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!

Muy, Muy Bueno

Mmm. Candy. Few things make us feel as youthful or as carefree. Kinder Bueno has got to be my favorite candy bar not only because of its incredibly awesome name (although this does play a small part) but mainly because of its absolutely winning flavor/texture combination. I happened upon the Kinder Bueno in Europe a few years ago and fell immediately in love. We were inseparable, the Kinder Bueno and I. I found them everywhere: the subway, the grocery, the hostel vending machine. Life was glorious. Kinder Bueno did not follow me home, however, and I had a difficult time locating them upon my return to the U.S. A year later, in Montreal for the summer, I was overjoyed to discover that our candy-conscious neighbors to the north had recently begun to carry the bars. Since they were a new product they were being marketed like crazy and I would walk into any store and find a table overflowing with the things, and on sale, no less. I was in heaven. I came home from that trip a month later transporting a Costco sized box of them, and they were well worth the precious space they took up in my suitcase. I rationed them out carefully over the following months and I make sure to stock up every time I go back across the border.

And just what is a Kinder Bueno, you might ask. Not German or Spanish, as the name suggests, they are a part of the Kinder line put out by the Italian company Ferrero. The paper thin, crispy wafer casing crunches readily under tooth to give way to a creamy hazelnut filling, and the whole thing is topped with milk chocolate. There is something about this light crunch followed immediately by creaminess that makes me incredibly happy. They come two bars to a package, each bar sectioned into quarters to make for easy bite-sized pieces. Check out this bizarrely great website to get a better idea of what they are like.

Tracking down a Kinder Bueno in the U.S. can be tricky. They are sometimes found in import stores, such as The Continental Store in Seattle’s University District, and Husky deli in West Seattle, but the import prices can be a little steep. If you live close to the border a good option is making a little pilgrimage to Canada, a country that carries all kinds of exciting foreign candy, or to Mexico. They can also be ordered from various online candy retailers. However you manage it, make sure to try this candy bar. It is the best!