Saint Patrick’s Day isn’t exactly a big candy holiday. Potato and shamrock flavored candies, thought they exist, aren’t exactly mainstream.

Godiva, who is always good at merchandising, has a limited edition Shamrock Mint Truffle. These dipped bonbons are right up my alley, they’re a a classic mint ganache with Godiva chocolate chips enrobed in a dark chocolate shell and strung with a lucky green shamrock.

Godiva was kind enough to send a box of them to me, you can also get them as singles in the store. A box of 5 retails for $12. (The samples I got came in a box of six ... dunno why that was.)

The spheres are beautiful. I’ve mentioned before that I prefer enrobed chocolate over molded pieces, there’s something about the tempering of enrobed chocolate that I think has a better mouthfeel. So these had me right away with their excellent attention to detail. The little clovers in a white chocolate colored light green were cute - the flavoring wasn’t too sweet and didn’t distract from the rest of the confection.

The pieces smelled mostly of minty chocolate. The whole thing reminded me of mint chocolate chip ice cream. The shells were thin and coated the cream filling expertly - none had any cracks or leaks.

The filling was creamy smooth with a light mint touch. They were sweet, but the dark chocolate did a good job of balancing it out. They really were the bonbon version of mint chocolate chip ice cream. The only hesitation I had with them were the colors - I don’t know what the ingredients are but the center looks like it might have a touch of coloring in it, which makes it look like grout, not some sort of decadent peppermint ganache. There’s no reason why this couldn’t be a year round item (though I could see a little peppermint candy candy decoration for Christmas).

I ate the whole box with very little help: Happy Saint Patrick’s Day.

Johnny also has a review of them.

Related Candies

1. Fannie May Mint Meltaway
2. Robitaille’s Presidential Inaugural Mints & Turtles
3. Hershey’s Nuggets Double Chocolate
4. Kohler Chocolates Garden Ganache & Toffee Mountains
5. Ritter Sport Peppermint
6. The Mint Kisses: Chocolate Mint & Candy Cane

Feeling a little sluggish after having an hour ripped from your lazy Sunday?

How about a little spot of sweet espresso and some dark chocolate to get your going?

I picked up these little Espresso Filled Dark Chocolate nuggets at Cost Plus World Market. I think they’re made by Mieszko, a Polish candy company. I was hoping they’d be like the Ferrero Pocket Coffee that are so hard to get here in the United States.

The packaging was nicely done. The stand up pouch has a zipper lock for re-sealing. Each individual piece is wrapped in a paper-backed foil and then a thin cellophane over that to seal it up tight. Often I worry that filled chocolates will be cracked or oozy, but every one was perfect.

The little domed rectangular nuggets are about one inch long, 3/4 of an inch wide and about the same high. The dark chocolate isn’t particularly dark, the package says that it’s at least 40%. It smells rich and dark, but that’s about as good as it got on that front.

The chocolate shell was nicely tempered and thick enough to be a strong container for the liquid center. The chocolate is smooth but far too sweet and lacking in bold chocolate punch. The espresso goo inside is a smooth and syrupy texture. It smells nicely of coffee but is sticky sweet. I liked the sweet roasted barley notes to it, but it wasn’t what I’d call espresso at all, I’d call it a Postum syrup.

It’s too bad, the price was decent and the fact that they’re pretty easy to find if you have a Cost Plus World Market nearby would make them a great item for coffee lovers. But these aren’t for coffee lovers, they’re for people who heap spoonfuls of sugar into their espresso and call themselves coffee lovers. In reality they’re for sugar lovers who like coffee flavor ... nothing wrong with that and here’s a candy to go with that. (I know, I said at the top of the review this might be the caffeinated pop to get you going after the time change, I was wrong.)

Related Candies

1. Javaz - Milk & Dark Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans
2. Bouquet of Fruits Vinyeard - Wine Filled Chocolates
3. Java Twix
4. Trader Joe’s Espresso Chocolate
5. DeFranco’s Espresso Secrets
6. Pocket Coffee

Trader Joe’s Powerberries look like a dream. They’re dark chocolate covered real fruit juice pieces made with acai, pomegranate, cranberry & blueberry juices.

I don’t know what pieces of juice are, but the package makes them look like dark chocolate M&Ms that are packed with powerhouse antioxidants.

The stand up zip pouch is actually quite attractive. Often with Trader Joe’s products I look at them a couple of times in the store over several weeks before I buy them. Maybe it was the lavender background or the font that made me feel like a Jane Austen novel. What was especially pleasant was that the product inside looked exactly like the package showed them on the outside.

