Halloween and Peanut Butter - Yay!!

I love peanut butter.  I love Halloween.  I was so excited when the Halloween candy starting hitting the shelves.  I kept going back to all my favorite candy haunts (heh, heh, heh - get it, haunts?) looking for the new, the exciting, the different.  And was so disappointed this year.

Sure there were the usual miniature candy bars, but that's the same every year.  We need new, exciting candy - simple pleasures to take our minds off foreclosure rates and unemployment figures.

At least Nestle made a Butterfinger pumpkin:

I like the design - a bit creepy and a bit friendly all at once.  Pretty impressive.

This guy is chocolate with Butterfinger pieces mixed in.  It's okay.  I prefer the mini Butterfingers taste.  Nestle's chocolate isn't as good as their Butterfinger filling.  I'd really like this if it were all Butterfinger filling.  I don't think it would hold together very well, but damn, it would be good!  And it would be orange.  Nestle candy makers - read my blog and make us a Butterfinger (no chocolate) pumpkin!  Crunchy!  Peanut buttery!  Yum!

This is new fall packing for the Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins.  I'm still bitter they didn't make the mini ones this year.  But I still think these are the best peanut butter treats on the market.  They still have the old Halloween themed purple packaging from last year (you can see it in last year's post if you really care that much).  Maybe this is so they can keep the Reese's pumpkins on the shelf a little longer - making them a fall treat?  These could stay out through Thanksgiving.

I think we should be giving thanks for these all year long!

This is the only Russell Stover candy I bought this year.  I didn't see anything else new and I hate Russell Stover anyway.  I think they own Whitman's so the marshmallow candy corn was one of theirs too.  I did like it.  But I still hate Russell Stover.  Not as much as the Naked Cowboy, but close.

I was intrigued by this because the wrapper says it's solid peanut butter and it's flat as a pancake.  I wanted to see what it was:

Reese's next to Russell Stover:

My soul mate:

You have got to be kidding!  Why even bother with this? 

No creaminess, the peanut butter taste is too sugary and fake.  It's just a travesty.  Gross.  See why I hate Russell Stover?

I reviewed these last year, but they are so random and weird, I threw them in again this year:

Palmer's Creepy Peepers peanut butter filled eyeballs.  Made with the world's cheapest chocolate but at least they have decent peanut butter filling.  I like the peanut butter but that chocolate is just so waxy and bad.  But they are creepy (in a good Halloweeny way) and the packaging is a riot - "Eye love it, You'll Love it!"  "Another eye-catching idea from Palmer"  Campy!!  Love it!

These are another of my favorites - Hallowscream Caramel Balls from Harry and David:

Oh yes, babies - that is peanut butter wrapped around that caramel center.  These are the best EVAH!  Totally addictive, totally great.  Very peanut buttery and the mix of textures - crunchy candy coating, creamy peanut butter, chewy caramel - genius!!!!!  Get thee to a Harry and David and grab some of these - they are sooooo good!!!!!

I don't know about you, but I'm having fun!!!  I love Halloween and getting to see all the cute kiddies in their costumes!  And what better excuse for a middle aged woman to be stalking the candy aisle? 

Hope you're doing some fun things this week!  I'm gving my "Motivation by Chocolate" session for the hospital staff at Roanoke-Chowan  Hospital.  How much fun are we going to have?    Join in the fun - take some candy to work, wear a costume, or visit a corn maze or haunted house.  Life is short - celebrate!

Oompa Loompas and Peanuts

Nestle, like all the other big guns, had a pretty impressive booth at the Expo.  They were giving out samples of Butterfinger Snackerz:

These are crunchy and lighter than the regular Butterfinger.  I don't think they are better, mind you, but they are very good.  They have that awesome Butterfinger center surrounded by a "thin, crispy outer shell" - made of what, I do not know.  The whole thing is covered in chocolate with a drizzle of Butterfinger flavored - something.  These are well worth trying and should be out in convenience stores soon.  So keep your eyes peeled!  Who doesn't like Butterfingers?

This is the other side of the Nestle booth (how cool is Candy Expo?):

These were the samples they were giving out:

The top one is the Scrumdiddlyumptious Bar - made with bits of toffee, cookies and peanuts in milk chocolate.  Sounds amazing!!  I found it only average - hard to believe because I love all three of those!

The second one is the Domed Dark Bar - a dark bar with a milk chocolate "pillow" on top.  Again - average.

The bottom one is the Chocolate Waterfall Bar - see the full size here:

While it looks pretty....

It's not a very exciting bar - average chocolate.  Nothing special.  Pass.

I didn't get this at the Expo, but thought what the heck - it's a milk chocolate bar with graham crackers:

I just don't think Nestle's chocolate is the best - kind of waxy.  The graham crackers make this very sweet - textured like a Nestle Crunch, but sweeter.  There's something about this one that's addictive, even though it's not an incredible chocolate bar.  I had a hard time not eating the whole thing!

