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November 2011

Thursday, November 3, 2011

Eat with your Eyes: Choceur

Choceur Chocolate Bars

Aldi sells absurdly inexpensive Germany chocolate. Here’s a tease of an upcoming review for their mini chocolate bars. They’re called Choceur Fine Chocolate and are 1.4 ounces each in packages of 5. The perfect single serving of chocolate.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:51 pm     CandyHighlightPhotography

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Sun Cups Dark Chocolate Mint Cups

Sun Cups Dark Chocolate Mint CupsSeth Ellis Chocolatier of Boulder, CO makes an interesting line of candy cups called Sun Cups. They’re nut free, gluten free, use all organic ingredients plus ethically source chocolate, no soy, no peanuts and is Kosher. They do contain dairy.

The first set of products they introduced were sunflower butter cups (hence the name Sun Cups) in milk chocolate and dark chocolate. This cup is accurately described by the name, they’re chocolate cups with a peppermint cream filling. They package is the same size and weight as Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups - 1.5 ounces (so 3/4 of an ounce per cup).

Their most recent addition to the line is their Sun Cups Dark Chocolate Mint Cups.

The packaging is dark and honestly looks a little more foreboding than most mint and chocolate candies I sample. The package is also compostable.

Sun Cups Dark Chocolate Mint Cups

The cups are nicely made, perfectly level and with no cracks, scuffs, blemishes or oozing. The proportions inside the chocolate cups are very nicely done. Unlike some other cups I’ve had where there’s a strange chocolate hump on the bottom of the cup or too much top crust, these are consistent throughout.

The chocolate is crisp and nicely tempered. It’s deep and rich and only barely sweet, in fact, it’s downright bitter compared to the sweet center. The fondant filling is kind of strange. It’s not a smooth gooey sauce like the center of a Junior Mint or the crumbly slightly airy center of a York Peppermint Pattie. It’s soft, though stiff enough that it doesn’t flow. It’s grainy, but in a smooth and consistent way that frosting can be. The color is like turbinado sugar, natural but still clean looking. The filling is made from cream, sugar, peppermint oil and white chocolate. So there’s a light, creamy butter flavor to it along with a clean flavor of peppermint.

The mint doesn’t overpower the dark chocolate. Nothing can overpower the darkness of this chocolate, it has a slight dry bite to it that’s hard to overcome even with what feels like a pure sugar center.

I want to love these and I had no trouble eating both for the review, but I don’t feel like I’ll find myself in the right mood for something so intense again. I’m sure that there are some folks out there who have been longing for a really bitter peppermint pattie experience, so hopefully they’ll find these and keep the product line in business.

Related Candies

  1. Sweet Earth Bittersweet Chocolate Drops & Coffee Caramels
  2. Dark Angell Organic Candy Bar
  3. Tony’s Chocolonely Chocolate Easter Eggs
  4. Justin’s Organic Peanut Butter Cups
  5. Sun Cups
  6. Sweet Earth Chocolate Cups
  7. 3400 Phinney: Fig, Fennel & Almond and Hazelnut Crunch
  8. Theo 3400 Phinney Bars


Name: Dark Chocolate Mint Cups
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Seth Ellis Chocolatier
Place Purchased: Whole Foods (Park La Brea)
Price: $1.59
Size: 1.5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 133
Categories: All Natural, Candy, Chocolate, Ethically Sourced, Fondant, Kosher, Mints, Organic, 7-Worth It, United States, Whole Foods

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:09 pm     All NaturalCandyGreen HalloweenReviewChocolateEthically SourcedKosherMintsOrganic7-Worth ItUnited StatesWhole Foods

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Haribo Maoam Fruit Chews

DSC_4670rbHaribo Maoam have been around for a long time. The early history is a bit murky, but according to Haribo, Edmund Munster (not this one), who ran the Düsseldorfer Lakritzenwerk (Dusseldorf Licorice Works) bought the license for the chewy, fruity candy Maoam and began making it in Germany.

It was packaged as a penny candy, an impulse item with bold, colorful wax paper wrappings in popular flavors like Lemon, Strawberry, Pineapple, Orange and Raspberry. In 1986 Haribo bought the Edmund Münster company and began making the already iconic Maoam fruit chews.

DSC_4675rb

After 80 years on the market, Maoam sweets are found in a variety of formats and features packaging designed to appeal to children (though plenty of adults are fans). They’re sold around the world. The most common packages are probably the Maoam Minis which is a long package that looks like a bar but is actually five different packets of individual flavors. The current flavor set includes: Cola, Orange, Lemon, Apple, Cherry and Raspberry.

One of the funnest parts of Maoam sweets is how outrage pops up every once in a while about the supposedly suggestive characters on the packages.

