If many of you have never seen or heard of Peanut Chews, I’m not terribly surprised.Peanut Chews are a regional favorite around the Philadelphia, PA area where Goldenberg’s Candy Company first created them, around 1920 (the website says 90 years, so I’m taking their word). They’ve recently been bought out by Just Born, another Pennsylvania candy company, but thankfully the Peanut Chews have remained for the most part unchanged.
I first had these as a sample back in 2005 while walking in Soho, New York City. Peanut Chews had a booth in a street fair and were handing out free mini size samples. I took one each of the milk and dark chocolate, and didn’t think much of them until I stumbled across them again a few years later.
The “Chew-Ets” which are the names for the Peanut Chews, are little bars about 1 1/2 inches long and 1/2 inch tall, like stubby Kit kats. Very cute! So what exactly is a Peanut Chew? They’re giant chunks of peanuts are held together by a molasses caramel and then coated in the mockolate.
It smells lightly of chocolate, but mainly sweet and nutty.
My first impression is how appropriately this candy is named. Your first bite is just overwhelmed with a wonderful fresh salty peanut taste. You don’t even notice the chocolate (or should I say “mockolate") or the filling that holds them together. All you just notice a subtle sweetness blanketing the powerful roasted peanut flavor. The texture is great too. Chewy, but not so much so that it feels like work. The molasses gives it a nice moist chew. The peanuts are perfectly roasted, so that despite being large pieces, nothing got stuck in my teeth. I can easily understand why this confection has withstood the test of time and has become a classic.
These are a great candy if you’re into really intense flavors of peanuts and molasses. As it’s an addicting combination. A must for peanut and molasses lovers alike. Certainly worth a try and frequent purchases. If only they used real chocolate…
The Snickers bar, made by Mars, is one of the more quintessential candy bars found here in the US. It was created back in 1930, when many of our well known candy bars were born, and named after the family race horse. Snickers is a classic candy bar in that sense, it’s really survived over the years. No, correction, it has thrived since it’s creation and is one of the most popular candy bars sold today.
It wasn’t until I was contacted by Mars to see if I’d like some free samples that I realized that I never have done a traditional Snickers bar review. I guess I’ve overlooked it while chasing after all the limited editions that are being released.
Aside from the candy itself, I have to say that Snickers is also pretty keen on having some of the funniest commercials as of late. Who could say no to the likes of Mr. T? Or King Henry the VII? Take a gander if you haven’t seen these gems:
So for those of you who may not know what exactly a Snickers bar is, here’s a breakdown of the construction: it starts with a layer of peanut nougat at the bottom, then a stripe of caramel studded with fresh peanuts, then all is enrobed with milk chocolate. Simple, elegant, and very yummy.
Once the bar is unwrapped, you get the aroma which smells sweet and very peanutty. The texture has a nice chew to it, but it’s not too much as it’s soft and giving, so it doesn’t tire your jaw out like taffy would. The caramel is soft and not too dense.
The flavor is awesome; it’s a great mix of salty and sweet. You get the sweetness from the chocolate which has nice milky notes to it, then the caramel with the nice nutty/salty hit from the peanuts. Snickers is a masterpiece of contrast, and it’s a candy bar that satisfies.
From now until March 31, 2010 Snickers is holding a large contest called “SNACKONOMICS” which. You collect letters to spell out a specific word on the website (kinda like McDonald’s Monopoly) to win prizes. Now, normally I sniff at most contests, because really, what do I need with a new car when already have a nice one of my own? The prizes here are much more alluring to me, and they mainly consist of heft chunk of money that go toward things like your housing mortgage, car payments, and a yearly salary. Pretty nice rewards for eating a candy bar!
So many of my friends and family are people who go crazy for Snickers bars. They would all easily claim, hands down, that Snickers is their favorite candy bar of them all. It’s a great candy bar, as it has wonderful flavor and a great combination of ingredients. What keeps me from wanting to hoard them is the fact they suffer from my pet peeve: they have nuts in them. I still enjoy them though, because a great candy bar is a great candy bar. If you haven’t had a Snickers, you’re missing out.
