Might Eat Again
If I was desperate.
I recently read Hilary Liftin’s book “Candy and Me” which is an autobiographical story about her love affair with candy. Her favorite throughout the story is Wonka’s Bottle Caps, which I admit is a candy that I don’t have much experience with. Therefore, I decided it was worth checking out.
In essence Bottle Caps are soda flavored compressed dextrose tablets. The cute little discs that have the fluted edges so they look like the metal caps on glass soda bottles back in the good ‘ol days. The cover of the package shows these goofy looking Bottle Caps with googly eyes and it looks like one is even about to raspberry us (at least it looks like it to me). The colors are not very intense with a chalky appeareance. The colors are light purple, light brown, light orange and a surprisingly deep raspberry pink color.
Purple: My guess of grape soda was spot on (what else could it have been, really?). The flavor was pretty mild, but definitly of grape soda. I didn’t get that spicy soda kick from it which was disappointing. I chewed the tablet in hopes of releasing more flavor, but it didn’t deliver. It was just mildly sweet with a little tartness at the end, but overall disappointly bland.
Pink: I had no idea what to expect from this flavor. Pink soda? It was immediately clear once I popped one into my mouth. Cherry. It had a very artificial, slightly tart cherry flavor. It was more flavorful than the grape (which isn’t a feat really) yet it didn’t remind me of soda at all. I felt like I just chewed a cherry Tums or something.
Orange: This flavor was another no brainer. This was very much like orange soda, except for the “cool” flavor and texture coming from the dextrose. It was orangey, very Tang like with a good mix of tart and sweet.
Brown: I was expecting this to be a cola flavor, so imagine my surprise when it turned out to be root beer! Yay! It had an awesome old fashioned flavor with great spicy, woodsy notes with a good wintergreen kick. Easily the best of the bunch and hands down my favorite.
I don’t think I’ll ever pick pick these again unless they start making packets that are just the root beer flavor. Now there’s an idea, hrmmm…
Rating: Might Eat Again
Links:
Wonka Candy Webpage
The Hershey’s Symphony line of chocolate bars was released back in 1989, just in time for me to catch the commercials during my after school cartoons. These bars are meant to be more “premium” than the regular Hershey bar with creamier, richer chocolate that, well, feels like a symphony in your mouth.
There are only two bars in the line; a Milk Chocolate and a Milk Chocolate with Almonds and Toffee. There’s been rumors that with he release of Hershey’s Bliss, the Symphony bars are going to gradually be phased out. I saw this as an opportunity to try these bars in case they do disappear, so I did some hunting to track these babies down.
Symphony Almonds and Toffee: The wrapper has a blue color scheme and the expiration date reads 2009, so I know it’s at least fresh. Looking at the ingredients I’m immediately annoyed to see PGPR listed. Hershey’s has a nasty habit of using this stuff in their chocolate in recent years. It allows them to use less cocoa butter, but still keep that slippery mouth feel. I digress….
The bar smells lovely once unwrapped: milky, a little nutty and very sweet. The back of the bar is bumpy showing the almond and toffee bits while the front is very traditional looking with the standard rectangles with the Hershey’s name printed in them. The break is very,very soft; almost fudgy. The chunks of almonds and toffee are a reasonable size from looking at the pieces.
The flavor is is very punchy: the sweetness of the chocolate is cloying and has a creamy milkiness. This is cut by the nuttiness of the almonds and then the final kick of the toffee: extra sweet, with a good caramelized flavor and a super crispy crunch. Aside from the chocolate lacking “chocolate” flavor, I have little to complain about. It’s very tasty, also a little “moreish”.
Symphony Milk Chocolate: This is the single serving bar and once opened you immediately notice a difference in presentation. Where the other was more the form of a normal Hershey’s bar, this is thicker with the bar split into two rows of slightly raised squares with “Symphony” written on them. The color also seems much lighter to me. The aroma is also very sweet with a solid creamy scent with notes of vanilla and caramel.
