Crown Zappos Chews Pineapple

Crown Confectionery is a Korean company, established in 1947. As well as Zappos confectionery, they also produce biscuits, chocolates and other snacks and confectionery.

Zappos are an exceedingly popular sour product from Crown. The sour chews are the flagship product, but the brand also applies to lollipops, sour straps, bubble gum and other confectionery. The chews are available in many flavours: peach, grape, tutti fruitti, orange, strawberry, raspberry, and cola was a new addition last year. As of this month, the newest addition is Pineapple.

The 26g bar is paper-wrapped in the colours of the flavour. Pineapple comes wrapped in green and yellow, with a picture of a cartoon pineapple on the front. Inside, the seven pieces are wrapped in lime gren wax paper decorated with little pineapples, and what I assume are the Korean symbols for 'pineapple'.

The chew inside is a pale yellow but doesn't smell of much. There's a mild sweet note that smells like dried-up Passiona (which is a passionfruit-flavoured drink) but it doesn't go anywhere near the lip-curling tartness of what I'd expect from a pineapple-flavoured product.

Like most Zappos chews, the sour is relatively mild and tolerable. Thankfully the pineapple flavour makes a bold appearance at the start, crashing in as soon as the chew is in your mouth. It's lovely and tarty enough to make your mouth water, and even carries the mild underlying sweetness that is nice and refreshing. The chew doesn't carry much bounce - once bitten into the chew shrinks a bit in size as each bite milks it of flavour. After about 30 sections it becomes too soft to chew, so it's not a long-lasting chew.

Once the chew is finished the sour disappears fairly quickly, but leaves behind a refreshing sweet note for a few moments. It's an impressive approximation of a difficult flavour, and I will easily finish the pack and go back for more.

Zappo chews are a glucose product, and do not contain any fruit extract.



Have you tried these? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Ashmore's Froots Strawberry

Three Hats Imaginative Foods, an Australian company, was founded in 1998 by Joanne Kessell. It was developed as a response to what Ms Kessell saw as a shortage of non-traditional, upmarket chocolates in Australia. Their products are carried in the Australian market by stores such as David Jones, Myer and Gloria Jean's, and are available in Malaysia, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong, plus being available on some international airlines.

Ashmore's is one of the brands carried by Three Hats, and it is a premium confectionery range, carrying 'naturally dried whole fruits smothered in rich chocolate'. The Froots range is available in many varieties: strawberry, cranberry, blueberry, cherry, kiwi fruit, raspberry and blackberry, and in milk, white or dark chocolate. All feature 'specially dried' 100% fruit pieces covered in chocolate. I have here the 30g counter box (which is available in three flavours: strawberry, blueberry  and cranberry), but a range is also available in 120g hang bags at Coles (as seen a few weeks ago) in four flavours: strawberry, blueberry, cranberry and mixed fruit.

For a gourmet product, the product is packaged nicely in a neat but small glossy cardboard box with a little window at the front. The colours are vibrant but the use of lots of white means the product stands out on the shelf against other products that are more brightly-coloured. It features a large graphic of a strawberry across the bottom (other flavours have their respective fruits), and a chocolate-dipped strawberry photo above the window, giving the impression the flavour will be similar. The box is plastic wrapped, but not fully - the top and bottom are not covered, so the box is not airtight when plastic wrapped.

As per an item that features '100% real fruit', the chocolate pieces are misshapen and differ in size. The largest piece in my strawberry box is almost as big as a Malteser, while the smallest is barely 6mm wide. Most are about the size of a Crispy M&M, and rounded rather than squashed. All are are lovely shade of brown, not warm or milky but with a nice but thin gloss finish. They smell milky and sweet, with no trace of the fruit pieces inside.

It's clear that this is a product meant to be savoured - both the serving size and number of pieces indicate that these pieces aren't meant for mindless chomping (that's more my style, unfortunately).

I loved biting these open for photos. The innards are just so pretty to look at. The chocolate is quite thick, almost 3mm , which means there is a decent amount of chocolate in proportion to the fruit inside. That also means the fruit pieces are thoroughly covered and not exposed to the air. Inside, the strawberry pieces are still rich in colour and retain the colour gradient that leads to the centre of the fruit. In some pieces I could see the strawberry seeds present too. The fruit looks soft and a little chalky, but crumbles nicely.

