Peanut Madness: The End?

Update: I was able to convince my students to try the European candy, and they actually liked it. Awesome!

I believe that this may be the last installment of Peanut Madness, seeing as how I don't THINK that there are any more candy bars like the ones that were mentioned. To end Peanut Madness, I'm going to end it with what I think is the best of the peanut covered candy bars:

When I was younger I hated this candy bar. I think I didn't like it because it wasn't coated in chocolate and it was different from other candy bars. It was salty and sweet, as opposed to other candy bars that were just sweet. However, as I grew up, I came to like this candy bar more and more

As you can see this is peanut covered, but the caramel is visible as well

As mentioned above, what makes this candy bar unique is the fact that it is both salty and sweet. Something else that sets this candy bar from the other candy bars is that its texture isn't brittle; it crunchy when you first bite in, but then it becomes chewy as you get to the caramel. There aren't as many peanuts on this candy bar, as opposed to the previous candy bars I wrote about before, which makes this candy bar much easier on the mouth. All in all, I think I can easily say that Pay Day is the king of peanut coated candy bars.

I think that's all for Peanut Madness, unless I'm able to find another candy bar coated in peanuts. Those who are allergic to peanuts can breathe a sigh of relief now.

Clown Toffee and Exploding Chocolate

I bought a lot of European candy yesterday and brought some of it in thinking that my students would fall on it. However, quite the opposite happened, and the students kind of looked at the candy, but they didn't show interest. I was trying to tell them, "Look, there's fizzy chocolate candy!" but none of them bit. I'm not sure why they fall on Asian candy immediately and ravage Japanese candy. I suppose the packaging for those candies is flashier.

Anyway, I took it upon myself to be the judge of these candies. The first one I decided to try was some sort of strawberry flavored toffee

I see that in Eastern Europe, they are much more accepting of clowns. Personally, if I were a kid, this bag would have scared me pretty bad. I also entered the words into Google Translate and found out that the language printed was either Serbian or Croatian. I then found out that both languages were similar. On the lower left it says that it contains vitamins and no artificial coloring

More clowns, and not just happy clowns, there's that scary nonchalant clown on the right. Anyway, the top reads, "Anywhere Everywhere Ki-Ki!" and I think the bottom reads something like "Gotta Catch Em All" or something. Cute clowns must be like Pokemon or something in Eastern Europe

A wrapped strawberry toffee. It's shape reminded me of a Starburst

An unwrapped strawberry toffee

This candy was much softer than candies like Starbursts. Also the flavor was a bit more tart as well. It was good, but nothing amazing. It was a solid choice and I'm going to literally throw these at the heads of my students until they eat it. They need to try and accept sweets from all parts of the world. Next up:

Here we have a dead clown or something. It's pretty scary if you ask me, much scarier than the happy strawberry clown. Anyway, this is milk flavored and it contains calcium and no artificial coloring

This one is wrapped more fancily than the strawberry one

An unwrapped candy; it looks like a caramel chew

Not only does it look like a caramel chew, it tastes like one as well. I like caramel chews. That means that I liked this candy. It's a bit softer than what I'm used to, like the strawberry toffee, but the flavor was good. I don't understand why my students won't eat these. Well, maybe they were just unsure yesterday. Today could be the day they try these candies. To end this entry, I'll tell you about a friend of mine:

As you can see, my friend is full cool. I'm not sure who decided to name this candy, but I guess it's better than anything I could think of. I would have probably named it "Explosive Chocolate" or something along those lines. They're missing a "p" in the word popping, unless they meant to spell it "poping"

A square of the chocolate. The lighter shades are the popping candy

Every student I told this about seemed disgusted by the concept of fizzy chocolate. Let me tell you, this was the best item that I've tried so far (I've only tried the three I just wrote about). This bar is chock full of the popping candy and there was not a moment that it was not popping. The chocolate tasted very good as well. However, the popping candy just put it over the edge and made me love it. Sure it may be a novelty, but it's pretty cool in my opinion.

Hopefully some students will try some of the candies I bought. I'm not sure what the other candies taste like, but I know the toffees were solid and the chocolate was pretty awesome. I don't know what food they eat in Eastern Europe, but I can tell you that I enjoy the candy that they sell there.

Peanut Madness: It Continues

The next item I'm about to write about is what actually made me want to start Peanut Madness. You see, the next item is from Planter's, a company known for their mascot, Mr. Peanut. I didn't know they had made a candy bar of some type, and when I found it I already had purchased the Munch bar that I wrote about before. I thought it'd be a good idea, but so far it's been pretty rough on my teeth, seeing as how I'm basically eating a handful of peanuts in each bite.

If it has Mr. Peanut on it, you know it has to be a quality product. Also notice how peanutty the wrapper is; it'd probably give one of my students allergic reactions just looking at it

Thank you for this disclaimer

Welp, that's a lot of peanuts

In my post about the Munch bar I wrote that it was like peanut brittle except nuttier. Well this bar is even nuttier than Munch. This one hurt my mouth because there were so many peanuts. I'm not sure if they even tested this with a tasting group, because I would not have approved this. If you like peanuts this much then you should just buy a jar of Planter's Nuts or something. As you can tell, I didn't really like this bar and felt that there were just too many peanuts. I guess this is for people who love peanuts to the extreme. I suppose there was some demand if Planter's decided to come out with this.

This wraps up the second part of Peanut Madness, I wonder when I'll get to the conclusion.