The flavor is bland at first. The chocolate doesn’t really feel creamy, but instead it’s smooth with a subtle grain. The flavor appears more as it melts giving notes of milk and sweetness, but not much else. There are moments where I’d get an strange note of fruit or bubblegum but it soon vanishes as another wave of sweet rushed over me. I’m not impressed buy the super sweetness (what are they hiding?) and lack of complexity. Not too impressed with this, give me the almond toffee one any day.
I wish Hershey’s would drop the Bliss chocolate and just stick with the Symphony Almond Toffee. It’s the best of the Hershey’s chocolate bars I’ve had to date.
Rating: Might Eat Again
Links:
Hershey’s Symphony Webpage
Hershey’s Kisses have been busy this year with their 100th anniversary, as they’ve been releasing various limited edition flavors to celebrate the occasion. The Cookies ‘n’ Creme flavor is one of the newest Kiss offerings that I stumbled across on a recent trip to Wal-Mart. Despite the fact that the bag of these is huge, I happily tossed it into my cart without a second thought.
These new Kisses are described as white chocolate with “cookie bits”. The wrapper is a pleasing bright sky blue with designs of cookies printed in silver on them and I find it very attractive. I turned over the bag to read the ingredients list to find that these are sadly not real white chocolate. Tropical oils are present towards the top, which cheapens the product as well as manufacturing costs. It’s discouraging to see these aren’t all cocoa butter like they should be. To add to the frustration, PGPR shows up as well so you know Hershey’s isn’t making a top notch Kiss here. I’m already disappointed without even tasting them yet.
The Kisses look pretty with their milky appearance and brown spots peeking though, which look suspiciously like brown non pariels. The taste is very strong on the vanilla flavor and are quite creamy, yet they still carry that “white chocolate” essence to it. I was correct, the “cookie bits” are indeed chocolate non pariels. They provide an interesting textural crunch but no actual cookie flavor. These are also pretty sweet as far as Kisses go and as a result are very cloying. The flavor is very compelling though, since the overall effect does taste like cookies to me.
As far as the limited edition Kisses go, I liked these more than most of the varieties that’ve been released. My only wish is that they’d used real cocoa butter and the non pariels were actually cookie bits. Otherwise I feel a bit cheated by the false promise of cookies and creme.
Rating: Might Eat Again
Spree were candies I was never particularly drawn to. I witnessed them being enjoyed by many of my friends and family, but there was something about them that never called to me. I think a big reason was the fact that I am such a big fan of Starburst, that I couldn’t imagine fitting another chewy fruity candy into my regular rotation. Especially one that I didn’t think would compete on the same level.
It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I decided to give them a try. It was all my roommate’s doing, as she had bought a bunch and was munching away on them in the living room. My “candy that I haven’t tried yet” radar went off and I immediately went to check out her sugar-fest. The next day I made sure to pick some up at the store for adequate Candy Enthusiast tastings.
These are about the size of nickels and double the thickness. They come in grape, cherry, apple, orange and lemon, white are pretty run of the mill in terms of fruit flavored candy offerings. The texture of these is fun, as it takes a bit of pressure to get the shell to crack. I prefer to shove them back to my molars for the job. Once broken, there’s a very nice flavor release and the center gives a nice chew. I find that it takes a good 10-25 chomps before everything dissolves. It’s very satisfying to eat.
Grape: Nothing about this tasted like grape to me. It really just tastes sour.
Apple: I do get apple notes here: fruity, juicy and a little spice to them as if cinnamon was added. The sour works well with it too, making it more “true to life”.
Cherry: Very berry like, not much of a cherry flavor, more of a generic “red”. The tartness is more pronounced in this and it gaves me a little throat burn.
Orange: This is going to sound strange, but this tasted of the orange Fruit Loop. Just add some tartness to it and you got this flavor to a T.
Lemon: It took a couple of chews before I got the flavor to come out. It’s not as zesty and sour as I hoped, but it does have a light lemony taste to it. I want more of it.
I found these pleasant and I prefer the texture of these to the flavors, which is regrettable since you mainly want to eat candy for how it tastes. Texture is only part of the equation, and sadly it isn’t enough for me to pick these up in the future. If only they tasted as sumptuous as they look!
Rating: Not Worth It.
