Overwhelmed By The Pretzel, Combos Sweet & Salty Vanilla Frosting Pretzels Have A Mixed Execution!

The Good: They do not taste bad
The Bad: Pretzel flavor is so much stronger than the vanilla frosting, Nothing amazing on the nutrition front
The Basics: Mars Combos Sweet & Salty Vanilla Frosting Pretzels are a good enough concept, but the vanilla frosting flavor is not strong enough to impress.


I have a pretty wonderful source for a wide variety of snacks and foods in my area, so it is one of the reasons I truly love reviewing foods. Every now and then, I uncover a real gem in the snack food aisle of my local eclectic discount store. Lately, that has not been happening so much unfortunately. The latest "miss" on the snack food front are the Combos Sweet & Salty Vanilla Frosting Pretzels. I was actually surprised to discover, when I sat down to review these Combos, that I have not reviewed any of the Combos snacks before. I was instantly enamored with the idea of the Vanilla Frosting Pretzel snacks, but was underwhelmed by their execution.

Basics

Combos were a pretty new snack from M&M/Mars when I was a kid and now they have made a transition from pure salty snacks into a sweet and salty realm with their Combos Sweet & Salty. This was my first experience with the Sweet & Salty line. The Combos Sweet & Salty Vanilla Frosting Pretzels are a clever idea for anyone who likes mixing disparate flavors. Unfortunately, those looking for the "sweet" half to satisfy a craving will have to look elsewhere.

Each one ounce serving of Combos Sweet & Salty Pretzels is made up of hard pretzel cylinders that are approximately 5/8” in diameter and 1” long. Combos Sweet & Salty Vanilla Frosting Pretzels come in a 6 oz. package with several dozen Pretzels. The Combos fall around their bag without any protection.

Ease Of Preparation

Eating Combos Sweet & Salty Vanilla Frosting Pretzels is not a real challenge: simply open the package, pull out a pretzel, and consume. When you have a pretzel out, all you have to do is stick it in your mouth and chew; there is nothing complicated or mysterious about eating these snacks.

Taste

The Combos Sweet & Salty Vanilla Frosting Pretzels smell like almost entirely of the filling, which is vanilla frosting. The aroma is very inviting to anyone who loves a sweet snack and craves vanilla frosting.

On the tongue, each Combos Sweet & Salty Vanilla Frosting Pretzel is hard and salty. The salt that coats the pretzels completely overwhelms any hint of the sweet vanilla frosting inside. The vanilla frosting acts more like a soft texture than a flavor in these Combos, so heavy is the baked pretzel and salt flavor. The bready pretzel is oppressive to the filling.

These pretzels leave one with a strong, dry aftertaste in the mouth.

Nutrition

Combos Sweet & Salty Vanilla Frosting Pretzels are intended as a sweet snack, not a full meal. A 1/3 cup, 1 ounce serving is not overly nutritious. Made primarily of wheat flour, vegetable oil, and whey this is not an all-natural food product. These Pretzels were produced on equipment that forces them to add a disclaimer about milk, soy, and wheat.

Combos Sweet & Salty Vanilla Frosting Pretzels have a substantive 130 calories for a single serving, 45 of which are from fat. A serving represents 15% of one's RDA of saturated fat, though they are cholesterol free. As well, they are predictably high in Sodium, having 270 mg (11% RDA) per serving. They have two grams of protein and two percent of the RDA of Calcium, with no other real nutrients. As one who is working on getting heart-healthy, I was happy to see a single gram of dietary fiber in each serving.

Storage/Cleanup

Combos Sweet & Salty Vanilla Frosting Pretzels are easy to care for and clean up. Unopened, they have a pretty short shelf life; we purchased ours two weeks ago and they have an expiration date in September 2015. Given how the package is not resealable, it is not easy to keep these Pretzels fresh once the bag is open. These hard pretzels generate significant crumbs when one consumes them!

Overall

Combos Sweet & Salty Vanilla Frosting Pretzels taste good, but are not exceptional, which makes them a harder Pretzel to get truly excited about. The lack of a real strong chocolate flavor to the chocolate chips makes them feel much more average with their embedded frosting than truly special.

For other reviews of snacks, please check out:
Chewy Chips Ahoy! Birthday Frosting Cookies
Clif Builder's Bar Chocolate Peanut Butter Protein Bar
Blue Diamond Smokehouse Flavor Almonds

4/10

For other food and drink reviews, please visit my Food Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Not Unpleasant, Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Trail Mix Snack Bars Still Lack A Hook!

The Good: Fairly healthy, Comparatively inexpensive, Does not taste bad . . .
The Bad: Not an impressive or distinctive flavor.
The Basics: Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Trail Mix Snack Bars are a very average health snack without a hook to truly sell them.


Recently, the discount food store near me got in a whole lot of meal bars, granola bars and energy bars, so I bought up a whole bunch and have been excitedly eating and reviewing them. Today, I’m up to my last Marathon bar. The Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Trail Mix Snack Bars are not the worst of the bunch that I tried, largely because they have an indistinct-enough name to make it impossible to hold them to a real flavor standard.

The Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Trail Mix Snack Bars are “powered by Snickers” and are basically a protein bar designed for hikers, dieters, and those who want something a little healthier than candy bars!

Basics

Snickers is best known for making the classic candy bar and the Marathon Smart Stuff bars are advertised as Powered By Snickers, which seems to mean “cashing in on the Snicker’s name.” Marathon Smart Stuff bars are part of M&M/Mars’s attempt to expand into snack and health foods, but they are not really chocolatey or like a Snicker’s Bar at all. The Crunchy Trail Mix Snack Bar have a very thin chocolate layer on the bottom, but they are not overly strong on the chocolate flavor.

Each Crunchy Trail Mix Snack Bar is in a 1.23 oz. bar that is foil-wrapped. Each bar represents a single serving and the Snack Bars are each 1 1/8” wide by 3/4” thick by 3 3/16” long Snack Bar that is unsurprisingly breakable or squishable. A box of Crunchy Trail Mix Snack Bars contains a dozen bars. Each bar looks like a chewy granola bar with a brown chocolate bottom. This is like a granola bar or Clif bar that looks much like a health bar, which is exactly what it is!

Ease Of Preparation

Eating Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Trail Mix Snack Bars is simple. After removing the foil wrapper, simply pull out the bar and stick it in your mouth. There is no particularly complicated equation to eating this snack; it is an entirely ready-to-eat food!

Taste

Unwrapping the Crunchy Trail Mix Snack Bar, there is a strong scent of fruit and nuts. The bars I had all smelled like fermenting raisins and honey. The scent of the fruit is much stronger than any other component of the bouquet and it prepares the consumer for a much fruitier granola bar than these snack bars actually are.

On the tongue, the Marathon Trail Mix Smart Stuff Snack Bars are vaguely sweet from the thin layer of milk chocolate, but otherwise they are exceptionally grainy in a very indistinct way. These mealy bars are not at all fruity, even though there are visible raisins in them! The Trail Mix bars have a grainy, vaguely nutty flavor broken up by the sweetness of the glaze that binds them together. This tastes like the middle ground between a flavorful granola bar and a protein-packed meal bar that just tastes dry and like some sort of industrial filler. Either way, this is not a very tasty or satisfying snack bar.

The Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Trail Mix snack bar has a very dry and slightly nutty aftertaste that lasts in the mouth for about fifteen minutes.

Nutrition

Marathon Smart Stuff Snack Bars are intended as a snack or a meal replacement. These 1.23 oz. Snack Bar represent a single serving and they are predictably healthy. Made primarily of multigrain crisps, milk chocolate, and toasted oats what surprised me was how there was nothing in these bars that was unpronounceable until the separate mineral list. This is a good food product and these Snack Bars were produced on equipment that may leave the bar with wheat, tree nuts and milk allergy warnings and they are not Vegan-compliant.

Marathon Smart Stuff's Crunchy Trail Mix Snack Bars have 130 calories, 30 of which are from fat. A full serving represents 5% of one's RDA of saturated fat and these are cholesterol free. Surprisingly, they are fairly low in sodium with only 85 mg per serving and there are 5 grams of protein to be had by eating a full bar. These are a significant source of Vitamin C and Calcium in that each bar has 20% of the RDA of each. A single bar also has 10% of one’s recommended daily allowance of Vitamins A and E, Iron, Magnesium, Zinc and Copper.

Storage/Cleanup

As a healthy snack, Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Trail Mix Snack Bar remain fresh so long as they are kept in their wrappers. As long as the bars are not heated up, they remain fresh and the only real clean-up for them comes from wiping up crumbs. If the Crunchy Trail Mix Marathon Smart Stuff bars get hot, though, the chocolate bottom will melt and cleaning that up can be a bit trickier, especially on light fabrics. Consult a fabric guide if the chocolate melts onto your clothes.

Overall

Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Trail Mix Snack Bars are healthy and good, but in no way impressive enough to make one want to stock up on them!

For other reviews of products by Snickers, please check out:
Marathon Crunchy Honey Graham Snack Bar Powered By Snickers
Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Chocolate Crisp Snack Bar
Snickers Dark

5/10

For other food and drink reviews, please check out my Food And Drink Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Bland Granola: Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Honey Graham Snack Bars Underwhelm!

The Good: Fairly healthy, Comparatively inexpensive
The Bad: Not a great flavor.
The Basics: Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Honey Graham Snack Bars are unimpressive.


Some wonderful foods these days come in bar form. I like meal bars, though the quest to pump as many nutrients into a single bar usually makes the food bars suffer on the taste front. Even though they are neither intensely filling or incredibly nutritious, the Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Honey Graham Snack Bars seem to fall into the category of unfortunately flavored food bars.

The Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Honey Graham Snack Bars are “powered by Snickers” and are basically a protein bar designed for hikers, dieters, and those who want something a little healthier than candy bars!

Basics

Snickers is best known for making the classic candy bar and the Marathon Smart Stuff bars are advertised as Powered By Snickers, which seems to mean “trading on the Snicker’s name.” Marathon Smart Stuff bars are part of M&M/Mars’s attempt to expand into snack and health foods. Like the Crunchy Chocolate Crisp Snack Bars (reviewed here!), the Crunchy Honey Graham Snack Bar have a very thin chocolate layer on the bottom, but they are not overly graham cracker flavored.

Each Crunchy Honey Graham Snack Bar is in a 1.23 oz. bar that is foil-wrapped. Each bar represents a single serving and the Snack Bars are each 1 1/8” wide by 3/4” thick by 3 3/16” long Snack Bar that is unsurprisingly breakable or squishable. A box of Crunchy Honey Graham Snack Bars contains a dozen bars. Each bar looks like a chewy granola bar with a brown chocolate bottom. This is like a granola bar or Clif bar that looks much like a health bar, which is exactly what it is!

Ease Of Preparation

Eating Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Honey Graham Snack Bars is simple. After removing the foil wrapper, simply pull out the bar and stick it in your mouth. There is no particularly complicated equation to eating this snack; it is an entirely ready-to-eat food!

Taste

Unwrapping the Crunchy Honey Graham Snack Bar, the scent of honey is actually fairly strong. There is also a nutty finish to the aroma that is strong as well. The combination of scents blends to foreshadow the flavor fairly well.

In the mouth, the Marathon Honey Graham Smart Stuff Snack Bars are dry and have the flavor of graham crackers and nuts. The thin layer of milk chocolate does not have the ability to stand up to the dry, rice and honey flavor that briefly dominates the palate. The sweetness of the honey is not terribly strong and the graham cracker flavor and its dryness overwhelm the tongue. There is a slight nutty taste to it as well. Regardless, the flavor is very much a typical granola bar flavor with a hint of graham crackers.

The Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Honey Graham snack bar has a strongly dry and nutty aftertaste that lasts for about ten minutes.

Nutrition

Marathon Smart Stuff Snack Bars are intended as a snack or a meal replacement. These 1.23 oz. Snack Bar represent a single serving and they are surprisingly healthy. Made primarily of multigrain crisps, caramel, and milk chocolate what surprised me was how there was nothing in these bars that was unpronouncable. This is a surprisingly good food product and these Snack Bars were produced on equipment that may leave the bar with wheat, tree nuts and milk allergy warnings and they are not Vegan-compliant.

Marathon Smart Stuff's Crunchy Honey Graham Snack Bars have 140 calories, 35 of which are from fat. A full serving represents 8% of one's RDA of saturated fat and these are cholesterol free. Surprisingly, they are fairly low in sodium with only 85 mg per serving and there are 5 grams of protein to be had by eating a full bar. These are a significant source of Vitamin C and Calcium in that each bar has 20% of the RDA of each. A single bar also has 10% of one’s recommended daily allowance of Vitamins A and E, Iron, Magnesium, Zinc and Copper.

Storage/Cleanup

As a healthy snack, Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Honey Graham Snack Bar remain fresh so long as they are kept in their wrappers. As long as the bars are not heated up, they remain fresh and the only real clean-up for them comes from wiping up crumbs. If the Crunchy Honey Graham Marathon Smart Stuff bars get hot, though, the chocolate bottom will melt and cleaning that up can be a bit trickier, especially on light fabrics. Consult a fabric guide if the chocolate melts onto your clothes.

Overall

Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Honey Graham Snack Bars are bland and superlative in no way.

For other reviews of healthy food, please check out:
Nature Valley Pumpkin Pie Granola Thins
Clif Builder’s Chocolate Mint Protein Bars
Quaker Vanilla Creme Brulee Popped rice snacks

3/10

For other food and drink reviews, please check out my Food And Drink Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Filling Up More Than “Satisfying,” Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Chocolate Crisp Bars Are Surprisingly Good!

The Good: Tasty, Very healthy, Comparatively inexpensive
The Bad: Could always be healthier/less expensive
The Basics: Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Chocolate Crisp Snack Bars are a less expensive option for those who like meal bars and are trying to cut down on sweets!


