Canada: Candy Lovers’ Mecca

As regular readers of this blog have no doubt come to realize, I have an immense love for all things sugary. If it’s a dessert, I like it, especially if there’s chocolate involved. I try to limit my chocolate intake to the high quality organic stuff, but sometimes I crave a good old fashioned candy bar. Sadly, there aren’t too many candy bars out there that really do it for me anymore…there weren’t, that is, until I discovered Canada’s fantastic candy selection and a brave new world of candy opened up for me. Canada has, along with the usual suspects, several varieties of candy we can’t get in the U.S., many of them European. It’s a whole different ball game up there. On a recent trip to Vancouver one of the first things I did was pop into a drug store to stock up on some bars. I made a beeline for the candy aisle and stood there, giddy with excitement, squeals of delight barely contained, basking in the glow of candy variety. Here are a few I tried:

Wunderbar

The Wunderbar, made by Cadbury, has a core of light, crispy peanut butter that is surrounded by chewy caramel and then covered with milk chocolate. This is a very unusual bar. Peanut butter and chocolate are great together but they are both so heavy and dense that the combination can easily become overkill. The Wunderbar avoids this pitfall by keeping the peanut butter airy and light and scattering rice crisps into the mix. The result is a bar that is at the same time chewy, crunchy and smooth. This is one of my favorite candy bars ever. It is, as the name would have you believe, truly wonderful.

Kit Kat Peanut Butter

I LOVE Kit Kats. There’s something about the perky crunch of the wafer contrasted with the smoothness of the chocolate, along with the boxy feel of the angular pieces, that is very satisfying to the tongue. I’ve noticed several types of Kit Kat in other countries but most are hard to find in the U.S. In Japan I’ve tried green tea, cherry blossom, and raspberry parfait, and in Canada and Europe dark chocolate (perhaps the best), caramel and peanut butter. It was the peanut butter I tried this time around and it was fantastic. Rather than four small bars to a package, the peanut butter variety (as well as the caramel) comes as one large chunky bar. This thing is solid. The peanut butter goes beautifully with the crunchy wafer and the chocolate gets thick around the edge and frames the bar like a picture.

Crispy Crunch

The Cadbury Crispy Crunch is much like a Butterfinger, but it’s wider, thinner, and is made with a better quality chocolate. I prefer the shape of the Crispy Crunch to that of the Butterfinger because I find that its more balanced chocoalte/filling ratio doesn’t overwhelm you with sweetness. The peanut-y layers stop short of being cloying or overpowering and instead concentrate on being flaky and delicious.

Mars

The European Mars bar is basically the same as an American Milky Way and is made with a nougat and caramel center and covered with chocolate. I tried the dark chocolate variety, which adds more depth of flavor than the regular milk.

Aero

I must be honest and admit that Aero bars are not my favorite. I like the idea behind them: made with tiny pockets of air folded inside, the chocolate is meant to “bubble” on the tongue when eaten. The problem is in the execution. I’ve never noticed anything about Aero’s texture that would set it apart from the other chocolate bars out there, although I keep giving them a chance hoping I’ll come around. I also don’t think that the quality of chocolate is very good in the Aero bars. They are made by Nestle and I’ve always found that Nestle’s chocolate has a disquieting waxy texture and taste. Still, I appreciate the variety of flavors the Aero can be found in, including milk, mint, caramel, orange, and cappuccino.

Kinder Bueno

Made with creamy hazelnut filling, paper thin wafer and milk chocolate, the Kinder Bueno is possibly the best candy bar in the world. See my previous post about this delightful bar for more information.

That’s just a sampling of the fantastic European candy to be found with our commonwealth neighbors. Next time you’re up there give one a try!

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