Jer’s all natural Toffee Break Gourmet Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars have very promising ingredients: organic peanut butter (unhomogenized, using Valencia peanuts), dark chocolate, sugar, sweet cream, salt and butter. (Notice: no trans fat or hydrogenated oils, and no artificial ingredients.) Sounds good, right? Well, you haven’t read his PR.

In the Jer’s Handmade Chocolates press release FAQ that accompanied my sample, founder Jerry Swain asks himself, “Now that you own your own chocolate business, why do you think people enjoy your story?” I won’t bore you with the answer – it’s as banal and self-congratulatory as the rest of the document’s fatuous verbiage. But hey, even hot air balloons sometimes carry good candy, right? So let’s check these out.

The Toffee Break package contains two small-to-average-sized, individually wrapped candy bars (50g, 1.75 oz each). Unless you live in San Diego, you’d have to buy these online. On Amazon, when you include shipping, they cost $35 for 4 packages (for a total of 8 bars). That works out to $8.75 per 3.5 oz package of two bars. Geez, these better be good.

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Candy Addicts everywhere praised Nestle when it released its Nestle Crunch Crisp and Butterfinger Crisp, wafer spin-offs of the classic confections. It seemed only a matter of time until the gurus at Nestle decided to take their next most popular candy bar and give it a “Crisp” makeover.

That’s right. Baby Ruth. The All Candy Expo did not disappoint when I ambled by the Nestle booth and spotted this not-yet-released candy that is supposed to debut this year.

There weren’t any full-sized bars to sample, and I was only allowed to grab one snack-sized piece; luckily, the Expo is three days, and I was able to procure three of those small treats and report on them.

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photos in this post courtesy of Anthemic Tangle

Even though I didn’t go to the All Candy Expo, I’m still reaping the benefits. Robby has been kind enough to share his stash with me and now I get to share it with you.

I love chocolate – like any self-respecting Candy Addict I consider it to be one of the major food groups. So imagine my delight upon hearing about the new Snickers fudge bar. I love Snickers, I love fudge, and putting them together? Wahoo! My tummy did a little happy dance at just the thought of it… and I gotta tell you, the reality is as good as I’d hoped.

What they’ve done is to replace the regular caramel with fudge and the regular nougat with peanut butter nougat. I was a little worried that would make the Snickers too sweet, but my fears were without basis. When I bit into this, I tasted sweet creamy chocolate followed immediately by a really strong peanut flavor. The peanuts temper the sweetness and both blend with and provide a counterpoint to the fudge. And the fudge, it makes the Snickers even more creamy than usual. So I got the creaminess of the chocolate, fudge, and peanut butter nougat mixed with the crunch from the peanuts for a really cool texture, along with the blended peanut butter/fudge/chocolate flavors – all smushed into one delectable bar. I loved it!

If you’re a Snickers fan, or you like the peanut butter and chocolate flavor combo, you’ve got to try these! Keep an eye out for them, because they’ll be coming soon (probably around August).

• Snickers Website

photos in this post courtesy of Anthemic Tangle
For me, one of the best things about Easter candy is the plethora of interesting chocolate Easter egg flavors. For some reason, this year I kept seeing caramel eggs everywhere. It’s like the Easter Bunny was laying them in my path in every store I visited. Being a Candy Addict, I couldn’t just ignore that kind of taunting and finally bought a bunch of different kinds to try.

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Brach’s is probably most well known for their caramels and candy corn, but they make a vast array of other products. Like Russell Stover and Palmer, Brach’s is a candy company that exists outside of the big three, but with a pretty ubiquitous presence in the market.

Because most Brach’s candy is sold as bulk mix-and-match penny candy or in discount packs, I never really bought them as a kid, thinking they were inherently inferior (I always bought the candy with the prettiest and/or shiniest wrappers). But after falling in love with their caramel apple candy corn, I viewed this facet of the candy industry with a refreshed perception and was ready to sample a variety of their products.

Their website lists 109 different types of candy they manufacture, so it was difficult choosing what to review. Because I was limited in my selections, I chose to forgo eating some of their better known products, such as their bridge mix, so that I could review a variety of products that differentiated themselves from the staple chocolate-covered raisin. All these were purchased at my local H.E.B.

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