I was so excited when I got this sample in the mail last week. Au’some is a rare company that’s able to make both interesting novelty candies but also ones that actually taste good.

Au’some has a line of 3-Dees Gummy candies, that are just what they sound like. They’re three dimensional molded gummy candies and much larger than the standard gummi bear. I reviewed the Super Mario Brothers version a few years ago (along with their Wii controller candy dispenser).

The seasonal versions of the gummis are in special shapes and flavor combinations for the holiday. The Easter 3-Dees Gummy version features two shapes (sitting rabbit and dancing chick) and three flavors (strawberry, orange and mixed berries).

Each package contains six candies, one of each shape in one of each flavors. They’re in a little tray that keeps each one separate and molded to their shape. The fun is when you pop them out of their molds.

The packaging does an excellent job of keeping the candy protected and in the best possible condition for play. I can’t say that it was that compelling when I first looked at it, it really didn’t convey the stunning look of these out of the package. (Here’s another version of the package that you might see in stores.)

I admit that this review is actually more about the pictures, and I also admit that the photos that follow makes these little guys look far larger than they are (blame it on my new camera lens). Each weighs between a quarter of an ounce to a third of an ounce. The rabbits are exactly one inch high and one inch on the longest side of the base.

As a 3D candy they actually stand up, like a little injection-molded plastic toy.

When they say that they’re three dimensional, they’re not kidding. The rabbits, if you can’t tell so far, were my favorite. The middle seam was nearly undetectable. The nicely formed face even had little buck teeth that I could see when looking carefully. The little tucked back ears are simply charming.

The dancing chick isn’t quite as compelling for me, it was harder to tell what was going on, but the figure reminded me of that penguin in Happy Feet. This little chick is a bit rolly-polly and kicking up one of his feet.

The flavors are right up my alley. In this case that means that red is strawberry instead of cherry. It’s nicely tangy and has a rounded floral berry fragrance. It tastes exactly like strawberry Jell-O.

The texture for these gummis is what I’d call short. Some gummies are stringy - if you pulled on the gummi it’d stretch quite a bit before it pulled apart. These gummis are more like actual gelatin desserts. Biting into them they pull apart into little nuggets. Pull them and they break apart with clean surfaces.

Though they’re not a chewy gummi they are intensely flavored and exceptionally smooth. The blue-green color is Mixed Berries and in this case it actually tastes like berries. There’s a good jammy raspberry flavor. It’s tart, floral and not too much like generic fruit punch. In the case of this one there was a slight note of the blue food coloring (a little metallic) but that didn’t detract from it.

The orange flavor is disappointing, only because Haribo has raised the bar so high. It’s sour in the right way, but the overall flavor is that of orange-ade. There are no zest notes that kind of carry it over into the whole orange flavor. Still, the flavor and texture worked well together.

The hesitation on this product is that it’s made in China. The package says “made responsibly in China and I do believe that there are plenty of ethical and conscientious food makers in China - I just don’t know how to tell who is who. The size of these gummis still means they should not be given to very small children - but you probably already know that.

I took a gajillion photos of them:

Related Candies

1. Disney Pixie Perfect Gummies
2. Marich Easter Select Mix
3. Necco Paas Gummi Baby Bunnies
4. Albanese Gummi Butterflies
5. Ausome Jewelry Kit
6. Bubble Roll Message Maker
7. Gummi Lightning Bugs

If there’s a kind of candy that I buy and rarely review, it’s Japanese products. Here’s one of them, it’s called Cucu, it’s a milky hard candy flavored with green tea, and then filled with a little pocket of matcha (green tea powder).

The pieces were just too cute, little cubes, about the size of a hazelnut in the shell but with flat sides. Here’s what the package looked like. 

As Canada is hosting the Winter Olympics, my thoughts have turned to all the wonderful Canadian candies the athletes and spectators must have access to. Canada has great candy, a wonderful mix of American, British and French confectionery traditions along with their own innovations.

Neilson’s Jersey Milk is one of those uniquely Canadian chocolate bars. Here’s a fun peek at a display of them from the 70s at a store.

I photographed this bar and had a bite of it, but several days later before I got a chance to eat it, it got melted. Makes me jealous of Canada and how they don’t have that problem as often as us Southern Californians do.

Winter holidays mean chocolate money. As a kid I think I was more fascinated with the chocolate coins and the foil impressions than the chocolate itself. (This isn’t surprising as most chocolate coins are just terrible.) I found a cute alternative to the gold foil stuff in the little mesh bags. This Japanese version comes packaged in little plastic sleeves, not foil though. But still, the result out of the wrapper is impressive.

Sadly the product itself, made by Tirol, is mockolate. Pretty to look at, but not terribly tasty. Package photo if you wanted to try to find these.

I first tried Sweet’s Port Dark Chocolate Wine Gels at the Fancy Food Show back in 2009. Eventually they turned up on store shelves (I spotted them at a candy shop in Cambria over the summer).

The product is simple yet unique. A pectin gel stick flavored with wine and then covered in dark chocolate.

The box is a half a tube, rather elegant looking matte black with a swirling puddle of chocolate with three chocolate sticks rising from it. The packages are color coded with colored foil tops. In this case the Port version is red, the Cabernet is silver and Champagne is gold. The box is careful to point out that it’s made with real wine reductions but contains no actual alcohol. (There are also some artificial flavors in there.)

The half round box opens kind of like an envelope (or a car trunk) along one of the long sides. Inside much of the box is empty, with a sealed tray of the sticks nesting on the flat surface. The inner wrapping does a nice job of keeping them fresh and moist. But the chocolate also does a good part of the work as well.

