Russell Stover's Last Stand

I was sorely disappointed by Russell Stover's Halloween chocolate. But I am willing to give them one more chance. Having unwrapped their offerings, my hopes are not high.

Let's talk Santa.

These are Nestle's Santas:





They are coaster sized disks with a cute Santa face and each says Santa Claus is Comin' to Town! The Butterfinger disk is awesome! I love Butterfingers, so that was not surprising. The Crunch is okay. To me all Crunch is only okay. Bland, waxy chocolate - pass. It's the peanut butter that saves the Butterfinger Santa and the chocolate seems better than that in the Crunch. But I could just be deluded by the peanut butter.

Now look at this:




Do you see those blobs? Those are "Santas" according to Russell Stover. Maybe mummies. Maybe potatoes. One looks like the Pope. They ain't Santas. I put in Snickers Nutcracker to make it even more clear how lame the RS Santas are.

I mean, come on! Did they even try? You can see the buttons on the Nutcracker's jacket! I can barely make out "Santa's" head! BOO on aesthetics. Coal and switches, RS.

But let's talk taste. RS's caramel Santa was not too bad. Nothing extraordinary, but not bad. I still don't like the way their chocolate just crumbles. Not melts - cracks, crumbles. Snickers' Nutcracker is better - you've got caramel and peanuts and I like the chocolate better.

The coconut cream Santa is okay if you REALLY like coconut cream - it's sweet, with coconut chunks but not creamy. It has the consistency of marshmallow. I found it gross. The coconut Santa (not cream, just coconut) is an inferior version of an Almond Joy with no almond. (And not much joy.)

There's also a coconut wreath (apparently RS goes all out with coconut at Christmas. I don't think of coconut as a Christmas treat, but hey, why not?) Better than VEGETABLES.

Again, aesthetics not so good. I'm not going to elaborate - you can see for yourself. BUT - this was my favorite of the RS treats! I'm surprised! I like it! Hey, Mikey! RS may not be dead to me yet! I would actually buy this again. It's not a chocolate coated thing like the others, the chocolate is mixed with the coconut and it's nice and moist. YUM! No switches!!

Remember Russell Stover's infamous Buzzard Egg at Halloween? The one I busted for being an Easter Egg repackaged and repackaged badly? Well, it's BAAAACK!

And the competition is none other than the Cadbury Ornament Creme Egg! (Hey -at least they tied it to Christmas and called it an ornament - RS just said "Marshmallow and Caramel" and stuck a Santa picture on the label.

Here they are naked - at least Cadbury tried to make theirs look seasonal:

Russell Stover is just sticking with the Easter decoration year round. RS is lazy in the aesthetics department. More coal and switches. Santa is SO watching! (And he's not laughing at the Pope thing.)

Let's look inside these babies, where the yolk meets the egg!

Now, there really is no competiton here. The first picture is RS - there is a big hole where caramel should be. And look at that spongy marshmallow! Something is just not working here - I don't know what happens to the caramel. There's some weird liquid between the marshmallow and the chocolate so maybe it's caramel. I don't know. I didn't like it as a buzzard egg and I don't like it as a weird Santa egg.

The Cadbury egg is much better - it actually looks like an egg, it's creamy and delicious. Although I have to confess that it is a little too sweet for me. But it blows RS out of the nest.

So here are my favs - the Butterfinger Santa disk, the Snickers Nutcracker, and the RS Wreath. I higly recommend them all - they are relatively inexpensive and taste pretty darn good.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Ho, ho, ho!!!