Because of the thick chocolate I was unable to try the strawberry just by itself, but by pressing a half on my tongue I could get a taste of the tarty strawberry inside. It's sharp and tangy and quite intense, an effect softened by the thick chocolate coating. The chocolate, on the other hand, is somewhat unremarkable alone, but when paired with the strawberry it provides a soft, sweet background that supports the strawberry flavour without overpowering. On the smaller pieces though, where there is very little strawberry present, the chocolate does override the fruit flavour.

The flavour does hang around for a while afterwards, and you might occasionally find strawberry pieces or seeds in your teeth. Considering there is barely a handful of confectionery, I was disappointed when I reached the bottom far too soon, but the product is far too expensive for me to purchase on my own. I paid $2.99 for the 30g box.

The chocolate is 24% minimum cocoa solids. The box says the product is 'made and packed in Australia and Hong Kong from imported ingredients'. They contain milk and soy, and may contain traces of peanuts and tree nuts.

Cadbury Marvellous Creations Jelly, Popping Candy & Beanies

Further to my comment on the Cadbury Marvellous Creations Peanut Toffee Cookie review post, I've since found out that all three of the large blocks are supermarket exclusive products. Only the smaller 50g bars will be available in stores other than supermarkets.

In fact, Cadbury is so determined that the 300g blocks remain supermarket exclusive that their reps are being instructed to report any stores that are found to be selling the blocks back to Cadbury, and they may even suffer fines. Wow! I haven't heard any solid facts as to why Cadbury is being quite vigilant with this particular product, but I'm sure we'll hear something sooner or later. Or, I'll twist the arm of my Cadbury rep when I see him next. ;)

Last up in the block range for review is the 'Jelly Popping Candy & Beanies' variety. I'm going to take a stretch and assume the jelly pieces will be the same as found in the 'Jelly Crunchie Bits' variety, and the Beanies will be the same as found in the Cadbury Mini Drops, a bite-size piece of Cadbury chocolate covered in candy, (which is also in my review basket).

 This isn't Cadbury's first foray into combining popping candy (also known as Pop Rocks) with their Dairy Milk chocolate.  In the past they have had a 'mini blocks' range, which included Dream with Sprinkles, Dairy Milk with Popping Candy, and Dairy Milk with Clinkers.  I believe these have been discontinued in Australia, but even while they were available here, they were very difficult to find, most likely due to their high price point (around $3 for an 85g block).

I've chosen a 50g bar to review instead of the 300g block. The moulded shape is similar to that of the block, like cobblestones and with varying textures moulded into the top.Interestingly, there is a little pattern - the two outermost pieces have a wave pattern, while the two in from that are pebbled, and the middle piece carries the Cadbury logo. The bar is lovely and thick, perhaps a touch thinner than the larger block, but it still has a satisfying crack to it when snapped. Unlike the block, the bar breaks neatly along the moulded lines, but watch out for flying beanie pieces! There are five pieces moulded into the bar, and each one is a perfect little mouthful.

On the back the bar is relatively smooth, marred only by little flecks of leftover chocolate from the moulding process. (Those will go flying too if you're not careful!) Inside we have what looks like a fairly even distribution of beanies, but I don't seem to be seeing many jelly pieces. I was wrong about the Beanie pieces being the same as the Mini Drops, though - these beanies are definitely, er, 'inspired' by Nestle Smarties. They are the same oval shape, and look to be the same dimensions too. At this point the popping candy isn't really visible, though when spread throughout a chocolate product, it is often hidden.

The popping candy really kicks in after the first couple of chews. There's quite a large amount, but it doesn't overpower the other texture war going on in your mouth. There is a lot going on, though - the smooth, creamy chocolate, the crunch from the candy coating on the beanies, the soft gummy of the jelly pieces, plus the popping candy going on in the background. It's pretty strange!

Usually when you eat Pop Rocks by themselves, you will have the crunch of the pop rocks contributing to the popping effect. In this product through, the popping effect is muted due to the creamy chocolate smothering everything else. It's still there, but for me it takes a bit of a back seat. It adds a little crunch, but nothing remarkable. The chocolate is definitely the dominating flavour here, despite the texture party.

