REVIEW: Hershey’s Carrot Cake Kisses

Hershey's Carrot Cake Kisses

Carrot Cake is always a cause for celebration.

History proves it: when the Red Coats turn and ran from the Lower East Side in 1783, George Washington celebrated with a big old slice of carrot tea cake. Why? Because nothing says BOOM, ‘MURICA like sneaking vegetables into dessert. It is just our way. You can call it the best of both worlds, or having your cake and eating it too, or just a pretext to improve your night vision while not giving up the sensual pleasure of cake.

But whatever you call it, call it what it is: America’s most beloved combination of vegetables and cream cheese this side of pumpkin spice season.

Carrot Cake is also the newest seasonal Hershey’s Kisses. Non-chocolate Kisses (which are not to be confused with French kisses, which are equally as delightful as Hershey’s Kisses) are a rarity in the candy world, and in my experience, a mixed bag. Sometimes good, sometimes meh, you never know what to make of the seasonally-themed flavors until you try them. This of course is possible thanks to the miracle of capitalism, and the tireless efforts of the overnight employees stocking the Walmart candy shelves the day after the last holiday ended.

Hershey's Carrot Cake Kisses 2

I have a theory about carrot cake: aside from being an “Easter” flavor, its appeal derives from the fact that it has a little something of everyone’s other favorite cakes and flavors.

But if your idea of carrot cake is the kind of cake you eat when you really just want fruitcake, then these Kisses are not from you. There are no raisins, pineapple, or nuts of any kind in the filling, and as far as I know, they don’t have any booze in them.

Hershey's Carrot Cake Kisses 4

Likewise, if carrot cake is the kind is cake you turn to for the moist, super-carroty experience, then these Kisses don’t quite do the job, because the carrot flavor isn’t very distinct. And, finally, if carrot cake is what you’re looking for when you really just want an excuse to lick cream cheese frosting, the white center of each Kiss — which tastes like a combination of fondant and buttercream and a little bit of sour cream — leaves much to be desired.

Who are these Kisses for? They’re for people who like super sweet carrot cake with a little, but not a lot of, tang; those who enjoy the saccharine smell of fondant; people who are looking for a less assertive flavor still reminiscent of pumpkin spice during the spring; and, finally, folks who enjoy sucking on candy whose shape recalls infant memories of breastfeeding.

In all honesty the Kisses aren’t bad. While they are hyper-sweet, there’s a milky appeal to the orange layer, with an artificial spice flavor that lingers. It’s not a bad flavor though. A slightly tangy finish with the fondant and buttercream-like center leaves the tongue with the impression that you’ve eaten more than just sugar and vegetable oil.

Hershey's Carrot Cake Kisses 3

It’s not a moist and decadent carrot cake, but it’s a respectable, albeit too sweet and artificial, celebration of familiar spices and buttercream flavors in the convenient nipple-looking package of a Hershey’s Kiss. And at just under 25 calories a Kiss, it’s a bit easier on the waistline than a carrot cake. The Kisses might not be kicking the British out of Manhattan in the Revolutionary War, but my celebration standards are not quite so lofty, so I’ll go ahead and have another.

(Nutrition Facts – 9 Kisses – 220 calories, 110 calories from fat, 12 grams of fat, 8 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, less than 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 55 milligrams of sodium, 25 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 23 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.)

Purchased Price: $2.98
Size: 9 oz. bag
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Enjoyable melt-in-your mouth Kisses quality. Sweet warming spices. Pretty good combination of buttercream, white-chocolate, and fondant frosting. The American way.
Cons: Lacks really deep carrot cake flavor. Cream cheese tang and richness is missing. Cloying. Doesn’t contain any of the usual carrot cake mix-ins. Awesome source of saturated fat and Yellow Lake #5.

REVIEW: Cadbury Oreo Creme Egg (Canada)

Cadbury Oreo Creme Egg

How did the Oreo Creme Egg not already exist? It just feels right, doesn’t it?

It feels like the last few years of Creme Egg varieties has been leading up to this moment. Now all we need is a Creme Egg-flavoured Oreo so that the whole world can fold in on itself, like two Ron Silvers touching each other in Timecop, but on a cosmic scale.

