Sunday, October 21, 2012

Coffee Crisp - video review

Unfortunately I'm still having ongoing video upload / internet access issues so I do not have the Cadbury Creme Egg Snack Cakes video review up for you today. I do however have a review for a Canadian classic, Coffee Crisp. Enjoy.


Great stuff. I posted the written review a week or so ago, please check it out. Or go over and check out all of the reviews on the reviews page.

On a final note, I know there are so focus issues with the videos last week and this. I'm working on some new equipment, and will have all this resolved very soon. Thanks for the patience candy fans!

Friday, October 19, 2012

Cadbury Screme Egg Snack Cakes review

Welcome once again to a spooky Candy Aisle Halloween review. Today we've got a doozy of a chocolate to look at, its the surprising Cadbury Screme Egg Snack Cakes.




If you haven't been following along, Cadbury has issued these limited edition versions of their standard chocolate and goo Creme Eggs (seen usually around Easter time), called the Screme Eggs. They are just like the regular eggs, only full of green goo, and packed in very awesome and spooky Halloween themed wrappers. I revied that here on the blog last week. But in addition to launching the limited edition Screme Eggs, Cadbury has also released these Screme Egg Snack Cakes! Totally off the wall you say? Well not entirely, Cadbury has been stepping into the snack cake market a bit. This is new though, and since its all for the love of Halloween I have to immediately give them props for trying something very new. Its  a great idea, now lets just see if the cake itself is great.

 The design work here, as with the Screme Eggs themselves is top notch. The package shows us whats inside (always a plus). Looks like chocolate cake, surrounded by chocolate, and filled with both white frosting, and green goo. I'm surprised by a few things here. Firstly, is this the same goo that was found in the Screme Eggs? Why the frosting around the green? I expected the Screme Egg to have a white part, then green yolk, but was surprised to find it was in fact all green inside, why does a snack cake have more resemblance to an egg than the actual egg?

Do any of these things really matter? No. I just wonder about stuff... like whose eerie glowing footprints are coming from the cake??? Is there some kind of monster that's hatched out of the egg? I thought the eggs themselves were the ones that had gone bad... very odd.


I can tell I'm in some trtrouble from the warning splattered at the top. "Get them while you last" Thats pretty threatening stuff. Are these eggs / snack cakes going to attack me? Should I be looking out for some unknown monster with glowing gooey feet the assault me while I'm enjoying my snack? Where can I find out more answers to my questions?


On the back of the box of course...



The back of the box has a full comic strip on it explaining the origins of the Screme Eggs... Well sort of explaining the origins. At first I scanned this comic and thought it was telling me that a meteor had crashed turning the eggs bad, but I think I must've been confused by the French. If you look at the comic properly (click on the pics below to embiggen) then you'll see that in fact no one knows what happened that night... But something happened to the eggs. Now these good eggs have gone bad They are Screme Eggs now and they are unstoppable!


Jeepers creepers this is totally freaky stuff. I mean rampaging eggs out for.. . something. Should I be worried? Just look at these guys! They look like they're about to murder me and eat my soul! Terrifying.



This is pretty much the most amazing origin story for a candy or chocolate bar ever. Why in the world hasn't anyone done this before? As you can see it doesn't take much, just four panels, and I'm hooked. I mean this is less story than your average level of Angry Birds and I am totally engrossed, I give MAJOR props to the graphic designers who thought this up, and to Cadbury for trying  something new.
Ok, thats enough fun and games though. The mood has been set, I'm sold. Lets get into the snack cake. Opening this box of 6 cakes I'm dissapointed to find that the individual cakes are wrapped in clear cellophane. Thats lame. I guess it explains why I couldn't find this item in a single cake pack, but I really wish they had a wrapper with at least some of these design elements on it as well.


