Well, my dissertation has taken an interesting turn, going from youth to adults with eating disorders (irony, thy name is academe).  Now I need to learn a lot more about them, developing some level of expertise in the next… week or two.  Oh, dear.

Welp, let’s talk candy.  Rolos, to be precise.  Rolo is one of those oddball candies that are made by different companies depending on where you are in the world.  In the U.S., they’re made by Hershey, while they’re made by Nestle everywhere else.  When I last went by Jungle Jim’s in Cincinnati, I found both English and South African versions, so I grabbed those and one of the American packages and set about to compare.

American Rolos are a semi-soft, but still chewy, caramel covered with milk chocolate.  The candies are molded, and fit neatly into roll-type packaging, which makes them good for snacking – unlike a caramel-filled candy bar, you can set Rolos aside or forget about them in your purse without having everything covered in sticky goo.  They’re one of my favorites.  I like eating the chocolate first, then savoring the pleasantly caramelized, slightly grainy center.  They’re also good refrigerated.

South African: The piece is about 3/4 the size, but there are two more per package, making it longer but narrower.  There is much more chocolate than the American type, with a thicker base.  It is also much sweeter, with a strong dairy taste.  There’s a tart/sour flavor, which is not unpleasant, but it is unexpected.  There really isn’t enough caramel to do my usual chocolate-followed-by-caramel method, and the caramel is a little too soft to hold together for long, but it’s all right.

English: The same size as the South African.  Interestingly, these are packaged with all the pieces going the same direction, while South Africa and America enjoy their Rolos packed with alternating directions, top-bottom, bottom-top.  English Rolos are darker and less sweet.  They are also chewier, and can be eaten following my typical approach.  It’s enough that, if you are one of those Philistines who chew the whole thing at once, you’ll have a very nice caramel finish.

Baking tip – refrigerate Rolos, then cut them into 1/4 pieces while still cold (they cut clean that way), or even smaller.  Eat the excess.  Add them to a recipe for fudge brownies.  Yum!  Make sure you add enough that you can cut the brownies into small squares.  Pecans work well with them as well.  You can also make chocolate thumbprint cookies with Rolos – roll them in finely chopped pecans before baking, then squish a Rolo in place right after they come out of the oven.

SCORE: Overall, 7 out of 10

Purchased at: Various spots

Price: 1.29 for English & South American, 0.69 for American

Ooh, before I start, did you know there are York baking pieces now?  Yes, they’re little tiny peppermint patties, smaller than a penny.  I haven’t found them in area stores yet – Bloomington, IN is not your first tier marketing place.  They’re intended for baking, just like the tiny Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.  They’re adorable.  I need to find them.

Until then, I’ll have to make do with the regular ones.  Isn’t life tough, having to decide on those unnecessary, nutritionally bankrupt extra calories?  All while living in a nice, warm house with an excess of material posessions… this is one of those “I have to quit whining” things.

These little blue and white candies look like they would be perfect Hannukah candies, if they were kosher.  They’re not, or at least it doesn’t say so.  The bag smells lovely when opened, a nice rush of chocolate and sweet peppermint.  Each candy piece is about the size of an M&M. Although each piece is not completely uniform, they are close enough to not be important.  Don’t fool yourself with the dark chocolate label – these things are as sweet as any milk chocolate.  There is no center here – each piece is a candy covered bit of mint-flavored chocolate.

The taste is not significantly different than a mint patty.  The chocolate is a bit stronger, perhaps.  I thought the candy shell was too thick – with this kind of candy, my favorite way to eat it is to hold it in my mouth for a minute or two, so the chocolate melts, then crack it with my tongue and suck the chocolate out.  I like the way the chocolate coats my tongue, plus eating them this way is a good way to slow my consumption, so I eat less.  That’s the theory, anyway.  With a thicker shell, I have to bite, which doesn’t result in the same sensory experience.

