Big Change For One Review

 

One thing that happens on candycritic.org from time to time is the addition of an international version of a particular treat. This basically means that I've discovered the same treat, but from a different place than the first place that I tried it. Most often the first place I try it is in Canada, but not always. I've only recently started to review the same treats from different places, and I've found that some of them can be very different (some are identical too). The thing that happens when I post these reviews is I have to go back into my old reviews and clarify where I bought the original. Sometimes the first time I review something is also not the original too.

Check out this Easter review of a classic treat from England.

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The Top 6 Easter Candies I've Reviewed On Candy Critic, and My Least Favourite

Here's the strange thing about this list, every single entry is chocolate based. Even stranger, is that all but one is egg themed. I think it's safe to say that Easter is really a chocolate heavy holiday and the best way to eat this chocolate is in egg form. After doing a little checking (you can check out entire selection of Easter treat review here), it appears that only 4 of the 33 Easter reviews I've written are not chocolate based. While there is no denying that Easter is chocolate heavy, it could also be that I tend to lean towards chocolate Easter treats as well.

So here's the list of our top six Easter treats that I've reviewed on Candy Critic:

6 (tied with 5) with a total score of 12 - Milk Chocolate Eggs "with a Hazelnut Praline Filling"

I remember picking these up and not thinking much of them, after all they're just boring eggs covered in foil. Turns out I was wrong, for all the right reasons.

Click here to check out this review.

5 (tied with 6) with a total score of 12 - Green and Black's "Organic Milk Chocolate Egg"

This is one of the treats that changed the way I thought about organic chocolate. I used to think it was a gimmick, but after eating this egg I realized that there might be something to this organic chocolate.

Click here to check out this review.

4 (tied with 3) with a total score of 12.5 - L'il Scoops

Not only was this a fine quality chocolate treat, but it was super creative as well. Getting a chocolate egg is always fun, but packaging them up like real eggs is really cool.

Click here to check out this review.

3 (tied with 4) with a total score of 12.5) - Butter Cream Egg

This is proof that shopping outside of the main big box stores is a great idea for Easter. There are many small candy makers that are creating some amazing treats for Easter, and this is a great example of that.

Click here to check out this review.

2 with a score of 13 - Iddy Biddy Bunnies

This is a great example of an Easter gimmick that works well. It works well because they're is just something so satisfying about putting a whole bunch of tiny chocolate bunnies in your mouth at once. It also doesn't hurt that the chocolate is really good too.

Click here to check out this review.

1 with a score of 14 - Crème Egg

I've recently learned that there are people that actually hate the Cadbury Crème Egg. They say that it's too sweet. I do agree that it's really sweet, but I don't mind, it just tastes so great and it's a fun gimmick too.

Click here to check out this review.

Bonus, our lowest rated Easter treat with a score of 3.5 - Dark Chocolate Gold Brick Egg

It's disappointing chocolate, disappointing filling, and a boring theme. It's sad when holiday candy disappoints.

Click here to check out this review.

Make sure too check out all our Easter review here.

An be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter because we're going to have a special Easter review going up this weekend.

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Amazing Candy/Junk Food Things That You Should Buy - Pagan Breakfast God Mask

For all your breakfast worshipping needs.

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Easter Is Over, And We Have A New Review - M&M's Eggs "Peanut Butter"

As a kid, this was the time of year that I would be in my element. The holiday is over, and I'm left with a basket filled with chocolate goodness. My parents were also somewhat responsible, so I would also get a few small toys as well, most notably either a small Lego kit or an action figure or two.

Click here to read our last Easter candy review this year.

And make sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to keep up with all our crazy antics.

You can also follow us on Patreon for previews of what we're working on, and an exclusive video every Friday.

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Candy In the Media - Reese's Easter Commercial Is Suggesting Something

I might be reading into this a little bit, but is the implication here that chocolate bunnies and peanut butter jars hook up and produce peanut butter eggs?

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My Candy/Junk Food Chrsitmas Wishlist - Bogeyman Egg Separator

Many of you might know that I love to bake. I love to bake, but I hate separating eggs. This invention may not make separating eggs any easier, but it will certainly make it a lot more fun.

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This Week/Easter In Candy

Holy crap, I almost forgot about Easter.  I was so excited about our upcoming Icelandic candy review-a-thon that I forgot about Easter. I was planning on having the review-a-thon this week, but since it's Easter, it makes more sense to focus on possibly the second best candy related holiday of the year.  It's actually my favourite, and has been since I was a kid.  If you gave me the choice between Easter and Halloween, I would always pick Easter hands down.  After all the candy in Easter it free, you don't have to trudge around the neighbourhood to get it.

