I got this one slightly smashed sample of the new Baby Ruth Crisp from All Candy Expo.

I’m a little hesitant to do a full review of the product based on a “fun sized” bar, so consider this a preview.

The wrapper says that the new bar is Baked Wafers, Caramel, Peanuts & Creme. It’s a nice white & waffle pattern background with the familiar Baby Ruth logo.

From the description it sounds like it could be the old Bar None. But a quick sniff and it’s clear that this is a bar with a strong peanut identity.

The layers are pretty complex. There are wafers and in between the lower wafers is a peanut butter creme. On the top of the wafers is a pretty thick layer of caramel and then some chopped peanuts.

The whole effect is a startlingly familiar flavor to the Baby Ruth but with the texture of a KitKat.

The only disappointment here is the chocolate. Nestle doesn’t really make many chocolate candies any longer and this new bar is no exception. I don’t have the ingredients, but judging by the other Nestle Crisp bars that I do have access to, this is a mockolate coating.

It lacks a good creamy component (more waxy) but has a little cocoa punch to it ... just no good dairy milk chocolate addition.

The addition of the Baby Ruth Crisp also marks the change in Nestle’s rebranding & repackaging of their Crisp bar line.

The new packages for Butterfinger Crisp and Crunch Crisp sport the tag line De * LIGHT * fully CRISPY

The most significant change is the reformatting of the bar.

The original Crunch Crisp was a long & wide bar. The new version is not only smaller (the overall weight of the package) but is also now a narrower (but slightly taller) bar in two separate pieces. The original was 1.74 ounces, the new on is 1.34.

The last few times I’ve tried the Crunch Crisp bars the ambient temperature was over 80 degrees ... not the best climate for this bar.

Since then I’ve acquired these two versions and both benefit from temps in the high sixties. (Hooray for Southern California’s June Gloom.)

The flavor & overall ratio of crunch, creme & mockolate is similar with both bars. It reminded me a bit of chocolate pudding & ice cream cones. It’s harder to take a “big bite” of the new small bars.

Because of the wafers they seem less like candy and more like decadent cookies.

Since having the Q.bel bars, though, it’s hard to say that these are more than passably decent.

The Butterfinger Crisp disappeared from store shelves around me, and I thought it was discontinued. It turns out it was just going through this reformatting.

Like the Crunch Crisp this one has gone from 1.76 ounces to 1.41 ounces. It also goes from being manufactured in Venezuela to the United States.

The innards look virtually the same to the last one I ate four years ago.

It smells like fake butter flavor ... or maybe butterscotch candies. The crispy wafers are good, the cream in between is a little salty and has a light peanut butter taste (actually less peanutty than the Baby Ruth).

The chocolate on this seems less punchy and more like the waxy stuff from a Butterfinger Bar.

I’m sure the new two piece format makes production for both full serving & fun size much simpler. (And I really don’t have a problem with that, I like fun sized bars because sometimes I want variety for my “single serving”.)

I don’t have much of an issue with companies making products smaller in order to keep prices the same (or raising prices) though in this case they’ve not only made it smaller, it’s not quite the same as before because the shape may change some ratios. Still, they pack some calories for such small bars - the new Crunch Crisp is 190 (was 250) and the Butterfinger Crisp is 210 (was 250).

Again, having found the Q.bel line, I see no reason to personally entertain this stuff any further unless I had some sort of financial issue that I couldn’t afford the Q.bel or no longer had access. (But these still wouldn’t be a choice high on my list. Nestle is capable of making chocolate and I think these would be much better with it.)

Expect the new line of Crisp bars including the Baby Ruth Crisp to hit shelves late August or early September.

Related Candies

1. Wonka Tinglerz & Nestle Buncha Crunch
2. ReeseSticks (Revisit)
3. Nestle Crunch (Now Even Richer Milk Chocolate)
4. Butterfinger Stixx
5. Nestle Crunch Dark Stixx
6. Nutrageous
7. Head-to-Head: Butterfinger vs. 5th Avenue

Brach’s (now owned by Farley’s & Sathers) sent me some samples of their new Indulge gable-box line a few months ago. I’ve been hoping to see them in stores before posting the review, but perhaps some eagle-eyed readers have seen them so far.