One of the gifts I received over the holidays were some treats from a chocolatier who had just opened up shop where my parents live in Upstate New York. My Mom discovered them at a Christmas open house and chatted with the chocolatier. Of course the fact that her daughter writes a candy blog (you know how Moms are!) was brought up, and I was immediately called to see which of the chocolates I’d like to try. I was more excited by the idea of trying anything that was offered, as it’s not often I get to try the work of a new chocolate business, but eventually settles on two things to try.
Cashew Honey Discs: Dark chocolate discs with a topping of caramelized honey cashews. The chocolate has bloomed a little, which I’m not surprised by, as didn’t get these samples fresh and they contain no preservatives. Thankfully bloom doesn’t affect flavor! The chocolate has a nice snap to it when bitten into, and the flavor is very fruity and rich. The texture of the chocolate is more gritty than smooth. The nuts are wonderfully fresh and have a great sweet/salty/roasted flavor combination going which I felt went well with the dark chocolate base.
Peppermint Bark: The base pf the bark is an even slab of a white and dark chocolate mix. The pieces are 1/2 inch think, with the white on top and the dark on the bottom. Nice, large chunks of Starbrights peppermint candy is crushed and sprinkled on top. It’s pretty to look at, for sure. The dark chocolate suffers from the same as the cashew honey slabs, there texture at the snap is very gritty and uneven, a sign it might have not been properly tempered. The flavor is balanced between the peppermint and the chocolate and one ingredient doesn’t overpower the other. This chocolate is creamier on the tongue and is a real delight to eat, as it just tastes of pure Christmas with the wonderful balance of flavors. Yummy!
Despite my nit-pickiness, these chocolates were tasty and a good start for a beginning business. The uneven texture is easily corrected with practice and experimentation, and I look forward to picking up some more of Glimmerglass Chocolates’ work when I next visit my parents.
This Ritter Sport bar has been on shelves in Germany for some time now. I actually believe it won an award for best Ritter bar a few years ago, but I can’t find any documentation to support that, I just remember reading it somewhere as that’s how I first heard of this flavor. I waited around for a good year before I actually got to try this. I received this as a sample at this years Fancy Food Show back in late June. I was so excited to finally have found this bar that it was one of the first things I tried out of everything I saw that day. Let’s just say I wasn’t disappointed.
This looks like every other Ritter Bar out of package, a neat square of very high relief squares of chocolate. Beautiful to look at and just invited you to dig in.
Inside the chocolate coating there’s two larger wafers/waffles with a hazelnut creme sandwiched in between. It’s very crispy and the wafers come in blocks, which makes breaking off the squares a tad difficult. The hazelnut is prominent and adds a wonderful nutty sweetness to the chocolate. The texture is this wonderful creamy and crisp combination, and it’s very easy to eat. Almost too easy, as I’m more inclined to chomp away at it than savor it slowly. The chocolate and hazelnut combo is a match made in heaven and it’s just a chocolate masterpiece.
Awesome, awesome, awesome. It’s like a chocolate covered Manner biscuit, and I’m in love.
Snicker’s Fudge is the latest limited edition that has reached the shelves as of late. It was supposed to be in store by August, but I didn’t end up seeing any until late September and Early October. They were also kinda hard to find, I looked in many places and it wasn’t until I went to Rite Aid did I find them in a aisle display. Talk about the thrill of the hunt!
So what is a Snicker’s Fudge? The wrapper explains “Fudge with peanut butter nougat & peanuts wrapped in milk chocolate”, but that doesn’t help me much. Why is there no mention of fudge? I’m very confused. I guess the only way to really find out is to eat it, right?
Opening the wrapper it smells like a Milky Way bar: chocolatey, sweet, and creamy. I get no hints of peanuts or salt like I do with normal Snickers bars. The bar looks like a normal Snicker’s from the outside, but once I took a bit, you immediately see (and taste) the difference. Here’s how the construction works: under all the enrobing, the top is peanuts and a chocolate fudge ripple, and the bottom the peanut butter nougat. So it looks like they replaced the caramel with fudge.