I was quite surprised to discover the jelly pieces had a flavour in this bar. Despite everything else, I was able to get a few rose notes out of the jelly pieces when I encountered them (and I encountered about one in each piece). By themselves they are quite floral, like a firmer Turkish delight, which is an unexpected addition to the bar. It feels out of place. Like in the Jelly Pieces block, the jelly sticks to your teeth and remains even after the rest of the bar has been finished. It's an odd sensation and I don't think it adds anything to the bar.

Last up in the review basket for the Marvellous Creations line is the Mini Drops, which will be reviewed shortly.

The bar contains milk, wheat and soy, and may contain traces of peanuts, tree nuts and egg.

Gossip: Minstrels are coming!

British chocolate lovers rejoice! I've just had word from my rep that Mars is importing the British chocolate product Minstrels to Australia shores. They should actually be available right now from Coles in a 150-ish gram bag, and priced around $3-$4.


Rest assured they will be in my review basket as soon as I spot them!

Allen's Caramel Chicos

It's no secret that Chicos are one of my favourite lollies. The chocolate-flavoured gummies are consistently soft, chewy and pretty darn cute to look at. When I heard that Allen's was releasing Chicos in a caramel flavour, I just about jumped for joy.

The original chocolate Chicos are scented, but they don't really smell of chocolate in the true sense of the word. They're warm with a little kick that heads in the direction of cocoa, but doesn't quite get there. The scent reflects the taste; it's tasty, but lacks the creamy mouthfeel (obviously) and depth of what you would expect from a chocolate-flavoured product. They are pretty one-dimensional, not very sweet, and excellent for mindless eating at the movies.

On the other hand, the new caramel Chicos have a very definite scent. It's sort of fudgey, inspired a little by caramel milkshakes or a caramel latte (don't worry, there's no coffee), but with more sweetness than the chocolate version, and a little like burnt toffee. The smell was quite strong when I opened the bag, but dissipated quickly.

In terms of taste, the Chicos are not as strong in flavour compared to the chocolate version. It's quite a soft flavour mostly only released when chewed; it's gentle on the palate, and very fudgey in taste. The little bit of milkiness I identified in the scent isn't present, thankfully; any other flavours would wash out the already-mild caramel.

As with the chocolate Chicos, the caramel ones have a nice, firm chew, are soft and pliable to the touch, and bounce nicely when chewed. Allen's are very good at making sure their gummies are fresh.

The caramel Chicos would be good for you if you find the chocolate ones too strong.

Caramel Chicos contain wheat, starch and soy.

Cadbury Marvellous Creations Peanut Toffee Cookie

Next up in my review basket of the new Cadbury Marvellous Creations blocks is the 'Peanut Toffee Cookie' flavour.

The forums are in a bit of atwitter over this flavour, and there are lots of questions as to why it's not available in the 50g bar size, while the other flavours, Jelly Popping Candy and Jelly Crunchie Bits, are. I do have the answer! Accordingly to my rep, the Peanut Toffee Cookie flavour is a supermarket-exclusive variety. That means you won't find it in your corner shop or independent supermarkets (unless they are purchasing it from the majors).

Onto the chocolate. This flavour, Peanut Toffee Cookie (damn, Cadbury, it's biscuit! We're not America yet) is described on the packet as 'peanut, toffee and cookie pieces covered in delicious Dairy Milk milk chocolate. Imagery on the front leads you to believe the block will be filled with the peanut and biscuit pieces. Of course, upon opening the block and flipping it over, you'll be sorely disappointed.

Nine biscuit pieces. Count them! As you can tell from my block that has been snapped into many pieces, I struggled to find a good cross-section that showed the delights inside. I feel kind of insulted, really.


Luckily, aside from the peanut and biscuit cookie pieces, there are also flecks of toffee distributed more evenly throughout the chocolate. They are small and nondescript, and don't really show in the photos, but you'll feel the crunch every time you take a bite.

Now, I'm not a big fan of nuts in chocolate, but if you're a fan of honey-roasted peanuts, then this block is for you. The toffee-infused chocolate is incredible when paired with the peanut pieces (if you can find one). It's quite a strong flavour, almost overriding the standard super-sweet Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate. I am pleased there is a lot of toffee flavour, as it adds another dimension to the block. The peanut and toffee combination is quite successful.

