Candy Bar Lab

A little while back, I noticed that Trader Joe’s started carrying a wide variety of freeze dried fruits. They have strawberries, bananas, pineapples, apples and a couple others I can’t remember off hand. I’ve seen freeze dried berries at the regular grocery store before, but they were always really expensive for small bags. At Trader Joe’s, I picked up a pouch of bananas for only a couple of bucks.

So, I decided to throw some of the banana pieces into a candy bar mold with some chopped walnuts and dark chocolate (sorry, no pics). The bananas tasted awesome with the chocolate and are really crispy. In fact, I don’t think the walnuts were even necessary. If you ever get a chance, I recommend trying out some of the Trader Joe’s freeze dried fruits with your favorite chocolate. You don’t have to make it into a bar if you don’t want. Just eat the chocolate and the fruit at the same time and I’m sure it’ll taste great.

The Chokito immediately reminded me of the Freia Peanøtt Kubbe, except instead of peanuts, this version has rice crisps. Since the Kubbe is one of my favorite candy bars ever, I had high hopes for the Chokito.

Structure
An inner core of caramel fudge surrounded by rice crisps and enrobed in chocolate.

Texture
The caramel fudge center is firm, but soft enough to easily bite through and it doesn’t stick to your teeth. I would compare it most closely to the inside of a 3 Musketeers, except not quite as soft. The relatively large rice crisps provide a nice texture complement and the chocolate binds everything together well. The whole product is perfectly balanced texturally.

Taste
The flavor of the Chokito was a huge letdown. Specifically, the caramel fudge center tasted really artificial. If you’ve ever had the low calorie, Skinny Cow brand caramel ice cream cones, it tasted like the fake caramel in those. Unfortunately, neither the flavorless rice crisps or the sub-par tasting Nestlé chocolate could help make up for the odd flavor of the caramel fudge.

Verdict
The Chokito should be a great candy bar. Texturally, it’s fantastic and all of the ingredients really should taste good together. For some reason though, they don’t.

I don’t often see molded candy bars that have both milk and dark chocolate. In fact, the Nidar Yade is probably the first one I’ve had. It seems most manufacturers assume that milk chocolate and dark chocolate are mutually exclusive and that consumers want one or the other, not both in the same product.

Structure
A thin, wide molded bar with a bottom layer of dark chocolate and top layer of milk chocolate. Small, caramelized bits of macadamia nuts and hazelnuts are mixed in.

Texture
Perfectly tempered with a nice snap when you break it into the smaller, triangular pieces. The hazelnut and macadamia nut pieces are really small, but add a nice contrast to the smooth chocolate.

Taste
There’s about two or more times milk chocolate than dark chocolate, but in terms of taste, the two are split evenly. The dark chocolate is more pronounced when you first bite in, but the milk chocolate becomes more noticeable on the finish. It’s difficult to taste any hazelnut or macadamia nut because the pieces are so small, but you do get some extra sweetness from their caramelized coating.

Verdict
I don’t actually finish many of the candy bars that I review on this blog myself. I try to share with others if they’re good or I sometimes toss out the rest if they’re really bad. So when I eat an entire candy bar myself, like I did with the Nidar Yade, that’s a sign that it’s a damn good candy bar. I would put the Yade easily in the top tier of the candy bars I’ve tried so far.