Locally, there is an event going on right now called Tip Up Town. For a week, the snowbirds come back to Northern Michigan and deign us with their presence so that during the summer there are still some businesses open to come back to. Seriously, the local economy pretty much dies during the winter and so the people who usually live here nine months out of the year coming back for a week and spending some money (despite the name of the event, few of them actually tip appropriately) actually helps quite a bit (despite how universally poorly they drive while here). As one of the local stores was celebrating the Tip Up Town event, they were selling off their stock of all sorts of granola, breakfast, and protein bars . . . dirt cheap. One of the ones I stocked up on was the Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Chocolate Crisp Snack Bars.

The Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Chocolate Crisp Snack Bars are “powered by Snickers” and are basically a protein bar designed for hikers, dieters, and those who want something a little healthier than candy bars!

Basics

Snickers is best known for making the classic candy bar and the Marathon Smart Stuff bars are advertised as Powered By Snickers, which seems to mean “trading on the Snicker’s name.” Marathon Smart Stuff bars are part of M&M/Mars’s attempt to expand into snack and health foods. Their Snack Bars come in several flavors and I chose the Crunchy Chocolate Crisp Snack Bar because I love chocolate and I figured if I was going to be biased toward a Marathon Smart Stuff bar, it would be the chocolate one!

Each Crunchy Chocolate Crisp Snack Bar is in a 1.23 oz. bar that is foil-wrapped. Each bar represents a single serving and the Snack Bars are each 1 1/4” wide by 5/8” thick by 3 1/4” long Snack Bar that is unsurprisingly breakable or squishable. A box of Crunchy Chocolate Crisp Snack Bars contains a dozen bars. Each bar looks like a chewy granola bar with a brown chocolate bottom. This is like a Clif bar that looks much like a health bar, which is exactly what it is!

Ease Of Preparation

Eating Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Chocolate Crisp Snack Bars is simple. After removing the foil wrapper, simply pull out the bar and stick it in your mouth. There is no particularly complicated equation to eating this snack; it is an entirely ready-to-eat food!

Taste

Unwrapping the Crunchy Chocolate Crisp Snack Bar, I was pleasantly surprised by just how strong the chocolate scent was. This bar smells like milk chocolate. The chocolate scent is strong and sweet and inviting; it actually smells like a high-quality cocoa.

In the mouth, the Marathon Smart Stuff Snack Bars are chocolatey and dry. Unlike a candy bar, this only has the chocolate on the bottom; the bulk of the bar is dry, ricey and grainy. That said, the Smart Stuff Snack Bar is sweet enough and cocoa flavored enough to actually be enjoyable to eat. The grain is sweetened by caramel and the chocolate. There is nothing nutty to the taste, nor does it actually taste like a Snickers bar.

The Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Chocolate Crisp snack bar has a slightly dry aftertaste that is cut by the enduring sweetness of the chocolate.

Nutrition

Marathon Smart Stuff Snack Bars are intended as a snack or a meal replacement. These 1.23 oz. Snack Bar represent a single serving and they are surprisingly healthy. Made primarily of multigrain crisps, milk chocolate, and corn syrup, what surprised me was how there was nothing in these bars that was unpronouncable. This is a surprisingly good food product and these Snack Bars were produced on equipment that may leave the bar with wheat, tree nuts and milk, so they are not Vegan-compliant.

Marathon Smart Stuff's Crunchy Chocolate Crisp Snack Bars have 140 calories, 35 of which are from fat. A full serving represents 8% of one's RDA of saturated fat and these are cholesterol free. Surprisingly, they are fairly low in sodium with only 90 mg per serving and there are 5 grams of protein to be had by eating a full bar. These are a significant source of Vitamin C and Calcium in that each bar has 20% of the RDA of each. A single bar also has 10% of one’s recommended daily allowance of Vitamins A and E, Iron, Magnesium, Zinc and Copper.

Storage/Cleanup

As a healthy snack, Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Chocolate Crisp Snack Bar remain fresh so long as they are kept in their wrappers. As long as the bars are not heated up, they remain fresh and the only real clean-up for them comes from wiping up crumbs. If the Crunchy Chocolate Crisp Marathon Smart Stuff bars get hot, though, the chocolate bottom will melt and cleaning that up can be a bit trickier, especially on light fabrics. Consult a fabric guide if the chocolate melts onto your clothes.

Overall

Marathon Smart Stuff Crunchy Chocolate Crisp Snack Bars are inexplicably being clearance locally, but that is lucky for me; this flavor is very much worth picking up!

For other reviews of healthy food, please check out:
Clif Builder’s Chocolate Mint Protein Bars
Quaker Vanilla Creme Brulee Popped rice snacks
Special K Protein Dark Chocolate Granola Bars

7/10

For other food and drink reviews, please check out my Food And Drink Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Expecting Coconut And You Get A 3 Musketeers . . . It’s Hard To Be Too Disappointed With That!

The Good: Tastes great, Inexpensive, No aftertaste, Amazing smell
The Bad: Obviously not very healthy, Does not actually taste like coconut.
The Basics: 3 Musketeers Coconut is a new or experimental flavor for my old favorite that, quite simply, does not live up on the flavor front for what it claims!


One of my favorite mass-produced candies in the world are 3 Musketeers bars. I can’t remember a time when I did not love 3 Musketeers (reviewed here!) and while I have enjoyed the chocolate mint 3 Musketeers, I was shocked to discover I have not yet reviewed them. In fact, I am actually dumbfounded that Mars/M&M’s slipped out a new flavor that I did not know of until I saw it in the store! On my way home from visiting my wife last, one of our favorite rest stops had a single box of 3 Musketeers Coconut chocolate bars on a rack that left me surprised and feeling the need to spend a couple dollars on candy!

Unfortunately, when it comes to 3 Musketeers Coconut, I am hoisted on my own petard as a reviewer. My own set of standards dictates that I cannot rate this anything above average as it does not actually taste like it claims to. Instead, this candy bar has a rich coconut smell, but tastes just like a regular 3 Musketeers bar. While that is pretty wonderful in its own right, it is not enough to enthusiastically recommend this variant. After all, if you want a 3 Musketeers bar, buy a 3 Musketeers bar. But is seems like a pretty safe bet that if you’re buying the 3 Musketeers Coconut, you want coconut flavor, not just the scent.

Basics

3 Musketeers Coconut is a pretty standard 3 Musketeers candy bar, designed to appeal to all consumers. The 1.49 ounce candy bar is wrapped in a white, red and blue plastic wrapper. Inside, smooth candy bar is actually two, smaller candy bars. Each Coconut flavored 3 Musketeers is about 2 3/8" long, 1 1/16” wide, and 9/16” tall, with no external texturing , save a stylistic drizzle across the top. This is not MARS’s answer to the Mounds bar.

Ease Of Preparation

These are candies that have been made by the fine folks at Mars Chocolates and as a result, preparing them is as easy as opening the wrapper and removing the bar. From there, one need only put each fun size bar in your mouth (one at a time) and chew. It does not need to be any more complicated than that! 3 Musketeers Coconut chocolate bars come ready-to-eat and require no preparation save removal from the wrapper.

Taste

Opening the Coconut 3 Musketeers wrapper, the smell of coconut is immediately evident. This is not a candy bar that is trying to hide its true nature. Instead, overwhelming any sense of the chocolate in this bar, the 3 Musketeers Coconut opens up the nasal passage with its distinct, creamy, slightly nutty scent of coconut and dares you not to take a bite.

