KitKat in Japan has been hard at work churning out new limited edition and seasonal flavors. I’ve been kind of picky about which ones I want to buy and review, so here was one that I was particularly interested in: KitKat Vanilla Beans.

As with all of the premium limited edition KitKats in the single serve size, this comes in a box with two individually wrapped finger pairs.

It’s basically a white chocolate KitKat. I picked it up because the ingredients listed real cocoa butter, so this is true white chocolate instead of some partially hydrogenated/tropical oil mess.

It features real flecks of vanilla beans in the coating as well, which I’d hoped would be like the rich bourbon flavors of the Green & Black’s White Chocolate bar.

It smells quite milky and sweet, almost cloyingly so. The melt is nice, it does have a good dairy flavor and it’s not as sweet as I’d feared. The vanilla flavor is true and well rounded (not single-noted like the nature-identical vanillin).

The wafers balance it all out ... but I think I could have used a little bit of salt in the cream or something to keep it from being throat burningly sugary.

It’s not spectacularly better than a regular US white chocolate KitKat, certainly not for the price. In fact for the price per ounce the Green & Black’s is a better deal and ethically traded (but you’ll have to add your own crispy element). Rating: 6 out of 10

Like the KitKat, Nestle goes through a lot of different limited editions of their popular Aero Bar for Japan. Aeros are available in the UK, Canada and Australia but for some reason have never been introduced in the US. (There was a Nestle chocolate bar called the Choco-Lite back in the 70s-early 80s.)

I’ve reviewed the Mint and Milk Chocolate Aero before and have a Caramel Aero in my review queue. The UK also has a version of little spheres (about the size of malted milk balls) called Aero Bubbles. I find the UK Aeros at import shops including Cost Plus World Market pretty regularly.

It’s the Japanese Aeros that are so fun though, especially since they have these cute little individually wrapped nuggets in the Limited Edition versions. I found these at Mitsuwa Marketplace in Little Tokyo but they’re also available online through eBay and JBox. This one is called Aero Bitter Orange and has a companion KitKat bar that came out last year as well. (I tried them but didn’t review them. Pretty tasty milk chocolate with a mellow orange cream filling between the wafers.)

I opened the package and sniffed it and thought, “mmm, chocolate and baby aspirin.” Yes, it’s true. Orange baby aspirin is also bitter.

It lives up to the Aero name. It is a fluffed bite of chocolate. The orange topping is orangy, not in the least tangy or complexly zesty but slightly bitter as promised.

The bubbles in Aero give it an interesting texture, more fudgy than chocolatey, it’s still a nice confectionery experience. The box makes them seem like a nicer candy treat than perhaps they actually are, as does the price ($1.99 for 1.76 ounces.) Rating: 7 out of 10

Related Candies

1. KitKat Red Bean & Fruit Parfait
2. KitKat Bitter & White
3. KitKat Cappuccino
4. Hanahiyori - Green Tea White Chocolates
5. KitKat Tsubu Ichigo and Hershey’s Strawberries ‘n’ Creme
6. Mint Aero
7. Aero

I was at the bulk candy shop at the mall last month and saw what looked like a new mix of Runts in the bins. Curious, I bought a little sampling of them. I thought they were Tropical Runts (which used to exist).

Instead, I found out that they’d reformulated the Runts flavors yet again.

The new assortment includes: Strawberry, Banana, Orange, Pineapple and Mango.

The previous version had: Blue Raspberry, Watermelon, Cherry, Strawberry, Banana and Orange.

The version before that, that I remember best was what they introduced in 1982: Banana, Orange, Cherry, Strawberry, and Lime. It was the best replacement for Wacky Wafers.

Back when they were that first assortment of flavors I bought them quite a bit. They were cute, they didn’t roll around when you sorted them out and the flavors were nice ... only one in the mix I didn’t like, which were good odds as far as I was concerned.

But when they went to the 21st century flavors, I lost interest completely. I didn’t like watermelon or blue raspberry or cherry ... so half the box was thrown out or given away.

