While in England, one (of the more important) things on my vacation to-do list was visit grocery stores in England. Oh man, was I successful!
In Paddington Station Katie and I bought breakfast (
hot cross buns!) at Marks & Spencer, and then in Bristol we went to Co-Op, Tesco Express (where most of my buying took place), Waitrose, and in Bath we went to a big Marks & Spencer.
I bought a whole bunch of English sweets (candy/sweeties), and after bringing them safely back to France I’ve been sampling them bit by bit. Here, for your interest (or at the very least my own) I will be reviewing all of the English goodies I bought.
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| My collection of English sweets! The vast majority of it, at least. |
The rating system: 0 to 4
s, with accompanying descriptions.
In order to give you some reference as to how my tastes typically fall, I’m going to review some American candy as well. Normally, I’m not a picky eater except that I don’t like salty things, and as for candy I’m no longer a super fan of sickly-sweet things.
Preliminary reference reviews:
Reese’s peanut butter cups
Though the peanut butter is way too sweet to use on sandwiches, this combination of chocolate and peanut butter is amazing. I prefer the ration of chocolate/peanut butter in the
regular sized cups to the
mini-cups. Hershey.
Hershey’s (milk chocolate) kisses
Tasty as a snack of 1 or 2, but – let’s face it – there’s so much better chocolate out there that these can only be a 2-star candy (yes, Katie, it’s still candy even though it’s chocolate). I can definitely see how some people might find Hershey’s chalky, but I don’t find it as such, perhaps because I grew up with it. Hershey.
Now let’s move on to the English food/sweets!
Maybe I still have a few interested readers at this point, who knows.
Maltesers Bunny (MaltEaster)
This little guy didn’t even make it home; we stopped for coffee/hot chocolate and he was eaten immediately. Cute and delicious,
I want more. Americans: Maltesers are like Whoppers except with a lighty sweet, pleasant tasting crunchy and a chocolate outer coating that is not waxy and melts in your mouth. Mars.
Munchies
I almost love the packaging (“You Want Me,” mine said. Why yes, you are correct) more than anything else, though the crunch of the biscuit inside the caramel and chocolate is very nice. Tasty, but the caramel is sickly after a few. Americans: think of Munchies as Rolos with a cookie in the middle. Nestlé.
Maoam
Though I haven’t opened my own package yet, I tried Maoams in London during the theatre performance intermissions. As fruity chews (plus the cola flavour) go, they are very tasty! Other things unrelated to their taste: I really like that they are all white – coloring the chew itself is an unnecessary use of food dye – and that the name is an palindrome. It’s an interesting choice (and one I find kinda weird) for the drawings on the chews to be so
suggestive. Haribo.
Aero bubbles (mint)
Adding air bubbles (“smooth milk chocolate filled with minty bubbles”) sounds like a genius idea, but with a slogan like “feel the bubbles” was expecting something more along the lines of Pop Rocks-filled chocolate instead of just having small holes in my chocolate. Tastes good, but the bubbles made it almost cake-y for some reason. Fun to put in hot beverages, because the air expands and the bubbles *pop* through the outer coating of chocolate. Nestlé.
Turkish Delight 0 stars
Maybe it’s because I had only had Turkish Delight for the first time last Christmas, but the texture was unexpected and one I didn’t enjoy. Very jelly-like (er, I
think I mean the British jelly?) and super sweet, with a low-quality chocolate coating. If I ever get any more of these, Kirsty, I’ll send them to you. Fry’s.
Flake
I first tasted one at Costa with a mocha (Mocha flake!), and it inspired me to go across the street to Waitrose and buy some. A very simple idea – fold a thin sheet of chocolate so densely that it becomes like a bar – makes for a fun eating experience, though it can be a little messy. The packaging is cool, too: the ends of the aluminum wrapping paper are twisted instead of mechanically sealed. Though the chocolate by itself only gets 1 star because the quality is just okay, the concept gets 3 stars and deserves a picture! Aka, an average of 2 stars. Cadbury.
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| The ribbon-folded layers of chocolate in the flake and the twisted ends of the packaging paper are part of what make the Flake so interesting. |
Ribena blackcurrant drink
I have a whole ‘nother blog post dedicated to squash, which in itself says something about this drink. It’s like a non-alcoholic kir! AKA,
delicious. GlaxoSmithKline.
Smarties
Like M&M’s, but with a much thicker candy coating. Even when you bite through the coating, it’s so thick that the bland sugary taste interferes with the chocolate. The crunch is nice, and they certainly won’t melt in your hand, but I prefer more chocolate and less shell. Nestlé.
Revels
When Katie first described Revels to me and Erica – a grab-bag of Maltesers and other chocolate-coated candy, so you don’t know which one you’re going to get! – I was so excited that I ended up buying two bags. It was fun to go through and try all of the flavours at first (extra ‘u’ added in because this is a British-themed blog post), but then the sickly sweetness got to me. Also, you can usually tell which one of the “milk chocolates with assorted centres” you’re going to get, which takes out the mystery. In order of best-to-worst, my preferences are: coffee, toffee, raisin, Malteser (not as good as the regular Maltesers for some reason), chocolate, and orange. Mars.
Walnut Whip , or
when eaten with a hot beverage
”Milk chocolate whirl with a vanilla flavour fondant cream centre” sounds potentially sickly sweet, and fondant certainly can be. I found it fun to eat off the bottom and use the “chocolate whirl” shape as a cup. Nestlé.
(Dairy Milk)
Caramel Bunnies
Your standard caramel-filled chocolate. Bumped up to two stars from one because I ate both in one sitting, contrary to my original intent. Cadbury.