The first bite immediately delivers a fresh peanut taste, with a strong salty/sweet combination of the nuts and chocolate coating. The center has this dry graininess to it, like real fudge has. The nougat is less fluffy than normal, and it’s a little more dense. The lack of caramel makes it much drier, and stickier to chew.
I was disappointed with this bar. I knew I wouldn’t find a limited edition to take the Snicker’s Rockin’ Nut Road as my favorite, but I was still hoping for something that was at least interesting. This bar did nothing for me, it was just boring.
Do check out Cybele’s review for her opinion and delicious photos.
I’ve been a fan of Peanut Butter & Co longer than I’ve been a candy blogger, if you can believe it. I used to eat at their restaurant in Greenwich Village back when I was doing my animation internship in New York City. My love for peanut butter and PB&Co’s creativity with it kept bringing me back. Once I became a blogger I could talk about some of the non-sandwich things they make, like their Peanut Butter Cups that I reviewed back when I worked for CandyAddict.com.
So when I visited PB&Co’s booth at the New York Chocolate Show this year, I was at first sad to see they didn’t have their Peanut Butter Cup Collection for sale this year, but happy instead to see they had Chocolate Covered Peanuts and Chocolate Covered Peanut Brittle instead. The owner of PB&Co, Lee Zalben, gave me a tin of each as a free sample. So aweet!
Each comes in it’s own tin, which is easily resealable to keep the candy fresh. Both smell heavenly when you open them, of fresh roasted nuts with a hint of sweetness. I like the idea of the packaging for these, as it’s meant for sharing.
Chocolate Covered Peanuts: The overall flavor really highlights the peanuts. They have a fresh, roasted peanutty flavor. My boyfriend ad I ate most of my tin and didn’t come across one bad nut. There’s a twinge of bitterness in there as the peanuts have theirs skins on still, which I like. It gives the peanuts a more earth quality. The chocolate coating is, sadly, really mockolate: a mix of hydrogenated oils and cocoa powder. As much as I hate the stuff I don’t mind it too much here, as this candy is more about peanuts than chocolate, and the mockolate is mild enough to deliver subtle flavor and sweetness and allowing the peanut to really shine.
Chocolate Covered Peanut Brittle: The pieces are all random sized and shapes, but all flat and and knobby looking. The flavor is complex, as you get the nutty taste complimented with strong burnt sugar and buttery notes, then followed by a sweetness of the mockolate. The texture is light and crispy, and the brittle doesn’t stick to my teeth. It has a lightness to it that I appreciate, and it reminds me of honeycomb candy. The flavors are beautifully blended together, again, with the peanut brittle taking the spotlight.
Despite the fact that these use mockolate, I really enjoyed these, as did my boyfriend. It just goes to show that mockolate can still be present in a fantastic candy. These disappeared in record time, and even though I had a hard time sharing them, the people with whom I did all loved them. If you see them around, I’d recommend trying them if this is the sort of thing you enjoy.
When I first heard of Hedonist Artisan Chocolates, it was through Rosa over at ZOMG! Candy. She reviewed a sampling of their truffles, and I recognized the name of where Hedonist is located, as my Aunt lived in Rochester, NY. A few weeks ago I was contacted by Hedonist asking if I’d like some free samples of their work to review on the blog. I recalled Rosa’s glowing review and gladly accepted their offer.
I was sent a box of their Holiday Truffle collection and two packages of bark. Everything arrived safely in colorful tissue paper, with the chocolate works of art as pristine as if I had just carried them out of their store.
Let’s get to the tasting, shall we?
Holiday Truffle Collection
Champagne Pomegranate: Dark with a dusting of sugar crystals on top. The shell is of medium thickness, it took me a moment to sink my teeth into it. Flavor is chocolatey and smooth, with a nice tart fruitiness to it. Pomegranate is a bit of a ethereal flavor to capture, as is champagne, but the overall fruitiness of both elements show and balance with the dark chocolate.
Egg Nog: Topped with a sprinkling of nutmeg. The center of this one is a speckled white chocolate. The texture is very buttery and smooth, and you taste the creaminess of the white chocolate, mixed with gentle notes of the spices. It’s a very authentic eggnog, minus the intense burn of rum. It’s extremely tasty and I really enjoyed it.