Unfortunately I can't say the same for the inclusion of the cookie pieces. The pieces themselves are round, like the centre of a Malteser, but are disappointingly bland. Though they add a little texture to the mouth feel, the block doesn't really benefit from their inclusion, and would be much better without them.

The Cadbury Marvellous Creations Peanut Toffee Cookie block contains milk, wheat, peanut and soy, and may contain traces of tree nuts and egg.

(Oh, and that's the other thing. These super blocks apparently contain 12 servings.

Allen's Milk Bottle Mania

The second new release from Nestle's Allen's brand is bag of flavoured milk bottles, aptly named 'Milk Bottle Mania'. Milk bottles are far and away known for being a milky white in colour, and flavoured with vanilla. They are a bit like vanilla ice cream - always there but nothing to write home about.

Allen's has decided to turn this idea on its head, and has released five new flavours, plus original vanilla, in its new bag. The new milkshake flavours are banana (yellow), lime (green), caramel (pale brown), strawberry (pink) and chocolate (dark brown).

Unfortunately most of the lollies all smell like each other. It's only when I pull off the lid (stretch it out) that I can reach the untainted inner product.

Strawberry is as a sweet, strong scent. It's very strawberry ice cream orientated flavour, and that's exactly what it tastes like.

Chocolate smells like a dusty version of Chicos. There's a mild cocoa scent, and the milk bottle tastes like a watered-down chocolate milkshake. Nice, but too bland.

Bright yellow banana is very much a chalky lolly banana made into a foam lolly. It's that artificial, tastes-nothing-like-real-bananas taste that affirms the association. There's even that chalky aftertaste.

Caramel smells promising. The scent is warm and toasty, a little bit like caramel popcorn. The flavour is much the same, warm and a little buttery and familiar. If they made a whole bag of these I would devour them.

I was hoping the green milk bottle would be mint, but no, someone decided lime milkshake would be more popular. Surprisingly, the flavour is tart and sharp, more than I expected for a milkshake flavour. The milky aftertaste is a letdown.

Vanilla is just as I remember; bland and uninteresting. There are vague warm-milk flavours, but nothing that strikes me as vanilla inspired.

Cadbury Marvellous Creations Jelly Crunchie Bits

Cadbury's major 2012 release is of the Marvellous Creations range, a series of blocks and bars featuring Dairy Milk milk chocolate and assorted add-ins. The range coincides with the introduction of 'Joyville', a fictional Willy Wonka-like factory, complete with munchkin lookalikes, where the Marvellous Creations chocolates are made. As expected, there's a Facebook page and a website.

You can read more on the TV commercial and marketing info here if that's your thing, but let's get onto the chocolate!

The range comes in three flavours: 'Jelly Crunchie Bits', 'Jelly Popping Candy and Beanies', and 'Peanut Toffee Cookie', all of which are blocks or bars featuring Dairy Milk chocolate, plus 'Mini Drops', a bag of bitesize candy-covered pieces of chocolate. All feature a bright, carnival-esque striped wrapper and matching text.

The chocolate blocks are most interesting. Unlike the last ~new~ blocks Cadbury launched (Bar of Plenty in 2010), the MC blocks are larger than the normal 200g blocks. In fact, these planks are positively huge. Though the mere 100g difference doesn't like much on paper, in hand the blocks are noticeably bigger, thicker and just all around hefty. And in case you didn't get the memo, there's a not-so-subtle hint on the back that these blocks are made for sharing. The MC range also comes in 50g bars, though the Peanut Toffee Cookie variety doesn't seem to be available in this size.

Here for review we have the Jelly Crunchie Bits variety. Going by the neat picture on the front, we should expect to find glossy red jelly pieces (anyone else thinking they will be the same as the pieces in the Black Forest block?) and what looks like golden honeycomb pieces. (The wrapper doesn't actually call it honeycomb, just by the way. Even in the ingredients it's listed as 'Crunchie pieces'.) The back of the pack notes that this is made in Australia (woo! No crappy imported UK versions!) from local and imported products.