I could not rise to that dare and placing the Coconut 3 Musketeers on the tongue, one is immediately impressed by the sweet and dry milk chocolate flavor of the candy bar. This is a particularly sweet milk chocolate that is not at all waxy and is so thin that it almost immediately gives way to the nougat inside. The soft, chocolate center is dry and delightful and more forthright in its flavor than the sweet coating. But almost entirely absent in the flavor mix is the actual taste of coconut. Sure, the scent was there in the package, but there is not even an aftertaste of coconut in these bars. In fact, rather oddly, I tasted more of a peanut and caramel aftertaste than anything remotely resembling coconut.

Nutrition

Obviously, these are candies and the folks at MARS do not intend for consumers to live on them. They are a snack and not a terribly nutritious one at that. A serving is considered the full 1.49 oz. package. With the standard recommended serving size, the candy has 180 calories, 50 of which are from fat! That's 9% of the RDA of fat, with 20% of the RDA coming from the four grams of saturated fat! While there is 2% of the RDA of calcium and a single gram of protein, there is no denying that this candy is not good for you and one ought to use it as a dessert occasionally, not a meal ever. I was surprised this candy bar contained 5 mg of cholesterol, though I was pleased that it only had 70 mg of Sodium.

The lack of health benefits ought to be obvious from the ingredients list, which is led by milk chocolate, sugar, and corn syrup. Rather nicely, this candy bar has nothing unpronounceable in it, which was a pleasant surprise. Also interesting is that there is no allergy information insinuating these were made anywhere near nuts! However, there is a warning about the candy possibly containing peanuts. The milkfat prevents it from being Vegan-compliant and its Kosher status is not documented on the package.

Storage/Clean-up

Just as with the preparation, 3 Musketeers Coconut chocolate bars are low stress when it comes to storage and cleanup. Storage is simple when the candy is kept in its wrapper at room temperature or cooler. Kept cool and out of direct sunlight, these confections have an indefinite shelf life (there is a production code, but no expiration date on my package).

3 Musketeers Coconut is a very soft candy bar, so it might require you to wash your hands after eating it. Should one of these bars melt onto clothing one is wearing, consult a fabric guide for what removes chocolate and/or nougat from that type of garment. Otherwise, melted Coconut 3 Musketeers should wipe right off non-porous surfaces with a warm, wet cloth.

Overall

Coconut 3 Musketeers chocolate bars taste great, but are virtually identical to regular 3 Musketeers, but with a coconut bouquet. That makes it very tough to recommend one go out of the way for them!

For other M&M’s/MARS candy reviews, please visit my reviews of:
Raspberry M&M’s
Snickers Dark
Milky Way Simply Caramel

5/10

For other food and drink reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Less Than It Ought To Be On The Flavor Front, Raspberry M&M’s Are A Bit Of A Letdown.

The Good: Decent bulk package, Does not taste bad
The Bad: Comparatively more expensive, Not overly flavored like raspberry or dark chocolate.
The Basics: The new Raspberry M & M's are a not strong enough on the flavor front to endorse.


Recently while traveling, I made a stop at Target where I found resealable bag of M&M’s that instantly intrigued me. They were Raspberry M&M’s with Dark Chocolate and when I picked them up, I was undeniably biased toward them. Unfortunately for me, these M&M’s are one of the lesser experiments by M&M’s/MARS. Those who like fruit and dark chocolate will find these M&M’s to be less fruity and not as powerfully dark as fans would like. Are they bad? No. But for those looking for M&M’s, there will be less expensive options that deliver at least as much flavor as these do.

Basics

M & M's Raspberry are a new bagged M & M's product, designed to appeal to all consumers. The 8.0 ounce bag is lavender with a picture of an M & M character (Blue) on it, holding a raspberry! Inside, the round chocolates are red, lavender and pink. The Raspberry flavored M & M’s follow essentially the same formula as regular M & M's in that each candy is about 5/8" in diameter, making them more or less bite sized. These differ from the standard M & M's in that they are a bit thicker, about 3/8" as opposed to the standard 1/4" candies.

The Raspberry M & M's come in only the three colors and have the standard M & M's "M" printed on them.

Ease Of Preparation

These are candies that have been made by the fine folks at M & M's/Mars and as a result, preparing them is as easy as opening the bag and removing the chocolates and putting them in your mouth. It does not need to be any more complicated than that! M & M's Raspberry come ready-to-eat and require no preparation save removal from the bag. The 8.0 oz. bag is resealable and it looks good.

Taste

M & M’s Raspberry flavored chocolates have a pretty vague fruity aroma to them. The scent is not distinctly raspberry and, instead, the scent of the chocolate is stronger than the fruit smell. This prepared me for a candy that had a real dark chocolate flavor to it.

Instead, when I placed the Raspberry Chocolate M & M on my tongue, I was surprised how they were neither strongly dark chocolate flavored or raspberry flavored. The sweet candy shell pretty much negates the initial dark chocolate flavor and the taste of raspberry is pretty much relegated to the scent. That means that the Raspberry Dark Chocolate M&M’s are not strongly raspberry flavored and the fruit taste is vague and quickly undone by the chocolate flavor. The aftertaste of the dark chocolate is just that; an aftertaste. The initial flavor is much too sweet and light, much more of a milk chocolate taste than a rich, full, uncompromising dark chocolate.

Nutrition

Obviously, these are candies and the folks at M & M's/MARS do not intend for consumers to live on them. They are a snack and not an overly nutritious one at that. A serving is considered 1.5 oz. and the bag has about five servings in it. With the standard recommended serving size, the 210 calorie snack has 10 grams of fat! That's 15% of the RDA of fat, with 30% of the RDA coming from the six grams of saturated fat! While there is 2% of the RDA of calcium and two grams of protein, there is no denying that this candy is not good for you and one ought to use it as a dessert occasionally, not a meal ever.

The lack of health benefits ought to be obvious from the ingredients list, which includes a bunch of artificial colors and dyes. Even so, the main ingredients are milk chocolate, semisweet chocolate and sugar. These are made on machines which may also work on peanuts, almonds and wheat, so those with allergies are duly warned.

Storage/Clean-up

Just as with the preparation, M & M's Raspberry candies are low stress when it comes to storage and cleanup. Storage is simple when the candies are kept in their bag at room temperature or cooler. Kept cool and out of direct sunlight, these confections have a limited shelf life; the package I picked up last week had an expiration date of April 2013. Resealed properly and kept cool, they ought to remain good.

M & M's were made famous by the catchphrase "melts in your mouth, not in your hands" and the M & M's Raspberry seem to live up to that. As a result, they should not require any cleanup as they are very clean to eat. However, should one melt clothing one is wearing, consult a fabric guide for what removes chocolate from that type of garment. Otherwise, melted Raspberry M & M's should wipe right off non-porous surfaces with a warm, wet cloth.

Overall

Raspberry M & M's are lighter than I would like and anyone who enjoys raspberry flavored chocolate is likely to be as disappointed as I was.