Fig: Accented with a dried slice of fig, this one seemed much darker and denser than the others. The texture is very moist, smooth and creamy, You do taste the fig, with this sweet rich flavors and it really complements the chocolate. There’s even bits of the seeds in there which adds to the wonderful texture contrast. While you might seeds in a ganache would detract from the ganache’s smooth center, this actually works well and make it feel more fresh and authentic.
Ginger Molasses: I found the description of this one every enticing. Topped with a slice of candied ginger, the shell is a nice thickness again and the interior ganache is milker colored than the others. The flavor is beautiful, you get the spice of the ginger, which isn’t too strong. the molasses is very prominent, giving this wonderful earthy rich flavor to the chocolate. It’s like a ginger snap in a chocolate truffle. It’s delicious and I really loved it.
Orange Clove: Decorated with a slice of candied orange peel. The orange flavor is present immediately, and it’s a delicate flavor that’s still second place to the chocolate. the clove takes a moment to show, but when it does appear, it’s very pronounced and earthy. it really reminds me of Wassil, very fruity and full of spice. It tastes of the holidays.
Milk Chocolate Sesame Bark: Creamy looking milk chocolate studded with white and black sesame seeds. It smells very nutty and sweet. The milk chocolate is smooth and buttery, with nice notes of caramel, cream and cocoa. The sesame adds a slightly crunchy texture and a wonderful toasted nutty flavor. The seeds are also salty, and that really enhances the flavors of the milk chocolate. It’s lovely.
Pistachio Ginger Bark: Beautiful dark colored semi-sweet chocolate with whole pistachios and chunks of crystallized gingers with a touch of salt. Yum! The chocolate is about 1/4 inch thick, so it’s a perfect size for biting into; it’s not too thick and not too thin. The melt of the chocolate is smooth and buttery and rich with flavors that aren’t too acidic, but carry nice notes of coffee and cocoa. The pistachios are wonderfully fresh and salty and really add depth and substance to the chocolate base. The ginger gives it a nice chew, with it’s thick and slightly sticky texture. It adds a nice warmth to the chocolate and all three ingredients go together beautifully.
The well designed and beautifully executed flavors of these chocolates really wow-ed me. Usually most artisan chocolates make something “ho-hum”, something ordinary but extremely tasty, something overly unique to shock you, and I find myself unimpressed afterward. These fall into all the right niches of creating a tasty and indulgent experience. Despite all the additions to the bark and the flavors of the chocolate, Hedonist still lets the chocolate shine over all the other ingredients. Which, is what a good chocolatier does in my opinion.
This is another one of the mystery candies I got from a candy trade with a friend in Bavaria. Again, I had no way of knowing or reading what the names says or means. I just have to go by the picture on the box.
The packaging on this is awesome though. The long box is well put together and had gorgeous flame-red background with golden lettering on it. Inside the box sits a plastic tray holding the six chocolates in a well protected little well.
I bit one in half to see the construction of these candies. It’s a dome of dark chocolate, then a thin crispy wafer layer. A sweet white filling sits in this dome and is topped with an almond.
All I can say is though, it makes one beautiful photograph:
The texture is wonderful. You get the smoothness of the chocolate, the creaminess of the white chocolate center, the crunch of the almond, and the crisp of the wafer shell. The flavor is lacking though. I get sweetness, but it was overall pretty bland. I didn’t taste much chocolate and the center was just buttery and didn’t add much to the mix. The almonds were already fresh and flavorful, but with just one the flavor dissipated quickly.
It was a delightful piece of candy and has a interesting texture. It just didn’t wow me and didn’t make me crave more after eating a piece. Good, but not something I feel I need to have again.
I was recently contacted by Primrose Candy Company asking if I wanted to give their Old Kettle Caramels a try. Knowing my love of new things, I was immediately enticed because I was unfamiliar at the time of Primrose’s confectionery work, as well as being in the middle of a caramel dry spell. The last time I had any was over the summer, so I was long overdue for some caramels in my tummy.
