Candy Bar Lab

Sky Bars are manufactured by NECCO, New England Confectionary Company, which I associate with NECCO wafers — the worst candy ever made (one of the flavors is clove! yuck…). I learned never to eat them again after I first tasted one around 1987. So I’m hoping that NECCO’s Sky Bar turns out to be a lot better than those terrible chalky wafers.

Structure
A molded, milk chocolate bar with four segments - each with a different filling (caramel, vanilla cream, peanut butter, and chocolate fudge).

Texture
All of the fillings are soft and pretty similar in consistency.  The caramel and vanilla fillings are noticeably granular - not pleasant. There’s really no excuse for having sugar crystals in a finished product, especially in a product like caramel, which should be silky. The peanut butter filling was surprisingly the smoothest of the bunch, which is kind of weird because peanut butter doesn’t need to be smooth - it can be a little more coarse and crunchy and still be good.

Taste
When I first tried the peanut butter filling, I thought it was the caramel filling.  It doesn’t taste like peanut butter. With my second bite, I could make out a little bit of the peanut flavor. If you’re expecting it to be anything like a Reese’s peanut butter cup, you’d be way off.

The vanilla filling is forgettable. I really wish it had been marshmallow filling. Instead, it’s too sweet - like the inside of a Cadbury creme egg.

The caramel center is slightly salty, but has no deep, caramel flavor like I would prefer.

The chocolate fudge filling is my favorite. It tastes like brownie batter, which to me, is a good thing. I love licking the spoon after making brownies. Like the other fillings, it’s more sugary and sweet than anything. It could have been a more intense chocolate flavor, but it was good enough.

Verdict
The concept of four different fillings in one candy bar is cool.  If executed well it would be really good but this bar is not well done.  The chocolate is sub par and none of the fillings are very good (though I did kind of like the chocolate fudge). It’s a classic example of a product that does a little bit of everything, but doesn’t do anything particularly well. If NECCO were to combine the classic name and branding of the Sky Bar with high quality product and good execution, this could become a thumbs up.

Oh Henry! bars are made by Nestlé in the US and by Hershey in Canada. The Nestlé version has a different look, both outside and inside, than it’s Hershey’s cousin.  Frankly, the Canadian version looks much better. This week though, I needed a late night snack. So, I raided the Candy Bar Lab stash and picked out one of these “Peanutty caramel fudge bars in rich milk chocolate”. Sounded good enough, so I gave one a try.

Structure
Two segments of peanuts, fudge nougat, and caramel covered in milk chocolate.

Texture
The bar’s thin chocolate coating is dry and crumbly.  Inside, peanuts are sparsely distributed throughout the caramel layer.  In fact, if I didn’t take a close look, I wouldn’t have known there were peanuts at all because they are so crumbly and soft they get lost amongst the caramel.  The grainy bottom layer of fudge nougat is very chewy - almost like bubblegum. Overall, the bar’s components run together and do not compliment each other.

Taste
What’s probably most interesting about Oh Henry! is what you don’t taste.  The chocolate has little to no flavor and you can’t taste the peanuts at all. There’s a little bit of saltiness in the caramel (not much), but the fudge layer doesn’t add any taste at all.  What you do taste, is a lot of artificial vanilla, sugar, and a slight burnt caramel aftertaste.

Verdict
Oh Henry! was a disappointment both as a late night indulgence and again the next day. The crunchy, salty, sweet, and chewy combination I was anticipating turned out to be a crumbly, chewy mess. I’ll have to try to get my hands on a Canadian version and try that out one day. Until then, I’m sticking with Snickers if I want a chewy, chocolate, caramel & peanut candy bar.

When my boss Andy first heard about this site, he was concerned there aren’t enough candy bars in the world to dedicate a whole blog to. I assured him that there are thousands of different candy bars and that it would take me years to get through the ones I already know about - let alone the thousands I’ve yet to discover.

At my local Target last night, I was reminded of just how many candy bars there are in the world when my girlfriend spotted one I had never seen before - a Ritter Sport with cornflakes in it. I obviously had to pick it up and even though I have a bucket full of bars at home waiting to be reviewed, I decided to eat this one next.

Structure
This is a square, 16 segment bar of molded milk chocolate with whole and crushed pieces of cornflakes incorporated throughout.

Texture
The cornflakes are surprisingly crunchy - much more so than their puffed rice counterparts. The bar breaks apart pretty easily though because there are so many cornflakes packed in. It’s easier to bite through than a regular piece of ordinary chocolate would be, which is nice because Ritter Sport bars are pretty thick.

Taste
Obviously, milk chocolate is the predominant flavor and it’s very good. You don’t really taste the cornflakes at all… at first. If you try really hard though, after the chocolate has subsided, you get a little bit of genuine cornflake taste. It’s interesting, definitely different from anything I’ve ever had.

Verdict
Cornflakes in chocolate is just unique enough that it caught my attention, but not so crazy that it’s a gimmick. This is a really good candy bar and I’d buy it again.

The whole cereal in chocolate thing got me thinking… what other cereals would work? Lucky Charms in white chocolate? Maybe Cinnamon Toast Crunch in milk chocolate? Cheerios in dark chocolate? Leave me some comments. Let me know if there are any cereals you think would be good to put in a candy bar.