Post-Birthday Journal + Kaffre talks Candy #78

Welcome everyfur and welcome to my November Journal!

As you can see plainly see I'm not (as much of a) baby any more, but I want to offer heartfelt thanks to everybody who sent hugs and other birthday greetings!

Typically for me, I didn't really do anything for my birthday - I did go grocery shopping a few days later and treated myself to some items for my collections: manga, a few rocks, and a deck of cards). It wasn't planned, but I also wound up having to get lunch at the Mall and tried 'Villa Madina' the food itself was good, but by the time I got to the bottom of my salad it was just lettuce which was a bit of a flaw albeit one that's probably my fault maybe I'll try something else if I go again...

In other news, my nephew has a Birthday coming up soon too - his *actual* birthday is midweek so I'm not exactly sure when the party is scheduled, but I've already got his presents ready to go so all I really have to do is make travel arrangements once I do know the date - and possibly help with cake stuff...

Apart from that, I do have a bit of holiday shopping to attend to, but I think I have a pretty good handle on that this year - hopefully that confidence turns out to be well-founded - find out in my December journal next month!

Hmm I guess that's about it for this month. Thanks for reading! *hugs*

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Kaffre talks Candy #78

Name: Kit Kat Chunky (Drumstick)
Manufacturer: Nestle
Size: 48 gram bar
Where Purchased: Bulk Barn
Description: Consist of a standard Kit-Kat chunky wafer topped with a layer... stuff with a texture and flavour reminiscent of vanilla ice cream, some caramel, and pralines before being coated in milk chocolate. Intended to taste like Nestle's Sundae cones.
Opinion: A random product I picked up on a whim. I'm not the biggest fan of ice cream or caramel, but am familiar with the product being emulated and found this to be almost uncannily accurate with a creamy vanilla complimented by the sweetness of caramel. I ate mine at room temperature, but think the uncanny valley effect might be ameliorated by chilling the bar prior to consumption. Overall, I liked this product and would buy it again, but it does feel like something that might get old fast...

Name: Mars (Cookie Dough)
Manufacturer: Mars
Size: 44.2 gram bar
Where Purchased: Sunshine Variety
Description: This Mars bar consists of a cookie-dough flavoured nougat base topped with caramel and enrobed in chocolate. The bar has a blocky, but polished appearance.
Opinion: Being rather indifferent to both caramel and nougat, Mars Bar isn't usually a go to for me, but I did pick up this interesting-looking variant. It was sticky and chewy as might be expected as well as very sweet. The cookie dough flavour was stronger than I might've expected, but I felt that the caramel taste was stronger still and kind of overpowered it at times. Overall, I thought this bar was pretty good. I'm still not a fan of Mars, but I do think people who enjoy that product would appreciate this variant as well.

Name: Reese's Bar
Manufacturer: Hershey
Size: 120 gram bar
Where Purchased: FreshCo
Description: A bar of chocolate filled with Reese's peanut butter and divided into 12 segents (3x4).
Opinion: Grabbed on a whim, this item unsurprisingly tastes very similar to the iconic Reese Peanut Butter Cup, but probably because the ratio of chocolate to peanut butter is slightly different, the whole thing had a strong 'uncanny alley' effect that took a bit of getting used to. Overall, I liked this product and would consider buying it again, but given it's similarity to the Reese's Cups I'm not really sure there's much point seeking it out apart from improved sharability and/or portion control inherent to the bar format.

Name: Terry Orange Bar (Dark)
Manufacturer: Carambar and co.
Size: 90 gram bar
Where Purchased: Dollar Tree
Description: Consists of a large bar of dark chocolate that has been molded into an usual shape that resembles two adjacent columns of eleven orange slices.
Opinion: As with the iconic Terry Oranges this bar combines the bitterness of dark chocolate with a pleasant dose of orange flavour which combine much better than I would have thought. Overall, I liked this product and would purchase it again, but it remains my least favourite of the three Terry bars, n but it might be worth checking out for those who are bigger fans of dark chocolate than I am.

Name: Twirl (Caramel)
Manufacturer: Cadbury
Size: 43 grams in two bars.
Where Purchased: British Isles Shoppe
Description: Consists of two bars of textured Caramel-flavoured chocolate (similar to 'Flake') enrobed in Cadbury chocolate and sold bundled together in a single package not unlike Twix.
Opinion: Another limited edition item that inadvertently left to languish in the fridge. This product is pretty muh what one would expect from a caramel-flavoured Twirl - the high surface area of the crumbly chocolate delivers an intense burst of caramel flavour as it melts pleasantly in your mouth - I found the item to have a coffee-like aftertaste which didn't bother me (I like coffee better than caramel), but might be offputting to some. Overall, I liked this product and would consider buying it again despite my general indifference to caramel.