Since starting Candy Blog my consumption of ice cream has decreased to nearly nothing. Two reasons: I simply can’t afford the calories given my candy habits and as I get older I’m less and less lactose tolerant (which really takes the enjoyment out of it). That doesn’t mean that I don’t miss it. One of the things I miss is the texture; the other is the flavor combinations. Mint chocolate chip just doesn’t work in the same way in any other format than ice cream.

Baskin-Robbins has a line of ice cream themed candies. I tried the chewy candies a few years ago and decided that they were not for me. But I did see these hard candies at the 99 Cent Only Store. Baskin-Robbins Smooth & Creamy Hard Candy. I decided to try the Pralines ‘n Cream because it sounded like a flavor that could be made into a hard candy well. The ingredients looked pretty good too: sugar, corn syrup, sweetened condensed milk, salt, natural & artificial flavors, soy lecithin, honey and soybean oil.

The candies are individually wrapped and well marked (in case you buy several varieties and want to mix them in a bowl). Each piece was a combination of two colors, a light milky caramel color and a darker toffee color. They smell sweet, toasty and rather like walking into an actual Baskin-Robbins.

The texture isn’t quite silky smooth, but they’re still quite slick. I prefer to crunch mine and these have a nice cleave to them (though some could also be tough and chewy - that could be that I left them in my car and it got a little hot). The flavor has a good blend of caramelized sugar notes, butterscotch pudding and a liberal dose of salt. They’re quite sweet, but so is Pralines ‘n Cream Ice Cream. I ate most of the bag in one sitting, so after three or four it got a bit throat searing - that’s a lot of sugar.

I was pretty pleased with these. They’re a little different from something like a Werther’s, more milky. The price was pretty good, too. I know the bag only had 3.5 ounces for a dollar, but that’s a decent deal for a very dairy laden candy. I don’t know why the package says “Value Size”, as I don’t know what other package sizes and price points are available. Usually value sizes are large ... I considered this two servings. (Though the package seems to think three is a serving.)

Each piece has 20 calories. They’re not really low calorie candies, just small. At 121 calories per ounce, there’s a fair amount of fat in there for a sugar candy, about 2 grams per ounce.

The hard candies also come in Very Berry Strawberry and Mint Chocolate Chip. I have my doubts about the success of those flavors in this format, so I’ll probably just quite while I’m ahead.

Related Candies

1. Cookies ‘n’ Creme Showdown
2. Choco-Fudge Mallow Sundae
3. Jelly Belly Ice Cream Parlor Mix
4. Baskin-Robbins Soft Candy
5. Whoppers Milkshake Strawberry
6. Skittles Ice Cream

As if Ritter Sport doesn’t have a large enough repertoire of bars, they have been introducing seasonally-themed limited editions. I tried the Fruhlingsspezialitaten 2010 that I found at a local import shop earlier this year. They included Haselnuss Krokant, Cashew in Alpenmilch and Bourbon Vanille. The summer versions were not so easy to find in the States but some Ritter Sport folks were happy to help me out with some samples. The summer flavors were: Stracciatella, Pfirsich-Maracuja Joghurt and Waldbeer Joghurt.

The Stracciatella features 37% cacao milk chocolate and a bourbon vanilla cream filling with chocolate bits.

It’s been many years since I’ve had real Stracciatella, which is a gelato (Italian ice cream) with stripes of chocolate that form little crunchy flakes or chips. In my experience it was usually dark chocolate.

I recall being excited by the spring version of Bourbon Vanille, but then disappointed by the lack of rum-laden vanilla notes. Here too I thought that the kind of fudgy vanilla cream center was a little bland. It’s not fatty and doesn’t quite melt in my mouth. It also isn’t very flavorful ... but also not very sweet or sticky. The little chips in it are small and don’t really add much flavor to it. I think I would have been really happy if this was a dark chocolate bar, I think that’s the kick it needs - some really rich dark chocolate. However, plain vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips has never been a favorite flavor of mine, so this might be the perfect bar for folks who do like that.

This was the only white chocolate bar in the mix. Ritter Sport does do great things with white chocolate, the key being that they use real cocoa butter to begin with.

Ritter Sport is also big on yogurt. I’ve tried their Yogurt, Strawberry Yogurt and Olympia bars before. The only other country that I’ve noticed with such a fanaticism for yogurt flavored candy is Japan.

The Pfirsich-Maracuja Joghurt is a white chocolate shell with a peach and passion fruit yogurt cream center. There are also little rice flakes thrown in there for texture and crunch.

The bar is simple and plain, a soft and creamy yellow/white chocolate bar.

When I saw the reviews of this bar, I really wasn’t interested. I like real peaches and I find passion fruit okay but not my favorite. So a white chocolate bar flavored with these ... along with yogurt (which is good stuff but not exactly a candy flavoring), well, I just didn’t think they could pull it off.

But they did! It’s utterly surprising. It smells like passion fruit - a tangy and sharp floral and tropical scent that goes well with the dairy yogurt note. The peach is a faint pine and pear whiff in the background. The white chocolate is sweet but rather smooth. The rice flakes give it a little crunch, like there are freeze dried fruit bits in there. It’s milky but mostly fruity.

I wouldn’t buy this often, but I do see its appeal and I’m glad that Ritter Sport is taking a few risks with outside the box flavors in their limited editions.

The Ritter Sport Waldbeer Joghurt seemed positively the tamest and safest flavor of the bunch. Waldbeer is forest fruits, or basically mixed berries. The package shows blackberries, blueberries and strawberries.

The format is similar to the Pfirsich-Maracuja Jogurt in that it’s a yogurt cream center flavored with fruit and studded with little crisped rice flakes. The chocolate on this bar is milk. At first glance it didn’t seem that different from the classic Strawberry Yogurt bar that Ritter Sport is already known for.

It smells nice, exactly like berry yogurt - there’s the floral notes of the berries and the dairy twang of the yogurt.

The flavors are pleasant and the yogurt takes a back seat as the berry flavors come forward. The milk chocolate is smooth and give a slight dairy contribution, but also keeps the whole thing from getting too sweet. The rice flakes have a little crunch, but there are also little bits of freeze dried berry in here too, so sometimes they’re tangy and sometimes they’re more of a light malty cereal flavor.

Overall it’s decent. Munchable and satisfying, but not quite what I’d find myself craving. These may be available online at shops like GermanDeli.com and eBay.com.

Don’t take my opinion as gospel, see: Gigi Reviews Waldbeer Yogurt, Cinabar reviews Waldbeer Yogurt, Candyholic (German) reviews Waldbeer Yogurt  and Stracciatella, ZOMGCandy reviews Stracciatella, It’s All About Limited Edition reviews Stracciatella and Jim’s Chocolate Mission reviews Stracciatella and Summer Limited Editions in Mini form.

Related Candies

1. Ritter Sport Olympia
2. Ritter Sport Fruhlingsspezialitaten 2010
3. Yogen Fruz Smoothies
4. Topps Wild Berriez Wazoo
5. Strawberry Yoghurt Mentos
6. Ritter Sport White Chocolate with Hazelnuts
7. Katjes Tropical Gummis & Yogurt Gums