Remember this guy?

Yes, it’s Vincent Price as Egghead, an arch-villain on the Batman TV series. The character made use of various egg puns, such as “I will EGG-stract your identity!” and, when he was defeated, “I am EGG-sterminated.”

All this means, obviously, that today’s blog is reviewing the Halloween version of the Kinder Joy Egg. Kinder Joy Eggs are not eggs, and they’re not particularly joyful, and they’re not even really appropriate for kinder (German for “children”), given the choking hazard warning label. But they are aimed at the young ‘uns. They combine a sweet treat with a small toy in one package. Who else would ever think of such a thing? OK, I suppose Cracker Jack has been doing it since 1873. But still.

1. Packaging. Well, it is somewhat egg-shaped, so it gets credit for living up to the hype. There’s a nod to Halloween by decorating the top of the egg with a Frankenstein face. That is, if Frankenstein ever appeared on South Park. The packaging also promises that the enclosed toy will glow in the dark. Overall, it’s a fairly compact, interesting, vaguely Halloween-themed package. 2 points.

2. Appearance of the Treat. Getting down to the treat requires two steps. First, you split the egg open, which reveals two individually-packaged half-eggs. One half contains the toy surprise (with question marks on the label to heighten your puzzlement, and a silhouette/cameo of some gender-neutral child). The other half presumably contains the treat.

Step two, you peel back the foil from the treat half of the egg, and voila! You’re face to face with a…um…..I guess it’s supposed to be an egg. With two yolks. That are brown.

The packaging suggests that the brown yolks are “cocoa wafer bites,” and that surrounding egg white is “sweet cream.” I suppose all that is fine, so far as it goes. But if you’re going to go through the effort of shaping your confection like an egg, why wouldn’t you follow through when it came to the yolk?

So, I was inclined to give the appearance of this Kinder Egg one point, but then I figured I should include the appearance of the toy in this rating.

The toy (and I use that word loosely) is 3/4″ tall plastic witch doctor (?). And the large mask does indeed glow in the dark. So let’s give it another point. 2 points.

3. Taste. The actual candy is difficult to remove from its plastic tomb. I ended up using a spoon to dig it out. It turns out the “sweet creme” is a thin layer of gelatinous goo sitting atop a chocolate-like mousse. The combined effect was way, way too rich and cloyingly sweet. Surprisingly, the cocoa wafer bites were the best part — light, crispy, and slightly salty. If the egg were just one big cocoa wafer bite, I’d give it three points. But with the cloying goo, I can’t give more than 2 points. So, 2 points.

4. Value. The actual candy in this “egg” has a net weight of only 0.7 ounce. And it costs $1.50. That works out to $34 per pound. That amount of money would have bought you an ounce of gold in 1971. So, it’s definitely not a good value for candy. However, you have to also consider the value of the “glow in the dark toy,” which I’d peg at about 2 cents. Overall, this is not a good value. Save your money and buy Covid vaccine futures. 0 points.

Steve’s Sweetoberfest Score: 6 out of 12 points, which places it in that netherworld between TRICK and TREAT. Let’s call it a TREACK.

Today, while I was walking through the grocery store, a Halloween treat caught my eye. Literally. (It was hanging at head level as I turned a sharp corner.)

You know Jelly Belly as a “gourmet jelly bean.” (You also may know the depressing story about the founder of Jelly Belly.) But JB has also developed various other candy products. And today we’ll be reviewing the Jelly Belly Pumpkins Mellocreme Candy.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Aren’t Mellocremes those chewy, waxy, pumpkin-shaped candies that Brachs puts out every Halloween? You know, the ones that dislodge countless tooth fillings annually? Well, what you’re thinking of are Mellowcremes, which is a registered trademark of Brachs. Mellocremes (without the W, and without the trademark) is JB’s answer to your as-yet-undisturbed dental work.

So, how do these new, fancy candies stack up against the staid, old-fashioned Brachs? Let’s find out…

1.Packaging. I have to say, I’m not impressed. The package has the familiar Jelly Belly logo, and a picture of three of the pumpkin-shaped candies. Below this is a clear window, where you can see the actual candies in all their corn-syrup-laden glory. There’s no other decoration to speak of: No Halloween theme, no skeletons, no bats. Maybe JB wasn’t going for Halloween, but rather a fall theme. But then you’d expect autumn leaves or something like that. Overall, it’s not a very interesting package. 1 point.