They are stunning. They’re glossy little obloid spheres - some the same size as M&MS, others smaller or larger. The dark chocolate is nearly black though it’s only 41% cacao. Sniffing the bag did not yield a chocolatey aroma, instead it was deep berry. It smelled like blueberry yogurt and maybe a little coffee.

Though it says on the package that it’s dark chocolate, there’s actually milk products in there, so this is out right away for vegans. Further reading and I saw that there’s confectioners glaze, so it’s out for vegetarians as well. They’re gluten free and low sodium (50mg per serving) but made on equipment that processes tree nuts and in a facility that handles peanuts and wheat.

There’s no crispy coating on them, it’s chocolate (with the light glaze to keep them from sticking together). The bite is soft and immediately I got fruity flavors. Even when I let the chocolate melt first, I got fruity flavors.

The center isn’t a jelly like I’d expected, but more like a grainy berry fudge. At first I was disappointed, but then I kept eating them. The berry flavors are sweet but really well rounded with blueberry and pomegranate having the best flavor notes. Blueberry gives it a tannic quality like strong tea and the pomegranate and cranberry have good tart and dry flavors. The chocolate does little more than give some body to it, the cocoa notes are overshadowed.

I had no trouble eating the whole bag within a week - I’m not sure if I’ll buy them again though. They might make a fruity alternative to M&Ms for Easter though or a really elegant chocolate candy for favors for a wedding or party.

I suspect that these are made by

It appears that I was incorrect, these are made by Brookside Foods.

Another review of them here on Danica’s Daily also shows the extremely long but all natural ingredients list.

Related Candies

1. Wonka Squishy Sploshberries Gummies
2. HiCHEW World Fruit: Dragonfruit, CamuCamu, Durian & White Peach
3. Bissinger’s Pink Grapefruit Gummy Pandas
4. Gourmet Gumdrops
5. Loukoumi Artisan Confections
6. Brach’s Gummi+Plus & Tropical Gummis

Seems like everyone’s getting into Easter versions of their popular candies. Cadbury-Adams has quite a few new varieties including Sour Patch Eggs and Sour Patch Bunnies (which I bought & will review soon) but the more innovative one appeared to be Assorted Swedish Fish Eggs.

The package is more than quirky. The little red Swedish fish is sporting white and pink bunny ears and a little talking bubble says, “What, you’ve never heard of Candiar?”

The package notes that it also includes Swedish Fish but it didn’t elaborate beyond that.

Inside it’s not a large amount of candy for a theater box. It’s 3.1 ounces, which means that the inner cellophane bag takes up less than a third of the volume of the box.

The assortment is a mix of the small Swedish fish and the little “eggs” which are half inch hemispheres. They come in three or four flavors/colors. Orange, lemon, lime and “Swedish Fish” flavor.

When I took the picture I didn’t know there was a difference between the light green eggs and the aqua eggs.

The Swedish Fish and the aqua eggs are the same berry flavor. Sweet, tangy and jammy.

The lemon eggs are mild, as are the orange ones. Not much zest or juice to it, but still an ultra smooth chewy gel. The lime ones were surprising and more sweet as far as I could tell and more zesty.

On the whole they were fun, the teensy eggs were different but took away from the interactive part of eating a regular size Swedish Fish (biting & pulling it apart).

These are made in Canada but there’s no allergen statement on the box. They contain no animal products, nut products or apparent gluten ingredients but you may want to check with Cadbury directly. They also may be vegan, depending on how you feel about eating mineral oil. (There’s no glaze or dairy in it.)

Related Candies

1. Au’some Easter 3-Dees Gummy
2. All Gummies Gourmet Fruity Fish (Swedish Fish knock-off)
3. Gummy Fishies
4. Organic Surf Sweets
5. Jelly Belly Deluxe Easter Mix
6. Swedish Aqua Life

A few months ago I discovered quite by accident that Russell Stover introduced a new candy. The Color Me Candies are little milk chocolate candy coated lentils. (Yes, the same thing as M&Ms, Nestle Smarties, Jots, Hershey-Ets and Koppers Milkies.)

Not an innovative new product, but still it warranted a tasting as far as I was concerned because they’re selling them in single color bags and for what appears to be a barn-buster price. I ordered one color about a week ago - and of course right after I ordered they introduced some color mixes based on sports teams.

There are 13 colors total, I chose the Igloo Blue, which looked like an icy powder blue. I thought it’d photograph well and have less food coloring that might influence the flavor profile.