For other M & M’s candy reviews, please visit my takes on:
M & M's Chocolate Mint
Limited Edition Cherry Cordial M & M's
Pretzel M & M's

4/10

For other food and drink reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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A Cacophony Of Taste: Snickers Dark Candy Bars Are Something Of A Mess.

The Good: Inexpensive, No aftertaste
The Bad: Not a great dark chocolate flavor, Obviously not very healthy, Competing flavors make for a pretty lousy overall taste.
The Basics: The Snickers Dark chocolate bar, with its dominant flavors of peanuts and caramel, left me unimpressed.


My Easter basket from my wife was one that she seemed to have a lot of fun with. We went out shopping together and she picked me up a bunch of candy to accompany the two figures and Blu-Ray she was giving to me. She knew, when she was buying them, that most of the candy bars she was picking up were ones I had never tried and I would want to review. She was, of course, correct and so far, most of them have been hits with me. That trend changes with the Snickers Dark candy bar.

Ironically, when my wife picked up the candy bar, she said, “You love dark chocolate; you’ll like this!” Sadly, I do and I did not. I still love dark chocolate, but the Snickers Dark bar is not one that will truly satisfy a dark cocoaphile!

Basics

Snickers Dark bars are an unnecessarily complicated candy bar, that tries to do too many things and, thus, fails at doing any of them well. It is, in many ways, an indistinct candy bar with a jumble of flavors that ends up not combining in any satisfactory way. The 1.83 ounce candy bars are wrapped in a purple, blue and white plastic wrapper, which theoretically prevents the chocolate inside from melting. The Snickers Dark candy bar is smooth, save the top that has a crisscrossing pattern that makes it look like chocolate was drizzled atop it. This candy bar is a dark chocolate rectilinear candy that is remarkably nondescript. The Snickers Dark bar is about 3 3/4" long and 1 1/8” wide. The bar is dark chocolate that surrounds layers of peanuts, caramel and vanilla nougat.

Ease Of Preparation

This is a candy bar that has been made by the fine folks at Mars Chocolates and as a result, preparing them is as easy as opening the wrapper and removing the bars. From there, one need only bite into the bar and chew! It does not need to be any more complicated than that! Snickers Dark chocolate bars come ready-to-eat and require no preparation save removal from the wrapper.

Taste

Opening the Snickers Dark bar’s wrapper, the smell of heavy dark chocolate rushes at the consumer. This is not a chocolate bar that is trying to hide. The aroma is strong and forceful for the consumer. It implies that the flavor will be rich and dark.
Unfortunately, when one bites into a Snickers Dark candy bar, the outer shell of the bar is hardly as dark and dry as the smell foreshadows it will be. Oddly, it is just a strong enough flavor to completely overwhelm the vanilla nougat. Sadly, the chocolate flavor is then easily overcome on the tastebuds by both the layer of caramel and the peanuts that are in this chocolate bar. No one flavor truly dominates, but the net result is that the sweetness of the caramel and the dryness of the peanuts compete in the mouth to overwhelm and potentially chocolatey flavor.

Nutrition

Obviously, this is a candy bar and the folks at MARS do not intend for consumers to live on them. They are a snack and not a terribly nutritious one at that. A serving is considered one 52 gram candy bar. With the standard recommended serving size, the candy has 250 calories, a whopping 110 of which are from fat! That's 18% of the RDA of fat, with 23% of the RDA coming from the four grams of saturated fat! While there is 4% of the RDA of calcium and an impressive five grams of protein, there is no denying that this candy is not good for you and one ought to use it as a dessert occasionally, not a meal ever. I was surprised this candy bar contained 5 mg of cholesterol, though I was not shocked that it had 115 mg of Sodium.

The lack of health benefits ought to be obvious from the ingredients list, which is led by semi-sweet chocolate, peanuts and corn syrup. Rather nicely, this candy bar has nothing unpronounceable in it, which was a pleasant surprise. There is the standard warning about the candy possibly containing nuts (in this case, almonds).

Storage/Clean-up

Just as with the preparation, Snickers Dark bar chocolate bars are low stress when it comes to storage and cleanup. Storage is simple when the candy bar is kept in its wrapper at room temperature or cooler. Kept cool and out of direct sunlight, these confections have an indefinite shelf life (there is a production code, but no expiration date on my package).

The Snickers Dark bar is still a fairly firm candy bar, so it generally does not make a mess until the exterior is cracked. Should one of these bars melt onto clothing one is wearing, consult a fabric guide for what removes chocolate and/or caramel from that type of garment. Otherwise, melted Snickers Dark candy bar should wipe right off non-porous surfaces with a warm, wet cloth.

Overall

Snickers Dark bar chocolate bars seem like an ambitious idea gone horribly wrong. In the attempt to make a complicated candy, MARS just makes something that is messy and not truly enjoyable.

For other dark chocolate reviews, please visit my reviews of:
Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Chocolate Squares
Jelly Belly Dark Chocolate Coconut Dips
Lindt 99% Cocoa/Cacoa Dark Chocolate Bar

3/10

For other candy reviews, please visit my Chocolate Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the chocolate reviews I have written!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Simplicity Makes For Absolute Deliciousness With The 3 Musketeers Bar!

The Good: Tastes great, Inexpensive, No aftertaste
The Bad: Obviously not very healthy.
The Basics: The 3 Musketeers chocolate bar might well be the very best basic, mass-produced chocolate bar in the world.


Every now and then, I still have it in me to surprise my wife. We have been married for just over three years and this year was the first we were both in a position to give one another decent Easter baskets. Despite our dieting, my wife took me out to pick up some Easter candy for my basket and when she offered to get me a 3 Musketeers bar, she was surprised when I eagerly accepted her offer. I volunteered that I loved 3 Musketeers and she was actually even more surprised; in the three years, five months since we met, she had never seen me eat a 3 Musketeers bar and, as she archly observed, I did not have a review of them in my portfolio.

So, to rectify that, my amazing wife bought me a 3.28 oz. dual bar 3 Musketeers bar for Easter and this review shall serve to prove to her just how much I enjoy this type of candy!

Basics

3 Musketeers bars are a deceptively simple candy bar, designed to appeal to all consumers. The 3.28 ounce candy bars are wrapped in a silver, blue, red and white plastic wrapper, which theoretically prevents the chocolate inside from melting. The 3 Musketeers candy bar is smooth, save the top that has a crisscrossing pattern that makes it look like chocolate was drizzled atop it. This candy bar is a milk chocolate rectilinear candy that is remarkably nondescript. Each 3 Musketeers bar in the wrapper is about 3 3/16”" long and 1 1/4” wide. The bar is milk chocolate that surrounds a fluffy, almost marshmallow-like chocolate nougat.

Ease Of Preparation

These are candy bars that have been made by the fine folks at Mars Chocolates and as a result, preparing them is as easy as opening the wrapper and removing the bars. From there, one need only put the bars in your mouth one at a time, in bite-sized bites and chew! It does not need to be any more complicated than that! 3 Musketeers chocolate bars come ready-to-eat and require no preparation save removal from the wrapper.

