Let ME Eat Cake!

World Market has a pretty good rewards program (you all know what a sucker I am for those!). You get a $10 credit for your birthday and $10 for every $100 you make in food purchases. I had $20 in credit burning a hole in my pocket, so I tried some stuff I've been eyeing. I like to try the seemingly improbable.   Cake on a shelf for some indeterminate amount of time seems improbable. 

The picture on the top is the outer package, inside are six individually wrapped cakes:

Now this doesn't look a dang thing like the cake in the picture:

I didn't see any chocolate filling.  Maybe the cake absorbed it - they were pretty moist, I have to admit.  But not that chocolately.  These (cherry) were actually better!

Again, nothing like the picture, but moist and tastey!  These would be great for a lunch box - YUM!  Made in Italy - I should have known they would be pretty good.  The Italians know their food.

I was certain this would be terrible.  I mean - these cakes are just sitting on the shelf!  How can they be any good at all?  This is decorated sponge cake with strawberry jam and custard filling:

Looks kind of scary, right?

I can't believe it, but it was pretty good!  The jam and custard made it.  This one is made in Portugal.  Wow - cakes from around the world!  How cosmopolitan is my birthday celebration?  Looks crummy, but tatses light and sweet - pretty good!

I got this one from A Southern Season - a peanut butter torte - holy smokes!!!!  But it's in a box, so I had my doubts:

But look at this - it looks great, right?

But when you cut it - holy God!  Is that radioactive?  The orange really is that shocking!

WOW!  It might look weird, but it's pretty damn good!!  And pretty damn dangerous - OMG!!!  I can't stop eating this thing!  Thank God my birthday only comesd once a year!  Made by Sweet Treasures, distributed by Green County Foods out of Monroe, WI.  Screw Portugal.

And you can't have a party without cookies!  These are new by Oreo:

I was surprised when I opened the box and there were so few inside - Oreos are usually packed!

These are Oreos without their tops, covered in fudge and they are damn good.  No kidding!  Pretty rich with all that fudge, but this is a mighty fine cookie.  It doesn't look like much, but it brings it, I promise!

These are a new limited edition flavor - Oreo Blizzard:

Zzzzzzzzzzz.  You gotta be kidding.  These did nothing for me.  Taste like regular Oreos.  Not even DoubleStuff.  Don't waste your money.

Sprinkles seems so festive and springy to me!!  Whee!!  So let's look at some nonpareils with colored sprinkles. These are by Choclatique:

And these are by a German company - Horst Schluckwerder:

And while I like the cute flower shape of the German chocolates, those by Choclatique are WAY better.  They have more chocolate and thus fewer sprinkles.  Way, way better.  But nonpareils are not my fav - those round balls always taste a little stale to me.  Great for decoration, not so great for flavor.  But that's just my opinion - my best friend, Missy LOVES these things.

Yay!!  Cake, cookies and chocolate!  And a lot of it was free!  Happy Birthday to me!!!  The only thing that could have been better was to have you all here to share it with!

Many, Many Malted Milk Eggs

I have fond memories of eating malted milk eggs as a kid - but I remember all that colored stuff coming off and getting all over my mouth. I swear I remember my brother's lips being blue after eating a blue malted milk egg! They don't make them like that anymore. : (

I seldom crave malted milk balls, but I like them alright. And at Easter time they seem to pop up everywhere as you shall see. And since I have now autopsied so many I know a bit about their secrets (which I shall reveal to you).

You know I had to see if Trader Joe's had any Easter Candy and sure enough:

They even give us some history on the carton:

Here, here!!

Yep - definitely egg shaped. Coated in chocolate with no outer candy coating or coloring. These are delicious and the chocolate is very, very good.

You KNOW Whoppers is going to do something! They have both regular size

and mini Robin Eggs:

Nice bright colors as advertised:

There we have an outer candy shell and a thin inner coating of chocolate. These are really good - and you can have almost twice as many for the same calories as Trader Joe's! And I don't mean twice as many mini's! It's because Joe's has more more rich, delicious chocolate. But these are really addictive and good.