This new version though, we’re back to 80% efficiency!

The Banana is quite artificial. It reminds me of Circus Peanuts and nail polish remover. Strawberry is sweet and flowery. Orange is bland and tastes like Tang or Jell-O mix. (That’s not a bad thing.)

The new Pineapple is awesome. It’s tangy, it’s fragrant, it’s a real hit. The Mango surprised me because I didn’t like it. I love mangos, I have a serious mango addiction when they’re in season (I’ll buy a half a dozen when they’re on sale and eat them in a weekend). But mango flavor is kind of like peach, it’s just not quite the same. It takes like pine needles and fake peaches to me.

A complaint I’ve heard about the new mix is that it’s no longer as colorful as it used to be. There are two yellows in there, no more blue or green. (Honestly, the Mango could have been green ... or even the Pineapple.) But I still find them very pleasant and are now back on my list of candies that I pick up every once in a while.

Wonka has always had the best names for their candies. Discontinued ones (that some will remember fondly): Wacky Wafers, Punkys, Oompa Loompas and Dweebs. Their current lineup still includes: Bottlecaps, Everlasting Gobstoppers (well, Roald Dahl came up with that one), Laffy Taffy (formerly Tangy Taffy) and of course all of the items swallowed up from Sunline like SweeTarts & Pixy Stix. 

Related Candies

1. Kasugai Fruits Lemonade
2. Mentos - Pine Fresh (Pineapple)
3. Oak Leaf Candies
4. Goodbye Tart n Tiny
5. Runts Freckled Eggs
6. Bottlecaps

Here’s a new jelly bean for flavor fans.

Nerds just don’t appeal to me much, part of it might be that they’re kind of hard to eat (maybe they should be sold in straws like Pixy Stix?), but I love the idea of them. Enter the Nerds Bumpy Jelly Beans.

Where regular jelly beans lack texture, each Nerds Bumpy Jelly Bean has oodles of nooks & lumps on a crunchy candy shell.

Where regular jelly beans lack a flavorful punch, each Nerd has a tasty tart layer just below the candy shell.

Yes, they look like freakish confectionery mistakes or maybe wads of leftover acrylic paint. They’re hard and have uneven textured shells. But they’re also vividly colored, so there’s no confusing any muted colors (is this pink or magenta?).

The biggest contribution these beans have to the jelly bean pantheon is crunch. They’re really crunchy.

Orange: a nice mellow orange flavor, with a rather tart flavor layer under the shell.

Lemon: the tartest of the bunch, it does kind of lose its zazz when I got to the end of chewing it up when it was just a big wad of sweet.

Strawberry: I was afraid this was going to be cherry, it’s not quite the vivid red I photographed, just slightly on the pinker side of red. A nice sort of cotton candy delicate floral strawberry with a dose of sour power.

Green Apple: my mix seemed to have an inordinate amount of these, which is too bad, because they were my least favorite. They are sour and do taste just like artificial green apple.

Grape: fantastically artificial, like having a Grape Shasta (complete with a slight fizz mimicked by the crunchy shell).

It’s funny how excited I am about these. Let’s face it, there hasn’t been much innovation in the jelly bean world since Jelly Belly started adding more flavor by using both a flavored center and a flavored shell.

These are fun to eat because there are so many options. You can just pop them in your mouth and chew them up, or let them dissolve or nibble away at the crunchy coating.

The centers are clear and have only a light flavor and a vague tartness to them.

I think they’re a great change-up from the milder jelly beans out there and will definitely appeal to kids, but are still palatable for adults. I enjoyed all the flavors (though picked around the green ones after I finished my review). Still, I found that I couldn’t eat as many of them as I can eat jelly beans. The tartness gave me a tummy ache after about a quarter of the bag. (See the levels of testing at Candy Blog Labs that I go through?)

The interesting news though is that while I was shopping at Walgreen’s a few weeks ago, I also found this little bag of Giant Chewy Nerds. I bought them, at first thinking they were a clearance item, perhaps a test marketing. But the expiration is December 2008, so they were definitely fresh.