Treasures from the Far East (Europe)

After some time of writing entries about candy, I realized that most of the candy I was writing about was either from the United States or Asia. Of course I have yet to try all the candies of either places, but I felt like I was leaving people out. My friend, Rubab, suggested that I do reviews on candies from Europe. The problem here was that, unlike Asian markets, I've never really seen a European market. Luckily, she recommended a place, and that led to finding out about even more places. Apparently, European markets exist, they're just not as big as Asian markets.

It was pretty hard to find the particular market I went to today because I had no idea that it was so small. In fact, I got lost yesterday, and gave up. Today I was able to find it though, and I was amazed at what I saw. The market I went in was pretty small, but they used the area to its fullest. Everywhere I turned there were snacks, preserved foods, and candies in languages I couldn't even try to understand. Everyone in there seemed to speak some form of Eastern European language, I'm not sure what it was. I'll just say it was Russian for now, just to make things convenient. I went by picture alone and grabbed whatever caught my eye. The cashier was very nice and she said that it looked like I knew what I was doing. Well here are the items that I picked up today:

All of this cost me a little over $25, but that's a lot of candy

Here's one part of the candy

Here's the second part. Yes, I did buy duplicates because I expect my students to ravage some of this

I don't know when I'll get to write about all these. I don't think that I'll be able to write about ALL of them either seeing as how I'm planning to share some of this with my class. The most interesting one to me is the chocolate bar that has a little bomb on it. According to the label it's fizzy chocolate.

I'd like to thank Rubab for helping me find out about these places, and now I am able to go back and forth between European, Asian, and American candy.

Peanut Madness: The Beginning

I'm going to be posting a few candy bars that go off the beaten path and are absolutely full of or covered in peanuts.

So I went to the gas station by my work the other day to grab some provisions for myself and some students. While I was there, I noticed a candy bar that I haven't seen in quite some time. Now, keep in mind that the items carried at this particular gas station can be, at times, years old. This greatly pissed me off because I bought a Diet Pepsi from there that was two years past its "Best By" date and was utterly flavorless. It was worse than drinking Club Soda. Anyway, I decided to give this Munch candy bar a chance, seeing as how I didn't see it anywhere else.

The packaging shows you all you need to know about this candy bar. Unlike other candy bars, which have chocolate coating, this candy bar is like a Pay Day in that its main attraction are its peanuts. Also notice that it advertises that it has only 6 ingredients

Yep, it only has 6 ingredients. It's also, interestingly, made by the same people who make Snickers

Peanuts everywhere

Okay, so this Munch pretty much tastes like peanut brittle, but nuttier. Whereas in peanut brittle, it's mostly brittle, with Munch it's mostly peanut. I have to say that as a fan of peanut brittle, I rather enjoyed Munch. It was much bumpier than peanut brittle, on account of it having more peanuts, but overall it was good. If I had a craving for peanut brittle, I'd eat a Munch bar to satiate that craving, but it's probably harder to find than peanut brittle.

Reese's Snack Barz: Z iz cool again!

Every time I go into a 7-11 I don't expect to be wowed by their candy section. I usually scope the candy section, pick up a few things, head to the soda, and then finally to their protein bar section. Anyway, I caught a glimpse of Reese's Snack Barz a few weeks ago, but I didn't have the urge to buy it. This is odd because I really like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Reese's Pieces. Also, around Easter time, I look forward to things like Reese's Eggs and stuff like that. The description for the Reese's Snack Barz though, made it seem like an overdressed Rice Krispie's Treat. However, it bothered me that I was disregarding a candy without trying it, so I decided to give it a chance.

Here's the packaging. It advertises "Crispy Rice & Marshmallow with Reese's Peanut Butter" and it also has Hershey's Milk Chocolate. By description alone, it sounds delicious

Well, it certainly looks the way it does on the packaging. I'm not very impressed so far

Nothing in the middle; nothing more to see folks

My concerns of it being an overdressed Rice Krispies Snack were pretty much confirmed. Surprisingly though, it wasn't very sweet despite all the ingredients listed. The peanut butter had a salty taste and the crispy rice & marshmallow wasn't all that sweet either. The way I see it, you could do much better going one of two routes. The first route is just purchasing a pack of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, which are much better tasting than this. The second route you could take is purchasing a box of snack bars that are available at places like Target and Wal-Mart. The snack bars by Kashi, Special K, and so forth are not only have less calories, they surprisingly taste better too. I'm going to go further and say that I've had protein bars which tasted better than this. Speaking of which, protein bars are pretty damn tasty.

Anyway, to sum things up, skip this item and either indulge in real candy or go find a snack bar; either choice you make will taste much better than this.

Number #50

Well, if you've been keeping track, this is the 50th entry of stephenlovescandy. Yay!

Anyway, back to business. I actually found the next item at a Korean supermarket. This one in particular is larger than the other Korean markets and carries many more Japanese products. I found some items that I would have found in a Japanese market, and the items were marked a bit more than at Japanese markets. I think this item in particular would have cost just around the same at a Japanese market though:

Yep, it's those stick Oreos again. This time they come in what I assumed to be cheesecake flavor

A picture of an individually wrapped Oreo stick

Oh god, what is this?

The packaging made these products look a lot more appealing than what they actually look like. Then again, I don't write all about appearance, and flavor is a much more important factor. When I first bit into it, it really did have a cream cheese/cheesecake smell. A few seconds later however, it started tasting like a typical wafer. Again, I can't say that I'd choose this item over the regular Oreo cookie. Something about paying more for less and not being able to twist the cookie makes it less appealing to me. After doing so many entries about Asian candies, part of me wants to take a tour of the world just to see how much candy costs in different places.