I’ve had some good peanut brittle in my time with Candy Addict, but I’ve never seen these nifty flavor twists: Coco Nutty and Yippee Cayenne. I wonder how they’ll work with the brittle.

Jer’s Handmade Chocolates is a relatively new company in San Diego. I was not happy with their Toffee Break Gourmet Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars, but I’m still ready to like these Brittle Bites – especially given the quality ingredients.

Let’s try the Coco Nutty bites first. These come in a small 1.6 oz box, with four individual, small bite-sized pieces. I pop one in my mouth. The coconut flavor hits first, and strongly. Then the crispy brittle, which is hard to discern because of the strong coconut flakes. Lastly I notice the dark chocolate, quite far in the flavor background. I can see how some people would like these, but to me the coconut flavor’s too strong, masking the brittle and chocolate elements. Oh, and these are peanut brittle, but I couldn’t even taste the peanuts. Let’s try the Yippee Cayenne.

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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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