Will Eat Again
I'll eat it buy won't pay for it.
Cadbury Picnic is a bar hailing from the Land Down Under. I’ve heard about it, but it wasn’t until an Australian friend sent me a candy care package that I finally encountered one. The specific one I got is actually a limited edition Picnic bar of the “Honey Almond Nougat” variety. “New!” and “A unique combination of almonds & crunchy pieces of honey almond nougat caramel & wafer covered in delicious Cadbury milk chocolate” are the descriptions on the wrapper. I’d by lying if I said it didn’t sound appealing and terribly tasty.
The regular Cadbury picnic bars have a wafer center, creamy caramel, and rice crisps all covered in chocolate. So this new variety adds more textural and flavor elements by replacing the rice crisps with the almonds and nougat. I still think that this will give me a pretty good indication of what the original bar is. It’s kinda funny how the Picnic sounds like the offspring of a Kitkat, a Nestle’s Crunch and a Milky Way.
I’m relieved to say that according to the ingredients list, this Picnic bar is using real chocolate! Yay! It’s gotten to the point where that’s always the first things I look for in candy bars. Yes, I’m a stickler for quality.
The bar itself looks like a very large, lumpy 100 Grand or a smaller, chocolate covered PayDay. Take your pick. It smells very strongly of sweet honey and almonds. It’s hard for my to explain but something in it also smells really “carb-y” and it’s hard to lay my finger on it. I don’t know what else it could be other than the nougat.
My first bite was extremely crispy. The center is the wafer and very similar in structure to a Kitkat. Wrapped around the wafer is the caramel, so already we have a crispy/chewy texture working here. The nougat and almonds add a slight crunch and it’s very addicting to chew and munch.
As for the flavor? It took me a moment to concentrate on it to be honest, I was already too busy trying to dislodge the pieces of nougat and caramel on my teeth. It’s got a lot going on: I get nice milky caramel notes, some light blandness from the wafers, then there’s a big salty hit from the almonds and finally a honey sweetness of the nougat. I don’t hardly taste any of the chocolate, as it cowers behind the big three of the caramel, nougat and almonds. I do like how the honey stands out, it proves a nice sweetness, especially blended with the caramel, and the saltiness provides a wonderful contrast. I just wish I wasn’t going to be picking bits of this out of my teeth for the next couple of hours. Ah, sacrifices, right?
Rating: Will Eat Again
Links:
Cadbury Picnic Webpage
As Halloween draws near (horray!) I’m subtly reminded of all the random candy I’d get trick-or-treating that I normally don’t buy for myself. Walking down the aisles in my local grocery stores and seeing the bags upon bags of candy, I see favorites that I haven’t had in a long time. The Tootsie Fruit Rolls are one of these favorites.
I recall fishing these out of my Halloween swag and setting them aside along with my other “don’t trade with the sibling” candy. These usually came with the other “loose” candy, such as Mary Janes, SweetTarts, Hershey’s Kisses, Candy Corn and regular Tootsie Rolls. I was always happy to trade my SweetTarts to my sister in return for these and I also never had a flavor preference either. All of them were delicious to me.
Since I’m too old for trick-or-treating (sob), I picked up a bag to review for the blog. That’s my excuse and I’m standing by it.
Vanilla (blue): This is very mild and sweet with a good vanilla flavor. Aside from the good chewiness factor of the tootsie base, this remnds me of nice fresh vanilla marshmallows.
Lemon (yellow): I love the sunny yellow color. The flavor is like lemon meringue pie, or cake, or some sort of lemon dessert. It’s zesty and sour with a strong lemon essence. The Tootsie part delivers a creamy sweetness, with almost a hint of coconut, and it’s just so tasty. It really got my saliva glands going.
Lime (green): Really nice lime flavor, which is hard to pull off without tasting like a cleaning product. The taste has a nice kick to it and the Tootise base adds a good subtle sweetness.
Cherry (pink): A pretty salmon pink color. The flavor is reminiscent of the cherry Tootsie Pop. It’s extremely fruity with a good juciness and those bright, sweet-sour cherry notes. It’s not medicinal at all, but does have a little bitterness towards the end.
Orange (orange): This has a nice flavor, but it’s not as intense as I was expecting. The actual orange flavor is mild, and the zest it the main feature. It’s juicy and really gets the mouth saliva going.
What can I say, I really enjoy these. Maybe not enough to pick them up any other time of year, but come October they satisfy my cravings for sweet nostalgia.
