Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Good, But Somewhat Underwhelming: Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch Mint Chocolate Candies (My 8000th Review!)


The Good: Decent flavor, Pretty good ingredients
The Bad: Mild chocolate flavor, Cookie flavor is not impressive
The Basics: Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch Mint chocolate candies are nice, but not a great representation of mint and dark chocolate.


One of the nice trends in current candymaking has been that candy bars that try to embody cookies and cream have expanded outward from "cream" to chocolate. As one who is not overly fond of white chocolate, the idea of a cookie and chocolate bar is far more appealing to me than chocolate cookie bars and white chocolate. So, when I found the Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch Mint chocolate bars, I was pretty psyched. Unfortunately for me, as one who loves dark chocolate and mint, the Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch Mint were not all they could have been.

Between a fairly generic chocolate that is more like milk chocolate than dark chocolate and a cookie center that is more dry than actually flavorful the Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch Mint candy bars are one of Hershey's less impressive creations as they try to build their premium chocolate line.

Basics

Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch Mint chocolate candies are a mini-bar that is made up of three connected blocks. The full piece of candy is two and one-quarter inches long, one and one-quarter inches wide and one-half inch thick. Each of the bars comes individually wrapped in a brown wrapper with green text. It is worth noting that while I usually rail against the environmental impact of such things, it is hard to imagine these Hershey's chocolate candies not wrapped. This keeps each one clean, unmelted and intact.

Each connected bar of chocolate squares is a triumvirate of rectangle bars that is chocolate covering the rough cookie-piece bottom of the bar. In this form, the 6.3 oz. bag, the individually-wrapped chocolate candies are packaged together in a thick paper bag. This size has nine chocolate bars and the paper bag does little to protect the candy. The bag is not resealable, though that matters very little considering that the chocolate candy does not go bad as they are individually wrapped.

One of these bags, even with only nine chocolate bars, tends to run in the $5.00 range. These are not entirely inexpensive candies!

Ease Of Preparation

These are candy, so preparing them is as simple as opening the bag and then opening one of the plastic wrappers around the actual chocolates one wishes to eat. There is no grand secret to eating Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch Mint chocolate candy. With these having a seam between the two domes, it is easy to consume far less than the full, recommended, serving at any given time.

Taste

Each Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch Mint candy bar smells of milk chocolate and peppermint. The mint scent is muted by the sweet chocolate aroma from each candy.

The Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch Mint candies are sweet and minty. The cookie base of the Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch Mint chocolate bars make each one dry, but the mint infused in the sweet chocolate makes the consumer salivate! The dark chocolate for the Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch Mint candy bars is so mild that it tastes like milk chocolate infused with peppermint flavoring. The chocolate in the cookie portion of the bar is dry and not noticeably chocolate flavored.

The Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch Mint candies leave a very sweet, slightly dry, aftertaste in the mouth after the last of the bar is consumed. The minty aftertaste endures for about ten minutes after the last of the bar is eaten.

Nutrition

The Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch Mint chocolate bars are candy, so it is tough to look at these for something nutritious and then blame them for not being healthy. Hershey's chocolate candies are made of pretty decent ingredients, though. The primary ingredients are sweet chocolate, sugar, and enriched wheat flour. There is nothing unpronounceable in these candies and there are minimal preservatives; everything in these could be readily identified by me.

A serving of the Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch Mint chocolate candy is considered two pieces. From two pieces, one takes in 200 calories, 110 of those calories being from fat. There is virtually no cholesterol (less than 5 mg in a full serving), very little sodium (65 mg of Sodium - 3% RDA), and there are no vitamins in these chocolate candy. There is, surprisingly enough, 15% of one's daily iron and 2% of their daily calcium in two pieces, so that is nice.

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 peanuts and almonds pass over. These are not marked as kosher and there is a notation that some of the ingredients might be genetically-engineered.

Storage/Clean-up

The bags of these Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch Mint chocolate candy remain fresh for quite some time. The bag of Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch Mint chocolates we picked up a month ago had an expiration date of December 2017, so they have a pretty decent shelf life. Given that these are chocolate, one assumes that if they are kept in a cool, dry environment they will not melt or go bad. Because they are 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.

As for cleanup, one need only throw out the wrappers in the garbage to clean up after the Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch Mint chocolate bars. 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 these candies melt into most fabrics, they will stain. Getting them to melt, though, is a bit of a feat.

Overall

Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch Mint candy bars are all right, but for the price, I tend to want something more impressive than average.

For other candy reviews, please check out my reviews of:
Cadbury Royal Dark Creamy Mint Dark Chocolate With Creamy Mint Filling
Ferrara Milk Chocolate Peppermint Chocolate Orange
Klondike The Candy! Mint Chocolate Chip Candy

6/10

For other chocolate reviews, please visit my Chocolate Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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