These don’t exactly knock my socks off.  They’re okay, but they don’t make me want to sit and snack on them.  Of course, the real patties don’t make me do that either – I’m usually happy having one or two mini patties a day when I have a bag.  They would, however, make exquisite chocolate chip cookies, maybe even brownies.  Just substitute these for the chocolate chips, and you’ll get a combination that is tasty and a little out of the norm.  That extra crunchiness would be particularly well-suited to baking, since it will help hold the shape and add to texture contrasts.

SCORE: 6 out of 10, possibly more as baking bits

Purchased at: Kroger

Price: 2.50 (sale)

Isn’t snow wonderful?  No, seriously, as long as they keep the roads clear I love it.  It’s so much prettier than the drab grey and brown that usually dominates the winter scene.  I’m applying for jobs now (academic jobs start posting in December for jobs starting in August) and one of the jobs is Long Beach, CA.  It would be nice to have less bitter cold, but I would really miss the seasons.  I guess I’m a midwesterner at heart.  Can I just stay in Bloomington?  That would be so nice.  I would be broke and unemployed, but it would be home.  I’m getting pre-emptively homesick so I don’t have to do it when I move!  Does that work?

Anyway, here we have Australia’s oldest chocolate bar, and it makes me think of the Victorian candies, the ones that were big on fruity and flowery flavors.  This one is similar to a Mounds bar, witha coconut center covered with dark chocolate.  This throws in the addition of cherry flavor, and a different shape – this one is a flat, wide rectangle – and a different texture, given that the coconut is very finely pulped instead of long shreds, and there are chunks of maraschino cherries in it… so really, it’s similar in that there are two ingredients the same.

I could see myself buying this quite a bit if it were on sale in the US.  It’s not too sweet, always a risk with a cherry filling, and I like having a good quality of chocolate on the outside instead of mockolate.  If you don’t like coconut, you’ll dislike this, but I like coconut, so I’m cool.  Of course, if you dislike coconut and get a coconut candy bar, that’s your own look-out.

SCORE: 8.5 out of 10

Purchased at: Jungle Jim’s

Price: ?

I love Creme Eggs.  They’re one of my favorite parts of the Easter season.  I like biting off the top and licking out the goo before enjoying the sweet milk chocolate.  That said, I tend to stick with one every other day or so for the brief season they’re available, because my heart starts racing just thinking of all that sugar.  Twisted offers the Creme Egg taste year ’round in other countries, like England, that are also suffering major obesity-related health issues.

The bar is heavy, about four inches long, and molded into a twisted shape.  The center has three layers – one yellow, one white, and one that seems to be pure, clear sugar syrup.  I don’t think the syrup is intended, but rather the result of settling.  The taste is like an egg – sweetsweetsweetsweet with some chocolate.  The proportions are more like the mini eggs, with more chocolate to center than the big eggs.

Remember how I love eggs?  I couldn’t finish this bar.  Since the center is gooey, that means I had to toss out about a third of it because I was getting rather sick to the stomach.  It’s way too much sweet for me.  I feel like I’ve betrayed some part of myself in saying this, but.. it’s not that great.  I feel like I got whacked with a sugar stick.

Score: 3 out of 10 – too much of a good thing is not a good thing.

Purchased at: Jungle Jim’s

Price: 1.29

How have I not tried these?  They fairly scream “eat me, o lover of orange-flavored chocolate!”  I can get my fill of chocolate and minor destruction!  See, before you unwrap these, you’re supposed to whack them on a hard surface so the little orange segments come loose from a central stem.  Each of the 20 segments comes printed with the word Terry’s and a print resembling the segment of an orange, but just on one side.  The other side is flat.

There’s a surprising amount of chocolate in these oranges, and all of it is tasty.  It’s actually flavored with orange oil, and it tastes fresh and fruity.  It works very well with the milk chocolate.  I really like how thin each segment is, because it begins to melt evenly immediately.  A thick bar is nice, but thin is often better.  Did I mention there’s a surprising amount of chocolate in these things?  Because there is.

