Thursday, June 30, 2011

"These Are Terrible, Try Them!" Peanut Butter Whoppers Are Gross Enough To Be Addictive.




The Good: Easy to eat, Inexpensive enough
The Bad: Pretty gross taste, Addictive, Nothing terribly nutritious in them.
The Basics: Reese's Peanut Butter flavored Whoppers Malted Milk Balls was a good idea, poorly executed. These are pretty gross.


Most of us seldom take the time to consider what it means that sugar has many of the qualities of a drug. Sure, our bodies need sugar to survive to power the machines that we are, but in its raw form, sugar has a lot of properties that make it addictive and similar to a drug. I mention this at the outset to my review of Peanut Butter Whoppers because simple compulsion or addiction is the only way I can explain the four ounce box disappearing so quickly when I found the taste pretty revolting from the outset.

Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of Whoppers candy but the peanut butter shelled ones are bile-colored, waxy-tasting and easily overbear the taste of the malted milk inside. It's like a Reese's Pieces on steroids, with the peanut butter flavor diluted enough to disappoint people who like Reese's Pieces. But I opened the box of these things last night around eleven p.m. and there are two balls left now and my cats' breath does not smell of peanut butter, so . . .

Basics

Whoppers Peanut Butter Malted Milk balls are half-inch spheroids made of peanut butter coating and semisolid malted milk filling. Whoppers come in a 4 oz. box that opens easily at the top with a flap much like the top of a cereal box. According the the nutrition facts, a serving of these Peanut Butter flavored Whoppers is 17 milk balls and there are approximately three servings per container. I neglected to count the actual number in the box of these, largely because I was excited when I opened the box and so disappointed when I tasted my first one that I ate almost all of the rest of them in some blind shock.

For those who have never had a malted milk ball before, malted milk balls are a firm sugary sphere that is coated in chocolate, though in this case, Whoppers has teamed with Reese's to coat the milk balls with peanut butter coating. Moisture - or saliva - dissolves the ball within the coating, so many people who savor malted milk balls either let the coating melt away in their mouth and let the malted milk center dissolve without chewing.

The coating of these Whoppers Malted Milk ball is a slightly-waxy soft peanut butter flavored shell. The coating is strong enough to prevent the candy from getting crushed and soft enough to melt easily in the mouth. This is most like the yogurt found on yogurt-covered raisins, though it is colored a sickly brownish orange like peanut butter.

Ease Of Preparation

Well, it's candy so preparation is pretty much limited to opening the box and popping candy into one's mouth. Do not try to swallow all of the Peanut Butter Whoppers Malted Milk balls whole and you'll be fine! I can think of no recipes where Peanut Butter flavored Whoppers would be a viable component.

Taste

First, Peanut Butter Whoppers Malted Milk Balls smell like peanut butter. In fact, opening the box, one gets the exact bouquet of opening a jar of Reese's Peanut Butter. Hershey's attempting this culinary experiment at least illustrates they knew what they were doing as far as scent. These balls have the unmistakable smell of Reese's peanut butter.

But, dang, these are gross!

The coating it waxy and sucking on a Peanut Butter Whopper slowly erodes the waxy taste to a vaguely salty and sweet flavor barely reminiscent of peanut butter. In fact, the full flavor of peanut butter only seems to come through when the coating is mixed with the malted milk ball center and by that point, most lovers of confections will have decided they do not like these. These do not taste strongly enough like peanut butter to want to keep eating them.

Moreover, eating multiple Peanut Butter flavored Whoppers leads to a strange catatonia where the taste of the balls blends together on the tongue in a vague waxy blur. Seriously, outside the first three and the three I've eaten to try to describe the taste here, I've no distinct memory of eating the other forty (!) milk balls. And I LIKE malted milk balls!

Nutrition

Well, Peanut Butter Whoppers Malted Milk balls are candy, so one ought not to be living off it. The Whoppers Malted Milk balls are made primarily of sugar, partially defatted peanuts, and partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. I can't pronounce at least one of the ingredients and I have no idea the process by which these candies are produced. There are enough ingredients that are mysteries to me that I ought to not be surprised that there is no expiration date on my box (there is what appears to be a batch number). I would assume the shelf life of these - under proper conditions - to be in the range of years.

Peanut Butter Whoppers Malted Milk balls have 190 calories per serving, 70 of which are from fat and I think it's unrealistic to believe that most people eating these are going to vigilantly keep to only 17 of them! The 8 grams of fat represent 12% of the recommended daily value of fat and that's 35% of the daily recommended saturated fat. Yes, reading the ingredients sucks the fun out of this candy, even more than the nebulous and un-peanut butter flavor!

There are 110 milligrams of sodium and 19 grams of sugars. There are four grams of protein in a serving of Peanut Butter Whoppers Malted Milk balls and one gets 6% of their calcium by eating these.

These are not nutritious, so if you were thinking of living off them, you might want to reconsider.

Storage/Clean-up

The Whoppers Malted Milk balls store just fine in their box and as long as they are kept in a cool, dry (preferably dark) place they ought to last for quite some time (I've never had a malted milk ball of any type go bad).

Because the coating is made with a resinous glaze (I kid not, it's in the ingredients!) the coating does not melt easily. As a result, unless one sticks these in their pocket, cleanup ought not to be an issue. If it becomes an issue, consult a fabric cleaning guide. Peanut Butter stains might be a problem, but mostly, I think they would just be embarrassing, given the bile-like color of them.


Overall

These are a remarkably average candy; not nutritious and bearing a taste that fades to sugar-neutral pretty quickly. Those who like malted milk balls might be intrigued to try them as I was. To those people, I suggest: fight that urge!

For other candy reviews, please check out:
Cadbury Creme Eggs
Caramel Corn Jelly Belly Jelly Beans
Peppermint Crunch Junior Mints

5/10

For other food or drink reviews, please visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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