The package design here is interesting, while the boxes are colorful, they have this very angular design that reminds me of something from the 1980s with the black lines and white lettering. Each box holds a nice amount of caramels in them, enough for a small candy bowl, or to share with friends while watching a movie.
The caramels themselves are nicely wrapped in wax paper, and when you take one out to eat, the caramel doesn’t stick to it. The texture is nice
Vanilla: Smells very strongly of vanilla and burnt sugar. It’s a nice creamy brown color with visible pieces of the pecans which are very small. The texture is thick and firm, yet has a smooth chew. The flavor is very strong on the vanilla, almost so much that it takes an almost rummy taste. The butter notes are what I taste under that, with the sweetness of the sugar being very subtle. The pecans give it a nice toasted flavor.
Chocolate: Very dark and cocoa brown in color and they smell very rich, like hot chocolate. The flavor is chocolately, but it’s not as rich as real chocolate. Still, I was impressed with how much flavor they got in here. The butter flavors from the caramel add a wonderful smooth richness to it.
Chocolate Vanilla Mix: Vanilla center with a chocolate caramel exterior, like a little bullseye. The caramels smell quite chocolaty. The flavor is great, as you get that nice strong vanilla flavor mixed with the chocolate (as to be expected), and they really enhance each other rather than compete or cancel each other out. What makes them especially nice is that buttery flavor and chewy texture of the caramel and it’s just lovely.
I was very pleased with these caramels and I certainly will be buying them for myself if I ever see them in stores. It’s hard to do caramels right in my mind, as they’re either too sweet, too hard, to sticky, but these were just right.
Yee-haw! We’re up for a rip-roaring cowboy filled adventure post today! I’ve heard of these rip-roaring line of Colts chocolates before from Cybele over at Candyblog, but it wasn’t until my latest trip to the Fancy Food Show did I finally get a change to taste them. I talked with them at their booth and was sent home with a sample of their famous Colts Bolts and a Happy Trails Chocolate. Why, thank you ma’am. Mighty kind of you.
Colts Bolts are an over sized disc, similar to a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup made up of chocolate, peanut butter and almonds. Now, the shape of these are like RPBC, but the size is HUGE in comparison. They weigh a good 2 ounces. That’s a lot of tastiness right there, folks.
The bolt is wrapped in waxed gold paper, then with saran wrap inside of that. The bolt is layered like a sandwich, with chocolate on the top and bottom and the peanut butter in the center. Which, attractively leaks out on the sides, just begging to be eaten. It smells lightly sweet and not of anything else.
The flavor is nice and not too overpowering. The chocolate is creamy and sweet, a it’s a very nice milk chocolate. The almonds are awesome; fresh, lightly salty and so crunchy. The peanut butter is smooth and sweet, and takes second place flavor-wise to the almonds which really stand at the forefront of the taste. The texture of the peanut butter is nice and it has a full, delicate, sweet flavor.
This is quite the mouthful of a candy treat. Truly meant for the toughest of us cowboys and gals.
I love the packaging of “Roy Roger’s Happy Trails chocolates” trail mix chocolate, with it’s bright and retro design. I expected it to be lumpy mound like most retro candies in this shape, but I was surprised to find it’s a smooth molded dome. It smells sweet, salty and strongly of peanuts.
The inside is very thick, dense and satisfying. It’s like a chocolate covered mound of crumbly, chunky peanut butter. The flavor is a great mix of salty and sweet. You easily taste the smooth chocolate with a strong hit of peanuts and peanut butter. It has has a big kick of coconut, along with the strips of coconut to boot. Wow. It’s a great mix of sweet/salty/thick/chewy and it’s very satisfying and fun to eat.
The package says it has raisins, sunflower seeds and pecans in it. I didn’t get any, er, taste or feel any.
I liked these both a bunch, as they feel both homemade and gourmet. The ingredients and concepts and wholesome, and are a hearty indulgence. Worth the try if you’re looking for something a little wilder or need a treat after a long day on the ranch.