Inside the foil packaging, we have a huge plank that looks like a cobblestone street-wannabe. As well as the Cadbury branding, the top of the block also features wavy lines, and a textured surface that's pebbled like the skin of an orange. Of course, the downside of the cobblestones is that the block doesn't break into neat rows for sharing, so when you try and break a piece off, expect to be rained in crumbs.

  The block itself is 1.5cm thick, 13cm wide and 16cm tall. It's got that rich, supersweet Cadbury smell, evident from the first opening. Peeking through the gaily-patterned cobblestones are glimpses of the jelly and Crunchie pieces, giving the block an interesting speckled appearance. While the top of the block shows off mostly the jelly pieces, it's on the underside we see lots of rough, pointy pieces of Crunchie. Snapping open the block shows a fairly even distribution of Crunchie and jelly pieces.

As for the taste? Well, it's about what you'd expect. There's lots and lots of texture play - smooth, milky chocolate; sharp, crunchy, er, Crunchie, and bouncy jelly pieces. There's a lot of chocolate, so much that it can overwhelm the mouthful and you might end up losing track of the other pieces. It's also incredibly, tooth-searingly sweet, so make sure you have a drink close by. It's an interesting combination, for sure, and I bet it will be popular with kids.

I should mention the price, too. The RRP is $5.49 (regular blocks are $4.59). I bought this on special at $4.49 - still expensive in my books. The 50g bars are the same price range as other Cadbury medium bars, around $2.00 RRP.

Allen's LE Mad About Teeth n Stuff

Allen's is a brand of confectionery that is unique to our little island. Despite its extensive history (the company was established in 1891), the Nestle-owned brand has little information on its website about its history. Allen's jelly, chocolate and sugar lollies are ubiquitous in the childhood memories of most adults (I remember being at a young age and trying to 'drink' the milk out of the milk bottles - go on, laugh!), and their large range most definitely has something for everyone.

In 2010 Allen's released a 'Retro Party Mix', a play on its popular 'Party Mix' bag. The new introduction included milk bottles, pineapples, racing cars, teeth, honey bears, strawberries and cream, and ripe raspberries and was quite popular, particularly with older generation Australians who liked to enjoy lollies from their youth.

The first of Allen's three new releases for 2010 is a limited edition-branded bag, carrying a range called 'Mad About Teeth n Stuff'. I was immediately suspicious upon seeing the promo pictures earlier this week. Why would they release a product so incredibly similar to an already-existing product? The promotional material (which I posted here earlier) indicated the Mad About Teeth n Stuff bag would carry only 'foam' lollies, so I suppose this must be a repackaged Retro Mix with the honey bears, coke bottles and lips removed.

I wasn't far off the mark. Inside the bag we find just five varieties of the so-called foam lollies: teeth, milk bottles, strawberries and cream, racing cars and pineapples. For a 180g bag there was a decent mix of products, though I did receive about ten teeth sections in my one bag.

For comparison's sake, I picked up a Retro Party Mix bag as well (that's them on the right). It's pretty clear that the Teeth n Stuff bag is using the same products , just with a limited edition sticker slapped on. (Pineapples are included in the Retro Party Mix, I just forgot to put one in the photo. Oops.)

The teeth small faintly vanilla and milk, and there's a little bit of a strawberry note in there too. Lacking is the bright, bold pink of the gum section I remember from my childhood - these are a bland and uninspiring baby pink. There's a bit of stretch to the lolly, and it's firm to the touch and the chew. A very mild strawberry flavour is present, but it's pretty unremarkable. More noteworthy is that the piece is straight - they usually arrived curved. The piece is a hair under 6cm long, a perfect length for slipping under your top lip (short side in if you're more of a walrus type).

Pineapples are one of my favourite retro lollies, even if the flavour is usually far from the tarty sweetness of the real fruit. They smell of nothing, but I'm relieved to find the flavour is far from absent. The rich, juicy tang isn't quite realistic, but there's a definite note of sweet pineapple, even if it isn't a realistic flavour. These ones are also quite small, just about 2.5cm tall.

Milk bottles are pretty simple. They're firm but pliable, a fat 1cm thick and an average 3cm tall. There's nothing to the flavour bar a simple, vague vanilla milk taste. They're kind of like foamy Milkos (also an Allen's product) but weaker in taste.

