Jolly Rancher Chews

A while ago the lovely Lucy (@R4Rreviews & her blog) sent me the most amazing package, it was filled with a lot of my favourite things - fudge, chocolate, 4 of my long searched for Triple Chocolate Otis Spunkmeyer muffins, a couple of her favourite flapjacks and this box of Jolly Rancher Chews - she knows me so well! 

The box contained five flavours; Blue Raspberry (apparently a standard flavour in the US, it's been included in near enough every mixed flavoured bag of sweets I've had), Cherry, Green Apple and Watermelon. 

The box was all sealed up and I had to physically tear it to get it open so I was a bit suprised to find the chews all individually wrapped - surely if the box is sealed and airtight it shouldn't need it? The chews were quite sticky and so it was a pain in the backside getting the wrappers off, half still had a bit left on but eating a sweet wrapper has never killed anyone before.. 

The sweets have quite a hard chew, harder than a Chewit or Starburst but they do soften up. It's a strange type of chew actually, my mouth was seriously watering while I was eating them but they left me feeling like I needed a glass of water as well. 

Blue Raspberry had quite a strong raspberry flavour at times, it was pretty artificial tasting but weirdly at times tasted like Bubblegum too. I worked out the reason for that after I'd tried them all though.. 

Cherry was very subtle by American standards. At times it was quite plain tasting but had random bursts of a clear and quite strong cherry. 

Green Apple was the saviour of the box. Juicy, strong and delicious - it doesn't taste like you're eating an actual apple by any means but there's no mistaking it. 

I was looking forward to Watermelon after trying it in the Lemonheads Redrific last week - it was near enough a perfect watermelon flavoured sweet so I hoped this would be the same. It wasn't. It tasted like watermelon sure, but it was clearly made with a bunch of chemicals rather than real flavourings. I haven't looked at the ingredients, I didn't need to - I could taste it. Strong but not nice at all. 

Apart from Green Apple I wasn't keen on the flavours in the Jolly Ranchers Chews. All of them ended up tasting like bubblegum or chewing gum. I thought that was what I tasted initially in the Blue Raspberry, but I realised that they all taste like flavoured gum when the flavour has worn off. 

5/10 

And it's only a 5 because I liked the Green Apple

Sorry Bakey! 

Annabelle's Rocky Road S'mores & Sour Apple Laffy Taffy - Taffy Mail

Handmade milk chocolate coated marshmallow with real Graham Cracker and cashews. 

First out of my Taffy Mail box and the one I was looking most forward to was the Annabelle's Rocky Road S'mores. A s'more is "a traditional nighttime campfire treat popular in the USA and Canada consisting of a roasted marshmallow and a layer of chocolate sandwiched between two pieces of graham cracker" and a graham cracker from what I can see online is like a thinner slightly sweet digestive biscuit. 

It's a big old bar that smelt delicious, a sweet mixture of marshmallow and chocolate and it had a real handmade authentic look to it. 

The marshmallow had a lovely sweet flavour and is soft, fluffy and gooey - stretching between the two halves when I snapped it. It isn't like chewing a proper marshmallow though, it's much lighter than that but it is thicker and chewier than marshmallow fluff. 

The chocolate isn't so much of an aftertaste, it has a stronger flavour than that but I couldn't really taste it until the marshmallow had melted in my mouth. It's not bad chocolate actually - one of the better American chocolates I've tried though it's still mega sweet! 

One of the three ingredients in S'mores are the Graham Crackers so I expected them to be more prominent here and I probably would have noticed it more had there been two layers, both on the top and bottom of the bar rather than just the top. 

Once I got a mouthful with sufficient marshmallow, chocolate and biscuit/cracker though, it was amazing. Sweet, chewy, chocolatey, crunchy goodness! The marshmallow stood out the most which I expected as it takes up easily three quarters of the bar. I forgot until writing this review that there were supposed to be cashews, I'm guessing they are what gives the bar it's nobbly appearance and what made some parts a lot crunchier than others but they weren't very noticable and I didn't really taste anything nutty. However I'll let that slide as they're all handmade apparently so the consistency of the cashews can be forgiven! 

The marshmallow itself is very tasty, the chocolate and crackers are nice enough but all three together were pretty damn good. If you aren't a bit of a sugar fiend like me though be warned, this is a very sweet treat but one I recommend! 

7/10 

Next was another from my Amazon wish list - Sour Apple Laffy Taffy Rope. Apologies for the terrible photo, this was so long it was impossible to photo the whole thing. I'll hand it over to Wikipedia to explain what Taffy is. 

Taffy, or chews, are a type of candy similar to toffee. Taffy is often sold alongside bubblegum and hard candy. Taffy is made by stretching or pulling a sticky mass of boiled sugar, butter or vegetable oil, flavorings, and coloring until it becomes aerated (meaning that tiny air bubbles are produced, resulting in a light, fluffy and chewy candy.

Laffy Taffy get their name from the fact jokes are printed on the wrapper, I won't bother telling you what they are - they're worse than the Penguin wrapper jokes! 

The photo doesn't so justice to how neon green this was and if smellovision existed, I have no doubt I'd still be able to smell the super strong apple even now hours later - I know I can from the wrapper in the bin!! 

Wikipedia may claim it's similar to toffee but I've never had such a soft toffee in my life, not that it's a bad thing - I really liked the texture. It was extremely sticky, smooth and soft but was still nice and chewy. Once I'd chewed a section (seriously it's longer than my placemats) it seemed to melt away in my mouth. 

The apple flavour is intense; very strong and although it wasn't scrunch my face up sour, still sour enough to be called sour apple. I dread to think what crazy E numbers are used but this is what a proper sour sweet should taste like. The banana flavour is already in my shopping basket. 

8/10