I think I like the toffee better than the plain orange milk.  The toffee adds a pleasant roasted caramel taste, and adds a little more depth.  The pieces of toffee are a nice size, too, and add a crunch to the texture.  It makes the orange… I can’t believe I’m going to type this… well-rounded.

Yeah.

Score: 9 out of 10

Purchased at: Target

Price: 2.99

It’s a dull, dreary day here, so the shiny golden wrapping on these bars grabbed my attention right away.  The Golden Almond bar was made in 1977.  It replaced the Baked Almond Milk Chocolate bar, which was first made in 1931.  This is, according to the back of the box, the first time this bar has been widely available.  Previously they were limited to Hershey-owned properties in Hershey, Pennsylvania.

These are thick, heavy bars.  Each one divides into eight rectangles.  The roasted almonds are small, but included whole, and quite tasty.  The milk chocolate is creamier than regular Hershey’s chocolate, but is not a tremendous amount different.  It’s pleasant, sweet and munchable, making it a little bit of a challenge to not sit and eat the whole bar at once (which would make me feel a bit ill, I don’t know about you).  The box came with four bars.  There was also a gift pack of chocolate covered almonds that I didn’t get, and now feel like I should have, because the almonds are the part that really makes this bar stand out.  I don’t think it’s worth what adds up to $2 a bar, but I assume I would pay more for a gift pack than for unpackaged bars.

Score: 8.5 out of 10

Purchased at: Kroger

Price: 7.99

Lindt truffles are quite basic in terms of construction – it’s a firm, thin chocolate shell around a smooth, creamy center.  In this case, an extra-dark (they say) shell around a dark chocolate, peppermint flavored creamy center.  The centers are ultra-smooth and buttery in texture, and melt almost instantly.  It’s good, as I expected, but the chocolate shell seemed a bit too strong for my tastes.  I would have preferred something that competed a little less with the mint.  I am particularly (over) sensitive to bitter tastes, so this should be taken with a grain of salt.  It is perfectly acceptable as one of those fancy candies you set out at Christmas to make sure everybody gets a sugar buzz going.

Score: 7 out of 10

Purchased at: Target

Price: 4.99

The texture is very nice.  You would think that since you break the pieces with a little hammer (great for destructive children!) it would be a hard candy, but it’s actually chewy and meltingly smooth.  These are not great if you have extensive expensive dental work to protect, since they are of the “stick to the teeth” type of toffee.  If you can risk it, these are wonderful – mellow, buttery and very nicely caramelized, with a good depth of flavor.  The treacle is a bit richer and darker, with that slight iron overtaste that molasses usually has.  The nuts and fruit blend well and (this is important) are in fairly large chunks.  No fruit and nut dust that creates a gritty texture, and it’s all very fresh, a high risk with Brazil nuts, which have a high oil content that can go rancid quickly if not stored properly.

In summary, you should buy these unless you place high value on your dental work.

Score: 9 out of 10

Purchased at: British Tea Shoppe

Price: 14.99

Second day of Christmas: Dove Peppermint Bark!  This candy has the same basic ingredients as the Promises which I reviewed earlier, but these are slabs instead of molded pieces, which also means they are less consistent in the ratio of, say, white chocolate and dark chocolate.  This one is usually more dark chocolate than white, while it was evenly divided in the promises.  The candy pieces are also larger.  Despite these differences, the taste was remarkably similar.  Do not expect to have a strong or bitter dark chocolate – this is sweet, made sweeter by the large swirls of white chocolate.  It is quite good, and looks very pretty.  I would prefer the promises, I think, largely because they are a bit tidier – no need to have melting chocolate all over my fingers.  Not to mention I could get a couple of bags of Promises for the same price as four small slabs of Bark.

SCORE: 8 out of 10

Purchased at: Kroger

Price: 4.99