One of the hardest things about dieting is denying yourself all the tasty treats that caused you to need to diet in the first place. The candy displays at the checkout line can be the downfall of a dieter who has only the best intentions. The Kit Kats and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups seem to call your name. “Buy me, eat me,” they say. It’s more than even the most dedicated dieter can resist.

The Hershey Company to the rescue! In 2006 and 2007, Hershey rolled out a new line of chocolate bars that have only 100 calories per pack. The slogan is “More Pleasure, Less Guilt.” Each variety in this 100 Calorie line puts a new spin on an old favorite. They come in a box with seven packs per box. Each pack contains two bars, for a total of 14 bars per box at a suggested retail price of $2.99. Each box should last about a week… or, uh, you know… two days….

I recently treated myself by buying four out of the five available varieties and now have on my desk a most scrumptious display of candy: one package each of Hershey’s 100 calorie Pretzel Bars, Crisp Wafer Bars, and York Peppermint Wafer Bars and two empty packages of Reese’s 100 Calorie Peanut Butter Wafer Bars. Yes, dear readers, I love being a Candy Addict!.

While eating several packs in one sitting completely defeats the purpose of buying 100 calorie candy, that is what I am about to do in the interest of sharing important flavor information with the rest of the Candy Addict world.

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When I bite into a York Peppermint Pattie, I get the sensation of driving a team of sled dogs through the Alaskan wilderness in the Iditarod. Do you remember those commercials?

I bought a Hershey York Peppermint Pattie a few weeks ago and was immediately accosted by my family: “Can I have a piece?” “When can we eat that?” What!? This bit of chocolate bliss has a diameter of about 2.5″ and you want us to split it four ways? Alas, when you’re part of a Candy Addict family, you have to share.

The Peppermint Pattie, as you may know, is a disc of peppermint-flavored sugar covered in a thin layer of chocolate. When I finally got to eat my fourth of the Peppermint Pattie in peace, the strong peppermint flavor filled my mouth. It’s a very refreshing flavor, a “zing” if you will. I personally don’t like those hard peppermints that you find in old ladies’ candy bowls, but York has basically perfected soft peppermint.

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Here we are, with the third in my series of four oddly-named candy bars (that is, the Oh Henry!, Look!, 5th Avenue, and U-No).

In 1936 it seemed a great idea to William Luden (of cough-drop fame) to name a food after a street in New York City. Now, sure, linking your candy bar to arguably the wealthiest bit of real estate in the world might seem to be a good move to give your candy some cachet, but present-day maker Hershey should remember this: it also sets high expectations. (Yes, I know there’s a 5th Avenue in Reading, PA, where this bar was made, but don’t tell me they weren’t trying to associate their bar with the famous Manhattan boulevard.)

When you open this big bar (2 oz, 56g), you immediately smell the peanuts. Hershey’s label describes the bar as “crunchy peanut butter in a rich, chocolately coating.” Notice, they didn’t say a chocolate coating. We know what this means, unfortunately. Yup, it’s mockolate.

Still, maybe this candy tastes good anyway. Is it, for example, better than a Butterfinger?

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(image from Alana Elliott at Flickr)
Last week, we invited some friends over for an evening campfire and s’mores. Everyone knows s’mores: graham crackers (blech), marshmallows (okay, getting better), and Hershey’s chocolate bars (yes! give me some). I bought the biggest, thickest Hershey’s bar I could find. I think it weighed 4.2 pounds (1.91kg).

Hershey’s is a smart company, and they know that anyone who has one of their smooth, delicious chocolate bars will be forced (by arm twisting and occasional use of The Rack) to share. For this reason, they mold their chocolate bars into an interesting collection of “mini bars” joined together by “connective chocolate.” The connective chocolate is an ambiguous gray zone that can never be divided equally. By the strictest rules of chocolate etiquette, the person entrusted with breaking the bar into its mini bar pieces must place uniform pressure on each mini bar and attempt to break them into pieces that differ by no more than .001mm in size. Most people cheat.

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With undoubtedly the strangest name in the candy business, Hershey’s Whatchamacallit is a funny little candy bar. It has a base of peanut butter flavored “crispies” topped by a thin layer of soft caramel, and a coating of rich chocolate encapsulates the whole bar.

The Whatchamacallit and I have a very close relationship, as it was first created only a year before I was born. We practically grew up together. I can’t even remember my first taste of one. Right about the time I learned to ride a bike, the Whatchamacallit was given its tasty layer of caramel. I have a feeling poor Whatchamacallit felt a bit naked before that.

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