This is a limited Edition Snickers bar that Mars debuted at the Expo:

It's Snickers Extreme - all nuts and caramel - no nougat.  Autopsy photo is on the right (regular Snickers on the left):

I thought I would be all over this - loving it even more than the regular Snickers.  But you know what?  I don't!  I have under appreciated the nougat for years!  I prefer the standard Snickers to the Snickers Extreme.  There is nothing wrong with the Snickers Extreme - I mean, how could there be with caramel, peanuts and chocolate?  But I think the regular Snickers is better.  I'd love to hear what you all think.

2010 is the 80th anniversary of the Snickers bar (yep, it came out in 1930).  15 million Snickers are made each day and about 16 peanuts are in each one. 99 TONS of peanuts are used each day.  WOW!  It's the most popular candy bar in the United States.

For those of you who need sugar free candy, Dove may have the answer to your prayers.  Peanut Butter Promises were unveiled at Candy Expo:

They look great and I guess they probably are as far as sugar free goes.  But the regular ones are WAY better.  Sugar rocks!!  ; )

The peanut bar of chocolate lovers might just be this one:

This amazing bar by Green and Black is organic, but more importantly, it's a smooth delicious milk chocolate bar with caramelized peanuts and a hint of sea salt.  It's a wonderful sweet and salty combination with a delicious, high quality chocolate.  Wow!!!!  No Oompa Loompas, but the chocolate here destroys Nestle's.  And it's organic - God knows what toxins are in Wonka's chocolate river. 

Easter Caramel

I love caramel!!! And there is plenty of it at Easter! Yahoo!!

I love the colors of these Sugar Babies:

How festive are these?

And the taste?

Well, they are pretty hard, not as soft and chewy as I would like. The taste is okay, but there are soooo many better options as you are going to see. But I do love those festive colors!!

These turned out to be one of my favorite of all the Easter candies:

They are by Harry and David and come in festive colors and are shaped like eggs. I actually thought they were almonds when I first saw the package:

But no - they are caramel, wrapped in a layer of dark chocolate and coated in a candy shell:

And they are completely delicious and addictive. I wish I had 12 more packages. They are one of my top Easter candies. At least so far.

These assorted eggs by Neuhaus were expensive as hell - over a dollar per egg!

Gorgeous colors in a wide variety of flavors - as you will see:

This is caramel (there was only one):

This is a rich, chocolately caramel. It was delicious - a smooth, creamy caramel. It's a chocolate lovers caramel, not a caramel lovers chocolate. And I'm all about the caramel.

Here are the cheaper competitors -all clothed:

One of each clothed and naked:

From our friends at Palmer - look at that - $1.oo for the whole bag!

Not the flowing caramel we see elsewhere, but a good size. And I hate to say it, but sometimes you get what you pay for. These are not so good. Too sweet chocolate, and compared to the others, not so great caramel.

From Williams-Sonoma:

This was the smallest of the little eggs:

And I have to tell you, these were really, really delicious. A+++ A little more chocolate than the Cadbury Mini's, but the caramel is just as good. These are fantastic. I mean, just look at them! Yay!! (And there are 50 of them in the bag! Wheee!!!!)

From Nestle, slightly larger than Williams-Sonoma:

See all the chocolate? Not so much caramel:

These were in the same category as Palmer, maybe a tiny bit better. Both have that waxy chocolate and only average caramel. Why bother with them when you can have the Williams-Sonoma eggs or (drum roll please) these:

This one was the second largest, slightly smaller than Palmer:

And look at all that delicious, gorgeous caramel. Cadbury has it going on when it comes to caramel eggs. They are so very, very, very good!!

And the gold standard:

Isn't that a beautiful, beautiful thing? Cadbury is a winner because both the chocolate and the caramel are great. It is the most oooey, gooey amazing stuff on the planet!!

Another lame egg by Lammes:

Just like their crappy peanut butter egg, this one was hard to cut. Hello - hard caramel? BOO!!!

This was a dog. I hate Lammes now.

This is another treat from The Chocolate Bear. Doesn't that bunny look familiar?

Look at the little green bow on her ear and her eyelashes! Cute!

See the caramel and nuts? WOW!! This was terrific!! Nuts, chocolate and caramel is one of my favorite combos. And this was really good because there are soooo many nuts!!! YUM!

I loved this - The Chocolate Bear is making a good comeback!!

You know if we're going to talk nuts and caramel, we gotta talk Snickers. I love all the different colors of the eggs:

I'm a Snickers fan, BUT this wasn't as good as The Chocolate Bear's rabbit "lollipop." Don't get me wrong, it's good, but compared to that there are too few nuts and too sweet nougat.

But, of course, the Snickers was better than this:

As usual, Russell Stover sucks. I mean - can you even see a nut? Oh wait - there's one. And does that caramel look even a little gooey?

If you're going to play in the big leagues, you gottta step up. Sorry, RS - you just don't cut it. Again.

This is weird - it says it's a dark chocolate covered pecan melt-a-way:

I see the dark chocolate and some pecans, but I thought caramel would be involved. I dunno - maybe that's why they call it a brick egg. By Elmer Candy Corp. Unique in that it has dark chocolate, but overall - crappy.

The lesson? The find the best caramel you gotta break a lot of eggs.