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| An Incredibly Delectable EggCandy Review
CADBURY ORANGE CREME EGG
One of the mainstays of Easter candy for over a decade has been the Cadbury Creme Egg. This year, Cadbury added something new to their Easter selections -- the Orange Creme Egg.
Like the original Creme Egg, the Orange Creme Egg has an outer shell of milk chocolate surrounding a soft fondant center. The fondant even has "yolk" and "white" colors, just like the original Creme Egg's fondant. But there are slight differences. In the orange Creme Egg, the "yolk' part of the fondant is a rich, vivid orange rather than a bright yellow color, and the "white" part of the fondant has just the slightest touch of orange color. Not too much; just enough to be noticeable. And the fondant also has an orange flavor.
The shell is Cadbury's milk chocolate -- a slightly richer chocolate that most domestic milk chocolates. The shell is substantial; thick enough to ensure that the fondant center doesn't leak out until you bite into the egg.
When you do bite into the Orange Creme Egg, you first encounter that smooth, rich chocolate. That is followed by a burst of sweet orange flavor as the fondant hits your tongue. The two flavors blend together harmoniously on the tastebuds, bringing together different notes of sweetness.
When the original Creme Eggs first came out years ago, I would stock up on them both before and after Easter. In more recent years, my attention turned to the Cadbury Caramel Egg, which I found more to my own preferences. Now, I may have another chocolate egg that I might find myself stockpiling.
Because of its seasonal nature, the Orange Creme Egg will be gone once the Easter Bunny has hopped off into the sunrise of Easter. I'm willing to bet, though, that we will be seeing it again next year. I think Cadbury might have another winner on their hands. Now if they would just bring back the commercials with the clucking bunnies . . .
-jc- | | |
| The Probably Overdue ExplanationSTATUS: Currently transferring entries from 2007.
[Step by step, one by one, higher and higher . . . ]
Hello, and welcome to A Chocoholic UnAnonymous.
My name is Johnny Carruthers, and I am the aforementioned chocoholic.
I have been writing reviews of candy bars and other confectionary goodies for quite a few years. I was already writing articles for a couple of science fiction fanzines (that's where the "scifi" part of my username comes in), when, in a fit of whimsy, I decided to write a review of a candy bar. My editors liked the idea, and they printed it, so I wrote more.
A couple of years ago, though, I had this epiphany. I realized that I had more reviews that I wanted to write than could ever be used in print, even if my editors ran an issue of nothing but my reviews. And I knew that was more than a little unlikely.
Since I didn't have the inclination to publish my own fanzine (for one thing, I didn't think I could do a decent fanzine on a regular basis), I turned to the Internet. The first version of A Chocoholic UnAnonymous was launched on LiveJournal in July 2006. It's still there, by the way. This version isn't a replacement; it's an expansion. An attempt to gain a wider audience, as it were.
Not too long ago, my friend Janus (aka "janusfiles") mentioned that Xanga had finally added a feature where you could adjust the dates of your entries. And after reading (with some amusement) of how he created a mirror site on LiveJournal for his Xanga site, I decided to do the same, only reversing the direction of migration. I seem to have picked up at least a few readers, due in no small part to Janus's telling all of his friends and subscribers about me. For those of you who discovered me this way, I thank you.
And if you discovered me through some other means, I thank you as well.
Somewhere along the line, one of my subscribers here asked why updates weren't appearing in her subscription digest. To the best of my knowledge, it was because I was backdating entries as I posted them. I decided that I needed to change the way I posted things just a bit.
So now, any new entry will have the current date for at least the first 24 hours. After that, the time/date stamp will be changed to match its original posting date. (And the quicker I receive comments on a new entry, the sooner another entry gets posted. Hint, hint.)
This entry will be updated from time to time, and will be deleted once I have copied all of the older entries. And I plan on taking my time copying the entries. From what I saw, Janus was trying to copy everything as quickly as he possibly could. I plan on treating this as a marathon; something that requires patience and endurance. Much easier on the sanity that way.
Once again, welcome, and I hope you enjoy. And if you do enjoy, please leave comments. Lots and lots of comments, thank you very much. It's probably the easiest way I can really tell if someone is reading what I am writing.
Oh, and if you're really curious as to what I might currently reviewing, the original version of A Chocoholic UnAnonymous can be found by clicking on the link below:
http://chocolatescifi.livejournal.com
-jc- | | |
| An Egg For CharlieCandy Review
WONKA GOLDEN CREME EGG
In previous reviews, I have lamented that for the most part, Nestle has used its Wonka license for non-chocolate candies. Well, for Easter, Nestle has brought out the rare Wonka chocolate product, the Wonka Golden Creme Egg.
Like the Cadbury Creme Egg, this candy egg truly is egg-shaped, and not a flattened oval, although it is more symmetrical than Cadbury's eggs. It's closer to a football shape, but I am digressing. The wrapper describes the Golden Creme Egg as "chocolate creme and caramel with graham flavored cookie pieces in a milk chocolate shell."