The autopsy of the Mighty Malts eggs from Necco reveals something very horrifying:

NO CHOCOLATE!!! AAAIIIEEE!!! They have two types of malted eggs - one is Ice Cream Shoppe with the flavors strawberry, orange, chocolate, and cookie dough - this refers to the malted milk part - the coating doesn't seem to have much flavor. These remind me of cereal flavors - the strawberry tastes just like the Crunchberries in Captain Crunch cereal. The orange is really strong and sugary - heck these are all strong and sugary and fake tasting - kids would probably LOVE them! Me - not so much.

These are just regular old malt balls:

coated in a weird candy coating. Remember - no chocolate. Boo!!! I say. Boo!!!

Necco also makes the PAAS eggs. Interesting - the others are under the Mighty Malts brand and the Necco logo is nowhere to be seen - until you flip the bag over and look at the fine print.

These have a thin layer of chocolate:

and are the best of the three Necco offerings. I can't decide if I like them better than the Whoppers or not - they are larger and don't have the hard candy shell. Both are pretty good.

These are offered by Williams-Sonoma and Jelly Belly (I told you we'd get to those that were in the Deluxe Easter Mix!):

I think they are both made by Jelly Belly although the Williams-Sonoma bag says theirs are made exclusively for them. They taste the same, have the same ingredients, and the same autopsy results:

Get the Jelly Belly ones - I found them at Hallmark - they are $3.00 cheaper than the Williams- Sonoma ones. As pretty as these are, they were hard as rocks compared to some of the competition. The taste was okay - not impressive since these are the most expensive.

I swear these two are identical (same colors, same ingredients, same taste and autopsy results). One I found in Cracker Barrel:

And the other I found in Target:

These are good too! The candy shell is thinner than the Whoppers shell, which I actually like a little better. I'm not at all sure who makes these babies - each package just lists a distributor, not the actual maker. Another Easter mystery.

This is a Spring offering from Harry and David:

Now, I should like these! The candy coating is nice, they have a thick layer of chocolate, but for some reason - these were a no go. It was like the malted part didn't have any taste. All I had to do was eat one and then eat a Traders Joe's egg - the difference was clear. If it's going to be a malt ball it has to have that crazy crunch in the middle - it was kind of lacking here. Disappointing.

These have nothing to do with Easter, but since we're on a malted milk ball roll, check out these by World Market:

peanut butter!!!! Woohoo!!!

Yowzaa!!! These are really, really good! Very peanut buttery!! A+++

So here are the rankings as far as I'm concerned:

Peanut butter was the best, but it's not really an Easter Treat, so after that - I'd have to go with Trader Joe's.

Next up I'd go with Necco's Paas, closely followed by the Whoppers Robin Eggs.

The mystery brand is really, really close to those two. I had no idea how challenging ranking malted milk eggs could be! Who knew?

The prettiest (and most expensive) were last. (Williams-Sonoma and Jelly Belly)

The spring H & D ones weren't officially Easter treats, but if they were, they would be the worst.

Well, now I've eaten enough malted milks balls to last me the rest of my life.

The lesson - all things in moderation, all things in moderation.

Ch-ch-ch-Cherry!

Valentine's Day candy is half price!! But it's going fast - so if you want any - get out there! And CVS has some crazy deals on Easter candy. I got some Snickers Eggs and some Reese's Pieces Eggs for eight cents! I have no explanation for it, but I was thrilled. I also am clearly insane in my candy consumption but that's another matter.


I've reviewed these before and I'm standing by my earlier review.

They have a cherry taste (obviously there ain't no real cherries in there). If you like cherry, I think you'll like these, but I prefer regular M & Ms. These are not so great. But, hey, I always like it when companies try something new. So, go Mars!

Now look at these - new from Harry and David:

They are called Glimmers and come in assorted flavors. (I have a bag of caramel Glimmers for a future post.) This bag is cherry, blueberry and raspberry and they are shimmery! Look at how pretty they are! For some reason the shimmer here doesn't bother me like it did on the Fling bar. I think it bothered me there because they took it away when they made it a Three Musketeers bar. It was a hokey, girlie thing and it still pisses me off!