Taste

Opening the 3 Musketeers bar’s wrapper, the smell of light milk chocolate caresses the nostrils. 3 Musketeer bars smell good. They smell like sunlit rooms on Easter morning. Seriously, that’s the thought I have when I first smell a 3 Musketeer bar. There is something concentrated about the chocolate aroma that does not make the scent seem like it is dark chocolate, but perfectly embodying a lot of chocolate in a small space that plays off the nose. It is enough to get one’s mouth we with anticipation!

Biting into a 3 Musketeers candy bar is a delightfully soft experience, like one’s teeth cutting through chocolate-coated cotton candy! As for the flavor, this is all milk chocolate and the center is a fluffy nougat that tastes like hot cocoa crystals. As the milk chocolate melts on the tongue, the cocoa flavor takes over to make for a very cocolatey flavor without the hard texture of chocolate.

3 Musketeer bars, astonishingly given how much they taste like cocoa powder, do not have a dry aftertaste.

Nutrition

Obviously, this is a candy bar and the folks at MARS do not intend for consumers to live on them. They are a snack and not a terribly nutritious one at that. A serving is considered one 47 gram candy bar. With the standard recommended serving size, the candy has 200 calories, only 60 of which are from fat! That's only 9% of the RDA of fat, with 20% of the RDA coming from the four grams of saturated fat! While there is 2% of the RDA of calcium and a single gram of protein, there is no denying that this candy is not good for you and one ought to use it as a dessert occasionally, not a meal ever. I was surprised this candy bar contained 5 mg of cholesterol, though I was pleased that it only had 85 mg of Sodium.

The lack of health benefits ought to be obvious from the ingredients list, which is led by milk chocolate, sugar and corn syrup. Rather nicely, this candy bar has nothing unpronounceable in it, which was a pleasant surprise. There is the standard warning about the candy possibly containing peanuts.

Storage/Clean-up

Just as with the preparation, 3 Musketeers bar chocolate bars are low stress when it comes to storage and cleanup. Storage is simple when the candy bars are kept in their wrapper at room temperature or cooler. Kept cool and out of direct sunlight, these confections have an indefinite shelf life (there is a production code, but no expiration date on my package).

The 3 Musketeers bar is still a very soft candy bar, so it might require you to wash your hands after eating it. Should one of these bars melt onto clothing one is wearing, consult a fabric guide for what removes chocolate and/or caramel from that type of garment. Otherwise, melted 3 Musketeers candy bar should wipe right off non-porous surfaces with a warm, wet cloth.

Overall

3 Musketeers bar chocolate bars might not be healthy for you, and I might have gone years since having my last one before the ones my wife bought me, but that was not from lack of love for them; just the opposite! This is a candy bar that is so soft and delicious that with infinite capital and no dietary restrictions, I probably would eat so many I’d put on all sorts of weight! Well worth picking up!

For other MARS/M&M’s candy reviews, please visit my reviews of:
Milky Way Simply Caramel
Chocolate Mint M&M's
Cherry Cordial M&M's

9/10

For other candy reviews, please visit my Chocolate Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the chocolate reviews I have written!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Milky Way Simply Caramel Candy Bars Live Up To Their Name!

The Good: Taste good, Inexpensive, No aftertaste
The Bad: Obviously not very healthy.
The Basics: Milky Way makes a decent basic chocolate and caramel candy bar with the Simply Caramel, a basic candy bar worth picking up!


It seems like I have been having quite a bit of caramel lately, whatwith the post-Easter Caramel Cadbury Egg review (here!) and now the Milky Way Simply Caramel chocolate bar my wife slipped into my Easter basket. Because I have actually become health conscious in the last few months, my review of the Milky Way Simply Caramel chocolate bar will not allow me to simply focus on how it is an excellent, very basic candy bar. No, it becomes a much more mixed review as this small candy bar has 250 calories and is such a far cry from being nutritious that it is hard not to address that.

That said, Mars Chocolate managed to impress me with the Milky Way Simply Caramel as it is a good, sweet, very basic chocolate bar that lives up to what it promises very well. To be honest, the fact that it does not have the usual dry caramel aftertaste left me impressed and makes it easy for me to endorse the bar, even if an objective rating knocks it down a little.


Basics

Milky Way Simply Caramel is a pretty standard Milky Way candy bar, designed to appeal to all consumers. The 1.91 ounce candy bar is wrapped in a yellow and brown plastic wrapper, insinuating flowing caramel. Inside, smooth candy bar looks like what one might expect, a milk chocolate rectilinear food that is remarkably nondescript. The Simply Caramel flavored Milky Way is about 4" long and 1 3/16” wide, with no external texturing (this candy bar does not have nuts or other filling than the caramel).

Ease Of Preparation

These are candies that have been made by the fine folks at Mars Chocolates and as a result, preparing them is as easy as opening the wrapper and removing the bar. From there, one need only put the bar in your mouth and chew!. It does not need to be any more complicated than that! Milky Way Simply Caramel chocolate bars come ready-to-eat and require no preparation save removal from the bag.

Taste

Opening the Simply Caramel Milky Way wrapper, the smell of very sweet caramel and light milk chocolate is evident. The caramel scent is so sweet that my initial thought was that I was smelling something with a slightly fruity smell to it! The smell is very light after even a minute of the wrapper being opened.

The Milky Way Simply Caramel candy bar tastes exactly like how it sounds. This is a soft, very sweet caramel that is wrapped in a very thin layer of sweet milk chocolate. The chocolate melts away on the tongue and the caramel completely overwhelms any linger chocolate flavor. This is a very sweet caramel chocolate bar, so sweet that it lacks the usual dry aftertaste characteristic of caramel.

Nutrition

Obviously, these are candies and the folks at MARS do not intend for consumers to live on them. They are a snack and not a terribly nutritious one at that. A serving is considered the full 1.91 oz. candy bar. With the standard recommended serving size, the candy has 250 calories, 100 of which are from fat! That's 17% of the RDA of fat, with 40% of the RDA coming from the eight grams of saturated fat! While there is 6% of the RDA of calcium and two grams of protein, there is no denying that this candy is not good for you and one ought to use it as a dessert occasionally, not a meal ever. I was surprised this candy bar contained 5 mg of cholesterol, though I was pleased that it only had 60 mg of Sodium.

The lack of health benefits ought to be obvious from the ingredients list, which is led by milk chocolate, corn syrup and sugar. Rather nicely, this candy bar has nothing unpronounceable in it, which was a pleasant surprise. Also interesting is that there is no allergy information insinuating these were made anywhere near nuts! However, there is a warning about the candy possibly containing eggs, which prevents it from being either Kosher or Vegan-compliant.

Storage/Clean-up

Just as with the preparation, Milky Way Simply Caramel chocolate bars are low stress when it comes to storage and cleanup. Storage is simple when the candies are kept in their wrapper at room temperature or cooler. Kept cool and out of direct sunlight, these confections have an indefinite shelf life (there is a production code, but no expiration date on my package).

Milky Way Simply Caramel is a very soft candy bar, so it might require you to wash your hands after eating it. Should one of these bars melt onto clothing one is wearing, consult a fabric guide for what removes chocolate and/or caramel from that type of garment. Otherwise, melted Simply Caramel Milky Way should wipe right off non-porous surfaces with a warm, wet cloth.

