I had been looking for Strawberried Peanut Butter M&M’s for ages, since they first starting popping up in the candy blogosphere.
They were released as a limited edition promotional tie-in for the Transformers sequel, and I finay found them a week or so ago in a local discount grocery store. Only in a giant bag, but oh well. Now I have roommates who eat chocolate to share with!
Strawberry, peanut butter, and chocolate are an unusual flavor combination to find in candy, though it makes perfect sense. Peanut butter and chocolate are great together, and strawberry jam and peanut butter are a classic, so why not combine the three components?
The M&M’s are colored to look like those three elements: brown, red, and orange with light red specks. I’m not sure if that was the intention – maybe they were going for fall colors? – but I appreciate the color scheme.
Like regular peanut butter M&M’s, they’re irregularly sized and lopsided. Also like peanut butter M&M’s, they’re a peanut butter spheroid (oblate, to be precise) surrounded by chocolate, which is covered by a sugar shell.
These guys smell like artificial berry with an undertone of chocolate. No peanut butter scent comes through. When bitten into, there’s the usual M&M’s crunch, then a burst of sweet strawberry fruitiness that finishes with a cloyingly artificial tinge.
Beneath it all, there’s the underlying flavor of creamy peanut butter. It’s reminiscent of cheap jarred peanut butter, as it’s not that roasty or nutty.
The flavor combination really works well, but it’s a tad too sweet for me, mostly due to the artificial fruit finish. I mostly enjoy them when I eat them, but I can’t handle more than a few at a time (built in portion control – maybe not necessarily a bad thing?). I can’t decide if I’d buy another bag of these or not. Normally, I’d say no, but they are a limited edition…
They get an O from me. My roommates seemed to like them more, as the bag didn’t last long in the living room.
Varsha