Halloween and Peanut Butter - Yay!!

I love peanut butter.  I love Halloween.  I was so excited when the Halloween candy starting hitting the shelves.  I kept going back to all my favorite candy haunts (heh, heh, heh - get it, haunts?) looking for the new, the exciting, the different.  And was so disappointed this year.

Sure there were the usual miniature candy bars, but that's the same every year.  We need new, exciting candy - simple pleasures to take our minds off foreclosure rates and unemployment figures.

At least Nestle made a Butterfinger pumpkin:

I like the design - a bit creepy and a bit friendly all at once.  Pretty impressive.

This guy is chocolate with Butterfinger pieces mixed in.  It's okay.  I prefer the mini Butterfingers taste.  Nestle's chocolate isn't as good as their Butterfinger filling.  I'd really like this if it were all Butterfinger filling.  I don't think it would hold together very well, but damn, it would be good!  And it would be orange.  Nestle candy makers - read my blog and make us a Butterfinger (no chocolate) pumpkin!  Crunchy!  Peanut buttery!  Yum!

This is new fall packing for the Reese's Peanut Butter Pumpkins.  I'm still bitter they didn't make the mini ones this year.  But I still think these are the best peanut butter treats on the market.  They still have the old Halloween themed purple packaging from last year (you can see it in last year's post if you really care that much).  Maybe this is so they can keep the Reese's pumpkins on the shelf a little longer - making them a fall treat?  These could stay out through Thanksgiving.

I think we should be giving thanks for these all year long!

This is the only Russell Stover candy I bought this year.  I didn't see anything else new and I hate Russell Stover anyway.  I think they own Whitman's so the marshmallow candy corn was one of theirs too.  I did like it.  But I still hate Russell Stover.  Not as much as the Naked Cowboy, but close.

I was intrigued by this because the wrapper says it's solid peanut butter and it's flat as a pancake.  I wanted to see what it was:

Reese's next to Russell Stover:

My soul mate:

You have got to be kidding!  Why even bother with this? 

No creaminess, the peanut butter taste is too sugary and fake.  It's just a travesty.  Gross.  See why I hate Russell Stover?

I reviewed these last year, but they are so random and weird, I threw them in again this year:

Palmer's Creepy Peepers peanut butter filled eyeballs.  Made with the world's cheapest chocolate but at least they have decent peanut butter filling.  I like the peanut butter but that chocolate is just so waxy and bad.  But they are creepy (in a good Halloweeny way) and the packaging is a riot - "Eye love it, You'll Love it!"  "Another eye-catching idea from Palmer"  Campy!!  Love it!

These are another of my favorites - Hallowscream Caramel Balls from Harry and David:

Oh yes, babies - that is peanut butter wrapped around that caramel center.  These are the best EVAH!  Totally addictive, totally great.  Very peanut buttery and the mix of textures - crunchy candy coating, creamy peanut butter, chewy caramel - genius!!!!!  Get thee to a Harry and David and grab some of these - they are sooooo good!!!!!

I don't know about you, but I'm having fun!!!  I love Halloween and getting to see all the cute kiddies in their costumes!  And what better excuse for a middle aged woman to be stalking the candy aisle? 

Hope you're doing some fun things this week!  I'm gving my "Motivation by Chocolate" session for the hospital staff at Roanoke-Chowan  Hospital.  How much fun are we going to have?    Join in the fun - take some candy to work, wear a costume, or visit a corn maze or haunted house.  Life is short - celebrate!

Easter Peanut Butter Begins!!!

Woohoo - it's the Easter post many of you have been waiting for! PEANUT BUTTER!

I have so many peanut butter Easter candies, I'm going to have to do at least two posts. This one will cover the smaller candies up to the size of the standard Reese's Egg. The next posts will cover all the many standard eggs and the GIANT peanut butter eggs. So kick back and enjoy this lovely trip to candy heaven.

The littlest peanut butter eggs are the Reese's Pieces Pastel Eggs and the peanut butter M & M's Speck-tacular Eggs. These are the only ones with an outer candy shell.