Overall

Simply Caramel Milky Way chocolate bars might not be healthy for you, but for a once-a-month candy bar treat, it is likely to satisfy even the most discriminating sweet tooth!

For other candy reviews, please visit my reviews of:
Ghirardelli Milk & Pumpkin Spice Caramel chocolate squares
Whitman's Soho Assortment
Chocolate Mousse Peeps

5.5/10

For other food and drink reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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More Of A Mystery: Why Are Mint M&M’s Only Seasonally Available?!

The Good: Great taste, Decent bulk package
The Bad: Limited availability is somewhat baffling.
The Basics: The Limited Edition Seasonally Available Mint M&M's are arguably the best M&M’s flavor, making one wonder why they are only available around the Christmas holiday!


What happens when you combine two of my favorite things in the world? Usually, it is a spectacular success or a bone-crushing failure. In the case of Mint M&M’s, which combine my love of chocolate mint with my appreciation of seasonally-available, limited edition candies, we have a rousing success that makes me wonder why M&M’s/Mars does not just keep the flavor around the whole year round!

Quite simply, Mint M&M’s are the best flavor the company produces and they ought to be a staple flavor instead of just available for the winter holidays.

Basics

M&M's Mint are a seasonally-available bagged M&M's product, designed to appeal to all consumers. The 9.9 ounce bag is maroon with a picture of an M&M character (Green) dressed in boots and a hat in a snow globe! Inside, the round chocolates are red, white and green. The Mint flavored M&Ms follow essentially the same formula as regular M&M's in that each candy is about 1/2" in diameter, making them more or less bite sized. These differ from the standard M&M's in that they are a bit thicker, about 3/8" as opposed to the standard 1/4" candies.

The Mint M&M's come in only the three colors and have the standard M&M's "M" printed on them.

Ease Of Preparation

These are candies that have been made by the fine folks at M&M's/Mars and as a result, preparing them is as easy as opening the bag and removing the chocolates and putting them in your mouth. It does not need to be any more complicated than that! M&M's Mint come ready-to-eat and require no preparation save removal from the bag.


Taste

M&M’s Mint flavored chocolates are inscrutable when it comes to their scent. They have almost no actual aroma and as such they made me worried initially that they would not live up on the taste front.

Overcoming my trepidations and placing a Mint Chocolate M&M into my mouth, I was soon ecstatic. The sweet, hard shell melted away to present a vibrant, minty flavor to me. The mint flavor is peppermint, cut very nicely by the sweet milk chocolate filling. The two flavors play off one another to create an exceptionally sweet chocolate that is absolutely delightful! If the chocolate were darker, it might accent the chocolate flavor more, but with mint as the dominant flavor, these little candies are quite wonderful!

Nutrition

Obviously, these are candies and the folks at M&M's/MARS do not intend for consumers to live on them. They are a snack and not an overly nutritious one at that. A serving is considered 1.5 oz. and the bag has about seven servings in it. With the standard recommended serving size, the candy has 9 grams of fat! That's 14% of the RDA of fat, with 25% of the RDA coming from the five grams of saturated fat! While there is 4% of the RDA of calcium and two grams of protein, there is no denying that this candy is not good for you and one ought to use it as a dessert occasionally, not a meal ever.

The lack of health benefits ought to be obvious from the ingredients list, which includes a bunch of artificial colors and dyes. Even so, the main ingredients are milk chocolate, sugar and cornstarch. These are made on machines which may also work on peanuts and wheat, so those with allergies are duly warned.


Storage/Clean-up

Just as with the preparation, M&M's Mint candies are low stress when it comes to storage and cleanup. Storage is simple when the candies are kept in their bag at room temperature or cooler. Kept cool and out of direct sunlight, these confections have an indefinite shelf life (there is a production code, but no expiration date on my package). Resealed properly and kept cool, they ought to remain good.

M&M's were made famous by the catchphrase "melts in your mouth, not in your hands" and the M&M's Mint seem to live up to that. As a result, they should not require any cleanup as they are very clean to eat. However, should one melt clothing one is wearing, consult a fabric guide for what removes chocolate from that type of garment. Otherwise, melted Mint M&M's should wipe right off non-porous surfaces with a warm, wet cloth.


Overall

Mint M&M's are light and delicious and easily replace the Premium Mint Chocolate M&M’s (reviewed here!), M&M’s/Mars released once upon a time. Stock up on these while you can; it would be hellish to have to wait a whole year for more!

For other M&M’s candy reviews, please visit my takes on:
Limited Edition Cherry Cordial M&M's
Pretzel M&M's
M&M's White Chocolate Candy Corn

9/10

For other food and drink reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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One Of The New, Seasonal, M&M’s Flavors Worth Catching Before They Disappear, Cherry Cordial M&M’s Are Intriguing!

The Good: Great aroma! Interesting idea, Taste good, Decent bulk package
The Bad: Cherry flavor is surprisingly subtle in some of these M&M’s!
The Basics: The Limited Edition Seasonally Available Cherry Cordial M&M's are worth picking up this holidays season . . . if you can still find them!


For those who might not follow my regular food reviews, I love seasonal foods! I am a sucker for specialized candies for the holidays and this year, I discovered I had a real love for Jelly Belly’s limited edition Candy Cane jelly beans (reviewed here!). While Peeps, Hershey’s and other brands like Ghirardelli with their Peppermint Bark (reviewed here!) make seasonal candies, I worked hard this winter to not get into too many seasonal candies. My wife decided to confound that attempt by gifting me Cherry Cordial M&M’s this year!

And I am grateful. These are an exceptionally good M&M’s flavor, even if they are not the strongest taste of cherry known to man (they are quite scented of cherry, which almost makes up for it!). This is easily one of the easiest seasonal candies for me to recommend picking up, especially if you have a chance to get them on clearance now that the holidays have passed!

Basics

M&M's Cherry Cordial are a seasonally-available bagged M&M's product, designed to appeal to all consumers. The 9.9 ounce bag is maroon with a picture of an M&M character (Red) dressed as an elf. Inside, the round chocolates are red and maroon. The Cherry Cordial flavored M&Ms follow essentially the same formula as regular M&M's in that each candy is about 1/2" in diameter, making them more or less bite sized. These differ from the standard M&M's in that they are a bit thicker, about 3/8" as opposed to the standard 1/4" candies.

The Cherry Cordial M&M's come in only the two colors and have the standard M&M's "M" printed on them.

Ease Of Preparation

These are candies that have been made by the fine folks at M&M's/Mars and as a result, preparing them is as easy as opening the bag and removing the chocolates and putting them in your mouth. It does not need to be any more complicated than that! M&M's Cherry Cordial come ready-to-eat and require no preparation save removal from the bag.


Taste

Easily the most aromatic of the M&M’s products I have reviewed to date, opening the bag of Cherry Cordial M&M's reveals a profound scent like that of Bing cherries or black cherries. The scent of chocolate is entirely sublimated to the aroma of fresh, warm cherries. This perfectly titillates the senses and is enough to intrigue consumers.

