The Good: Delicious sweet chocolate, Crispy portion is tasty
The Bad: Not the most nutritious thing ever, Nuts are overwhelmed by chocolate, Aftertaste, Indistinct
The Basics: Sadly, Reese’s Crispy Crunchy are an interesting twist on a Butterfinger’s-like candy that fails to truly resonate on its own.
I admire ambition, I truly do. I like it when a company takes a risk. But, to be honest, not every risk or innovation actually pays off when a company makes a leap. Hershey’s, for example, clearly was trying to make a dent in the niche that Nestles’ Butterfingers candy bars have owned since they first came into existence. There is nothing like a Butterfingers and Hershey, though Reese’s, is clearly trying to make an impact on that monopoly with their Crispy Crunchy.
Despite not being wowed at all by the Reese’s Crispy Crunchy, I am impressed that Hershey’s did not go for simple mimicry with the Crispy Crunchy. In addition to providing a Butterfingers-like candy bar, Hershey’s put a twist on the classic chocolate of their competitor by adding a layer of peanuts. I admire the attempt, if not the execution. In attempting to do more than simply replicating the trademark candy bar of Nestle’s, Hershey’s and Reese’s make a strangely indistinctive, somewhat messy candy bar.
Basics
Reese’s Crispy Crunchy are a fairly new Hershey’s candy bar. Like most Hershey’s candy bars, these come individually wrapped in a thin plastic wrapper that keeps the candy bar fresh. The 1.7 oz. candy bar is 4 3/8” long by 1 1/2" wide. This chocolate bar is characterized by a surprisingly lumpy shape, muck like Turtles. The rounded top features broken up peanuts atop a more square layer of peanut butter crisp.
Each Reese’s Crispy Crunchy chocolate bar is sold individually for about $.89.
Ease Of Preparation
These are candy, so preparing them is as simple as opening the wrapper and then eating the candy bar. There is no trick or mystery to eating Reese’s Crispy Crunchy. As long as you have opposable thumbs and a mouth, the Crispy Crunchy is pretty much yours for the consuming!
Taste
The Reese’s Crispy Crunchy have a faint bouquet, which smells just like a Reese’s peanut butter cup. This smells mostly like chocolate with a slight nutty underscent. The aroma is one that is faint and has mass-produced peanut butter whiff below the primary chocolate scent.
Placing the Crispy Crunchy on the tongue, yields no real surprises. The chocolate coating on this candy bar is very thin. It is sweet and melts away fast to reveal a center that is dry, flaky and buttery. The bottom half of the Crispy Crunchy (presumably the “crispy” portion) is instantly reminiscent of a Butterfingers bar. The top half, which appears nutty, is where the peanuts are located. In an uncommon fashion, these peanuts are completely overwhelmed by the sweetness of the chocolate. This candy bar easily drowns out the flavor of the peanuts, so the “crunch” is actually more accurately represented by the texture than the flavor.
All together, the Crispy Crunchy does not have quite enough “crispy” to overcome the exceptionally sweet milk chocolate coating. The result is a candy bar that tastes more generically sweet than distinct in any of its promised flavors. Ultimately, the sweet fades and the mouth is left exceptionally dry, which is not at all pleasant.
Nutrition
These are candy and a mass produced one at that, so it is tough to look at these for something nutritious and then blame them for not being healthy. Reese’s Crispy Crunchy are not nearly as bad as they could be on the nutrition front, though, which surprised me as the ingredient list did not degenerate into a listing of chemicals I could not pronounce. Instead, the primary ingredients are peanuts, sugar and vegetable oil. There is nothing unpronounable in these candies, though there are two abbreviated preservatives. Everything else is easily identified.
A serving of the Reese’s Crispy Crunchy is considered one bar. From a single candy bar, Reese’s Crispy Crunchy Kisses provides 260 calories, 150 of those calories being from fat. There is 1% of the RDA of cholesterol and 6% of one’s daily sodium, but there are no vitamins in these chocolates, unsurprisingly. There is, also, only 2% of one's daily calcium in the bar.
Honestly, these are candy and anyone looking to them for actual nutrition needs to get a reality check. These are not Vegan-compliant, nor are they recommended for anyone with a nut allergy as they are produced on the same equipment that coconuts pass over . . . and, duh, they include peanuts! They are not noted to be either kosher or gluten-free.
Storage/Clean-up
The bars of these Reese’s Crispy Crunchy remain fresh for quite some time. The bar my got me for Easter would have expired in June of 2012, had I not eaten it already. Given that each bar is individually wrapped in a very sealed package, it is hard to imagine just what it would take for these to go bad outside melting and refreezing. Hershey’s chocolates do seem especially susceptible to melting, though.
As for cleanup, I applaud those who actually throw the wrappers away in socially appropriate places, as opposed to litter. Outside that, there is no real cleanup needed, unless one is eating them in a hot environment. In that case, it is likely one would need to wash their hands. If this chocolate bar melts into most fabrics, it will stain. Getting them to melt, unfortunately, does not take much.
Overall
Reese’s Crispy Crunchy is a good idea and one that might have worked had Reese’s only upped the amount of “crispy” layered peanut-butter in each bar. As it is, now, it does not have what it takes to realistically take on the Butterfingers.
For other Hershey’s candy reviews, please check out my reviews of:
Cadbury Chocolate Creme Egg
Whoppers
Limited Edition Irish Crème Hershey’s Kisses
4/10
For other food reviews, please visit my index page for an organized listing!
© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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