Here's the thing, if Cadbury is lucky, parents will be buying these for their kids to take in their lunches for school. I'm sorry if that's wrong, but who else eats snack cakes?  Stoners maybe... Anyhow, a single serving of this would be great. Kids will be taking this to school and just trying to describe to their friends the awesomeness of the packaging on the box is not enough. I contend that if there was some version of the design on the individual wrappers then word of mouth would spread around the schoolyard like wildfire. Everyone would want to try the green goo. As it is, your childs snack will now probably be mistaken for a HoHo. (That's nothing to sneeze at for sure, but their futile attempts to describe the will certainly be lost on the masses).


The snack cake one out of the wrapper looks pretty good. Its got a vaguely egg shaped design, fitting the theme. It smells very good, like all Cadbury chocolate, although this is more... cakey smelling I guess is the word. Lets just bite in and see what we've got.



Ok, so this is interesting. The filling, as with any non disc or log shaped chocolate snack cake is bunched in a small area far in the belly of the beast, so your first engagement in the treat is cake and chocolate. The chocolate on the outside is fine, nothing special, its thin and comes off on your fingers when touched too much. This isn't a great attribute, but is a provlem with pretty much ever chocolate coated snack cake on the market so nothing I can really hold too strongly against Cadbury. The cake itself is the main element here, and overall its good, not great. Its very sweet, very chocolatey and perhaps just a touch too moist. Better too moist than dry for sure, but this isn't as fluffy as I would like and its slightly too sweet. Maybe a kid would dig the cake, but for me it goes a hair too far.


On second bite we get into the frosting and goo. Surprisingly they seem to blend together. Could they be made from the same stuff? That seems unlikely right?! I imagine the white frosting is stabalizig the green sugar goo and holding it from absorbing into the cake too much, but maybe I'm wrong... No I'm not, its just hard to tell here because when biting into it the white frosting immediately mixes with the green goo into a single big mess in your mouth without much discernible difference in texture. The biggest impression is sugar. This is sweet, slightly too liquidy sugar / frosting mix. Not at all like the green center of the Screme Egg, although it does look similar. Its not bad, and if you like your snacks sweet, this definitely does the trick, but its not what I wanted.

Overall this is a really interesting snack cake, it lives firmly on the level of good, but not great. Everyone will get a real kick out of the packing and design work on the box, but when it comes down to the cakes themselves, you could still do better with a HoHo. I give Cadbury some serious credit for even creating this thing. I'm very glad it exists, if only to show us, and other companies that some people are still being innovative out there.

Walking the Candy Aisle rates Cadbury Screme Egg Snack Cakes - 4 / 5

If you want to see more from Cadbury, you can check out their website http://www.cadbury.co.uk/, and please look forward to more Halloween reviews coming to the Candy Aisle soon!

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Sceme Eggs snack cakes uncovered

By now we all know about Cadbury's Screme Eggs out for a limited time this Halloween. If for some reason you don't though, please take a second and check out this review.

Ok, so now we're all here and on the same page its time to check out this awesome Screme Egg offshoot. Amazingly the good folks at Cadbury aren't satisfied to just bring Screme Eggs out. Nope, they've gone all in with the scary stuff this year and launched the Screme Egg snack cakes!



Amazing, I know! Check out the front of the box.


It looks like they only come in these 6 packs, I tried to find a single serve around, but had no luck. Its got as you can see much of the same design as the Screme Eggs. Bright purple, with the green goo splat, and in this case mysterious footprints leaving the scene of some sort of snack cake crime. Very scary stuff.

On the back of the box we're treated to even more awesomenes. There is a full comic, explaining the origins of the Screme Eggs. How cool is that?!


Feel free to click and embiggen if you want to read it, basically though it says that something happened one night, something indescribable. And it turned all the good Creme Eggs bad. Now they are on a rampage! Its pretty much the most awesome origin story ever for a candy egg.

I love how spooky these guys look! It says in the comic "Get them before its too late" but on the front of the box it says "Get them while you last" That's pretty scary awesome. I mean obviously these killer eggs are out to get me. I suppose my only option is to try to eat them before they get me.

Fantastic stuff. This is just enough of a light backstory to push these into the top tier candy category. Why aren't there more stories for candy?? I love it.

Expect a review of these tomorrow on the blog.


