Candy Bar Lab

I’ve had traditional Turkish Delight before and I liked it’s soft consistency and light flavor. So, when I saw Fry’s Turkish Delight, I imagined the candy I had tried covered in chocolate and that seemed like a good thing. It turns out that Fry’s version is very different from what I had imagined.

Structure
Each bar is a thin, rectangle slab of flavored jelly enrobed in milk chocolate.

Texture
Unlike some other chocolate covered jelly products, with Fry’s Turkish Delight, the chocolate shell doesn’t crumble apart. Instead, it sticks to the tightly to the product. The jelly center disintegrates quickly and is not chewy nor sticks to your teeth. Though I’m not usually a fan of jelly filled confections, I liked the overall consistency of this candy bar.

Flavor
There’s something immediately odd about the taste. I couldn’t find anything on the packaging that said what flavor the jelly was, but since it appeared to be dark red/purple, I was expecting raspberry or some other fruit to be the main flavor. That guess was way off. Instead, it tasted like clove and mint mixed with grape jelly. It really had me confused at first, so I Googled it. I couldn’t find an official answer, but over at ChocaBlog, they mention it’s flavored with the essence of rose. Not sure what that’s supposed to taste like, but sounds like a reasonable answer from what I experienced. Anyway, overall, Fry’s Turkish Delight jelly tastes pretty weird. It’s palatable with the chocolate coating, but I didn’t really love it.

Verdict
I’m just not a big fan. It’s unique though and I could see some people being enthusiasts. Maybe if I had grown up with these, I would have learned to love them.

A few months ago, while preparing for a big Oktoberfest party, my mom picked this candy bar up at a local German grocery store along with some beer and brats. Immediately, I remembered the last German candy bar I tried - the Storz Nougat Praliné. Both have gold packaging, are made of a chocolate and hazelnut nougat, and hail from Deutschland. Two things jumped out at me about this Wendler product though. First, the packaging design is superior to the Storz version. It’s crisply folded and has a cool metallic, textured feel to it. Second, I could see from the picture on the front that this product has two distinct layers, one darker (and presumably more chocolately) than the other.

Structure
Two layers of German nougat. The bottom layer is a darker shade of brown than the top.

Texture
The Wendler Nougat bar is soft and dense. It coats your whole mouth as you try to chew it. There isn’t a huge difference in consistency between the two layers, but the top layer is slightly smoother, while the bottom layer is a bit drier.

Flavor
Very surprisingly, there is almost no chocolate flavor. It didn’t taste at all like I was expecting, which was something similar to Nutella. Instead, there’s a distinct roasted hazelnut flavor. Overall, this product is very sweet and unfortunately, without the chocolate present, there’s not much going on to cut into that sweetness. There’s really no discernible difference between the two layers, except the top was maybe a little sweeter.

Verdict
Maybe I’m being overly critical because I was so sure that this bar was going to taste like chocolate and I was horribly let down. It’s very one-dimensional and way too sweet.

I previously reviewed Annabelle’s Rocky Road - an American made candy bar with chocolate, marshmallows and cashews. I was underwhelmed by that product, so I’ve been on the lookout for a great rocky road candy bar since. So, I was really excited when I received this Australian made rocky road bar last week. From the packaging, I could tell it’s different from Annabelle’s. Instead of using a solid slab of marshmallow enrobed in chocolate, this version has big pieces of marshmallow mixed into a slab of chocolate. And instead of cashews, VooDooo’s version has peanuts.

Structure
Whole marshmallows and roasted peanuts in milk chocolate, cut into rectangular slabs.

Texture
This is a very non-uniform product. There are different sized marshmallow and peanut pieces mixed throughout. The chocolate is really thin in some places and really thick in others. Along the outside of the bar, the chocolate barely coats some of the marshmallow pieces. I think VooDooo might be making these by hand, rather than using automatic machinery, but I can’t confirm this.

Taste
The marshmallow and peanuts are fine. The chocolate - a huge disappointment. It’s really sweet and flavorless. It barely tastes like chocolate actually. If I were served this candy bar blindfolded, I would have guessed that it had white chocolate instead of milk chocolate.

Verdict
VooDooo Rocky Road was a big let down. I had high hopes from the packaging and first look that this would be a great candy bar. But immediately upon biting in, it was clear that the chocolate was sub-par and that ultimately killed it’s chances of getting a thumbs up from me.