But these are all about the shimmer! They are a LOT like the premium M & M's, but yet not. The flavors are completely different.

Pretty, shiny, sparkly! They are chewy rather than crunchy - no hard candy shell. And MUCH more fruity than the M & M's. I have to say, these are really, really good. Holy smokes! They are much better than I thought they would be. Why do I doubt you, Harry & David? Cherry is pink, raspberry is red and blueberry is, well, blue. The fruit taste is stronger than the chocolate taste, and the blend is good. Harry & David does a great job with their chocolates and these are no exception. I'm impressed.

Now let's get to the real fruit!! This Harry and David assortment has chocolate covered cherries, blueberries and peaches.

An autopsied cherry:

See the layers? Cherry, chocolate, and a red coating. I'm not going to pretend to know what the red coating is made of. Overall effect? Tart -which is good - the way a cherry should be. The chocolate and the red mystery layer add a nice sweetness. I like these - a lot. I can tell they are addictive and I'm already convincing myself of the antioxidant content of the cherries.

Here's a peach:

Peach, chocolate, and white coating. The blueberries were too small to autopsy. I can only do so much. These are good too, although a little sweet for my taste. I can still taste the fruit, which is really nice, but it's mighty sweet. I don't know if a dark chocolate would work here though - it might overpower the delicate peach flavor.

The blueberries are also good - nice and tart. But these were kind of puny. I get these at A Southern Season and they are much bigger. Flavor is great in both.

I found this assortment in World Market:

This assortment contains (starting with the pink and moving clockwise) pink strawberries, raisins, orange mangoes, Bing cherries, white apricots, and cranberries. I autopsied a cherry and a strawberry and you can see we've got the same layers as in the Harry & David fruits.

The red mystery layer is much thinner here and the chocolate thicker. These are not as sweet, or quite frankly, as good as the Harry and David ones. These cherries don't even taste that tart. Also there's an an odd aftertaste. You would think the increased chocolate would help, but it's not a great chocolate. BOO!!!

This one is more like the Harry & David chocolate to mystery layer ratio. And it is horrible. Truly horrible. Too sweet with a fake strawberry flavor. Also has a weird aftertaste. Ewww! These are all bad - the mango thing was also all orange stuff - no chocolate center with a tiny bit of mango. Apricot also has a funky aftertaste. The only two that were edible were cranberry and raisin and that was because they were covered only in chocolate. Avoid these like the Swine Flu.

I found these at Trader Joe's:

They look more like the World Market cherries than the Harry & David cherries. These are MUCH better than the evil and heinous World Market ones, but they are still not as good as the H & D ones. Their coating is cherry flavored in that weird maraschino cherry way. And you don't get that tart H & D cherry taste. I'm surprised at how much H & D is standing above the rest.

These are Trader Joe's dark chocolate covered cherries:

No red mystery layers - just cherries and dark chocolate. But taste? These could be giant chocolate covered raisins for all I can tell. There's no cherry taste at all. The chocolate is good, but it's so strong it completely overpowers the cherries. H & D kicks butt in this competition!

Now these don't have anything to do with cherries. But they were what I found in Trader Joe's for Valentine's Day.

Aren't they gorgeous?

Chocolate is so pretty! I love chocolate. And these are delicious - look at that creamy, dark chocolate truffle filling. Wow!!! These are a must for you dark chocolate lovers - that creamy center is to die for! Trader Joe's comes through after all!!

I think the best chocolate covered fruit enhances the fruit flavor. Only in the Harry and David chocolates could I still taste the fruit. The best partnerships are like that, aren't they? One person doesn't completely overshadow the other - both work to bring out the best in each other. Good friends listen to each other. Happy couples divide up work so one doesn't carry the full load. Love isn't about giving everything and losing yourself. It's about finding the person who brings out the best in you.

Or maybe it's just about covering yourself in chocolate.