Placing the Cherry Cordial M&M's on the tongue, one is greeted by the standard hard candy shell of the M&M’s. However, this shell has a slightly dry and sweet taste to it, hinting at the cherry flavor the name promises. The chocolate tastes rich, but sweet, and there is a strong, fruity aftertaste. The aftertaste is more distinctly that of Maraschino cherries than any of the primary tastes. However, while the milk chocolate flavor dominates the primary taste embodied by these M&M’s, the cherry flavor that is present there interacts with it to make it taste a bit darker than it actually is! The result is a flavorful chocolate treat that I, as a dark chocolate lover, am easily able to recommend!

The aftertaste fades within a minute, though these M&M’s will leave your tongue colored red for longer than that!

Nutrition

Obviously, these are candies and the folks at M&M's/MARS do not intend for consumers to live on them. They are a snack and not an overly nutritious one at that. A serving is considered 1.5 oz. and the bag has about seven servings in it. With the standard recommended serving size, the candy has 10 grams of fat! That's 15% of the RDA of fat, with 30% of the RDA coming from the six grams of saturated fat! While there is 4% of the RDA of calcium and two grams of protein, there is no denying that this candy is not good for you and one ought to use it as a dessert occasionally, not a meal ever.

The lack of health benefits ought to be obvious from the ingredients list, which includes a bunch of artificial colors and dyes. Even so, the main ingredients are semisweet chocolate, milk chocolate and sugar. These are made on machines which may also work on peanuts and almonds, so those with allergies are duly warned.


Storage/Clean-up

Just as with the preparation, M&M's Cherry Cordial candies are low stress when it comes to storage and cleanup. Storage is simple when the candies are kept in their bag at room temperature or cooler. Kept cool and out of direct sunlight, these confections have an indefinite shelf life (there is a production code, but no expiration date on my package). Resealed properly and kept cool, they ought to remain good.

M&M's were made famous by the catchphrase "melts in your mouth, not in your hands" and the M&M's Cherry Cordial seem to live up to that. As a result, they should not require any cleanup as they are very clean to eat. However, should one melt clothing one is wearing, consult a fabric guide for what removes chocolate from that type of garment. Otherwise, melted Cherry Cordial M&M's should wipe right off non-porous surfaces with a warm, wet cloth.


Overall

Cherry Cordial M&M's are dark and rich and pleasant in a way that I had not anticipated. While usually I do not stock up on M&M’s, this is one flavor I might just do that for!

For other M&M’s candy reviews, please visit my takes on:
Pretzel M&M's
M&M's White Chocolate Candy Corn
Coconut M&M's

8.5/10

For other food and drink reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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An Intriguing Blend Of Salty And Sweet, The Pretzel M&M’s Are Deliciously addictive!

The Good: Taste good, Awesome mix of salty and sweet flavors, Inexpensive, Decent bulk package
The Bad: Serving size is unfortunately small!
The Basics: Pretzel M&M's surprised me by being such a good snack, even if there aren’t that many in a package!


Lately, it seems that M&M’s chocolate candies have been coming my way and as a natural result, I end up reviewing them. Not very long ago, my wife picked me up a bag of Pretzel M&M’s and I have been waiting for the right time to try them. That time has come now!

The verdict is simple: Pretzel M&M’s chocolate candies are a yummy, weird salty snack . . . and there are not enough of them in a pack!

Basics

M&M's Pretzel are now available year-round and are a bagged M&M's product, designed to appeal to all consumers. The 1.4 ounce bag is blue with a picture of an M&M character (Orange) looking nervous about being eaten. Inside, the round chocolates are the standard M&M’s colors: blue, brown, orange, yellow, red and green. The Pretzel flavored M&Ms are a little larger than regular M&M's and more closely resemble malted milk balls. At 5/8” in diameter, each Pretzel M&M’s candy is a thin chocolate M&M’s shell surrounding a pretzel sphere!

Ease Of Preparation

These are candies that have been made by the fine folks at M&M's/Mars and as a result, preparing them is as easy as opening the bag and removing the chocolates and putting them in your mouth. It does not need to be any more complicated than that! M&M's Pretzel come ready-to-eat and require no preparation save removal from the bag.

Taste

The Pretzel M&M's smell vaguely chocolatey. The aroma that comes from them is very mild, but it prepares the consumer for a chocolate experience.

Sucking on a Pretzel M&M’s candy is like having pretty much any other M&M’s candy. The hard candy shell protects the center, which in this case is a pretzel bite. What is absolutely incredible is how delicious these are compared to how little chocolate they actually possess! The pretzel is surrounded by a very thin layer of chocolate before giving way to the salty, crunchy pretzel center. The Pretzel M&M’s are delightful and sweet, but have a salty kick that makes them unlike any other M&M or mass-produced chocolate!

Part of what is so delightful about Pretzel M&M’s is that when one has a handful of them and bites through them, they are rewarded with a very different taste experience. When one actually consumes these M&M’s, in bulk, they get a sweet crunchy experience that accents the chocolate flavor! Despite the salty taste of the Pretzel M&M’s, I was astonished by how they did not leave an aftertaste or leave my mouth dry!

Nutrition

Obviously, these are candies and the folks at M&M's/MARS do not intend for consumers to live on them. They are a snack and not an overly nutritious one at that. A serving is considered 1.14 oz. which was less than twenty M&M’s in my bag! With the standard recommended serving size, the candy has only 5 grams of fat! That's 8% of the RDA of fat, with 15% of the RDA coming from the three grams of saturated fat! While there is 2% of the RDA of calcium and two grams of protein, there is no denying that this candy is not good for you and one ought to use it as a dessert occasionally, salty snack frequently and not ever as a meal .

The lack of health benefits ought to be obvious from the ingredients list, which includes a bunch of artificial colors and dyes. Even so, the main ingredients are milk chocolate, pretzel and salt. These are made on machines which may also work on peanuts and almonds, so those with allergies are duly warned.


Storage/Clean-up

Just as with the preparation, M&M's Pretzel candies are low stress when it comes to storage and cleanup. Storage is simple when the candies are kept in their bag at room temperature or cooler. Kept cool and out of direct sunlight, these confections have an indefinite shelf life (there is a production code, but no expiration date on my package). Resealed properly and kept cool, they ought to remain good.

M& M's were made famous by the catchphrase "melts in your mouth, not in your hands" and the M& M's Pretzel seem to live up to that. As a result, they should not require any cleanup as they are very clean to eat. However, should one melt clothing one is wearing, consult a fabric guide for what removes chocolate from that type of garment. Otherwise, melted Pretzel M&M's should wipe right off non-porous surfaces with a warm, wet cloth.


Overall

Pretzel M&M's may well be one of my new, favorite salty snacks. The chocolate flavor is hardly rich enough to bowl me over into considering these as a legitimate sweet snack, which makes them a nice divergence from the standard M&M’s. In fact, the biggest complaint I have after opening my bag of Pretzel M&M’s is that there were nowhere near enough to leave me satisfied!

For other M&M’s candy reviews, please visit my takes on:
M&M's White Chocolate Candy Corn
Coconut M&M's
M&M's Premiums Mint Chocolate

8.5/10

For other food and drink reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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