This week's going to be an all Easter theme. Our Candy In The Media post we have a very disturbing SNL sketch all about Easter candy, it'll keep you awake at night I'm sure.  We're also going to be posting so fun Easter facts on Snack Facts, our Instagram feed. Hopefully we'll have a few other fun Easter posts on our Facebook and Twitter feeds as well. Make sure to keep up with all the Easter fun here on candycritic.org, and check back next week for our very special tribute to Iceland, which will include a very disturbing episode of Chris, Why Would You Eat that?!!

This week's special Easter review I picked because it was somewhat controversial earlier this year.  Apparently the folk that make these Oreo Easter eggs thought that American's wouldn't want to eat them, so they only sold them in Canada.  There was enough of an outcry that eventually Americans got them, but I'm not sure how well they made it around. As it turns out, if you couldn't get them, you're not missing much. Click here to find out why I thought these eggs were over-hyped.

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I Want Easter Candy Variety, And I Have Suggestions

Easter is a very simple holiday candy wise.  There are really only a few candies that dominate the market, Easter eggs, jellybeans, and chocolate bunnies.  Don't get me wrong, I love all of those treats, in fact I think we should have these treats (or versions of them) available throughout the year.  I am however a lover of creativity, and seeing the same Easter candy year after year gets me down.  Several times on this blog I've spent the time designing specific new candy treats for holidays, but not this time.

Rather than be specific about the design of treats, I want candy makers out there to be a little bit more creative.  I'm going to suggest types of candies that I think would work for Easter, and let the candy companies’ work out the details.  These are fairly broad candy categories that I've never seen Easter candy touch, but I think with a little creativity you could have some new classic Easter treats. Right now Easter treats are really limited in creativity, so I think there's just so many places you could go.

The first category is one that might seem like the worst Easter treat idea ever, but I think it would work is potato chips.  Instantly I'm sure your mind is thinking, how do chocolate eggs and potato chips go together, but you have to think a little more broadly.  Recently Lay's has had several contests to vote for a new flavour of chip, and in almost all of these contests there was a "sweet" flavour.  Why not take this sweet flavour and work in an Easter spin, how about hot cross buns flavoured chips (hot cross buns are a traditional Easter dessert in the UK).  You could also go with Easter ham flavoured chips, that would be far less strange but still in the spirit.  Best of all you could limit these chips for the holiday, and therefore not wear out the novelty.

The second category for Easter expansion is gummies.  I feel like a broken record when I tell people that gummies should be expanded into a holiday treat, because frankly I believe gummies are the most versatile candy in the world.  There have been a few Easter gummies (pictured above), however I feel like there could be thousands more.  This is also something you could merge into the chocolate bunny and chocolate egg world. Why not make chocolate flavoured gummy eggs and bunnies.  Even fruity gummy Easter eggs would work, and you could make them super decorated.

Probably the most obvious treat that seems to have missed out on Easter is lollipops.  The round shape of a lollipop would be perfect to link up with an Easter egg.  You could make all kinds of fun flavours and decorate them just like fancy Easter eggs.  If you're really creative you could go with super detailed Easter egg lollipops and decorate them like Ukrainian Easter eggs.  A lollipop of that calibre could be the first edible museum piece ever.

There are three simple candy ideas that I've never seen (or seen very little of), that we already know are popular in the snack food world. So come on candy companies, let’s stretch out the Easter candy lines and make something a little out of the ordinary.

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Easter Greeting Cards From Candy Critic

Easter Chocolates Greeting Card by bewarethecheese
Create a greeting card online

Hey gang, why not pick up a fun greeting card for that special someone this Easter.  Candy Critic has a whole bunch of designs for you to check out including this snazzy one.

Click here to check out the store to see a few more of our cards, t-shirts, and posters.

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Friday Candy Video

I find it really sad that American's can't enjoy Kinder Eggs.  As you may know, Kinder Eggs are illegal in the US because they're a candy with a toy inside.  The US Food and Drug Administration believes that these eggs are choking hazards, and there's a pretty stiff fine if you're caught importing them into the US.

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It's Time For An Easter Review

I managed to convince the Easter Bunny to make a quick stop at my house early this year.  That way I could get the Easter review online well before Easter.  Fortunately the Easter bunny is a pretty easy going guy, so in no time he dropped off a couple of treats for me to review.  He didn't leave my whole stash, just a sampler.

Click here to read our Easter review.