DSC_4690rb

There’s a lot of packaging in a Maoam packet. Each piece is individually wrapped, then packaged together in a little stack of five for each flavor, then another cellophane over-wrap. This leaves plenty of evidence that you’ve been eating candy (though the wax papers are mercifully quieter than the cellophane).

Orange They are small, about the same mass as a Starburst. Though the packages are colored, the candies themselves are only lightly tinted. The chew is soft and bouncy. I’d call it a cross between Starburst and HiCHEW. They’re even a little creamy. The orange is a bit like a Creamsicle. It’s a soft orange flavor, not overly zesty, more on the juice side of flavor with a nice zap of tang to it.

DSC_4685rb DSC_4686rb DSC_4684rb DSC_4682rb

Cola is glorious. I would marry these. It’s kind of weird once they’re unwrapped because the candies are white (remember Pepsi Clear?). The flavor is great, it’s a little nutty, creamy but with a snap of lime and that cola flavor. There’s tartness to it and even a feeling of effervescence since there are little tangy spots that give a little jolt of flavor while chewing.

Lemon is tart and smooth without much lemon peel essence to it. They’re quite tasty and have just a hint of a yogurt note to them.

Cherry is a really interesting flavor. It’s different from American black cherry (like Life Savers). It’s dark and woodsy, but also quite tangy and has a little bit of a caustic medicinal flavor to me. There’s no coloring in it, so I can’t complain about that weird aftertaste I get so often.

Raspberry is very fragrant and nuanced. All the notes are there: the perfume, the seeds and the boiled jam.

DSC_4627rbMaoam sweets come in a bunch of different formats and a few other flavors that I didn’t cover with the minis.

I picked up this bag of Haribo Maoam Mixx which features a variety of little individually wrapped items. The main character on the front of the package is the Maoam mascot, a big green blob with a hat and riding a bicycle. (He’s the one who cavorts with the fruits on the packages. His character was introduced in 2002.

This bag cost 2 Euros and holds 400 grams (a little over 14 ounces). There’s a lot of variety.

Haribo Maoam Mix

Stripes are little flat taffy, 7 gram pieces. In this package I got a Green Apple version which wasn’t in the little block pack. The flavor is quite American at first, rather artificial, but after the tartness fades away, there’s a realistic apple peel/juice flavor that dominates. I also found a few Strawberry in this shape. They even had little pink flecks in them which tasted just like little bits of dried strawberry. A very realistic flavor and long lasting, smooth chew.

ChewTwo was another version of the Stripes that’s packaged in clear plastic to see that there are two flavors side by side. In this instance they were colored (or else it wouldn’t be very impressive looking to have two slightly different versions of not white).

Joystixx are long pieces, kind of like the Tootsie Roll Sticks. They’re probably double the mass of the little squares. In this form, they’re easy to bite, or take two different flavors and twist them together for a combo.

Pinballs are more than just a shape change. These are slightly fluffier balls of the chewy then coated in a candy shell. Think of them like an easier-to-chew fruit Mentos or giant fluffy Skittle. The flavor was interesting also because the candy shell had little crystals inside, mostly sugar but occasionally a zap of tart flavor. I could have sworn a few of the yellow ones were pineapple, not Lemon. In some cases the candy shell made them sweeter, and of course grainier. I enjoyed the variation in the texture with the shell, but not the graininess.

There were also individually twist wrapped pieces, I think they’re called Happy Fruttis.

I had no idea that Maoam were so good. I’ve seen them a few times before, and tried a few Pinballs but didn’t realize that the regular chews were so flavorful. They are different from other candies in this category too. They’re a softer chew than Starburst or Mamba and not quite as bouncy or smooth as HiCHEW. Also, if you’re a parent looking for a candy without artificial colors, this is a good kid-friendly option. (Though they’re not exactly all natural.) They do contain gelatin, so they’re not appropriate for vegetarians and those who keep Kosher/Halal.

Related Candies

  1. Eat with your Eyes: Haribo Cola Wheel
  2. Haribo Happy Cola
  3. Fresh Cola Mentos
  4. Mamba Sours
  5. Starburst Berries & Creme and Fruit & Creme
  6. Starburst
  7. HiCHEW Assortment
  8. Ramune & Cola Bubble Ball
  9. Storck Mamba Chews


Name: Maoam Joy Mixx
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Haribo
Place Purchased: Rewe (Cologne, Germany)
Price: ~ $2.75 (about 2 Euros)
Size: 14.1 ounces
Calories per ounce: 98
Categories: Candy, Haribo, Chews, Sour, 8-Tasty, Germany

POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:22 pm     CandyReviewHariboChewsColaSour8-TastyGermany

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