The outer shell is Wonka milk chocolate, and nothing but Wonka milk chocolate. All the better to surprise the person who didn't pay attention to the copy on the golden foil wrapper -- or the youngster who sees it only as an obstacle to the confectionary yumminess inside. The chocolate creme and caramel lay nestled side by side inside the chocolate shell, with the graham cookie pieces inside the chocolate creme.
The caramel is firm, not flowing. It's firm enough to be chewy, which is always a plus to me. The semi-liquid caramel that I have encountered in some candies is pleasant enough, but there is always the problem of keeping the caramel under control once you bite through the chocolate shell. That is not a problem here.
The graham cookie pieces are slightly smaller here than they are in the Wonka Bar. They provide the same crunch, but either their smaller size or the amount of cookie pieces in the egg (possibly a combination of both) mutes the effect of the crunch ever so slightly. And while the flavor of the cookie pieces is quite noticeable in the Wonka Bar, in the Golden Creme Egg it is almost overwhelmed by the sweetness of the caramel and the chocolate creme.
It's a little difficult to distinguish between the chocolate creme inside and the milk chocolate shell outside. The two are just too similar; the total product would have been better if one had been a darker chocolate. Having said that, it's probably the only major complaint I have with the Golden Creme Egg.
As is the case with all seasonal candy, the Wonka Golden Creme Egg will fade away from the shelves once Peter Cottontail has finished his annual hop down the bunny trail. I strongly suspect, though, that it will reappear somewhere around February 15. I think this is one that be making annual appearances from now on.
-jc- | | |
| Big Honking KissCandy Review
HERSHEY MILK CHOCOLATE TRUFFLE KISSES
This particular twist on the Hershey's Kiss caught me a little by surprise. Not the product itself. After I saw the Dark Chocolate Truffle Kisses last year, I figured that it was only aa matter of time before Hershey decided to produce a milk chocolate version.
What surprised me was the packaging. These Kisses don't come in the usual bags of varying sizes. Instead, they are packaged in triangular prism shape -- something quite similar to the packaging for the Toblerone candy bars. There are only five Kisses in each of these packs. And these Kisses are larger than usual; roughly 50% larger.
The Kisses are a shell of Hershey's extra creamy milk chocolate. Inside that shell is a chocolate truffle filling. It's the same truffle filling that Hershey has used for the Dark Chocolate Truffle Kisses, the Truffle Nuggets, and the Cacao Reserve Truffles.
The milk chocolate is as smooth and creamy as usual. The shell seems to be thicker than it would on a standard size Kiss, which means that there is proportionally less of the truffle filling than there would be if this was a standard size Kiss. From just an eyeball guess, it looks as though the truffle filling in this Kiss is the same amount as it is in the Dark Chocolate Truffle Kisses. This is only a guess, though, and not anything resembling a scientific measurement.
As I mentioned earlier, the truffle filling is the same that Hershey has used for other products. It has a slightly richer flavor than any of Hershey's milk chocolates, but it doesn't come quite to the point of being a dark chocolate. And as I think I have mentioned in previous reviews, using a darker chocolate truffle filling with a milk chocolate shell would provide for a stronger contrast in flavors between the shell and filling.
And therein lies what I consider to be the main problem with these Kisses. The flavors of the milk chocolate shell and the truffle filling are too close to one another. If you're going to have a filled Kiss, the filling needs to have enough difference in flavor so that your tongue can notice the difference. There is a slight difference, but you really have to be paying attention as the chocolate rolls over your tongue and around in your mouth. The Kisses are good, but they could be better.
I'm still a little puzzled by why Hershey chose to produce the Milk Chocolate Truffle Kisses in this larger size, or why they packaged them the way that they did. I suppose one possibility is that they wanted something that would be considered a single serving package. I can't think of anything else that would make more sense at the moment, so we'll go with that.
At the moment, I have no idea whether or not this is a limited edition. On the one hand, I have seen nothing on the packaging or on the store displays that would indicate that this is a limited edition. On the other hand, it started appearing in the stores right as the Easter candy was starting to nudge out the Valentine candy. It seems to be something of a Schroedinger's Cat question. We may not know if it is a limited edition until we actually see the last packages disappearing from the stores.
-jc- | | |
| Still No (Chocolate) CigarCandy Bar Review
KIT KAT BUNNY EARS
A few weeks ago, Hershey released a special version of the Kit Kat bar for Valentine's Day. With Easter coming up, Hershey has produced a similar Kit Kat for Easter -- the Kit Kat Bunny Ears.
As I mentioned when I reviewed the Best Friends Hearts Kit Kat, Hershey didn't go far enough in making something different for Valentine's Day. Unfortunately, the same holds true for the Bunny Ears as well.
Like the Best Friends Hearts, the Bunny Ears separates into two sections, instead of the usual four fingers. Each half has a bunny head at one end, and the ears stretch the length of the two fingers of each section.
It's a cute idea, but again, Hershey falls a little flat by using it with the original Kit Kat bar. I think they could have made it a little more special by using a different Kit Kat variation, although this time I am uncertain as to which variation would have worked best. Perhaps if Hershey had done something different for Valentine's Day, just using the original Kit Kat for Easter would have worked better.
Again, Hershey tried for a home run. Again, they ended up with only a triple.
-jc- | | |
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