The bags hold 8 ounces and was priced at $2.99 (plus shipping - I got a bunch of other stuff as well that I couldn’t find in stores).

The pieces are similar in shape and size to M&Ms. They’re a little thicker in the center but a sharper, thinner edge. They’re consistently shaped and colored for the most part. There were variations, but all were within what I’d call acceptable.

The only hesitation I had after opening the shipping box was that some of the candies - probably about 5% were chipped. Not terrible, but in a glass jar for display and serving it might be distracting for the light colored versions. (I expect for the darker colors it’d be less noticeable.) This might have been because I didn’t order very much, so my box had a lot of open space for shifting of the contents. If you’re ordering a large amount I don’t expect it to be as much of an issue - but maybe check with their customer service to confirm.

The shell is crispy and crunchy - far more interesting as a texture than the M&Ms (it reminded me more of the new Hershey’s Pieces). The chocolate texture is creamy and smooth, far better and silkier than M&Ms (even the Premium ones). The primary flavor notes are dairy - a rich milky and caramel along with a mellow chocolate flavor.

They’re excellent, actually. Easy to keep eating, not too sweet and different enough from M&Ms that I would probably seek them out for a special occasion.

So, the pricing scheme: I see these as a candy buffet item so the price does make a difference. At the moment these are only available (as far as I know) from Russell Stover directly on their webstore. They are sold in 8 ounce (half a pound) bags in 13 single colors and 16 “team color” mixes. The cost at the moment is $2.99 per bag, which means they’re $5.98 per pound. The rival products to this are: M&Ms which are sold on their website in 7 ounce bags with a price tag of $15.98 per pound (or $11.60 if you’re willing to buy in a 5 lb box) and Koppers Milkies which are found on various webstores, I priced them at CandyWarehouse.com and found that they’re $9.90 a pound when purchased in a 5 lb box - some sites have them for less (but fewer colors) and some for more. Russell Stover doesn’t offer a bulk purchase, but I would expect that would make them even cheaper.

M&Ms and Koppers Milkies come in far more colors. M&Ms and Koppers Milkies are Kosher. None are nut free.

Related Candies

1. Godiva Spring Pearls
2. Hershey’s Special Dark Pieces
3. Russell Stover Eggs (2009 edition)
4. UK Smarties (no artificial colors)
5. Hershey Eggs
6. Best Intentions: Sun Drops

I’m gaga for Meiji’s Gummy Choco, which are little gummi beans of various natural fruit flavors covered in milk and flavored white chocolate. But I’ve also wondered what it’d be like to just eat the gummi centers.

The gummi jellybean centers are called Poifull and are rather harder to find in the United States.

I picked up a few boxes via JBox.com and then ended up finding some more at Nijiya Market in Little Tokyo a few weeks later. The flavors vary from time to time. (Sometimes the yellow ones are pineapple as shown in this box and other times they’re lemon or white peach.)

While it’s tempting to call these jelly beans, they’re not. Jelly beans have jelly centers - that means that they’re a thickened candy syrup, usually gelled using corn starch but good quality ones use pectin, a natural fruit product. Poifull are a gummi product, so the centers are bouncy and chewy and thickened with gelatin. (So my vegetarian friends, you can’t have these.)

They come in four flavors and all are equally fresh and transcendent. The shell is light and a little grainy after chewing, it mostly seals in the soft and fresh flavors of the gummis themselves.

Pineapple - is sweet and bright but more like canned pineapple than the fresh stuff. Not quite as acidic but still quite credible.

Grape - is the darker purple color. The flavor is amazing, like a condensed droplet of concord grape juice. Vivid, sweet and tangy.

Muscat Grape - is the green one and like the grape has an authentic juice flavor. Muscat is a white grape so is often a little milder in its juice form. This one was tasty but didn’t wow me like the others by comparison.

Apple - is the lighter pink one. It’s definitely just like a fresh glass of apple juice, or actually, more like cider. Tangy and with a good touch of apple peel flavors in there.

(I had another box & can review the Lemon - is a mild and marmalade-like flavor. The sugar notes are boiled and toasted and the zest is still quite authentic but lacking most of the bitter qualities. It’s not terribly tart, but still has a nice snap.)

The flavors are much more intense than even Jelly Belly, very well rounded and of course the gummi texture makes them last longer. I didn’t find myself gulping them down like I do with some jelly candies, they’re absolutely more in the gummi style of eating for me. I’ve only found them in these small boxes (and sometimes in the tiny boxes for the Meiji Mini Mix - photo).