I first tried a Topic bar on a whim. I was visiting my sister in New York City and we stopped in one of the plethora of corner markets that you can find there. I was lucky enough to step in one that specialized in foods from the UK, and I stood in awe eying their candy eye for a good chunk of time. There were so many things I’ve never seen before. I was drawn to the Topic bar by its small size and brightly colored wrapper. Not really looking at what it was, I tossed it into the pile of swag I was amassing and it came home with me.
Out of the wrapper, Topis is a very pretty, petite sized bar with a good weight to it. It’s described as milk chocolate, hazelnut, soft nougat and smooth caramel center. No wonder it’s so heavy! There’s a lot going on here!
The taste is wow!. So complex and satisfying, I don’t know where to begin. It’s so creamy with the chocolate, the caramel, the nougat, even the hazelnuts have that wonderful smoothness to them. The flavor is rich and full without any one element being too overpowering. You definitely notice the hazelnuts and the caramel more that the chocolate while the nougat is there just as a soft filler. It really reminds me of a Snickers bar with hazelnuts instead of peanuts. Which, for me, is a much more pleasing combination.
So very good, makes me wish I had bought more! It has such a wonderful richness to it, and it’s very satisfying and indulgent. Think of it as an upper-scale Snickers. I am smitten.
I was out in Kansas recently for a wedding and stumbled across this rare classic candy in a store out there. Yay, I had found a piece of candy history. The Cherry Mash has been made since 1918 and it found mainly in the Midwest. It’s the best selling cherry candy bar in the United States, so it proudly displays the tag line of ”America’s Favorite Cherry Flavored Candy Bar”.
The wrapper is eye catching with this limited colors and retro design.
The Cherry mash looks like a giant ball, it’s maybe the size of a raquet ball? It’s little smaller than a tennis ball but much, much bigger than a golf ball. The surface is craggy and lumpy from the chopped peanuts, and the mockolate coating gives a lackluster even coating all around. Split in half, there’s an intensely pink fondant cream with chunks of maraschino cherry in it.
It smells mainly of the peanuts with a nice roasted and salty smell. There’s a little whiff of sweetness with hints of cocoa and coconut too, but it’s all about the nuts here.
The flavor is odd: the cherry center is terribly artificial, with strong cherry flavors that at one moment taste authentic, then the next very medicinal. The coating doesn’t deliver much taste wise other than sweetness and a mild odd olive oily taste ,and the peanuts give a good roasted kick and peanutty flavor with some salt to balance the cherry center. The center is very thick and moist, with a slippery mouth feel with a slight grain to it. The coating is just crumbly and slightly greasy, not very appealing.
After my first few bites, I come to conclude the center isn’t as bad as it first seemed. I really just tastes of maraschino cherry...with both it’s odd combination of real and fake flavors. Something about this really seems old fashioned, with ingredients that, in the past, maybe have tasted authentic and real, but now it’s just shadows what it once was.
I may not have expressed this at all recently, but I have a big soft spot for retro/classic candy and the companies that produce them. One of my favorites is Annabelle’s candy Company, and sadly their products are so hard for me to find here on the East Coast. Luckily, one of my best friends recently went to San Francisco and thoughtfully brought me back a new favorite of hers: Rocky Road.
I can’t recall the first time I had a Rocky Road bar, but I did remember liking them very much. I was tickled with the opportunity to try one again and get to write about it.
The Rocky Road comes in normal milk chocolate (in a red wrapper), Dark Chocolate (gold wrapper) and Mint (green wrapper). They also came out with Supreme Bars and Double Dipped Bits, both of which I reviewed for CandyAddict.com a few years ago. I have not had the mint, but the other two are
The bar is long and rectangular and very light to hold. The top looks like, well, a rocky road. One of those many cobblestone streets in Soho that I’d never want to drive my car on. The aroma is light with an overpowering scent of rich chocolate.
The first bite is soft and fluffy, as the marshmallow center is very fresh. The chocolate coating does not flake off at all, and stays perfectly attached o the marshmallow. The marshmallow is sweet with a hint of vanilla, and the chocolate has a lovely rich flavor and mild sweetness. The cashews you don’t taste much at all, and provides a subtle crunchy texture.