So, it looks like this is what they’re called in the “Non-Easter Season”. I can find no mention of either of these products on the Wonka site (does that surprise anyone?).

SugarHog.net also has a review (and got hers at Target for $1.99) plus another review from Sugar Hi.

These have a variety of artificial colors in them as well as Carmine, making them unsuitable for vegetarians. 

Related Candies

1. Jelly Belly - All Natural
2. Blueberry Hill Spice Jelly Beans
3. SweeTart Jelly Beans
4. Organic Surf Sweets
5. Jelly Belly Soda Pop Shoppe
6. Starburst and Jelly Belly Jelly Beans
7. Jelly Belly - Full Line

It’s funny how many different interpretations there are in the confectionery world for the word “creme”. In the case of Cadbury Creme Eggs, it’s simply a runny fondant. In the case of many of the Hershey’s Kisses it’s a firmer fat based ganache style and in Starbursts it’s just a flavor.

In the case of Nestle, it means “something softer than chocolate”. I picked up their Nestle Crunch Creme Egg with Caramel and Butterfinger Creme Egg at the drug store to complete my All Egg Week.

At 1.1 ounces, the Nestle Crunch Creme Egg with Caramel is virtually the same weight as a Cadbury Creme Egg, but slightly narrower and denser.

The outer shell looks almost like dark chocolate. It has a pleasant little squiggly design and the name Nestle on both sides of the egg.

It’s easy to bite without any mess. The chocolate shell is pretty thick and contains the fillings well (no sticky eggs for me). The base of each half of the hemispheres is filled with a firm and lightly salty chocolate creme studded with crisped rice. Each side is a little shy of full and that reservoir holds a scant bit of flowing caramel along with a rather large void.

The caramel is a bit salty, not very caramel flavored, but I don’t expect that from Nestle. The chocolate creme is still chocolatey without any greasiness or sticky-milk qualities. I wanted more crunches though, I really like crisped rice and think this would benefit from more of it.

It’s a very dense egg, I think I might prefer it in a slightly smaller form (maybe a half an ounce like the Canadian Cadbury Eggs I tried last year) but it’s a rare egg these days in the drug store that’s just going for chocolate (with that little bit of caramel & crunchies).

I give it a 7 out of 10.

Nestle also makes the Wonka Golden Creme Eggs, which are pretty much the same thing except there are graham cracker flavored bits in there instead of crisped rice.

The Butterfinger Creme Egg says it’s 1.15 ounces but I have my doubts with that huge void there. At first I thought it was just that one that was a little underfilled, but the second one (still wrapped in the photo) had a similar large cavern of nothingness.

It smells sweet chocolatey with a good roasted peanut butter undertone.

My major complaint with Butterfinger bars is that they don’t use real chocolate on the outside. In the case of these (and the Butterfinger Jingles), it’s real Nestle Milk Chocolate (which still isn’t spectacular) ... well, that’s what the foil says, “Butterfinger Pieces & Peanut Butter Creme in a Milk Chocolate Shell” but I’m kind of unclear when I read the ingredients that featured the second ingredient as “confectionery coating” but that may be a mock white chocolate base of the creme filling.

All that aside, it’s an enjoyable egg. The center has all the flavor of a Butterfinger. That buttery flavor with the little crunchy bits of peanut butter brittle (that don’t stick to your teeth!) a little bit of salt to even out the very sweet chocolate shell. It’s nothing like the Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg, but that’s okay, they’re both pretty inexpensive, get both.

A solid 7 out of 10 for this one as well. 

Related Candies

1. Godiva Easter Eggs
2. Palmer Nest Eggs
3. Melster Marshmallow Eggs
4. See’s Scotchmallow Eggs
5. Dove Truffle and Snickers Eggs
6. Lake Champlain Hazelnut Eggs
7. Hershey Eggs

Okay, this isn’t a hollow chocolate rabbit, but it is hollow and it is chocolate and probably has bunny-shaped candies inside.