The new Indulge line is all about panned chocolate items. First up are the Indulge Cookie Nibbles.

They’re described as Crispy, mini chocolate chip cookies covered in rich and creamy milk chocolate. While the description seems pretty simple, the ingredients list is ginormous ... I’m guessing because baked goods are often more complicated than candies (and the simple act of using flour means all those enrichment ingredients have to be included on the list).

The pieces aren’t very large, just little mostly-round bits about the size of flat-sided garbanzo beans.

The chocolate coating is shiny & rather thin. They smell like Chips Ahoy - sweet and a bit like cereal.

The cookie centers are dry, a little sandy but not quite a crunchy crisp. They’re like a cross between a commercial cookie like Chips Ahoy and the cookie center of a Twix. They’re not always consistent either - some are more grainy and some more sandy. They’re much more textured than something like Chocolate Covered Cookie Dough Bites.

It’s a milk chocolate coating that doesn’t really offer much of a cocoa punch, but a creamy sweet counterpoint.

It’s a fun snack, and I did find myself munching on them ... but never quite craving them. It was more because I thought I had to eat some of them. The box holds 6 ounces and has a retail price of $3.29. They’re not exactly a premium product and the packaging is a little, well, not quite a spiffy and modern as I would have hoped for a new product launch but still serviceable. But unlike many of the products in the Brach’s line these days, these were made in the United States.

Related Candies

1. Wolfgang Skipjacks & Jungle Jacks
2. Ferrera Dark Chocolate Covered Biscotti
3. Trader Joe’s Chocolate Covered Gingersnaps
4. Wonka Tinglerz & Nestle Buncha Crunch
5. Cafe Select Chocolate Coffee Trios
6. Wheat Chocolate

One of the new products I was keen on trying that appeared at ExpoWest was Gimme Calcium.

It’s marketed as candy with benefits in this case a bit of fortification with 500 mg of calcium. The candy balls are also made with all natural ingredients, so no artificial colors or flavors.

The package is rather large considering the amount inside. The wrapper is over 6.5” long, that’s an inch longer than an M&M package (so think of this like a King Sized pouch) but only holds one ounce. (However, when I talked to the folks who are just starting up the company, they designed the bag before knowing exactly how big & heavy the portions would be and will probably alter this during their next production run of wrappers.)

That said, I think the package design is nice - it’s bold & seems friendly and appealing.

The candies are the size of a small malted milk ball. The shells are a muted beige, a little on the grey side (again, all natural colorings).

The candy is made of a crisped rice center surrounded by milk chocolate and then a hard candy shell. There are 10-12 per bag.

The most noticeable flavor at first is the cereal notes of the rice then there’s a bit of milky flavor from the chocolate. The chocolate flavors come across as a kind of cocoa breakfast cereal. The calcium part is completely undetectable. Not a hint of unusual graininess, no weird mineral aftertaste. I find it hard to believe that I’m getting half my daily RDA of calcium ... but that’s what it says. They’re sweet and definitely crunchy ...

My only hesitation with them is availability and price. Right now they’re for sale on place online (healthysnackstore.com) and are about $1.70 a package when sold by the dozen. It’s far cheaper to just down Tums for the calcium. However, if you have a kid that you need to get that extra calcium into or are an adult who just needs a little help with boosting your mineral intake the caloric hit isn’t even that bad because of the scant portion size - only 130 calories a bag. I felt pretty satisfied ... and strong.

Related Candies

1. Goldie’s Premium Carob Bar
2. CocoaVia Bars
3. Choco-Omeg
4. Figamajigs
5. Adora Calcium Tabs

I’m often puzzled whether the mere act of covering any food item in chocolate makes it into candy.

I don’t do well in drawing that line. Fruit covered in chocolate, that’s candy. Nuts covered in chocolate, that’s candy. Cookies covered in chocolate ... hmm, if they’re bite sized, sure. Ice cream covered in chocolate? No, that’s still ice cream.

Wolfgang Skipjacks are milk chocolate covered oyster crackers (bite sized saltines).

