April 2008 Archives

The original Cadbury mini eggs are my mom's all time favorite candies. Who can blame her? They're delicious, really pretty and are a one-of-a-kind candy. Well, until now.

I saw these reviewed on Candy Addict and found them so intriguing and interesting (and I love Nerds) that I desperately sought them out in every drug store, grocery store, etc. that I went into. Voila! The Walgreens near my parent's house netted success thanks to my mom's keen eyes.

In the bag, they're not very impressive looking. They're very dusty and made the bag look like it's filled with brightly colored rocks and dirt. But I digress. Don't you just LOVE the cute little Nerds in bunny ears on the bag? Well I do.

They come in your standard candy colors: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green and Purple. Red was strawberry I think. It wasn't exactly obvious or strong, which isn't a bad thing. A lot of strawberry candy tastes fake but not in a good way, unlike fake banana candy which I care for a great deal. Orange was....ORANGE! Isn't that crazy?! So yeah, it was your basic zingy orange, like Crush soda. Yellow was lemon as usual and it was a nice lemon, bright and happy.

Green took some major taste testing to figure out for sure.
At first I assumed lime but I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it was watermelon! It's a nice, pleasant watermelon with no harsh aftertaste like some watermelon flavors.

Purple was grape. Blech. I don't like grape flavored things, and when I was young would always make my brother eat any purple candy I got. It's an ok taste, just not for me.

The biggest upside of these bumpy little guys is their wacky crunchy chewy combination.
 
Coming from Wonka, it's no big surprise that these are unique and different. The crunchy outer shell kind of breaks away as you chew them and mingles nicely with the chewy of the bean and since it's not a sticky bean, you don't get those pesky chunks stuck in your teeth. Won't your dentist be pleased?

I think they started out as a seasonal Easter thing, but according to Mariko at Candy Addict "An email from Wonka tells us that these are offered year round as Giant Chewy NERDS!" Be on the lookout for these guys but be careful, you might just eat a whole bag!


 

The name of this bothers me because there is only one Peep in the egg. Why is it called Peeps inside a milk chocolate egg? A quick check of Wikipedia suggests that Peeps is the proper name for singular and plural. Odd.

Anywho, had a hard time passing up a chocolate egg with a Peep inside. I loved Peeps as a kid, would get big packages of them in my Easter baskets and would devour them with relish. After I hit about 15 though, I couldn't handle all that marshmallowy sugar sprinkled goodess. The occasional Peep is a nice treat though.

The egg smelled nice and chocolately upon unwrapping and I was delighted to see that there were little Peeps carved into the face of the egg (might be hard to see in the picture sadly) along with the actual word "Peeps."

I eagerly cracked the egg open along the seam and it broke pretty nicely and easily and revealed the beloved Peep in chick form. Bright yellow and sugar crusted just like it should be.

The chocolate was pretty average, almost like a Cadbury Dairy Milk bar, very sweet and smooth. The Peep was just right, soft and slightly sticky with that great little crunch from the sugar coating.

An interesting thing I noticed when I took a gander at the nutritional information on the package was the serving size. It said that half the package was a serving and that in one container there two servings. This led me to ponder...is half, just the egg? just the Peep? half of each? I suppose it's just one of those mysteries of life that we'll never solve. If only Robert Stack were still alive, I would submit this for Unsolved Mysteries.

I love the Target candy aisles. Especially their seasonal candy aisles. I spied a whole display of adorable animals, with babies, in really nice plastic cubes. I bought the bunnies since they were the most holiday appropriate critter, though it was hard to pass up the pigs, sheep and duckies.

Sadly, their containment system did not photograph well but trust me, it was cute. It even had a white picket fence printed on it! Once I got them out of the box though, they became even more precious. Very glossy, shiny chocolate and not too much damage from transit. They even had fluffy little tails! (well not exactly fluffy, but the chocolate was carved to appear fluffy)

The mommy bunny was about 3 inches tall, and the baby bunny was about half that, 1.5 inches. They felt pretty hefty for their size so I guessed that they were solid, not hollow. The packaging didn't mention it sadly. I spared the mommy some cruelty by snapping her ears off rather than biting them, but in the grand scheme of things, I bet it hurt either way. They broke off pretty clean as you can see, and indeed the bunny was solid.

I was surprised by the quality of the chocolate. Ordinarily, chocolate novelties like this suck in the taste and texture department but these were actually pretty good. Very similar to Hershey's chocolate (again, the packing provided little help, only said that it was distributed by Target Stores) with that very smooth milky chocolate taste and fast melting.

The baby bunny had a worse fate. I chopped that poor guy in half. This one had a minor defect and wasn't exactly solid all the way through, oops! He was yummy too. Another fun Easter treat that kids and adults would love, hopefully they're back next year!

Yes, yes Easter is over but that doesn't mean that I can't enjoy Easter confections! A dear friend gave me a Hubba Bubba Clucker specifically for the reason to review it...and the fact that it essentially craps out bubblegum.

It's kind of a sick toy when you get right down to it. Not only does it crap out bubblegum, but it order for you to get the bubblegum in the chicken you have to take off his head! So it's pretty much a perfect toy/candy dispenser for someone like me.

The chicken (excuse me, Clucker) came with 20 gumballs in pink (4), blue (6), yellow (6), green (3) and light green (1). They smell fruity and are shaped like limes or perhaps slightly pointy eggs. Very vibrant colors though, all hail artificial coloring!

Someone managed to eat the only light green gumball so I can't comment on that particular color's taste (though The Gumball Theif said it "tastes like limes").

Yellow tasted like bubblegum. Kind of disappointing, I was hoping for lemon.

Blue also tasted like bubblegum, boo! I could've gone for a over-the-top blue raspberry or even blueberry flavor. But alas, no, just plain old bubblegum.

The pink is strawberry, very fake strawberry though not unpleasant and it fades to standard bubblegum once chewed for about 10 seconds.

Green was unusual. It wasn't bubblegum (right away at least) but it was not any flavor I could place, definitely not green apple or watermelon. Mystery flavor I guess!