Crisp.

Today, I’ll review the rest of the set: Crocant, Cappuccino, and Edelnugat.

I’m not exactly sure what Crocant means in German, but the onomatopoeia made me think of crunchiness. And I was right!

Crocant turned out to be a solid milk chocolate square with toasted rice crisps. It was basically like an uber Nestle Crunch bar, but it distinguished itself with a bit of extra sweetness to the crisps’ finish, like the crisps had been candied or caramelized. So it gets an OM.

Cappuccino was pretty self-explanatory. I appreciated that its outer wrapper was a beautiful cafe au lait color.

It was a milk chocolate bar with a creamy, lighter brown ganache inside. The square was very, very soft and very, very thick when melting in the mouth.

The cappuccino flavor did capture the essence of coffee, but I found it far too sweet, more Starbucks Frappuccino than Italian espresso. It could’ve been a great bite of chocolate had it not been so cloying. An O.

Edelnougat is the last of the set. I know what nougat is, and I know what edelweiss is, but I didn’t know what Edelnougat could mean.

It turned out to be a thick hazelnut ganache inside a milk chocolate shell. Like a good praline, this was mouth-coatingly thick and wonderfully nutty – a classic done well. An OM.

All in all, I was pretty impressed by the quality of this set. When I taste candy for reviews, I often limit my tasting to just a few bites, so this set was perfect for my needs. And I had enough leftover to share with friends, making this a highly recommended souvenir.

Edit: Oops! Not actually about Trader Joe’s… Embarrassing mis-reading on my part. Thanks to Jay for the catch!

Here’s a NY Times piece about how one man is buying up a huge swath of the world’s chocolate market. I sure hope he doesn’t single-handedly screw up the world’s chocolate economy!

My May trip to Italy meant a layover in Frankfurt, which in turn meant that I got to buy lots of Duty Free Ritter Sport. In fact, I managed to leave Europe with not one but two sets of mini Ritter Sport assortments.

The below Schokowurfel set had 6 varieties (Sorten?): Creme Coco, Mandel Split, Caramel Crisp, Crocant, Cappuccino, and Edelnougat. I’ll cover the first three today and hit the next three on Wednesday.

These tiny Ritter Sports were individually wrapped and each just one square big. They’re slightly larger than the square segments of a regular Ritter Sport bar. The size difference is especially noticeable in their height.

It wasn’t until after I’d eaten them all that I realized that I photographed one upside down. Oops.

Creme Coco came in a white wrapper. It was milk chocolate with a white coconut cream filling. The filling contained dried flakes of coconut that were crisp and just shy of crunchy.

The chocolate was soft and sweet and nutty. The two flavors played off each other beautifully, with the dusky sweet balancing out the crispy nutty coconut. I thought it was a lovely mix of flavor and texture. An OM.

It was pretty easy to guess at a translation for Creme Coco. Mandel Split left me lost with no clue what to expect.

It turned out to be milk chocolate on the outside with a white chocolate filling with a few peanut bits mixed in. The peanuts were quite flavorful, but I’ve never been a big fan of peanuts.

I respected the high quality of the ingredients that went into the Mandel Split, but I didn’t find it very exciting or special. To me, it just tasted like nice chocolate and peanuts. An O.

Finally for today, Caramel Crisp was easily comprehensible. It was milk chocolate with golden brown caramel-flavored filling.

At first I thought the filling contained rice crisps, but careful excavation revealed them to be thin flakes of unidentified crispiness. They had a nice complexity that made me think they could be honeycomb, or at least honeycomb flavored.

I really enjoyed the filling to this chocolate. It had nice caramelized/burnt sugar notes that I love in real caramel, but it had the solid texture of a grainy ganache. That plus the intriguingly delicious crisps earned this an OM.

Cybele reviewed this set several years ago on Candy Blog. Looks like the assortment has changed a little since then. Come back on Wednesday for the other half!

These Meiji Pupurun Grape Gummis came in my generous free sample box from Tsunami.hk. They came in a conveniently resealable bag with a cute mascot and an intriguing rendering of the gummi’s cross-section.

Each gummi was the size of a gum drop but with a rounder domed shape. They had a stiff outer shell that was thickest at the top. The center was a softer gummi that was just shy of an oozy goo in texture.

They tasted sweet and juicy with a nice floral flavor that I thought was more strawberry than grape. The finish, however, had a noticeable grape taste that tasted quite genuine and was not at all medicinal.

While there was nothing revolutionary about the flavor of the gummis, I absolutely loved the texture. The solid flavor combined with their unique texture earned these an OM.