They’re sold in stand up 7 ounce bags ...which sounds more like the packaging of a snack item than a candy item ... but I’m going to just call this candy. Otherwise I can’t review it and I’m currently eating the third bag I got from them after posting the new product announcement.

The pieces are about one inch in diameter and a half inch high. There are little squiggles on the top of the chocolate enrobing.

The crackers are flaky and crunchy with very little flavor of their own beyond the bit of granulated salt.

The milk chocolate is very sweet and has a milky and sticky quality to it.

The light and crisp crunch combined with the dairy milk chocolate is a good combo ... it’s definitely snackable, though not quite decadent they do satisfy.

The only thing that I found disheartening about these was the fact that they’re not all milk chocolate. Reading over the ingredients there are three components listed. Milk Chocolate, Oyster Crackers and then Bottom Coating Compound. Sure enough when I turned over the candies on some of them I could see a different colored chocolate dot on them. I’m sure this was a manufacturing decision and the only thing I can think of is the fact that these crackers, before getting coated, are probably devilishly light and maybe didn’t “sit still” while going through the curtain of chocolate to coat them. Maybe they needed a little chocolate foot ... why it has to be a mockolate foot, well, I don’t know. (They show a little of their enrobing in this video.)

Overall, I thought they were definitely worth it if you’re a crunchy with salt & chocolate person. I also thought the name was pretty cool, the package design is fun and spare (no unnecessary tray or inner bags).

Rating: 7 out of 10.

A companion product are the Jungle Jacks.

These are chocolate covered animal crackers.

This bag is 6 ounces instead of 7.

Like the Skipjacks these are milk chocolate coated (and have that same mockolate bottom coating).

The crackers vary in size - about 1.5 to 2 inches wide by one inch.

Like uncoated animal crackers, I had a hard time figuring out what creatures these were. Most I decided were zebras and rhinos, though they might have been lions or elephants.

The crunch on these little light shortbread cookies is denser than the Skipjacks and has a light toasted flavor, maybe a bit of a graham cracker note.

It’s a little sweeter overall, and I was satisfied much quicker eating these than the Skipjacks - maybe the salt makes me want more.

It says there are 6 servings in the bag ... in my experience there were two.

Overall, a nice change from chocolate covered pretzels or cookies ... but I can’t see myself buying these again. But I can see kids loving them and parents liking how they can give out just two or three pieces of “candy” at a time.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Related Candies

1. Ferrera Dark Chocolate Covered Biscotti
2. Q-Bel Crispy Wafer Bars
3. Cookie Dough Bites
4. Twix PB
5. Maud Borup Potato Chips
6. Yan Yan
7. Men’s Pocky

Hershey’s Whatchamacallit was introduced in 1978. I remember the launch, the commercials and buying the candy bar quite a bit in the first few years when it came out.

It was a peanut butter & crisped rice bar covered in milk chocolate. It was simple, crunchy, looked really big and was satisfying.

Hershey’s has never seemed particularly proud or supportive of the Whatchamacallit. Their advertising for it waned after the eighties; maybe they wanted to go out on a bang with this classic commercial:

The Hershey’s website lists only four notable moments in Whatchamacallit history: introduction (1978), reformulation (1987), package redesign & king size release (2002). You can see the earlier, less “blasty” package design on Brad Kent’s wrapper archive and Mike’s Candy Wrappers (2002 & 2003)

The page mentions nothing about the second reformulation where the bar lost its milk chocolate and gained its rich chocolatey coating (circa 2006).

So you can imagine how surprised I was to see that the Whatchamacallit earned a Limited Edition version, called Thingamajig.

This bar is made with chocolate, cocoa crisps and peanut butter. At first glance it sounds like it might be the original Whatchamacallit, the one without the caramel (well, that also had real chocolate).

Instead it’s a block of cocoa flavored crisped rice covered with a strip of peanut butter and then covered in Hershey’s inimitable imitation chocolate.

As with many limited edition products, this bar is slightly smaller than the original. It’s 1.5 ounces versus the 1.6 ounces of the Whatchamacallit.