Before I go any further, I need to talk about how amazing the new Creme Egg packaging is. I think I can say without an ounce of hyperbole that it’s the greatest thing to happen to humanity since the invention of the printing press. Gone are the days of struggling to remove the foil wrapper in one clean piece, and having to contend with fiddly little half-stuck pieces of foil that make you want to hurl yourself head-first through a plate-glass window.

Instead, you just pull apart the seam on the two pieces of egg-shaped plastic and it pops open, effortlessly revealing the Creme Egg bounty within. The whole process takes less than one second, and it is glorious. Whoever invented that packaging deserves a vigorous round of high-fives, back-pats, and hearty handshakes.

But this isn’t a packaging blog (if it were, trust me, that packaging would score 10 out of 10. No… 100 out of 10. DON’T FIGHT IT, JUST LET IT HAPPEN), so I guess I should talk about the chocolate egg nestled within that magnificent package.

I had feared that they might take the lazy way out and take a regular Creme Egg, remove the orange food colouring, throw in some Oreo bits and call it a day. But the extent to which they have successfully Oreoified the Creme Egg is kind of breathtaking.

Cadbury Oreo Creme Egg 2

The egg itself, however, is unchanged, right down to the classic star-surrounded-by-circles exterior design. This is the egg’s biggest stumbling block. Not that it’s bad quality chocolate; it has a nice creamy melt and that distinctive Cadbury milk chocolate flavour. But it’s very sweet, and when combined with the even sweeter filling, it’s sugar overload. A dark chocolate version would be perfect, but since that doesn’t even exist for the standard Creme Egg, I think it’s wishful thinking.

Cadbury Oreo Creme Egg 3

The filling is pretty amazing, though. It’s completely different from the O.G. Creme Egg, with a frosting-like, less sticky consistency that’s impressively Oreo-y without being overbearing (it’s slightly lighter and creamier than actual Oreo filling). The crunchy bits of Oreo cookies interspersed throughout the filling add more flavour and texture than you’d imagine. They give the egg a cocoa-tinged flavour and satisfying amount of crunch while further cementing its Oreo pedigree.

Cadbury Oreo Creme Egg 4

The whole thing is still two or three notches more cloying than I’d like it to be, but it definitely has a mellower, less throat-burningly sweet flavour than the classic Creme Egg. I could easily see myself eating more of these, and I usually top out at one Creme Egg per year, thanks to its in-your-face sweetness.

(Nutrition Facts – Not available.)

Item: Cadbury Oreo Creme Egg
Purchased Price: $0.97 CAN
Size: 34 grams
Purchased at: Longo’s
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pros: Nails the Oreo flavour. Crunchy cookie bits. Not as overbearingly sweet as a standard Creme Egg. The greatest packaging in the history of packaging. Timecop.
Cons: Still sweeter than it should be. Lack of a dark chocolate variety. PTSD-esque flashbacks of opening the old foil packaging.

REVIEW: White Strawberry Shortcake M&M’s

White Strawberry Shortcake M&M’s

Eat your fruit. It’s good for you, they say. It gives you antioxidants, they say. It turns you into an Animorph and lets you shoot laser beams out of your eyeballs, they say. (They actually only say two of these. I’ll let you choose which.)

But sometimes, you don’t want fruit. Not fresh, dried, packaged or plain. Sometimes you want dye-colored, artificially-enhanced pretend fruit in all its sucrose-filled glory. BUT just because it’s pretend doesn’t mean we lower our standards. We want funky grapes, sweet-tart lemons, and a strawberry so balanced and sweet, it makes umami disappear. Who shall take up the reins and harken to our plea for a strawberry-inspired white chocolate? Who shall deliver it in morsel form??

Well, M&M’s gave it a shot.

White Strawberry Shortcake M&M’s 2

The multi-colored morsels tumble out of the bag, bumbling about in their charming, misshapen way. Indeed, M&M’s could start a Home Depot paint line with as many colors as they shroud their candies in these days. This time around, Mars stuck with a white, light pink, and beige color palette, or, as the paint-namers say, “Minced Onion, Palace Rose, and Vanilla Clay.”

White Strawberry Shortcake M&M’s 3

The bits smell distinctly of the brightness that comes from opening a bag of Skittles, and, indeed, the first bite reminds me of a Strawberry Skittle, with its sweet, floral strawberry flavor and crunchy outer shell. The shell immediately crumbles, leaving the white chocolate center to melt into goo, coating your mouth with a light, Starburst-like strawberry sweetness.