The Reese's Pieces Eggs come in several different packages. The large 12 oz bag:

The single serving 1.5 oz bag:

And the adorable 3.5 oz carton:

The M & M's just come in one size - the large 9.90 oz bag:

Both are in bight festive colors - the M & M's are indeed speckled. And look how big the Reese's Pieces eggs are compared to regular Reese's pieces - yay!

Here are the autopsy photos and you can see the major difference:

The M & M's (on the left) have chocolate, the Reese's Pieces eggs do not. I have to tell you, I love them both, I really do. In fact, I refuse to put one above the other, because they both are sooooo delicious!!! One thought though - this is the only time of year you can get the Reese's Eggs - you can get peanut butter M & M's anytime.

This is a Palmer mix with milk chocolate flavored eggs, cottontail crisps, and peanut butter filled rabbits:

Here are the peanut butter rabbits:

I have to tell you - these are pretty bad. Too much waxy chocolate and not enough peanut butter. Boooo!!!!

Reese's has these milk chocolate and peanut butter foil wrapped eggs:

This is the first time I've seen this packaging - a direct rip-off of the Cadbury Mini Cream Egg packaging. It's a much better deal price wise to buy the bag.

Here's the autopsy photo:

These are pretty damn good - filled with that delicious Reese's Peanut Butter.

Palmer has a very similar (slightly larger) foil wrapped peanut butter egg. It comes in an assortment with both caramel and fudge eggs:

Here they are - I like the look of that blob of peanut butter!

I like the size of this egg better and it is filled with creamy peanut butter. This, my friends, is pretty damn good. I know, I know, it's Palmer - but that peanut butter is hard to beat - I love it! I'm not going to say it's better than the Reese's Eggs - but I'm going to say they are just as good. Try them!!!! You'll probably have to get the assortment - I haven't seen any bags of just peanut butter. I found these at Rite Aid.

See the size difference (Palmer on the right)? See the peanut butter? Isn't it beautiful? I love Easter!

The last of the round eggs (meaning no flat bottom) is from Lindt:

Now I adore Lindt and the Lindor truffles and this is an amazing smooth, creamy wonderful Swiss chocolate. It is a better quality chocolate than either Palmer (duh) or Hershey, but the peanut butter just doesn't kick the same butt. It's more chocolately. I really like the more peanut buttery taste. I'm not saying I'm throwing this away or anything crazy, but I like the others better.

Let's move on up to the small flat eggs - these have less than 100 calories each and are less than 2 inches long. Reese's has both a white and a milk chocolate mini-egg and look at all the packaging options!

I was delighted with this cute thing:

You open it up and get a little of everything:

See everything that was in there? It's the perfect Easter gift! I was surprised and delighted so much was in it! Yay!!!

Here's a large bag with both flavors:

And one with what has got to be the most popular flavor - milk chocolate:

Here the little babies are:

Isn't that beautiful?

The trick here is thin layers of chocolate and HUGE quantities of peanut butter. Life is good!

Dove has Elegant Eggs (what the Fairy Bunny carries, I assume) and these are the peanut butter ones:

Eh. These are fine - don't get me wrong. I like Dove Chocolate very much and these are smooth and creamy, but there's just not enough peanut butter here. See?

See how thick all the layers of chocolate are? Too thick in my book - more peanut butter, more peanut butter, more peanut butter! The Reese's Egg totally crushed the Dove egg in my book. Totally.

New this year for us are Bissinger's peanut butter eggs:

I was surprised at the lovely molding - there are three different designs:

They are really pretty aren't they?

These are better than the Dove eggs - more chocolate and it's really, really delicious milk chocolate. But I am in love with the salty peanut butter of the Reese's egg. I know - this is having the chance to drive a Jag and sticking with your old beater Nova. I know. But I like what I like and I LOVE peanut butter. For me, it's all about the peanut butter. Give me the Nova!

More peanut butter tomorrow!!!!