Whatchamacallit on the left and Thingamajig on the right

It’s hard to review the Thingamajig in a vacuum, so naturally I’m comparing it to the Whatchamacallit. I’m also prone to wondering if, when Hershey’s was developing the Whatchamacallit, that they didn’t go through this bar as part of the evolution of the new product, obviously rejecting it.

The Thingamajig has a nice cocoa scent along with a whiff or roasted peanuts. It’s not quite a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup smell, but pretty close.

The bit into the bar is a quick snap, biting through the cocoa crispies is easy, they’re crunchy but have plenty of give since they don’t seem to be held together by marshmallow or peanut butter like the Whatchamacallit.

The mockolate coating is rather good ... I have to give Hershey’s credit, their fake chocolate can often be better than some other companies’ real chocolate. The cocoa flavors from the crispy center probably help.

The peanut butter is a bit salty, creamy and smooth (smoother than a peanut butter cup center).

Overall, it’s a nice experience ... probably not something I’d want again. I’m not sure why Hershey’s did it, but they’re not really taking any credit for it (they never emailed me about it, it doesn’t appear on their website) and it will probably disappear without any fanfare as well.

Rating: 6 out of 10

As a little side note, since I’ve never done an official review of the Whatchamacallit (which by now I’m rather dreading typing), I thought I’d add that here:

The bar smells like cocoa and toffee. The peanut butter crisped rice center is great. It’s buttery, salty, crunchy and has a good roasted nut flavor and a strong butter/dairy note to it. The caramel, though only a very thin layer, gives it a bit of a chew that holds it together in the mouth. The mockolate coating is creamy and melts well but offers no chocolate flavors here ... just a sealant for the crispy bar.

Rating: 6 out of 10

But most of all, I have to wonder why the Whatchamacallit isn’t a Reese’s branded product, getting the full benefit of the peanut butter branding.

I was really late in finding these bars in my area. Here are some other opinions on them: AV Club Taste Test (also a head to head), Cocoa-Heaven (head to head) and Candy Yum Yum.

Related Candies

1. Q-Bel Crispy Wafer Bars
2. Rising Cost of Candy - A Brief Study of Hershey Prices
3. Palmer Nest Eggs
4. I Miss: Bar None
5. 100 Grand with Peanuts
6. Snickers Cruncher

At Target over the weekend I stumbled across these. They’re called Twixels and come in three flavor varieties: Triple Chocolate, French Vanilla and Creamy Caramel.

I’ve never seen them before, so I’ve done a little poking around.These were introduced in 2001 or so in Europe. The package says that these were manufactured in Russia ... I’m hoping that’s a temporary thing until Twixels either succeed or fail in the US (as Mars has pledged to support the communities where they make their candy in the United States - Twix are made in Cleveland, Tennessee).

I picked out the Triple Chocolate variety which was described as Dark Chocolate with Chocolate flavored Caramel & Chocolate Cookie. This sounds like the limited edition Twix Triple Chocolate from late 2006/early 2007. 

The box is pretty ordinary but has a funky parallelogram shape - bigger on the top than the bottom. The tray inside protects the contents well, after all, they’re coming all the way from Russia. The tray has three discrete sections, but the plastic film seal over the top covers the whole thing, so no way to just open one little bit and save the rest of later.

Inside are basically mini Twix bars. They’re three inches long and have a similar ripple to the chocolate as in the large Twix.

The little sticks have a crisp bite, the cookie is very firm but not terribly flavorful. The chocolate enrobing says it’s “sweet chocolate” and though it has no milk in it, it does have milkfat. It’s very sweet, but rather rich as well and gives me a satisfying “Dove Chocolate” feeling. The caramel is just a tiny strip on the top of the cookie, so it’s hard to get much chew out of it. It doesn’t have the wonderful pull like the large sized Twix does, but here it gives just a bit of texture.

Overall, I can’t say I liked them any more than any other Twix product (except for the Limited Edition Java Twix).

They’re easy to eat and a nice size for controlled portion snacking. The box recommends four sticks as a serving which is 140 calories (35 calories per stick). Four sticks actually feels like a lot, so for those trying to have a small and satisfying indulgence, these may be a good trick. (Or just eat one Twix out of the pack.)