It’s the Wonka Chocolate Golden Egg. It’s Wonka because it’s made by Nestle. It’s chocolate because that’s what it’s made from. It’s golden because that’s what color the foil wrapper is and finally, it’s egg shaped.

It’s sold in a rather large box, which I suppose protects it well, but seems a bit of overkill for the amount of actual candy you get.

The whole confection clocks in at 4.5 ounces (the largest of my candy reviews in Hollow Chocolate Rabbit Week). What’s also different about this one is that it has something inside, a handful of SweeTarts Chicks, Ducks & Bunnies. The egg itself is 4.5” tall. The box that holds it is 7” tall.

The chocolate shell is woodgrained. Or maybe it’s supposed to look like a nut. I have no idea why it would be either. Eggs are smooth.

The chocolate itself is, well at least real. It’s very sweet, sticky and milky. It’s definitely not the wonderful Swiss milk chocolate that Nestle makes, but as novelty fare goes, it does pretty well.

Some pieces taste a little “fruitier” because of the SweeTarts.

My egg had eight SweeTarts Chicks, Ducks & Bunnies. Three red and five purple. I was spared the recent atrocity of the blue/tropical punch. I kind of hoped for more candy inside, but the amount matched the image on the box. Also, the candies rattle around inside and ding up the chocolate with little nicks and leave a SweeTart dust.

It’s fun, it’s well made (in Canada), but it’s a bit pricey at $7 to $8 retail (I haven’t found a store with them in stock, I got mine as a sample from CandyWarehouse.com). That ends up about $1.67 per ounce.

The Wonka Golden Egg is one of the few Wonka products that relates back to the 1971 movie adaptation. (And the best candy-themed musical rant ever.)

So if you have your own Veruca Salt at home, this might be the perfect featured item for an Easter basket. 

Related Candies

1. Palmer Bee Mine
2. Wonka Golden Creme Egg
3. SweeTarts: Chicks, Ducks & Bunnies
4. Wonka Bar

Yes, more heart shaped versions of popular candies. What’s different with the Wonka Everlasting Gobstopper Heart Breakers is more than the shape.

I’ve always loved Gobstoppers, especially the ones that came out originally that were more Everlasting (tm) than the current mini ones. They were the size of real jawbreakers (about the size of a walnut) and would actually last for an hour. I found the flavor layers a little more vibrant than the Ferrara Pan ones I was used to. It also seemed smoother and kind of cool on the tongue, great for a summer treat. Later they were reformatted to include a compressed dextrose sour center ... which is kind of nice too, because it means I can crunch it. I’m a cruncher.

The Heart Breakers are a similarly layered candy with a sweet & sour chalk center.

The color variety is different here than the regular bright versions in the box and lacking a green/apple one. But they gain a pink/strawberry.

The heart shape is soft and rounded, about the same diameter as a penny. They’re shiny and have the added bonus that they don’t roll around and off my desk like the spherical non-holiday version.

I think I might prefer these to the round ones. The fit nicely in the mouth, it’s easy to roll my tongue around on them or simply tuck it into my cheek discretely if I have to talk.

The flavor is mild. The candy layers have a light sweet flavor of whatever layer, with the out layer being the strongest. There’s no tartness with the outer layers, it’s all sweet. The “SweeTart” center is also only mildly flavored and not terribly sour, just a little on the tangy side and of course grainy.

They also look fabulous in the little jar, which is half the fun of candy. Of course they don’t last long in the jar. These would also make a fabulous candy for favors and candy buffets.

I don’t miss the green ones and actually like the strawberry quite a bit. I found the price of $1.99 for 12 ounces to be a bit high for a sugar candy, but if I can find these on sale after Valentine’s they’ll probably keep for quite a while. (I know, this is strange coming from a woman who just wrote about spending $5 on a candy bar yesterday.)

These Gobstoppers were made in Mexico. 