Rating:Will Eat Again
Links:
Tootsie Website
One of the candies I hear people go absolutely ga-ga over is honeycomb (also called “sponge” or “foam”) candy. It’s really a simple confection, and according to this recipe it’s basically sugar and corn syrup boiled together and then foamed up from vinegar and baking soda as it cools. It sounds like one of those science class labs from middle school, pretty neat! It can be harder to find depending on where you live, and if you want in in bar form like Cadbury’s Crunchie here, you have to look for it overseas if you live in the United States like I do.
“Milk chocolate with golden honeycomb center” is how the package describes the Crunchie. Simple and direct, I like it! It’s a very long and thin bar; about 3/4 inch wide and 6 inches long. The chocolate coating is extremely smooth with no enrobing ripples at all. The aroma is very sweet and milky; I’m reminded of how a Milky Way smells. The cross section of the bar is beautiful with its thin chocolate coating revealing the golden honeycomb center that’s dark brown and almost burned in appearance. The honeycomb dissolves away similarly to malt in malt balls when you suck on it. If you’re a chewer like I am, the texture is very light and crunchy shatters cleanly and doesn’t crumble. It’s really nice.
The first bite was very sharp as the honeycomb cleaved with a clean break instantly. The flavor is extremely sweet with a mixture of the milky flavors of the chocolate with the honey notes of the center. I also get a “burnt sugar” flavors from the honeycomb that give this bar an extra bit of depth. I find that I enjoy that aspect of the flavor most. The different sweetness meld together into something that’s thankfully not very overpowering, like one would assume.
To top things off, Crunchie has this awesome train robbery commercial ad campaign. I approve!
Rating: Will Eat Again
Links:
Cadbury Crunchy Webpage
Altoids always lived up to their tag line “Curiously Strong” in my book. I remember having my first taste of them in middle school and totally having my mind and taste buds totally blown by how intense they were. The friend who shared them with me told me they were from England, and somehow that made these killer mints feel very exotic to me. I didn’t like them at first, but as I grew older my tolerance for the “curiously strong” flavor increased. The wintergreen flavor soon became my choice mint to carry in my purse.
I noticed these new Dark Chocolate Creme de Menthe Altoids and knew I had to try them. I didn’t try the first generation of chocolate Altoids, so the bright yellow “NEW” on this package prompted me to change my chocolate-less mint status.
I haven’t had the Creme de Menthe Altoid alone, so I can only comment on how it works together with the dark chocolate coating. Firstly, I’m very pleased to see that the coating is real dark chocolate. No fake stuff here, thank you very much. You can taste the richness of it too, it’s very nice. I let the mint sit in my mouth so the chocolate slowly melted away to then reveal the traditional chalky pastille underneath. It was brilliantly sweet and minty and it complimented the coating very well. My only complaint is that it left an odd fruity aftertaste in my mouth, and it didn’t feel particularly “fresh” to me.
Tasty for sure. But I prefer my Altoids to freshen my breath, so I’ll be sticking with my wintergreen standby.
Rating: Will Eat Again
Links:
Altoids Website
Musk? Musk? What exactly is musk? And why is it a Lifesavers flavor? When I think about the word “musk” things like old houses, grandmas, skunks and deodorant come to mind. Not something edible, and certainly not something tasty. So what does such a candy exist? Is it some sort of cruel joke?
Obviously, I have many questions in regard to these odd Lifesavers from Australia. That was reason enough for me to buy them. I had to taste what “musk” was for myself. Surely, there must be something redeeming about it, otherwise, why bother producing it? Granted, candies like circus peanuts, spice drops, NECCO wafers and spearmint leaves still exist yet no one really seems to eat them. Musk Lifesavers seem to fall outside that mysterious circle, since not only did Wrigley’s manufacture them, but some company imported them as well. I’m now curious to see what the demand for musk is here in the United States.
Opening the roll and taking out my first ring, I notice right away that these are compressed dextrose and not hard candy like traditional Lifesavers are. Interesting. They are pale pink in color, speckles with darker pink spots which is oddly pretty to look at. They smell floral, but that’s all I can get before needing to taste one.
Oh, and how do they taste? The flavor is like how the hand soap from country bed & breakfasts smell. I detect lavender, rose and a sweetness that’s similar to bubblegum. It’s odd at first, but by the time I got to my third one, I started to find them somewhat addicting.
To make sure I wasn’t going crazy, I shared a few with friends who were willing enough to try them. Those who did were pleasantly surprised, and admitted to finding them strange, yet tasty.
The best way to describe it is they must be like black licorice: sort of an acquired taste that you either love of you hate.
Rating: Will Eat Again