Wednesday, October 17, 2012

The Multipack

Well I'm still undecided about what to 'serve' the kiddies on Halloween this year, but I've certainly got a few options. I'm trying to think what we did the past few years in San Francisco... not too much I think. I lived in a condo complex and we really didn't get many (if any) kids to our door. You know I think we may even have headed out and gone to stay with friends in San Jose over Halloween. My kids are only now just getting to trick or treating age, but really next year I think will be the year.

Anyhow, I've got a choice to make since I'm now living in Canada where I think pretty much everyone gives out candy. I'm in a good kid neighborhood now too. So I'd better make my decision wisely...

Looking around the stores though I have to say I'm unimpressed. The candy multipacks seem to be all the rage, and the selling point isn't even about the treats inside; its actually all about number of items. Seems like a very analytical way of seeing things. Wheres the wow factor? Is it just because they know they are already proven candies that they don't have to try?

I'm also pretty disappointed on the graphic design front for pretty much all of this packaging. Makes me want to buy some of that licensed stuff I was talking about instead.


For your edification though here are some of the candy multipacks available in Canada.



Hershey's makes a pretty strong showing with their selection. I like that they've got multiple skus on the bundles and that the one is nut-free. Pretty important with kids these days...Also note the rare Hershey's Caramel bar... have you ever seen that before???


Twizzlers are another Hershey brand candy, and I can't say if I've ever actually talked about them here on the blog before... Well I suppose I don't usually give them much thought. They're decent but I never got hung up on them like some people I know. My favorite is Strawberry pull and peel, and I HATE black licorice. This is another good Halloween option, Twizzlers are always appreciated and mix things up a bit from the standard Nerds and candy bracelets.


So here we have the Nestle multipacks. That's a good mix of very Canadian chocolate bars.


Interestingly I also came across this "American" Nestle multipack. Since Baby Ruth are not sold in Canada normally this may be the only way for lots of Canadians to get one...Although you may want to check out my review before rushing out.


Wonka, another imprint of Nestle, also has its own multipack. Now this is what really sells me on Halloween. All of these treats are exactly the kind of good old standards I want and expect in my candy bag at the end of a night trick or treating. Not as exciting as a chocolate bar, but everyone loves some Nerds. Great stuff.


Mars (ne Wrigley) makes a stong showing with this massive 100 pack! They win for most candy in a single box, and boy is it a good mix. I would be happy to get any of these on a Halloween night. Mini Snickers and mini Mars bars were always the most coveted of the Halloween candy growing up. This is a sure fire winner.


If you did not know, Skittles / Starburst are also part of the Mars (Wrigley) family. This is another good mix pack, although instead of Sour Skittles I wish they had Berry, or Tropical. Hopefully by now you know my feelings on Skittles.


And just look  at what Cadbury has to offer in their multipack. All good solid choices. I don't think we even had fun sized Caramilk when I was a kid. Man I could definitely go for a Wunderbar though. Great mix bag here. The one outlier is the Mr Big. Doesn't a 'fun sized' version of the candy bar reknowned for being big kind of defeat the purpose?


Finally I suppose I wouldn't be back in Canada if there wasn't some Maynards around. This seems like a pretty good mix. I wonder how many pieces you'd actually get in each individual bag...

Well thats all for the Multipacks. I suppose I'm still a bit undecided on what to get. Maybe the Mars pack, or maybe the Wonka one. I wish there were better themed candies around to give out. Well I guess thats just the breaks here. More candy content coming here soon. Until then have a spooky good time and let me know what candy you're giving out this year   :)

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

A Very Licensed Halloween

Every year it seems like there are more and more licensed Halloween products on the market. In a way I can't begrudge them, I mean this is one of the most commercialized holidays of the year in general. Why shouldn't we get Spongebob candy if we want it.... its not like you have to buy it.

For me though I think I'd prefer to stay away from these candies. I personally usually go for the mix bag of mini chocolate bars to give out at the door. Just good classics like Reese's Peanut Butter or something. We'll see what I end up with this year.