This bar is lovely, and I can see the appeal of it. It’s a filling, tasty, simple candy bar that doesn’t make your tummy feel heavy or gross afterward (which, I hear some complain other candy bars do). I do enjoy the Rocky Road, but if given the choice over some of Annabelle’s other selections like the Look! or Big Hunk bar, there’s no contest for me.
This is another classic candy that takes the form of a chocolate cup with a creamy marshmallow filling. I cannot help but compare it to its East Coast counterpart the Mallo cup, which is a candy I go ga-ga for, as Cup O Gold shares a few similar traits, like also having coconut bits in it. That’s where the similarities end though, as Cup O Gold has bits of almonds tossed in there along with different forms of packaging. Cup O Gold carries one big cup, whereas Mallo Cup holds two. Look at it as the difference between a package of regular Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and the one Reese’s Big Cup.
I adore the packaging of Cup O Gold, with its 1970’s color scheme with browns, yellows and oranges and the gleefully grinning prospector (who, makes a large appearance on the boxes that hold the Cup O Gold. He’s just grinning in a small gold emblem on the individual packages). It makes me happy for many reasons I won’t get into, but it may have something to do with my weak spot for vintage design and old west films.
The flavor is nice, with the chocolate sweet and giving a nice chocolate and caramel flavor. There’s more chocolate-to-marshmallow here, so the marshmallow is less of a flavor and is more drippy and fresh than the Mallo Cup. You can still easily taste the marshmallow, which has a light vanilla flavor. It’s more like the infamous Valomilk that’s specific to the Midwest. I really have to concentrate to taste the coconut and almonds, as they’re mixed into the chocolate. The pieces are so small they provide more of a texture than anything.
Most people I meet prefer either Mallo Cup or Cup O Gold. My theory was that it was a classic East Coast/West Coast split on it. That is, until I gave one to my boyfriend (who is a classic Pennsylvania native) and declared he thought that Cup O Gold was the superior of the two. Traitor.
I do love the Cup O Gold, I just can’t get past the fact that I like Mallo Cup better. I think I like the size and ratio of ingredients better. I do pick one up whenever I see these in stores though, because unless I play the comparison game, these a a golden nugget of a candy. You don’t come across them often and you feel like you found treasure when you do.
After my pleasant experience with the Moca Roca I reviewed a few weeks ago, I was open to give the other varieties in the line a try. My problem is that I only ever see them sold in giant tins, and I really can’t justify buying so much just so I can taste a few for the blog. So when I was in my local dollar store and spied this singe serving size package of the Peanut Roca, I jumped on it like a starved lion. This is the opportunity I’ve been waiting for.
I’ve explained the Roca format before, but it bears repeating. They’re thick little logs of toffee that are covered with chocolate and nuts. They’re very dense and very tasty. I was curious as to how this one would be different. Is it rolled in peanuts instead of almonds? Is it peanut flavored toffee? Perhaps there’s peanut butter in there? My imagination ran wild.
As I unwrapped my first piece, the smell is of nicely roasted, salty peanuts.
The taste is of the fresh, salty peanuts and the rich, buttery toffee interior. I hardly taste the chocolate, much less want to pay attention to it as the peanuts are the real stars here. This Roca is a really nice mix as it has a great salty and buttery essence that I really enjoy, and I feel that the Moca one was lacking. I don’t get much of a “honey roasted” flavor, but it does have a sweeter peanut taste than most. Unfortunately, it still gets stuck all over and in my teeth which makes me sad since I find it so annoying. I was hoping that was a trait exclusive to the Moca flavor.
I’d was very pleased with this Roca variety and I feel comfortable now buying a big tin of it next time I see it in stores. I hope I come across smaller packages again, as I still haven’t tried the traditional Almond Roca or the Cashew Roca yet. Maybe it’s time for another trip to the dollar store!
Hi, I'm Sera. Welcome to my candy blog. Eat with your eyes.
CONTACT: sera(at)thecandyenthusiast.com
NOTE: All text and images (c) Sera 2008-2010, unless otherwise noted. Please, please, please do not take any of the photos on this site. I spent a lot of time and energy taking the photos myself and I wish for them to remain original to the blog. Thank you.
