Monday, December 7, 2009

Test #191: Bacon and ALMOND JOY PIECES

The subject
When not eating bacon, the staff of BDJ Labs often fortifies themselves with one of the other major food groups: candy. Almond Joy is one of our favorite chocolatey confections, but we have to agree with the sentiment of the taller gentleman in this comic: while the candy delivers the eponymous nuts the label promises, we've never munched down on Almond Joy and found it contained actual boundless happiness.

Almond Joy Pieces, however, are another story. When we first encountered them at the National Confectioners Association's 2009 show, we were happy to see the fine people at Hershey's had the bright idea to expand the "pieces" concept to other candies in its stable, including York Peppermint Patties, Hershey's Dark and Almond Joy. While all were yummy, the Almond Joy Pieces made us jump for...well, joy. They pack wee pieces of almond and coconut in a candy shell, perfectly replicating the experience of eating the full-size candy bar in a wee little nugget of yum. The only letdown: the candy wouldn't be on the market until the end of the year, which meant that when our samples were eaten (30 seconds after we got home from the show, sadly), we'd have MONTHS to wait until we could restock.

We couldn't stop ourselves from happy-dancing when we saw the bright blue package on our local grocery shelves last week. We took home two of the stand-up pouches and promptly wrapped some of the buttony candies in bacon.

The results
Ooh, baby. The shell melted completely, and the colored sugar oozed out the side, which lead to blue bacon (neat!). What remained was the chocolate, almond, and coconut goodness, so the tidbits were pretty much just bacon-covered Almond Joy--a flavor combination we give all-around enthusiastic thumps up. Definitely worth repeating. Our one recommendation: if you or your guests might find Smurf-colored bacon a turnoff, weed out the blue Pieces and use just the beigey ones.

The conclusion: Bacon + Almond Joy Pieces = ooh, baby.

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