Check out some of these licensed Halloween candy bags.


I'm a fan of Angry Birds as much as the next guy, but they are everywhere. Kinda turns me off a bit. I do like the pig in a pumpkin though. When it comes down to it also, these are fruit gummies. No kids wants fruit gummies for Halloween, its about as good as raisins.

Have you all 3-starred the Angry Birds Seasons Halloween levels???



Well here is a variety of licensed characters, appealing to the younger crowd. Dora and Diego have always bothered me but I'm a Spongebob fan, so I guess I'm mixed on this one. Looking at the variety of candy though I have to say I'm impressed. These aren't the stars of your candy haul, but I'm not going to shake my head at a candy bracelet, or some jelly beans.


Ok, so here I do have a problem. Firstly and really most importantly, to the best of my knowledge Bratz are seriously on their way out, you know they jumped the shark when they had the tv show, or was it a movie... Anyhow, I don't know that there's been anything new to come along and fill the tween girl (who still likes dolls) spot but this is definitely passe. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the last Christmas where you even see Bratz.Its all La la Loopsy (sp), and Tinkerbell now. Aside from that little rant (sorry) This candy is so girly wth its branding that its immediately going to annoy boys. I mean they wont throw it away because of it, but even if this is the best candy bracelet ever, boys will be ashamed about enjoying it and quickly hide the packaging. Finally, in all honesty, everyone knows that Ring Pops are just plain stupid.


Spongebob, I'm behind you 100%. Just simple, Spongebob and Patrick, and its chocolate. Probably low quality chocolate, but I think I would enjoy biting Patrick's head off, wouldn't you?


 
I'm not really an Airheads fan, but I did see and love Hotel Transylvania. I think once kids see that film they will really dig it. I like this tie in, I mean it seems kind of random in a way, but I like the fact that Hotel T is branding themselves somewhere, and I think its good for Airheads to get a bit more exposure. Also its new, its hip (theoretically) and if the movie does well with kids then this is perfectly placed to do very well at Halloween.


Finally I know its not candy, but these actual pumpkins are branded with Peanuts characters! That's pretty serious licensing :)

That's all I've got for now, as we get closer to Halloween I may find some more licensed stuff to post. Until then let me know if there's any candy you would buy immediately based on a license? or any you'd avoid?

Saturday, October 13, 2012

Cadbury Screme Egg - video review

It's Halloween time here at Walking the Candy Aisle, check out this review for the spooky themed Cadbury Screme Egg.


Totally awesome, go pick this up while you can!

For more check out the written review, or all of the reviews over on the Reviews Page.

Friday, October 12, 2012

Cadbury Screme Egg review

We've got a great review for you today. Please enjoy this look at the much lauded Halloween 2012 treat, Cadbury Screme Egg!


Specially branded for Halloween this year Cadbury claims that their Screme Egg doesn't taste any different than the traditional Creme Egg, but instead of the usual goo inside you'll find green ooze! Awesome. right off the bat this is just great, but the design touches don't end there. Yesterday I posted about the various wrapper designs (there are three of them) and all are great. I've gone with the emerging brain as you can see in the picture. Definitely spooky stuff, and very fitting for Halloween.

If you'd like to see what I thought of the original Creme Egg, check out my review from last Easter here.

I love the green splat behind the Screme Egg writing, and that the color is still purple, but a more metallic look than the traditional Cadbury vein. Check out the detail on this brain too!


That's a great looking Brain. I love how the wrapper looks like its being peeled back to reveal the brain. Just awesome design touches all over this chocolate. Color me very impressed.


Unwrapped the egg looks pretty much exactly like a standard Cadbury Egg. The star pattern can be found on all of the Cadbury Eggs. Its got a great smell, and in the heat will leave a little residue on your fingertips. Certainly nothing unmanageable, but worth mentioning. I'm just excited to get into this egg!


Ahh there it is. Green goo. I suppose technically its "soft fondant", but lets keep with the goo. What's surprising to me is that I for some reason thought that the green goo would only be the yolk of the egg. I thought the rest would be white. Nope. This is green, green, green through and through. But wow, look at that green. It just pops right at you.