Related Candies

1. Atomic Fireballs
2. Anis de Flavigny
3. Wonka Sour Nerds
4. The Fruit Heads

Here’s something I haven’t seen at the stores. Nestle has expanded their Crunch Stixx line into the coffee arena with these Nestle Crunch Cappuccino Stixx. They come in a vivid red box that actually stopped me in my tracks at the Dollar Tree.

I was actually a little worried that this was a product that had come and gone and these were remnants, but these had an expiry date of May 2008, so for just a buck (they’re $2 or more at the grocery store), I figured I should give them a go. (I’ll admit I’m still confused because they’re not listed on the Nestle-Stixx website.)

(This is the same Dollar Tree where I stood there wondering why there were two different package designs for Goetze’s Caramel Creams ... then I looked at the expiration date, some were perfectly fresh and new, the others expired in early 2006. They were both the same price. Seriously, why would I buy the old ones, except perhaps as a wrapper collector? I bought the fresh ones.)

The official definition of these on the package is milk chocolate covering a wafer filled with cappuccino creme. I think they’re positioned to be a calorie-controlled portion, as they’re only 90 calories per stick.

Honestly, I didn’t expect much. I expected sweet milk chocolate and fake coffee creme.

However, they smelled pretty good. Like a good hot mocha. The crisp of the wafer tube was good, bland but with a slight cereal taste. The inside cream had a strong coffee essence to it and some actual bitterness. I welcomed that light bitter bite to go along with the sweet chocolate.

This is what Coffee Crisp should be like ... good coffee flavor, not too sweet with some light crunch and real chocolate.

I ate them. I ate them all. 

Related Candies

1. Cafe Select Chocolate Coffee Trios
2. Butterfinger Stixx
3. Pocket Coffee
4. Nestle Crunch Dark Stixx
5. Coffee Beat
6. Coffee Crisp

I have lots more candy to tell you about that I haven’t done full reviews for. Here’s a half dozen of them.

First is the Nestle KitKat Peanut Butter from Canada. The format on this bar is the single chunky finger. This is actually larger at 1.76 ounces than the American single finger bar which is 1.59 ounces. I found this bar at Mel & Rose’s Wine & Liquors on Melrose Ave a month ago.

The bar is thick and chunky but follows the standard KitKat formula.

There are wafers with cream filling then a thick stripe of peanut butter all covered in milk chocolate.

The package smelled strongly of raw peanuts when I opened it. Roasted peanuts have a deep and smoky tone to them, this was that higher octave scent, like freshly snapped peas mixed with peanuts.

The crunch of the bar was good, but there’s definitely a lot of chocolate in operation here. The peanut butter stripe is great. It’s very flavorful despite being so thin. It’s not sweetened at all, in fact it’s pretty salty. I preferred eating this bar like I eat most KitKats. I nibble off both ends of chocolate, then all the chocolate off the sides. Then I eat the less-chocolatey remains.

It was really good and I think I’d buy this if I could find it at my local store. Far more satisfying than a regular KitKat (4 grams of protein - one more than a regular) and not nearly as sweet.

Rating: 7 out of 10

Das Caramelini has a couple of new flavors. Most of the other candy bloggers also go free samples from Katie Das and covered it far quicker than I did, so I didn’t put down my thoughts right away.

She sent me Ginger & Pistachio which I already reviewed and loved last spring. The new-to-me flavor was Cafe Cortado. It’s a vanilla caramel with coffee.

Unfortunately I’m not keen on coffee beans in my food. It might be that I have a problem with caffeine or it might be that I don’t care for the texture, but these just didn’t do it for me. I tried a few, but I was very aware that I needed to eat them before noon (as I don’t drink coffee after that) which always made me feel pressured.

The great news though is that the wrapping of the caramels has been changed to a heavier waxed paper. They no longer stick to the paper and are far easier to keep popping in your mouth. The box looks deceptively small but holds a quarter of a pound of rich, boiled sugar & butter. You can order direct on their website for about $6.99 a box (less if you order more).

Rating: 8 out of 10

I ordered these Meiji Kaon Citrus from JBox.com last fall. I wasn’t quite sure what they were, but citrus and gummi combined with a brand like Meiji and I figured I could take a chance.

