Over the past couple years, various candy makers have been treating us to limited edition candy bars. Some of them, like the Reese's Big Cup with Nuts, are quite good. Some, like the Hershey's Raspberries and Creme bar are bad. Some, like the Reese's White Chocolate Peanut Butter cups, are really, really, really bad.
I've been seeing a lot of these confections in my local dollar stores, which indicated to me that they were being remaindered, and, indeed, they were originally meant to be available only for a limited time. It turns out, however, that these are actually auditions.
Today, I discovered that some of these special editions are being brought out as "New" candy bars. The Starburst Berries and Cream flavor, for example, is back as a new flavor. Given this new trend, I thought I would examine some of the newer flavors.
Starburst is having a great deal of success, from a flavor standpoint. Any special edition they try seems to work from Baja to Ice to Counter Culture. And the Peter Paul products with variations on Almond Joy and Mounds are working fairly well, though they need to work on making the flavors distinct.
Reese's is somewhat misguided, in my opinion, when they try to make a limited edition out of the regular Reese's cups. There is not enough room to put more distinct food stuffs in, and replacing one of the flavors completely, for example the white chocolate fiasco, changes the nature of the bar enough that it is truly a different product. However, one of their other limited edition products, the Big Cup, is providing an excellent ground for experimentation. The new Elvis Peanut Butter and Banana Creme -- the *King* Size, as the package tells us -- is very good indeed, partially because the candy has enough space to accommodate both the peanut butter and the banana creme. Reese's certainly knows how to get celebrity endorsements. I wonder if they are selling this in Graceland.
Kit Kat as a brand has also caught on in this regard. They have tried different flavorings of white chocolate in their regular bars, which, as I said, tends to lose the unique qualities of the original. (And the Apple Kit Kat's were just bad. I am not certain I believe anyone tasted those before they were sent to market.) Also, their extra crispy wafers are just silly on the smaller, regular bars. On the large, Big Kat bars, however, they can do many things such as adding caramel or making the wafers extra crispy which work quite well.
On the other hand, I am not certain what Hershey's is trying to accomplish. The chocolate mint cookie bar is good, but the the fruit flavored ones are awful. Orange chocolate and raspberry chocolate require a subtle fruit flavoring. A strong flavoring will clash with dark chocolate and kill the taste of milk chocolate. The white chocolate versions are okay, I suppose, but the Hershey's milk chocolate versions just don't taste good enough in a conventional enough way to appeal to the masses.
Hershey's is also experimenting with different types of nuts. Their Hershey's with Almonds is, of course, a classic, but almonds are a long, flat nut and they can put whole and nearly whole nuts in the bars, and almonds make an excellent mix with chocolate (see also Almond Joy). The Hershey's Nut Lover uses cashews, peanuts and pecans in addition to the almonds. These are also decent complements to chocolate, but they are all chopped fine in the candy bar, and they do not necessarily mix with each other in that context. It's very hard to make out the flavor, and because of the chopping of the ingredients, the characteristic nut texture is lost. Hershey's currently has a limited edition Special Dark bar with macadamia nuts which suffers from a similar problem because dark chocolate dominates the taste of the macadamia nuts.
Finally, one trend I have noticed is a trend to include coffee flavorings. Cappuccino and espresso and mocha and the like. Coffee is an evil beverage, and this use of the flavoring in otherwise wholesome and soul-nurturing candy is obviously the work of Satan on earth. Avoid them.
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2 comments:
I loved the coffee Kit-Kats, and I'd snap them up whenever I saw them. Coffee may be evil, but it's my friend.
I thought the truffle flavored Peppermint Patties were interesting, too. My favorite used to be Kit-Kats, though, and I'd try all the various flavors they'd offer. The Orange and Cream was interesting, the mint wasn't as good as it should've been, and the white chocolate did nothing for me. I was extremely disappointed that the white chocolate was the one that seemed to stick around.
I said in the last paragraph that Kit-Kats used to be my favorite. After all this experimentation, they came up with a "creamier" formula for the regular bars, and I have to tell you, it's not as enticing as the old recipe. I basically don't eat them any more because I only taste disappointment.
I believe the old Kit Kats and the other special editions are still available in the fun size and in dollar stores, respectively. The extra crispy version has also stuck around.
I have heard rumors to the effect that people actually like the flavor of coffee. I have managed, with some effort, to convince myself that these rumors are lies perpetrated as a hoax on the unwary. (For one thing, if people liked the flavor of coffee, they would learn to make it properly.)
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