I paid $2.99 for 4.4 ounces of slenderized Twix bars ... too much for me. Think about it, a regular Twix is 2 ounces and costs less than a dollar. The only reason to buy these is if you actually prefer this flavor profile to the original full-figured bars. (You can stop reading here if you want, that’s about it for the actual product review, the rest is just me ranting.)

As a side note, I find the current version of the Twix.com site as supremely annoying and poorly executed as Mars other “hot” site, Skittles.com.

First, I have to “load” a huge flash thing that takes an actual minute. While I’m waiting there’s a progress tally that has a guy “chewing it over for me” ... one of my least favorite things to do on the web is watch people chew. In fact, I’d say it’s something I actively avoid. If there were a ChewBlock add on for Firefox, I’d be all over it.

Second, once it’s loaded, I go right to the PRODUCTS option because the “game” is going. The products pop over plays AUDIO ... audio which cannot be turned off or controlled in any way.

Finally, as I navigate the products, there are three: Twix with all its different sizes and shapes, Twix PB and Twix Ice Cream. There is no mention of the actual existence of these Twixels. Thanks Mars, thanks for putting a relevant web address on the package.

If you want more snark on their advertising campaign and the other contents of the flash game, please read this Happily Bitter post (some strong language).

Since Mars was unable to help me learn more about their product, I turned to YouTube, where I ended up finding some advertising from Russia’s TBWA agency that made me realize that the whole Fling marketing concept was no accident.

The end tag line is “it makes us chat about everything” if by everything you mean “fluff” - let’s see, they have a prince on a white horse, some clothes, an inept plumber, a man’s ass, fighting children, drinks, a manicure, a goat-headed boss/co-worker and a gift car. I guess it’s actually realistic, candy is just about as relevant and important as all those other consumerist nuggets. (Okay, child rearing is important ... and I know that workplace annoyances are, well, annoying, but boiling women down to shopping, image-obsessed daydreamers who want to be rescued is insulting.)

So, to sum up: in a complete vacuum, I found Twixels Triple Chocolate to be okay, regular Twix patrons will probably like the change of proportions & snackability. In the presence of everything else like the current Twix advertising campaign, their equally insulting & unworkable companion website plus the paucity of information about the actual product ... well, I like them slightly less. They get a 6 out of 10 based on the former.

Related Candies

1. Q-Bel Crispy Wafer Bars
2. Trader Joe’s Chocolate Covered Gingersnaps
3. Revisit: Take 5, Sunkist Fruit Gems & Snickers Almond
4. BonBonBars: Malt Ganache & Scotch
5. Twix PB
6. KitKat Caramel

My office is now next door to a Cost Plus World Market. Which means that I browse there about once a week ... and try to resist buying more than twice a month. It took three trips before I succumbed to this one kilo (2.2 pound) bag of Sweet Moments Chocolate Eggs (Ovetti) made by Laica. Priced at $9.99 it wasn’t that it would cost me a Hamilton, it was that it was more than two pounds of foil covered chocolate eggs. That’s a lotta candy!

The description on the front says milk chocolate eggs with hazelnuts cream and cereals filling. There’s also a little logo in the top right that says puro cioccolato.

All of the candies are the same flavor, but feature four designs on the foil. Each has the company logo on it and calls these Nocciola (hazelnut).

The light blue has an angry chick, the green has a white duck, the tan has a decidedly unhappy sheep and the yellow features emotionless butterflies and flowers.

The eggs are about 1.25 inches long with little lines on the widest part. They smell sweet and a little like roasted nuts and hot chocolate.

The bite is soft and easy. The chocolate shell melts easily, it’s real chocolate and in the European milky style.

The center is creamy with dots of little cereal pieces. They’re like crisped rice, only spherical and according to the ingredients made of a mix of corn, rice, wheat and barley. They’re crispy and provide a nice malty crunch. The creamy paste in the center is sweet and sticky with a hint of hazelnut flavor - not as much as I’d hoped. The ingredients show that the center is sugar, fractionated oils, the cereal bits and then 8% hazelnut paste followed by cocoa & milk plus some other stuff.