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Old Candy Critic Articles - Kinder Fun

I've decided to take down several old articles from the candycritic.org and re-post them here on the Candy Critic blog.  This week we look at an article I wrote exploring a fun little basket of Kinder treats.

So it's Easter and what's the greatest part about Easter? It’s really one of the best examples for a holiday that brings fun and candy together. This is the time of year that candy has to be fun. If it’s as simple as hunting for chocolate eggs, or a cool and crazy candy in a basket, Easter is all about playing with your treats. So what does the Candy Critic do to celebrate this type of holiday? Well I go to the folks that make "Kinder Surprise" and pick up an Easter fun type basket. Wondering if it's the treat for you? Well look no further as we present; Candy Critic looks at the "Easter Kinder Mix" pack.

Kinder Surprise

Nothing says fun more than the word “surprise”, and nothing is more surprising than the prize you might find in a Kinder Surprise. I say this with much honesty, only because some of the prizes are a little strange. Covered in great chocolate and always filled with cool prizes, this is one of the treats I always go for when I'm in a bad mood. Since Easter is all about making sure you’re in a really good mood this treat fits the bill.

Here's a picture of my prize:

Kinder Choko-Bon

Kinder Choko-Bon is what you might call interesting. As usual the chocolate is great quality, a regular trait in Kinder treats. This one has either a white really light nougat or a white chocolate filling, with little wafer or nutty bits. I like it since nothing is better than a bite into something with a little texture surprise.

Kinder Bar

If you like the chocolate on the ever popular Kinder Surprise then get yourself a whack of these. This is basically the egg without the prize. Well that and it's rectangular not oval and it's not hollow. Okay so it's not really like the egg at all, but the chocolate is great and there's no chance of biting into a prize.

Kinder Hippo

Of all the treats in Kinder collection, this is the only one I've never sampled before. I'm not sure if they're new, but they’re new to me. So here goes… Holy cow, these are great!  It's like a light tasting "Nutella" cream inside a wafer Hippo. How many times in your life can you say, "wafer Hippo"? It's not bad, like all Kinder treats the creamy stuff is high quality and smooth, and everything about it says fun. If you can find a Kinder Hippo, try it out you might like it. My only problem is they appear to be rather fragile, I got two in this Kinder pack, and they were both busted.

As a bonus here's my Hippo getting lassoed by my Kinder Surprise prize:

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A Look At Easter Treats

When you think about Easter candy, you generally have two themes that come to mind, eggs and bunnies.  Both of them have their advantages and disadvantages, and both of them are very prolific on the Easter candy shelves.  The question is, is one Easter candy theme better than the other?  Would you rather have a basket full of eggs, or a basket full of bunnies waiting for you on Easter morning?

The most common type of Easter treat has to be chocolate.  Often it's hollow chocolate, but sometimes it's solid or filled with something sweet.  In these cases eggs provide some advantages while bunnies provide others.  The key difference is in the shape (we'll ignore the size variation at this point since both shapes come in many sizes), the egg is a large single cavity with lots of room for filling (or air), the bunny generally has smaller cavities for filling, but it has more variation in cavity size.  When it comes to chocolate filled treats you're faced with either a large amount of filling (the egg) or great varieties of filling.  So which you prefer depends on if you want a lot of filling, or if you want your filling to be tasted in different proportions to the chocolate on each bite.

If your chocolate bunny or egg happens to be hollow, I think the decision is a lot easier to make.  I think the bunny is the best way to eat a hollowed out Easter treat.  The egg has way too much air, and often shatters into a million pieces too easily.  If you happen to be eating a solid chocolate bunny or egg, I think bunny is really the only choice.  Unless the egg is really small, I don't think anybody would have a good time trying to eat it. The solid chocolate bunny allows for more bite choices without breaking your jaw.

The other area of thought is in the non-chocolate Easter related treats.  These are generally far and few between compared to their chocolate comrades  particularly in egg department.  There are a few egg treats, but most of them are similar to Jelly beans.  They're candy coated egg shaped treats filled with something either jelly like or marshmallow like.  While I do eat these if offered, I generally don't prefer these eggs.  Bunnies on the other hand seem to dominate the gummy world.  I've seen a few varieties of gummy bunnies, some are great, some are kind of gross, but that's par for the course with gummies.

While there are certainly other shapes of Easter treats available, in my experience bunnies and eggs tend to work best.  With an egg or a bunny you're instantly able to identify it with Easter.  Other attempts I've sampled either lose the Easter feeling, or in some cases they're just flat out weird.

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