The chocolate’s not nuanced or particularly high quality, but, if my eyes don’t deceive, the ingredients list includes cocoa-butter-filled white chocolate rather than, “White Confection,” which might be better described as, “Nefarious, sweetened Vasoline born to create destruction.”

And using that white chocolate pays off. With a hint of vanilla and sugar-filled creaminess, the elements come together just enough to remind me of the strawberry and whipped topping (think: Cool Whip from the tub) often found in strawberry shortcake. Okay, so it’s missing the whole “Shortbread Biscuit” thing, but I enjoy my strawberry-shortcake-inspired bits nonetheless, reveling in the fact that I didn’t even have to open an oven to achieve such joy. Laziness, for the win.

White Strawberry Shortcake M&M’s 4

Life is fraught with dangers, both real and imagined. Strawberry-shortcake-flavored candy should not be one of them. M&M’s knows this. They made a sweet, strawberry morsel that harkens back to a Strawberry Skittle (my favorite flavor) enmeshed with their fudgy white chocolate.

Sure, it’s a bit sweet, not the best quality chocolate, doesn’t include a shortcake biscuit, and won’t replace your everyday fruits (remember: you need that fruit so you can shoot laser beams out of your eyeballs), but, for 2016, I hear many folks hope to do more of what they love. Hypothesizing that M&M’s likes cranking out a whole bunch of seasonally flavored morsels, it looks like M&M’s plans to do that, too. If this is how doing more of what you love tastes, I have hope.

(Nutrition Facts – 1.5 oz – 210 calories, 100 calories from fat, 10 grams of fat, 6 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 40 milligrams of sodium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 28 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein..)

Item: White Strawberry Shortcake M&M’s
Purchased Price: $3.19
Size: 8 oz. bag
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Strawberry Skittles. Crunchy shell. Creamy center. Actual white chocolate. Cool Whip from the tub. Laziness, for the win. Fruit that turns you into an Animorph.
Cons: Where’s the shortcake? Will not appeal to those who are Strawberry Starbursts/Skittles haters. Not the best quality white chocolate. Life is fraught with dangers. Being faced with too many paint colors.

REVIEW: Snickers Crisper

Snickers Crisper

Chocolate. Caramel. Peanuts. Nougat. Perfection.

You can’t improve on perfection, but adding crisp rice pieces to a Snickers bar certainly can’t be a bad thing.

Enter Snickers Crisper – crisp rice, milk chocolate, caramel, peanuts and…

Hold on. Let me just flip the bag over and see if it says “nougat” somewhere. Surely they couldn’t have removed the nougat.

I don’t see it. Ha. This must be a typo. I can’t believe they would send out a bag like this with such a mistake, but I’ll let it slide. They were probably rushing them to the shelves for the holidays.

Let me just take a quick bite and confirm that there is indeed the delicious nougat I’ve become accustomed to in a Snickers bar.

Mmmm. Oh yeah. Good crunch, familiar Snickers taste, and…

It’s not there.

It’s not there?!

Remain calm. It’s gotta be in there somewhere. I will find the nougat! Let me just take one more bite.

There’s no nougat. What a tragedy. I assumed this was just a nice Snickers bar with some crispy rice thrown in for additional crunch… but no noug…

Sorry about that, I passed out from shock.

Snickers Crisper 2

Snickers Crisper 3

However, nougat omission aside, it’s delicious. There were about 15 fun-sized pieces in the bag, and I put down ten easy.

Why wouldn’t it be delicious? If the word “Snickers” is in the title, you can pretty much guarantee it’s gonna be good. It’s the same Mars chocolate you grew up with. It’s the same silky caramel you know and love, and it’s the same peanuts. I don’t really have anything fond to say about them because they’re just peanuts.

I was clearly worried that the lack of nougat would screw with the texture of the bar, but there’s still enough chocolate and caramel to keep it from being a “wafery” crisp. The ingredients still mesh well enough that you won’t even miss the nougat all that much.