Disappointingly, all of the racing cars in my bag were green. They were originally in four colours: red, green, blue and yellow. The top, coloured layer is almost opaque, but the colour is bright and vivid emerald green. The flavour without the white bottom is a brash apple flavour that quickly disappears. When eaten whole, with the foam layer, the flavour is much more mellow.

The least Allen's could have done when making these strawberries and cream was use the ones that already come in a bag by themselves. The shape of those ones, a rounded nub of strawberry in a larger pool of 'cream' is much more familiar than the lame strawberry-half-with-cream-backing they put in this bag. (For the record, the strawberries and cream in the Retro Party Mix are the half-strawberry, too.)  Though the larger jelly section does mean the actual piece has more of the jammy, blandish strawberry flavour than the other shape.  The flavour isn't enough to make me like it, though I won't actively pick it out of my bag when eating these later.

All in all, I'm still not sure why they bothered with this product. The Retro Party Mix is more than adequate for anyone wishing to revisit parts of their childhood through their tastebuds.

The packaging notes that the products contain wheat starch, and are made on equipment that also processes products containing milk powder.

Sneak Peek: Cadbury Marvelous Creations blocks

Safeway (Woolworths) already has these in store. I've seen one in person (the pink, jelly and popping candy version) courtesy of my Cadbury rep, but he wouldn't let me take pics. :( So you can have a screen shot from the Woolies catalogue this week instead.

These blocks are huge. Close to 300g, they are about the width of one and a half of the 200g blocks, and just as tall. The carnival-style packaging ties in with the Mini Drops I will be reviewing later this week.

--

Hey visitors from Google! You can find my reviews for these blocks here!

Jelly, Popping Candy and Beanies
Peanut Toffee Cookie
Jelly Crunchie Bits 
(NEW flavour! April 2013) Clinkers, Raspberry Chips & Marshmallows

Sneak peek: New Allen's Lollies

On Friday at my work we'll be receiving bags of the three new Allen's lollies bags:Caramel Chicos, Teeth n Stuff, and Milk Bottle Mania.

For now you'll just have to make do with this promo pic from my rep.

I am SO looking forward to the Caramel Chicos!

Mars Pods Honeycomb Bites

Pods area crunchy biscuit product that's unique to Australia and New Zealand. They are manfactured by Mars Snackfoods, and in 2004 were released to the Australian public in the base flavours of Snickers and Mars. Twix soon followed, and since then we've seen various flavours come and go, including Cherry Bite, Mint Slice, Toffee Time, and their new release, Honeycomb Bite.

I've known about these since January, but my Mars rep made me swear not to share them with you until they were released to the public. (Check out the little story on the back of the package - apparently they beat me to the review.)

Constructed from a cup-shaped wafer bottom, the Pods are then filled with chocolate, caramel or flavoured cream, and topped with chocolate. The biscuits themselves are small, a touch over 2.5cm (one inch) wide and long, and about 1cm at the thickest point. Pods are crunchy, tasty, and very more-some, but also incredibly sweet.

Through the transport process, many Pods tend to lose the lip of wafer edge, and the top chocolate layer often ends up scuffed and dull. Beyond the cosmetic damage, the biscuits are whole. When opened, the bag smells absolutely delicious. There's a huge note of toasted honey and not much else.

The crunch is a big selling point of Pods - the bag states they are 'ingeniously crunchy', after all - and I've never experienced a bag of Pods not arriving fresh and crunch. On biting the biscuit, there's of course the lovely texture of the wafer base, and then the smooth coolness of the chocolatey entre. Despite what the bag says about the centre containing a 'dollop of honeycomb-flavoured cream', the centre is most definitely solid and stuff, a little like a fondant, but when combined in the chew with the wafer and the chocolate, it may as well be as solid as the chocolate for all the difference it would make. And unlike the picture on the front, it's not a definite layer of chocolate over over the honeycomb filling - there's a neat little squiggle that shows where the filling and the topping overlapped in application. And of course, there's never as much filling as there is in the picture!


Chocolate is a strong flavour here, and it's only towards the end that the honeycomb flavour emerges. It's a lot like the honeycomb pieces in Hokey Pokey ice cream - a little malty, and there are lots of warm honey notes in there too.

I LOVE these, and it shouldn't really be any surprise that the bag of these didn't even last the time it took me to write this review.