Overall, they’re quite easy to eat. They don’t satisfy in the sense that after three I don’t want any more, instead I keep eating them. Though they’re more expensive than some other American made chocolate confections available for Easter, they edge out on the quality front and they certainly taste good. And they’re cute.

Last year Easter came much earlier (March 23, 2008), so I think there were far more after holiday deals to be found because of the compressed selling period between Valentine’s and Easter. One of them I was eager to take advantage of was this set of Caffarel Eggs being sold at Williams-Sonoma (they’re back this year). At regular price, they’re pretty expensive at $24 for 10 ounces (19 eggs). But I ordered them on clearance after Easter for $6.99 a bag. I also got the candy shell version which didn’t return this year.

Each little egg had a collar and label: mandorla (almond), torroncino (nougat), gianduja (hazelnut & chocolate paste).

Sadly my clearance deal netted me two bags of bloomed chocolate. I ate most of the first bag, and though the bloom wasn’t too bad, it did make the outside of the eggs rather oily and difficult to remove the clingy thin foil.

The chocolate is smooth and silky (other than the bloom issue), the center was rich and thick, much like the other Caffarel gianduia products I’ve had. The nougat one had little crunchy bits in it. The almond one had an amaretto flavor to it that I didn’t care for at all ... so about a third of the bag was a flavor I didn’t care for (but luckily others I know do).

The quality of the ingredients is top notch and the hazelnut flavor (or almond, in the case of the mandorla) is rich and decadent. The packaging is exceptional, each one is a little gift (though also makes a lot of little bits of paper for cleanup). I’m not going to give them a rating because of the bloom though.

They’re a wonderful little treat, but very expensive when there are other products around like the Ovetti or even the Moser Roth Truffles my mother sent me from Aldi. However, I do see them sold singly from time to time, usually for a dollar at fine delis ... so it’s definitely worth it to have a little treat now and then.

Related Candies

1. Lindt Chocolate Carrots
2. Nestle Creme Eggs
3. Lindt Lindor Truffle Eggs
4. Caffarel Figs & Chestnuts (Fico & Castagna)
5. Caffarel Chocolate Truffle Mushrooms
6. Caffarel Gianduia 1865

Cadbury does more for Easter than just the Mini Eggs and Creme Eggs, but we see little of that in the United States. I was lucky to find these imported goodies at my local Cost Plus World Market.

This tray of Limited Edition Easter Mallows is huge. Even though it only weighs 5.29 ounces, the large tray made it look like there was a lot of candy in here.

The clear tray holds the 10 chocolate covered marshmallow domes. They’re cradled well, and though a few of mine were cracked (could have been me treating the package roughly), none of them were leaking.

The candy construction is simple. A round cookie (biscuit) base with a dollop of Jaffa orange jam, then a heap of marshmallow, all covered in Cadbury milk chocolate.

They’re about 1.75 inches in diameter and about .75 inches high. The bite is soft and the chocolate shell is crisp and adheres pretty well to the marshmallow.

They smell like dairy milk chocolate before biting, but after biting through to the jam center, it’s definitely orange. The flavor of the jam is rather like marmalade, with a strong zest component along with some sweet syrup and tangy juice to it. The cookie base is soft and crumbly, like a graham cracker. The marshmallow, though soft and passable didn’t do much for me one way or the other. The milk chocolate coating is very sweet and has a dried milk flavor to it.

On the whole, these are very appealing. I really liked the flavorful punch of the center much better than the filled marshmallows I’ve had from Asia.

They were expensive though, at $2.99 for the tray (but I felt like I’ve been leaving my UK reader friends out lately). I’m not quite sure what makes them an Easter candy (maybe if they were egg shaped) or if there’s a non-Easter version that these are based on. The Cadbury site was no help. (But I did find out that these are sold at Aldi in the UK.)

Each Easter Mallow has 65 calories.

The gelatin is made from pork, so these are definitely not Halal, Kosher or vegetarian.

Related Candies

1. EveryBurger
2. Lindt Lindor Truffle Eggs
3. Princess Marshmallow Eggs
4. Lindt Chocolate Bunnies (Dark & Milk)
5. Cadbury Canadian Creme Eggs
6. Cadbury Orange Creme Eggs