Haribo Tangfastics
I realized that Haribo is German, but I don’t know if you can buy this variety of Haribo outside England, as Haribo tends to be regional with their sweets. Not-very-sour gummies, with cherries, cola bottles, alligators with white bellies, and dummies (pacifiers). I would give the cola bottles and alligators 3 stars if in a bag by themselves. Haribo.
Marmite 0 stars
Katie thought I wouldn’t like this yeast extract spread, and she was right (but I still had to try it). VERY salty, with a spreading texture much like
Cancoillotte cheese, this food is not for me. Anybody want some? Unilever.
Oat & Syrup Flapjack
One of the numerous lexicological discussions the Brits and the Americans have had revolved around the definition of the word “flapjack” – in the
UK it’s similar to a granola bar, and in the
US it’s a synonym for pancakes. So I was eager to try this other incarnation of a flapjack! It tasted like a cross between a granola bar and shortbread. Quite tasty, but more sugary than a granola bar; I’m not quite sure when is the most appropriate to eat flapjacks (breakfast? Not really as an energy snack…). McVities.
Twirl , or
when “eaten” with a hot beverage
A Twirl is a Flake that has been covered in more chocolate (an outer coating). Same concept, same chocolate + more, less mess! How can that not be awesome? My Twirl package was another instance where I ate the entire contents of the package when I meant to eat just one stick. Twirls are especially delectable when used as straws (bite the ends off first). Yum! Cadbury.
Strawberry flavour laces
Fruity taste, easy to eat, and relatively low-calorie, these strawberry laces are like a milder flavoured version of Twizzlers Pull-n-Peel. I particularly enjoy braiding them together and then eating them.
Tesco brand:
Co-operative brand:
Smarties
Smarties are extremely similar to M&M's, except that the Smarties have a very thick candy shell and the brand of milk chocolate is slightly different. They have a nice crunch because of this thick candy shell, and they certainly won't melt in your mouth, but there's much more of a chewing effort involved in getting to the chocolate compared to M&M's. Since I was raised with M&M's, in the end I found the crunchiness undesireable. Nestlé.
Wine Gums
When I opened the package, a really weird - crayon-like? waxy? - smell was my first impression of Wine Gums. Some of the flavours tasted quite nice, but others were really weird, so overall I give them one star. Also annoying (but not the Wine Gums' fault) was the fact that the kitty here loved to try and steal the package for some reason. Cadbury.
Jelly Tots
I really expected Jelly Tots to be sour, given their crystal coating. Turns out they're not; the crystals give a little crunch and an extra sweetness, I guess? The flavours are nice - and the cute packaging makes me want to like them more than I did - but there wasn't much taste. The frutiness wasn't very strong! The texture is gummier than Skittles, but I found myself wishing for a stronger flavor than just chewy with a hint of lemon, blackcurrant, lime, orange or strawberry. Rowntree's/Nestlé.
Mint Aero
After the Aero Balls, the mint inside the Aero bar was a surprise, but a wonderful one. Yum! Another candy unintentionally eaten in one sitting. The bubbles inside the bar made it noticably light and almost crumbly in a way that the Aero Balls were not able to achieve. Nestlé.
Tune in for more reviews as I eat more of my candy reserve!
ETA, 11/14/11 - in order to keep this British candy information all in one (long) blog post, I am adding the follow ratings to this entry even though I did not purchase them myself at Tesco. Thanks to Ellie for doing a care package swap with me! Here are more of my thoughts on British candy:
Crunchie:
"Milk chocolate with golden honeycombed centre" is how it is described on the package, but I was not expecting the crunch and sweetness of the middle. Another candy that has no equivalent in the US; think of a Butterfingers, except the middle is very airy and breaks kind of like a crisp cracker instead of shearing off in plates. It doesn't stick to your teeth (unlike Butterfingers) because it's airy and less dense. The centre is very bubbly, with the sugar honeycomb getting denser toward the surface of the chocolate. Mars.
It's a very good engineering candy; it looks like a
beam under stress, where the density of the sugar honeycomb is analogous to the stress magnitude (top picture in the linked image)
Happy Hippo Biscuit:
Not as sweet as Kinder bars, the Happy Hippo Biscuit is a crispy wafer biscuit filled with a milky hazelnut filling. The contrast of textures between the biscuit and the filling is very nice, especially as the very creamy hazelnut taste has such a smooth aftertaste. The hippo shape adds cuteness, too. Kinder.
Twix:
Maybe it's because I haven't had an American Twix in a while, but these were really good! The chocolate (Mars UK chocolate is made in Scotland, whereas for US candy it's Hershey's) was smoother and less sweet, and the biscuit seemed bigger. Yum! Mars.
Galaxy Bites (Chocolate Caramel):
The closest thing I can relate them to is Milk Duds, but these are much chewier. Thin layer of chocolate over a nice caramel, but a bit sugary with not much lasting taste per bite. Mars.
Kit Kat Crunchy:
Now this is a hefty candy bar! I think I do like the regular size better (aren't Kit Kats normally crunchy?), which is why this gets 2 stars instead of 3. The difficulty gained in chewing the larger bar didn't add up to additional flavour. However, I do like how you can actually taste the (creamier) chocolate on the edges. Nestlé.
Snickers:
I occasionally eat American Snickers, and didn't find this one much different or any better. Always a very dense candy bar.
Malteasers:
So delicious, I have to be careful not to eat too many at once! Maltesers are like Whoppers except with a lighty sweet, pleasant tasting crunchy inside and a chocolate outer coating that is not waxy and melts in your mouth. Yum! Mars.
Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles:
I was surprised at how much I liked these. Very fruity, with sweet crystals on the outside, these pastilles are gummy in a way that makes them hard to bite through but pleasing to chew on. Nestlé.