2. Appearance of the Treat. JB has apparently tried to make these candies look like pumpkins. The orange dye (which, according to the packaging, is actually a combination of yellow #5, red #3, and blue #1) looks convincing enough. They even colored the stem green. On the other hand, each stem appears to have been painted by the Hulk using a paint roller. Doesn’t anyone take pride in their craft anymore? The picture below compares the JB “mellocreme” with the Brachs OG version. The Brachs candy is larger, and seems to look more like a pumpkin than the JB candy, which resembles an orange volcano spewing green lava. But Brachs doesn’t seem to have had much better luck in the stem-painting department. Overall, I give the JB candy 1 point.

3. Taste. Here’s where I think Jelly Belly really blew it. The company is legendary for precisely capturing the flavor of various distinctive foods–hot buttered popcorn, plums, jalapenos, cotton candy…) and replicating those flavors in a jelly bean. It’s very, very impressive. So here they’ve created a pumpkin-shaped candy, which they call “pumpkins,” and they taste like…..orange. Seriously. WTF? Now, the Brachs Mellowcremes (TM) admittedly don’t really taste like any identifiable food, which I think is the point. They just taste like Mellowcremes (TM). And that’s fine. They are good at being what they are, which is a gooey, waxy, pumpkin-shaped blob with an inoffensive, sui generis taste. But here comes Jelly Belly, with their fancy-pants reputation for palate verite, and their big improvement on the old, reliable Mellowcreme (TM) is to make it taste like orange. Zero points.

4.Value. A 3 ounce bag of these “pumpkins” set me back $1.69 at my local grocery store. At the same store, I spent $1.50 on an 11 ounce bag of Brachs Mellowcremes (TM). You do the math. Zero points.

Steve’s Sweetoberfest Score: 2 points out of 12, which qualifies as a Nasty TRICK.

Today we are trying another product from the Russell Stover pantheon: The “Russell Stover Peanut Butter in Milk Chocolate Pumpkin” confection.

Yes it’s very, very similar to Russell Stover’s marshmallow abomination that we reviewed yesterday. But in place of the marshmallow-flavored chemical filling, they injected this “confection” with peanut butter-flavored chemical filling. So let’s get down to the scoring, shall we?

1. Packaging: Russell Stover has to work to keep its rock-bottom price point, and one of the ways they do that is by recycling the artwork from other “candies.” Case in point: This peanut-butter flavored “pumpkin” is packaged in a wrapper that’s almost identical to RS’s marshmallow-flavored “pumpkin.” It’s got the same Nancy Pelosi-faced pumpkin, but instead of a smiling marshmallow next to it, there’s a smiling peanut that’s eerily reminiscent of Planters’ Mr. Peanut. In addition, there’s a superfluous peanut-themed tapeworm escaping from the top of the pumpkin. I suppose the fright occasioned by that image is in keeping with the general vibe of Halloween, but I’d classify it as revolting rather than spooky. Overall, the image is disgusting and childish. No points.

2. Appearance of the Treat: Once again, RS seems to be saving money by using the same mold (you can use either definition of that word) that they used with their marshmallow pumpkin, which we’d noted resembled…how can we put this delicately?…meconium. The sample we received for this particular review seemed to at least vaguely resemble a pumpkin, so we’ll give it a point.

3. Taste. So, when you think of a chocolate crust surrounding an allegedly peanut butter-flavored center, you think of Reese’s, which is clearly the Kleenex or the Xerox of such candies. This RS knock-off is not entirely offensive. If you just jam the whole thing into your mouth and don’t chew, it’s entirely edible. But if you do chew it, you discover that the texture is a bit sandy and the taste is saccharine-sweet. It’s probably acceptable if you’re just pounding your candy haul after a night of trick-or-treating. But if you’re attempting to savor a treat along with your cocktail, as I am, it’s a definite letdown. 1 point.

4. Value. You’re not eating Russell Stovers if you aren’t into value. These “pumpkins” are about 50 cents apiece. Which works out to about 25 cents per zit that you’re cultivating with these candies. That’s good value, right? 3 points.

Steve’s Sweetoberfest Score: 5 out of 12, which qualifies as a modest TRICK.

Mailbag: Loyal reader Chris suggests that I should pair each candy with an appropriate beer. But given the narrow range of beers that I’m willing to consume, every candy would be paired with an imperial stout. Still, it’s a good idea and might feature in my blog next Halloween. Meanwhile, keep those suggestions coming!