They’re pretty expensive since they’re an import product, but as far as I can tell they’re also all natural - so parents can feel good about a super-flavorful product that comes in small portions. They’d make a great addition to an Easter basket.

Related Candies

1. Jelly Belly Sunkist Citrus Mix
2. Kasugai Pineapple Gummy
3. Meiji Gummy Choco
4. Jelly Belly - All Natural
5. Gummi Sushi

The new LifeSavers Gummies Bunnies & Eggs are charming little Easter themed gummis that come in five different shapes and six different flavors.

The bag has the old LifeSavers logo and design elements to it (the rolls are rather different these days). It also features the bug-eyed bunny that appears on the Jelly Beans.

The flavors are Lemon, Apple, Orange, Tangy Cherry, Tangy Punch and Watermelon.

All the candies are sherbet colors, soft, opaque pastels. They’re bouncy and squishy, not quite greasy but they definitely cling together readily.

I expected them to be big, about the same size as the hoops known as LifeSavers Gummies, which themselves are larger than the hard candy version. Instead they’re actually smaller than the little images on the package. These cute and plump little shapes are barely the size of a traditional gummi bear. (I threw an M&M in there for you to see the scale.)

Blue is Tangy Punch - it reminds me of Hawaiian Punch. It’s tangy of course and has an artificial flavor to go with the tropical fruit.

Green is Apple - it’s far less tart than I expected. A little like apple juice.

Orange is Orange - it looks like sherbet and tastes rather like it too, soft and mellow with a light sour note but mostly a juice flavor.

Red is Watermelon  - at first I thought it’d be cherry. The watermelon reminded me of Jolly Ranchers in the best possible way. Fresh, a little more intensely fruity than the real melon and of course an artificial version of the actual flavor.

Lemon is Yellow - I didn’t care much for this one, it had a metallic note, like drinking lemonade in a can.

Pink is Tangy Cherry -  this is not the cherry I associate with LifeSavers. It’s far too mild and though it’s called Tangy Cherry, it’s not terribly sour at all.

On the whole they’re adorable, rather mild but nothing extraordinary. Gummis for Easter aren’t that common, so it’s nice to see a themed product. There is no allergen statement on the package but it does contain gelatin and of course artificial colors & flavors. It doesn’t say anything about gluten or nuts.

Related Candies

1. Au’some Easter 3-Dees Gummy
2. Disney Pixie Perfect Gummies
3. Necco Paas Gummi Baby Bunnies
4. LifeSavers Tangy Fruits Gummies
5. Albanese Gummi Butterflies
6. Lifesavers Jellybeans

The new Wonka Exceptionals Domed Dark Chocolate pieces are No. 3 velvety dark chocolate with milk chocolate medallions.

They’re the third item in the new launch of the better quality Wonka chocolate products hitting store shelves now. The ingredients are all natural, the packaging revamped and the quality vastly improved.

Now that I’ve tried all three varieties I can say that they’re right, the quality of the chocolate is much better. The chocolate is smoother, has a bolder flavor and of course the fact that the ingredients are better should make it easier for families to choose Wonka. I’ve compared them before to Dove and Hershey’s Bliss - but what these have going for them is that the packaging is all about imagination - the bright striped foils are going to appeal more to kids than the sedate and elegant positioning of Dove or Bliss.

The pieces themselves aren’t quite as stunning to look at as the other two Exceptionals. The little domed blocks don’t stack either. I was hoping for some glossy dark chocolate, and while it’s tempered properly, the piece looks like well worn coat button instead of a sumptuous piece of dark chocolate.

The dark chocolate flavors are quite sharp. It’s acidic without being tangy, not quite chalky but a little dry. It’s smooth but I wouldn’t characterize it as the same silkiness as the milk and white chocolate from the Waterfall version. There are berry and raisin notes to the cocoa but nothing overtly complex. It’s toasty but not so dark that it’s roasty and too bitter like black coffee. The sweetness is pretty overwhelming, sugar is the first ingredient on the list.

As a dark chocolate, it’s very accessible, and probably won’t dissuade children from eating them. They remind me of eating chocolate chip cookies - the melt is similar to that in a fresh cookie.

I think Nestle has done a great job of reinvigorating the brand. It takes more inspiration from the original books and taps into the dreamy quality that Wonka has evoked in every kid who every kid who’s read it.

Related Candies

1. Wonka Exceptionals: Chocolate Waterfall
2. Wonka Exceptionals Scrumdiddlyumptious
3. Nestle Milk Chocolate
4. Nestle Noir
5. Upscale Hollow Chocolate: Michel Cluizel & Hotel Chocolat
6. Dark Raisinets