I’m not sure why Hershey’s is mucking around with the Take 5 bar, but happily these limited edition bars at least mean that they leave the original alone.
This version of the Take 5 is the first Limited Edition I’ve seen, as the White Chocolate and Peanut Butter are supposed to be permanent additions to the family.
In this iteration of the candy they’ve simply replaced the pretzel base with a chocolate cookie (ala Oreos). This created some balance problems for me with the bar. First, the pretzel was the linchpin of the Take 5 - you can’t have a Take 5 without a pretzel ... anything else in that slot and you’ve just made a Twix type bar. I don’t think the selling point of the Take 5 is just any old five ingredients - the pretzel is the unique selling point. This chocolate cookie is crisp and pretty thick, but it lacks a chocolate flavor of its own, and certainly isn’t as crispy as a pretzel and can’t match the salty hit and bland flavor that a pretzel has.
The balance is just all off and the crunchiness is gone, the variation in textures is missing ... it’s just lost its vibrancy and interest. The caramel doesn’t even seem as chewy or even noticeable (I did a double take after eating the first piece to make sure that there’s still caramel in there.)
Hershey’s is also planning a marshmallow version of this bar later this year. Or maybe they’ll read this and realize that there’s nothing wrong with the original Take 5 and just move on to adding different cookie bits to the Hershey’s Milk Chocolate bar or devising new KitKat flavors (may I suggest a peanut butter KitKat?).
We have a peanut butter Kitkat here in Canada. It doesn’t taste much of peanut butter - it’s way too sweet. I’d send you a couple of packages if you want to review them!
There’s a peanut butter Kit Kat in New Zealand that my friend’s sent me a couple times. It’s soooooo good. It’s one of the big bars, not the regular size, so you really get a *lot* of peanut butter.
I agree about the Take 5. I haven’t seen this new one, but the thing that makes Take 5 good in the first place is the salty pretzel…
Angi - see, the sweet part of peanut butter is always lost on me. I love the nutty and salty part as a complement to sweet milk chocolate.
Grace - it seems odd to go against the “unique selling point” of the Take 5 and eliminate the one thing that sets it apart from other candies.
Want some of those peanut butter kitkat bars? I’m probably biased in the fact that I hate peanut butter…except on toast! Email me if you want some, I run a variety store and can always spare a few bars of chocolate to chocoholics like myself.
Take 5 Cookie happens to be the best thing ever to happen to me and my coworkers. You cannot possibly imagine the trauma it caused us when the Family Dollar ran out and we discovered the supply would not be replenished. We even tried to order some on eBay, but the horrible seller sold them to us and then sent us a lame email about how she went shopping for them and they are no longer sold. Can you imagine? Obviously, they were no longer sold or we would have bought them at the store instead of online! I say bring the Cookie back.
Kara -
Try this site:
http://www.candydirect.com/bars/Take-5-Chocolate-Cookie.html
It’s a little expensive, but they are in stock!
We were fortunate enough to have both the chocolate cookie and peanut butter versions in my town. I loved the chocolate. The peanuts and peanut butter in the bar still supplied enough salt to balance the sweet, and the extra chocolate punch from the cookie made the bar richer than the original, but still very delicious.
The peanut butter is another story. It’s the same as a regular Take Five except it’s covered in a waxy, sickly sweet, peanut butter glaze. Gross. Couldn’t finish it.
Next entry: The Lemonhead & Fruit Heads
Previous entry: Coffee Beat