The little fingers are elegant and lovely. The dark chocolate is crisp, smooth and matte. Just opening the box, the scent of “wine” is strong. The notes are yeast, rose petals and grapes plus a little hint of smoky dark chocolate.

The flavor of port is authentic, though a little sweeter than the real thing. It’s a bit grapey but has a nice rounded profile of deep tannins, some soft acids and florals. I’ve have other wine gels before that are several times the price but basically as satisfying. (Those have been straight gels though, covered in sugar instead of chocolate, which I think goes very well and keeps the sweetness down.)

The chocolate itself didn’t wow me. It’s a little bit on the sweet side but vegans will be happy to hear that there’s no milk or any other animal products in here. (Though it is made on shared equipment, so those with allergies to milk, peanuts or tree nuts should steer clear.) It’s also gluten free.

Retail is $4 for a 3.5 ounce package (about 12 sticks) which is a decent price for something that I don’t expect most folks would just sit around shoveling into their mouths like malted milk balls or jelly beans. It’s more of a little accompaniment for other treats, like a cookie plate, bowl of ice cream or dessert. Since it’s mostly a jelly product, it’s a lot lower in calories (less fat) than many other chocolate candies.

I picked up this box at the this year’s Fancy Food Show because I couldn’t actually find them locally.

Related Candies

1. Teuscher
2. Bouquet of Fruits Vinyeard - Wine Filled Chocolates
3. Organic Zootons
4. Crown Nuggets Borrachitos
5. Anthon Berg Filled Chocolates
6. Wine Gums

Easter Candy season is upon us. I’ve spent the past week or so visiting all the drug stores and discounters to see what’s new. (Photos here.)

Hiding Eggs are those huge marshmallow candies like jelly beans but with a fluffed and grainy center. I don’t like eating them, but they’re definitely pretty.

The Jokerz Candy Bar from Go Max Go Foods is the last of their vegan candy bars on my list for review.

The happy red wrapper features jaunty typography and little playing card suit symbols in lavender. The name has one of those Z things on the end of it, I’m not sure if it was because there as already a Joker bar and they had to pick another name (actors usually go with a middle initial). Or maybe that was to make it cool and hip. As cool and hip as a vegan who doesn’t eat real chocolate. Much of the wrapper is spent explaining what’s not in the bar. There are no dairy ingredients or cholesterol, no hydrogenated oils or trans fats and it’s free from artificial flavors and colors. Their description on the website is a little more appealing:

When your idea of the perfect candy bar is all about peanutty goodness, then we’ve got you covered. If layers of dry roasted peanuts, buttery-tasting caramel, and rich peanut nougat, sweetly wrapped in a delicious chocolately coating sounds like a little slice of heaven, then smile, the Jokerz(tm) bar is for you!

The bar, if you couldn’t already tell, is a vegan version of a Snickers. But really it’s just inspired by the Snickers, as there’s very little that’s the same except for the inclusion of peanuts. The bar I got was a little worse for wear. A bit melted on one side, this is generally the hazard with mockolate candy, which often has a lower melting point than chocolate. But the good thing about mockolate is it doesn’t lose its tempering as easily - so the texture that exists is generally the same after resolidifying.

The construction inside is a smooth and dense “nougat” with peanuts on top and then layered with a caramel-like chew. It’s all covered in a thin layer of rice-milk mockolate. The bar is a bit flatter than Snickers (about the same weight though, which is 2.07 ounces), but also a bit longer (about 4.25 inches long).

The bar does smell good, like opening a can of Spanish peanuts. Lightly toasted, the nut aromas are not at all dark and there are hints of toffee sweetness.

The texture had a few similarities to the Twilight - a chewiness but no buttery caramel flavors. The good news is that the grassy and green tasting peanuts covered up a lot of other things that I found lacking in this bar. The chocolate coating felt greasy (possibly because parts of it were melted & reformed) and the nougat center simply had none of the fluffy qualities associated with American nougat nor the silky dissolve of the European versions.

The bar was filling, too filling for me, I was pretty satiated after about a third of it.

I liked it better than Twilight and Buccaneer, but then again I like Snickers better than Milky Way or 3 Musketeers for the simple reason that I like peanuts. I’d rank it as my second favorite of the Go Max Go bars, but really, don’t make me eat any more of them.

On the whole I don’t like things that pretend to be other things: fake meat, fake fur and certainly not fake chocolate. But these bars go further, they try to emulate complex things like caramel and nougat, which can be done, but I have to wonder why. There are plenty of other fabulous vegan things that can be done with sugar and chocolate (and nuts) - trying to pretend to be something else instead of something originally awesome is just an exercise in disappointment.

For a vegan version of this candy, try Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews (also called Chew-Ets) in the dark version. Far cheaper but not free of hydrogenated oils.

(For anyone interested in the candy maker’s reaction to this post, check this out.)

Go Max Go is not organic, not fair trade, not Kosher and is made in a facility with dairy, eggs, wheat, peanuts and other tree nuts. They do market themselves as dairy free and gluten free, but there can be traces because of their manufacturing practices.

Related Candies

1. Go Max Go Mahalo Candy Bar
2. Zingerman’s Zzang! Candy Bars
3. Crispy Cat
4. Sjaak’s Vegan Chocolate Assortment
5. Snickers Xtreme

I love foil wrapped chocolates. I love it even more when the wrapping is off and what’s underneath is still just as pretty.

These orange flavored dark chocolate scallop shells were just that. Shiny and sweet and orangey.