The new limited edition See’s flavor has arrived! Yay! I am super excited about this month’s free sample of the See’s Black Forest Truffle. Who doesn’t love chocolate delivered to your doorstep? I digress. I get excited about all candy, but when I heard these were headed my way it made me happy because I love sampling See’s Candies’ products.

The bonbons arrived halfway melted, by no fault of the company, simply because the heat where I am was oppressive that day. I popped them right in the fridge to cool some, which made it hard for me to wait to sample my first one. Also, because of the melting, the bonbons in the photo may not be the most attractive, but I did my best. I’m sure if you got them in store they’d look as impeccable as ever.

Once they were cool and solid enough to handle, I went in for my first taste!

The dark chocolate is rich and smooth with notes of berries and coffee.The richness of the chocolate with it’s full flavors blend into an intense fudgey sweetness that’s crowned with the fresh flavor of black cherries. The cherry flavor is very complex, as it’s tart, sweet, has a wonderful depth to it. It its a nice mix of jam and cordial. It’s lovely. The chocolate’s “red” notes allow for it to blend beautifully with the cherry flavors. The texture is soft and fudgey and incredible luxurious. This is an incredible pieces of chocolate art.

I know I enjoyed the past two Limited Edition flavors, but this one they’re really outdone themselves. I hope they bring one one back as a regular addition to the See’s lines of incredible candies.

CONTEST: I have another a gift certificate from See’s to give away! It’s for one pound of these chocolate, and can be used in their stores or by phone at (800-895-7337). So how do you enter? Please comment on this post by Friday at noon, EST and share your favorite See’s flavor if you have one. I’ll choose a winner randomly from those who enter. Best of luck!

Rating:

Links See’s Candies Website

This candy find was exciting to me for three reasons: the first, was it’s currant flavored. Second, it’s made by Katjes. Third, they’re gummis. Three things I really, really like. So it was a no brainer that I nabbed them up. Since I was at a Cost Plus World Market, a store not in my area, it was either buy them now or risk never seeing them again.

The bag is a nice size, and very eye-catching with it’s brilliant green and red color scheme. The colors are extremely saturated and it’s almost blinding to look at, yet attracts the eye at the same time.

The gummis themselves are really cute. They’re little nubbins, with the base maybe the diameter of a dime. They’re brilliantly red with a nice coating of granulated sugar.

The flavor right away is very fruity. It has a rich jammy flavor that’s a little like raspberries, a little like cherries, and a little like cranberries. It’s very nice. They’re not so much sour, as they are tart, which is the sour level I tend to prefer anyways. The have a nice chew that reminds me of gum drops, slightly soft but still very chewy. They’re not as hard as DOTS or as soft as gummi bears.

Overall, I liked these, but I’m not sure I’d buy them again. I think my flavor preference sits more with black currants, but that’s just me. These are still and awesome candy and I’d recommend them to you if any of my flavor descriptions appealed to you.

Rating: Will Eat Again

Links Katjes Website

I barely noticed this version of the MilkyWay bar when it first came out. I didn’t see any in store displays for it, nor did the packaging catch my eye. Which is odd really, since it looks very different from the dark brown wrapper of the original bar. It’s called the “Simply Caramel” bar, which confused me at first because I didn’t know what it meant. It was so straightforward that I didn’t know what to make of it.

So what is exactly the “Simply Caramel” bar? Well, there’s a giant band of caramel in the middle, enrobed in chocolate. It’s that simple.

One thing’s for sure. I had a blast photographing this bar. The caramel is not liquidy like a Caramello. Instead, it’s wonderfully stringy and smooth.

It smells sweet and of caramel and cream with notes of chocolate, exactly what I was expecting once I had this bar out of the wrapper.

The caramel is smooth and sweet, with nice notes of cream and burnt caramel. It’s a nice thick texture and isn’t too sticky. The chocolate is nice and sweet with good milk notes and a good chocolatey overtone. What can I say, I’m impressed!

If what I’ve said hasn’t convinced you to try one yet, consider this: my Mom hates limited edition candy bars with a passion. She thinks that the original candy bars are fine the way they are and all these variations are unnecessary and a shame to the originals. Yet, when I got her to try this one, she adored it. Just goes to show you don’t know until you try it!

Rating: Will Eat Again

Links MilkyWay Website

We return to the Tappsy licorice! Like the original Tappsy that I reviewed earlier, these are licorice candy pieces that are shaped like panda faces. The difference is that these are the milk chocolate version.

In terms of the candy’s appearance itself, there really isn’t anything different from the original Tappsy except the white foam but are not colored like hot chocolate; a milky brown hue. They have the same alternating panda face variations, both of which looks a little less cool because last I checked, panda’s aren’t brown. Ok, maybe these are muddy pandas. I can live with that.

The flavor is of a mild black licorice, and of hot cocoa for the foam bits. The flavor combination of licorice and chocolate can be strange if not done well, but these do it excellently. It’s really good. I can elaborate more on the foam’s texture since I didn’t last week; it’s light and chewy and dissolves nicely in the mouth. Yum!

Just like the original Tappsy, I’d recommend any licorice fans to give this one a try. It’s very original, tasty, and fun!

Rating: Will Eat Again

Links Katjes Website

I am always amazed on how many different varieties of licorice that exist out there. Living in the United States, you really don’t see that many, as it’s not a popular candy here, for reasons I don’t quite understand. Walk into any store that imports candy from Europe and you start to get an idea of how extremely popular and diverse a candy it really is. These Tappsy licorice candies are not only different from other varieties I’ve had before, they’re also more creative. I’ve seen licorice in animal shapes before, fish and cats come right to mind. But panda faces? Really? This is certainly new territory.

So what are these Panda faces made of? Well, aside from the accents of black licorice to define the features, the white part is a soft, gummi “foam”. It’s chewy, yet not very dense. It reminds me of the “cream” part in many gummies you find here in the USA, like the white part of those blue gummi sharks you see everywhere.

The flavor is really nice, and not as delicate as I imagined. Depending on the piece you got, as there were pieces that had the base of black licorice accented with the white foam, and others visa versa. The white foam is lightly sweet and is a little marshmallow-y in flavor, a light vanilla flavor accented by a starchiness. The licorice is lovely with delicate herbal notes and a wonderful rich molasses base to it. They two parts blend beautifully and I found myself very tempted to keep eating these one after another.

I definitely recommend these if you love black licorice and you are looking for something new. I was wonderfully surprised with these! Yay, pandas are yummy!

Rating: Will Eat Again

Links Katjes Website