Snickers Crisper 4

To me it tastes like a Kudos Bar. I actually got hit with a nostalgia wave when I bit in. I used to eat Kudos religiously as a kid, but haven’t had one in years. This is a Kudos Snickers bar covered in chocolate.

Keeping that in mind, Snickers Crisper Bars are a different chew than normal. The crisp isn’t a bad element by any means, but these just taste and feel more like a chewy granola bar than your standard Snickers candy bar. Although these are fun size pieces, I’d recommend biting into a square and not putting the whole thing in your mouth, unless you’d like a jaw workout.

So while this new candy bar isn’t as perfect as regular Snickers, it’s really close.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 square – 100 calories, 40 calories from fat, 4.5 grams of fat, 2.5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of cholesterol, 45 milligrams of sodium, 13 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 10 grams of sugar, and 1 gram of protein..)

Item: Snickers Crisper
Purchased Price: $3.48
Size: 10.61 oz. bag
Purchased at: Walmart
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pros: It’s still basically a Snickers. Addictive. Delicious caramel. Rice crisps add a nice texture. Kudos nostalgia.
Cons: Has a texture and taste that’s more like a granola bar than candy bar. Passing out. Jaw workouts.

REVIEW: Milk Chocolate Cafe Mocha M&M’s

Cafe Mocha Milk Chocolate M&M's

According to the Café Mocha M&M’s packaging, “The Holidays are better with M.”

That’s a fair statement in this reviewer’s opinion. Unless we’re talking plain M&M’s.

Plain M&M’s stink. They stink!

There, I said it. Who needs ’em?

I think they’re the 43rd best candy in the candy aisle. They’re a cookie ingredient. They exist to be customized and given out as expensive party favors. Plain M&M’s are co-stars in a good trail mix at best. They’re raisins. You can keep ’em.

Phew! Sorry folks, but that mini rant felt good. You know Vin always brings those controversial opinions. You can’t spell “controversial” without “Vin”…if you eliminate a bunch of letters and then rearrange them for some reason.

Now that I got that off my chest, I should say I actually do enjoy most other M&M’s variations. Whether it’s the ol’ reliable Peanut or the Greatest of All Time Peanut Butter; from Crispy to Pretzel to Peppermint; and all the way down to Almond and Candy Corn, M&M’s usually brings it with their other flavors. So I was genuinely excited to try the new Café Mocha M&M’s.

First, the sniff test. This was a major bummer. The bag smells like a standard bag of M&M’s. I was hoping it would have a coffee scent because I find few smells better than a freshly opened bag of coffee beans.

Cafe Mocha Milk Chocolate M&M's 2

Next, the eye test. As you can see they come in the classic green and red holiday colors. In terms of size, they’re about the same diameter of a Peanut Butter M&M and they’re bigger than a regular, but smaller than a peanut.

Last but not least, the taste test. At first it tastes like a plain M&M whose recipe went awry. It’s almost like I’m eating semi-sweet mini M&Ms made specifically for baking. The mocha is there, but the “café” takes a few seconds to recognize. Once you get the slightly bitter coffee element, it levels out and becomes a successful enough piece of candy. These are milk chocolate based, but I might have guessed dark.

If you scoop a handful of these at a holiday party, you might not even know what the flavor is. If I didn’t have the bag in front of me, I would have probably taken a couple minutes to figure it out.

Don’t get me wrong, they’re pretty good, but I think they should have had more coffee flavor. If you’ve ever had a chocolate covered espresso bean, the taste is similar. These don’t pack as much flavor intensity as any chocolate espresso bean I’ve had, but they’re definitely in the ballpark.

Café Mocha M&M’s probably aren’t going to become one of your holiday staples, but they’re definitely worth a try.

(Nutrition Facts – 1.5 oz. – 210 calories, 80 calories from fat, 9 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 5 grams of cholesterol, 30 milligrams of sodium, 30 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of fiber, 27 grams of sugar, and 2 grams of protein.)

Item: Milk Chocolate Café Mocha M&M’s
Purchased Price: $3.19
Size: 8 oz. bag
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 6 out of 10
Pros: Better than plain M&M’s. Flavor is similar to chocolate espresso beans. Decent seasonal candy option.
Cons: Coffee/espresso flavor isn’t strong enough. There are better M&M’s choices. Bag doesn’t smell like fresh coffee beans. Raisins.