Candy Bar Lab

Just about everyone I work with has a blog. Most focus on web development and design. When I recently began telling them that I’m writing a blog devoted solely to candy bars, most were intrigued. One of my co-workers was even awesome enough to buy me a candy bar, which I of course promised to properly review on this blog. So here it is, the Nestle Crunch Crisp.

Structure
The center consists of alternating wafer and chocolate creme layers, which aretopped with a layer of milk chocolate and crispies. The entire bar is enrobed with a thin shell of milk chocolate.

Texture
The wafers are very crisp and the chocolate cream is soft - exactly how it should be. I expected a powdery texture like those cheap sugar wafers I was once addicted to, so I was pleasantly surprised. The top crispies don’t stand out. They have to be there for branding reasons, but I wouldn’t have missed them. Most importantly, Nestlé made this bar the perfect thickness. I panned Kit Kat Caramel for being too thick. Crunch Crisp didn’t make that mistake.

Taste
Nestlé chocolate has a unique flavor. When I was a kid, I loved it. Now, I find it to be a little too sweet and it has a distinct burnt caramel aftertaste. I probably should have eaten this in two sittings because the off flavors became unpleasant by the end.

Verdict
I really liked the texture of the wafers and chocolate creme; more than I disliked the chocolate flavor. If given the choice between this bar and a regular Nestlé Crunch, I would choose this. Therefore, I would definitely recommend this to anyone who likes Nestlé candy bars.

By themselves, plain old Kit Kats are great. Good caramel is also great. So, wouldn’t it be great if the two were combined? Well not so fast. Candy bars are a delicate balance of flavors and textures. Adding something, even if its tasty on it’s own, might not make the product any better than what you had to begin with. If it were that easy, candy manufacturers would just throw all of the goodies they could round up into a single bar.

So, back to the product at hand - a Caramello stuck to the top of an over-sized Kit Kat stick. Let’s see if this is an improvement over the regular Kit Kats many of us have come to love.

Structure
This is a molded bar with two cavities. The bottom one is filled with a layered wafer and the top one is filled with caramel.

Texture
Biting into Kit Kat Caramel is interesting. Your top teeth will first make their way through the caramel cavity before getting held up by the thick, middle layer of chocolate. Once they’ve broken this barrier, they will proceed easily through the crispy, wafer layer. What you end up with is a “ka-clunk” sound in your head with each bite. I wasn’t a big fan of this. It feels like you’re biting through two separate bars.

Taste
You’ll taste a lot of milk chocolate. The quality of which isn’t bad, but not great either. The wafer is pretty tasteless, but that’s fine. It’s only job was to provide texture. The big disappointment is that you can’t really taste the caramel, which is mild and gets overpowered by the chocolate. Wasn’t the addition of caramel the whole point of making this product? It would have been better if the caramel was saltier.

Verdict
I definitely don’t recommend this bar. The thickness of the middle chocolate layer is the fatal flaw. It ruins the texture and masks the caramel. I’ll be reaching for classic Kit Kats over their caramel cousins every time.