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Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Review of New Candy
Hershey's Caramel Cappuccino
 It's nice to see Hershey's innovating again, after several dismal attempts to improve on the Kit Kat. This time, Hershey's has hit a home run. Hershey's Caramel Cappuccino is a candy bar that you will want to share, for two reasons. First, there is a practical consideration: The candy is very, very rich, and you will want someone to help you finish it. Second, Hershey's Caramel Cappuccino is amazingly tasty, and you will want someone else to witness it. You will take a bit of the candy, and you will be surprised how effectively Hershey has blended the tastes of chocolate, caramel and coffee. It is sweet, but the acidic taste of the coffee effectively keeps it from being too sweet. "Mmmm... Try this," you will say, gladly handing over a piece of this bar to a friend. They will smile and nod approvingly, saying, "Hey--that's pretty good." And indeed, it is. So much so, in fact, that one wonders why this candy is a limited edition. Surely there is room in Hershey's stable for this new invention? Perhaps some of the other confections could be put out to pasture to make room, if necessary. For example, Hershey's has been hawking Krackel for years now, and even the most casual consumer of chocolate knows that Krackel is not, even on its best day, a substitute for a Nestle Crunch. Or, Hershey's could eliminate some of the redundancies in its lineup (For example, why make Skor when you also make Heath? Why continue the Symphony line, when it is obviously just a Hershey's Chocolate bar poured into a different mould?). It would be nice if the good chocolatiers from Pennsylvania would take a bold step towards innovation and find a way to continue to transition some of their more successful limited-run candy--such as the Caramel Cappuccino bars--into a regular product. Hershey's Extra Dark  The good news is that the Extra Dark label promises 60% cacao, which is refreshing, since the more cacao that is in the chocolate the better it is, generally. The bad news is that Hershey's is choosing to market this candy not with the promise of better quality chocolate--but by pointing out that chocolate contains antioxidants. Candy makers everywhere take note: If you have to market your chocolate by claiming that it is medicinal... Well, it might be time to go back to the drawing board. I am not much impressed with Hershey's Extra Dark. Despite the claims Hershey's makes, this chocolate is still not terribly high quality. I could digress into a discussion of the ratio of cocoa solids to cocoa butter, but I won't. I'll just say that Hershey's got it wrong... again. Additionally, the Extra Dark was tempered badly. (Tempering a complicated process which determines the texture of the finished chocolate. Among other things, well-tempered chocolate is crisp--when you break it, it makes a satisfying "snap." Read more about tempering here.) The poor tempering was obvious, as the chocolate melted all over my hands. And trust me, I wasn't holding it for that long. The flagship dark chocolate bar from Hershey's remains the Special Dark, which is not saying much for the chocolatier from Pennsylvania. If you want high quality dark chocolate, and if you are limited to mass-market chocolate, I recommend you go with Lindt. |