They’re not a transparent gummi, instead they’re opaque and matte. They’re still very soft and bouncy. They have a distinct bite, not a rubbery as a German gummi. The thing that was most clear was that this is a real fruit product. The texture feels a bit like pear, there’s a slight grain to it. Then there were a few bits of zest in there.

The flavor is predominantly tangerine with a little dollop of grapefruit & lemon in there for good measure. Completely addictive, I ordered two bags and ate both. They’re small bags though at only 35 grams each. I can’t remember how much I paid for them and of course JBox doesn’t have them on their site right now. (Here’s the official webpage.) See Sera’s review.

Rating: 8 out of 10

I picked up these little beauties at the All Candy Expo as samples, but I still haven’t found them in stores.

The Traditional Halva bars from Sultan’s Finest Foods are little .71 ounce bits of plain halva. They’re smooth and creamy with a strong sesame flavor to them.

It’s the perfect portion size, if only I can find them somewhere. These are made in Tunisia, and may be the first Tunisian candy mentioned on the blog! They’re imported by Agora International and come in a sugar free version as well. I think these sorts of sesame snacks are ideal, especially for hot weather. It’s creamy and filling, not too sweet and of course does better in hot weather than chocolate.

Rating: 7 out of 10

I’ve seen the Sencha Green Tea Mints at stores for years. I just couldn’t get my brain around them for the longest time. I like a mint that has some zazz to it, and the idea of green tea in a mint seemed to defeat the purpose.

These were sample packages that I picked up at ExpoWest which is for natural products. They’re usually sold in little maroon or dark colored tins with a clear top. These compressed candies are made from xylitol & sorbitol, which are natural sugar alcohols. They have a cool feeling on the tongue (and shouldn’t be consumed in large quantities because of some digestive troubles they can cause) and a subtle flavor.

The three flavors I got were: Delicate Pear, which is just slightly fruity and sweet. Green Tea was subtle and while fresh tasting, didn’t leave that minty burn.
Lively Lemongrass was, well, lightly lemon, but not quite lively.

The tea ingredients are fair trade and xylitol is supposed to be a pretty good base for gum & mints (not bad for your teeth, but bad for dogs). It’s hard to find sugar free mints that don’t have artificial sweeteners in them, so if you’re looking for something that fits that niche, these might be for you.

Rating: 5 out of 10

I’m very late with my write up on Stained Glass Candy. I ordered it online about a year ago. I expected it to be pretty little hexagonal disks of candy (about the size of a quarter), but the photography on their website didn’t prepare me at all for how lovely this stuff was.

Though it’s expensive for hard candy at $12.95 a pound (when you order 2 pounds), I figured I’d give it a try. The cool thing is that you can custom design your flavor mix, so I chose one pound of herbs & spices: cinnamon, hot cinnamon, wintergreen and anise. The second pound I did as fruits: banana, orange, lemon and pineapple.

Each piece came sealed in a little clear plastic sleeve with the name of the flavor printed on it. This was helpful as I’d ordered both cinnamon and hot cinnamon (definitely a difference!). The shapes were lovely, the colors clear (except for banana), distinctive and tasty. I loved the pineapple and anise especially.

The downside is that they’re a little softer than some hard candies, so they either need to be stored in a fridge to keep them from losing their shape eventually or just eaten quickly. The softness also means that they stick to teeth and can’t be crunched. But I kind of like slowly shaping them to the roof of my mouth.

I probably wouldn’t order these again unless I had a special need for them like a party or something. They’d make nice wedding favors or for a shower or something. But at five times the price of regular hard candy, it’d have to be a very special occasion or a very special flavor.

Rating: 6 out of 10

Related Candies

1. VerMints
2. Shigekix Aha! Brain (Citrus)
3. St. Claire’s Organic Mints & Tarts
4. HiCHEW Yuzu & Valencia
5. KitKat Caramel
6. Halvah and Turkish Delight