The taste is in fact exactly like a standard Creme Egg, at least I can't discern any difference. Its very sweet, but very good. You've got to be in the right mood for a Cadbury Egg, and don't even think about having more than one at a time, this is a special treat, and this Halloween version should be cherished even more so since its only here for a limited time.

Despite not having a proper yolk, one of the fun aspects of the traditional egg, I am VERY impressed with this chocolate. I mean, how many companies are actually willing to change the physical product? Even if its just cosmetic, they did a fantastic job here.


Just look at that gooey mess, how can you not love that?! If you can, you should definitely pick this one up before its gone!

Walking the Candy Aisle rates the Cadbury Screme Egg - 5 / 5

This is obviously a Cadbury product, for more on it please visit http://scremeegg.cadbury.com.au/

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Screme Egg design

A few weeks ago I posted about the very awesome Cadbury Screme Eggs. A great idea from a company full of them. Well upon closer inspection I noticed something even cooler about them, there are actually 3 different package designs for the Screme Eggs. All spooky and all great. Check these out.




A Monster Mouth, a Mummy, and a Brain. Awesome stuff. My favorite is definitely the brain. Very classy move here, its not like Cadbury really had to do anything. Certainly they didn't have to do more than one design. II'm already loving these.

Look forward to my review of the Screme Egg tomorrow on this very blog!

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

The Halloween Edition

Wow, I can't believe its this close to Halloween and I haven't even really mentioned it here except in passing. Sure I've been busy moving thousands of miles and literally to another country, but that's no excuse to ignore one of the biggest candy holidays of the year! So this is a situation I hope to rectify starting right now.

I've still been feeling around, figuring out what my best locations are for candy, and finding my way through the mire of new - yet oddly familiar - Canadian candy and chocolate, but I have to say when I saw these first 'Halloween edition' bars I had to check them out.


Nestlé is certainly on the case with a bunch of their classics re-branded to fit a spooky theme. Not any actual change in flavors but this is just a fun way to keep the products relevant and interesting. I give them real props for these designs.


 My favorite has to be Coffin Crisp. That's awesome. Of course if you don't know these bars are usually called Kit Kat, Smarties, Coffee Crisp, and Aero respectively.

A few weeks ago I mentioned the awesome Cadbury Screme Eggs, but now I find that they come in mini as well :) Love that green goop inside...Expect a review of this one very soon.


Not to be outdone though the fine folks at Lindt are getting into the spirit of Halloween with some thematic packing of their amazing chocolates and truffles.


Wile the mini pumpkins above are great, it does seem odd to me that a Swiss company is celebrating Halloween. When did the holiday make it over there? Or is this just for the US market. The Lindors below make a bit more sense, the Halloween touches are pretty subtle.


Very nice. Now none of these companies so far have changed their actual candy flavor, these changes are just cosmetic, even to the creme egg. I'll be interested to get my hands on some of the more specific Halloween themed chocolates that are flavored like pumpkin and what not.


While not strictly speaking candy these Pillsbury Halloween cookies sure look good! Here's a thought though, that Doughboy really needs a better costume. I can totally still tell who he is with that eye mask on... 


These Hershey Drops have very cute Halloween designs on them. I give any company props for making actual changes to the candy itself for the holiday, even if like the creme egg its just cosmetic. These are pretty spooky fun. I don't think I've ever actually had tHershey Drops before.... maybe I'll have to pick some up.


And finally Twizzlers have issued these ghost shaped cherry licorice bites for Halloween. They're pretty cool, if you like Twizzlers. My worry would be that they're closer to Nibs than regular Twizzlers. I am not a Nibs fan. Also Cherry is definitely not my favorite candy flavor. I'll probably pass on these, but nice try Twizzlers :)

Expect more Halloween coverage including a bunch of reviews to roll into full swing in the next few days. I know I'm looking forward to this year. Let me know what you're most excited to try.