Monthly Archives: August 2009

Candy Review: Big Bite Gummy Bear

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Big Bite Gummy Bear

Remember when Godzilla first stomps his way into Tokyo? Picking up buses, throwing them down, weaving through the buildings toward the center of town? Well, that’s what we have today: the giant monster of the gummy bear forest. Your average gummy bear would be stunned in wide wonder to behold this thing, then run far, far away. The Big Bite Gummy Bear is 12 oz (most entire bags with dozens of gummy bears don’t weigh that much), and stands a mammoth three inches high.

And doesn’t this huge gummy bear kinda look monstrous? Glowing orange from some molten undersea origin, perhaps? Well… time to bite its face off.

After removing a band of plastic wrap, you need to pry away the two halves of a form-fitting, hard plastic mold that encase the beast. (Oddly, the mold has a lanyard loop; you could actually wear this thing as a necklace, I guess. Wow, that would hurt.)

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Candy Review: Ikea Jelly Rats and Candy Laces

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Ikea Jelly Rats and Laces

As I’ve said before, I can’t resist an animal-shaped candy. And when I saw these Jelly Rats in Ikea, I figured that even if these weren’t good to eat, they would be a good joke for my reptile-keeper friends. After all, why should the animals be the only ones who get to eat rats?

But after my recent surprising positive experience with the Trader Joe’s Gummy Tummy Penguin, I was more open-minded to the possibility that these might actually be good to eat. So I tried them myself.

There seem to be four flavors, of the yellow, light-green, orange and red varieties. They are fruit flavors, in a vague way. I found the red kind of nasty and the orange dull, when orange is usually my favorite fake-fruit flavor. The other two are innocuous.

The texture is pretty soft, only a little chew to it. And they’re only vague rat-shaped. Basically these are tolerable, but they’re no gummy tummy penguins.

I was also intrigued by Godis Gula Snören because, well, they are called Godis Gula Snören. I guess this is real Swedish, you couldn’t make this stuff up, right? Also, toffee flavor laces seemed exotic, if not necessarily a good idea. But I was willing to give it a try.

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Candy Review: Whittaker’s Kiwi Fruit Bar

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Whittakers Kiwi Bar

Back when I was doing the Great Chocolate Experiments, I tried a few unusual combinations of chocolate and fruits like sun-dried tomato and dried mango. But chocolate and kiwi is a new one on me, so I was intrigued when I received this Whittaker’s Kiwi Fruit chocolate bar from a friend (the same friend who was my Research Assistant for the Great Chocolate Experiments, if anyone’s keeping score). My friend’s brother left her with a few too many edible souvenirs from his trip to New Zealand, so I was happy to take this one off her hands – for the good of this website, of course.

Described on the package as “A New Zealand Favourite,” this paperback-sized block of milk chocolate (a whole 250 grams, or around half a pound) is divided into tiny bite-sized squares. Break one off, and you’ll find it’s studded with little green chunks. Dried kiwi? Not according to the ingredients, which contain only kiwi fruit and apple purees, making it more likely that the green bits are a jelly formed from dried fruit puree – fruit leather, in other words. (Chocolate-covered fruit leather – why didn’t I think of that?)

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Candy Review: Quality Candy Choco-Crisps

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Quality Candy Choco-Crisps

photo courtesy of Anthemic Tangle

Get ready for a slew of Quality Candy Company goodness because I’m in possession of a treasure trove of quality goodness! First up: Choco-Crisps, a new release from Quality Candy.

I thought these were going to be some kind of chocolate wafer thingy, but I was surprised to discover they are nothing of the sort. These little guys are hard candies on the outside with chocolate in the middle. The “crisp” part comes in with the candy shell: it’s not as hard as it looks. Rather, it’s thin enough that you can easily bite through to get to the chocolate inside. I really enjoyed the texture of the candy shell. It’s not as thin as, say, an M&M shell, but it’s thin enough to make it fun rather than a lot of work. Plus, it doesn’t get all sharp and painful when you chomp it up – it just adds a crunch factor to the chocolate.

Speaking of the chocolate, that was a nice surprise too. It’s got this really creamy consistency that melts slowly so you can really savor it. The creaminess of the chocolate contrasts with the crunchiness of the candy shell so you get this mix of textures that’s dynamite.

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Candy Review: Nuclear Warheads Sour QBZ

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Warheads QBZ

Perhaps unusually for a sour-head like myself, I’ve never actually tried Nuclear Warheads. If the name is anything to go by, they should be about the sourest candy you can get in North America, but somehow I’ve just never tried them.

I guess that makes me pretty unsuited to review Warheads’ spin-off candy, Sour QBZ, described unenlighteningly on the package as “chewy fruity cubes.” Still, sour is sour, and I know what I like, so let’s get tasting!

My sample-sized bag of QBZ contained six soft, opaque cubes, each about the size of a dice and with a coating of sour sugar. They didn’t look like gummies, more like the soft pectin jelly of lunchbox fruit snacks. (They have both pectin and gelatin in the ingredients.) I received three red QBZ, and one each of pink, blue and green.

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