Nestle Mixed Juice KitKat

Every time I review a snack, I try to approach it with an open mind. Whether it's something I know well or something I suspect I won't like, it helps to try and forget expectations and taste as if everything were brand new. Of course, a little prejudice is normal and unavoidable - taste buds are strongly tied to memory.

I ordered some Mixed Juice KitKats from NapaJapan, knowing full well that they wouldn't be a likely hit with me. It was quite a challenge to forget that notion as I sampled it, but review blogs are 99% subjective, so I don't feel too bad about it.


The KitKat smelled like sweet fruity cream, and at first, all I could taste was white chocolate. After the chocolate melted a bit, the fruit flavors emerged, but I could only pick out banana and a hint of peach. When mixed in with other fruits, banana tends to dominate, so I wasn't surprised.

It wasn't bad, just very sweet and heavy on the banana. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of the vegetable juice KitKat of last year, without the nasty aftertaste. Overall, it was a forgettable KitKat and one of the weaker offerings so far this year.

Check out more reviews at Jen's KitKat Blog, Japanese Snack Reviews, Tasty Japan, and Razterized.

C+

KitKat website

European Republic: Banana Pudding

A sticker that says "I brake for banana pudding" should grace my car bumper, because it's no secret that I love the stuff. A reader alerted me a while back* that European Republic in Old City has banana pudding on their menu.

What? Land of twenty-plus wraps and Belgian frites with twenty-plus dipping sauces?

Curious as to how good banana pudding could be at such a place (I had strong doubts), I hopped on over one afternoon for a midday snack.
Out of the cooler came a filled-to-the-top plastic container of banana pudding with banana-flavored pudding instead of vanilla pudding, and no banana slices. Wrong and wrong! The Nilla wafers were soft, but this is the norm unless the dessert is eaten immediately after assembling, or there is ingenious staking of wafers to avoid pudding-soak.
Even with bad banana pudding, I'm not yet discounting the European Republic for a quick lunch. Banana pudding is not their mainstay, after all. Maybe one day I'll get back for a wrap and frites. I just won't be braking for their banana pudding.

*Thanks to all who take the time to share through blog comments, email, and Twitter. It may take eons before I get around to places, but they do go on to my to-do list.

European Republic
213 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, PA 19106
215-627-5500

Casali Choco Banana

Specialty grocery stores are kind of dangerous for me, as I have a tendency to buy things I don't need. These Austrian banana sweets were one of those impulse purchases. I'm not normally a fan of banana flavored things, but these sounded interesting.

To be honest, part of the draw was that they reminded me of Japanese souvenir snacks. These particular candies are Austrian in origin, and it looks like strawberry and orange versions are also available.


The chocolates smelled slightly of banana, but mostly of a sweet, inexpensive chocolate. The banana center tasted a little sour and almost lemony, but I liked that it didn't have the rotten sweetness that I detect so often in banana candy. According to the package, they were made with real bananas, and it was reflected in the fairly authentic flavor.

The chocolate coating was a little crunchy, but the quality of the chocolate didn't seem great. Even though it was real chocolate, it was a little grainy and chalky in spots. The texture of the banana was soft, sticky, and spongy, like a marshmallow fluff. These were certainly unique, but not something I'd seek out again.

Here is another review of the Choco Bananas.

B-

Choco Banana website

Bebe's Banana Pudding

Update: no longer open.

This is just a reminder that the banana pudding at Bebe's is yummy yums. While this take-out container of warm pudding chock full of banana slices and softened Nilla Wafers may not be food porn-tastic, it tastes authentically down home Southern. Topped with toasted meringue, the large pan of banana pudding is a bit prettier before being heaped into a take-out container. And time your visit as to how you like your pudding — go early for soft wafers with a little crunch left in the center; late in the day for soft, almost disintegrated wafers.

Bebe's Barbecue
1017 South 9th St., Philadelphia, PA 19147
267-519-8791

Frozen Chocolate Banana Pops

Cayenne and chocolate banana pop, peanut and chocolate banana pop, and plain chocolate banana pop.

Better get this post on frozen banana pops out before Summer is gone! Seriously, what happened to Summer? I feel like I wait all year long for Summer to arrive, so I can get around to fun outdoor activities (visit Bartram's Garden, picnic in the park, and a Blue Rocks baseball game, to name a few), and here it is August, and I haven't checked any of those activities off my list.

Enough bitching...wanna know what crazy memories are conjured up when I eat frozen banana pops? Caged monkeys in a mall!
The town I grew up in has a locally famous peanut and party goods store called Cromer's Peanuts that sells all sorts of tiny plastic toys and party favors, as well as their famous peanuts ("Guaranteed Worst in Town"), popcorn, and cotton candy. One of their locations was in a mall (the mall location has since closed), and the mall location had a large, glass-fronted cage of monkey on the upper back wall. Yeah, probably not the most humane setting for monkeys, but as a kid oblivious to the ills of the world, these monkeys ruled!

Combine a wall of monkeys doing all sorts of uncensored monkey acts with cheap plastic toys, candy and peanuts, a fun house mirror, and a scale you step on that tells your fortune and weight, and you've got a store a kid cannot resist!

Oh, and Cromer's had hand-dipped, chocolate-covered frozen bananas, too. The guy behind the counter would dip them right before your very eyes before handing the banana pops over the counter. My Mom would always buy us a chocolate-covered frozen banana before we left, 'cause she was awesome like that.Clumpy, ugly chocolate.

The original recipe I looked up had vegetable shortening melted in the chocolate, and I knew some would turn up their noses at that, so I tried melting straight up chocolate, and then chocolate with butter (saw recipes for both), but coating the frozen bananas with either of the two was difficult without having the chocolate get clumpy and ugly. So...I went back and tried melting chocolate with vegetable shortening, and the chocolate coated the frozen bananas beautifully!

To add vegetable shortening or not, is your choice. If aesthetics are a concern, I'd add the vegetable shortening. If you're going to roll chocolate-coated bananas in a topping such as crushed peanuts, ugly chocolate is not that much of a concern.

Frozen Chocolate Banana Pops
makes 12 pops

6 bananas (not overly ripe), peeled
10 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons vegetable shortening
12 popscicle sticks (I used wooden coffee stirrers)
crushed peanuts, sprinkles, or other garnishes (optional)

• Cut bananas in half, and push popscicle sticks in cut end, halfway through bananas. Place on a parchment paper-lined tray in the freezer while preparing the melted chocolate.
• Melt chocolate chips and vegetable shortening in a double boiler on the stove top over low heat, stirring until completly melted.
• Dip individual bananas into the melted chocolate, holding for a minute or so, until chocolate has hardened before placing back on tray.
  
• If decorating the pops with crushed nuts or other garnishes, sprinkle garnish on pops or roll pops in garnish immediately after dipping the bananas in the chocolate, and before the chocolate hardens.
• Place pops in an airtight container and store in the freezer.
  

Banana Pudding

Like I was seriously not going to follow up that last post with a recipe for banana pudding?

Banana pudding is a very simple, homey, and classic Southern dessert. There are really only two ways to make it -- the right way and the wrong way. There's no futzing with the ingredients or the preparation. Futz, and you have something different.

• The right way: make a simple, homemade pudding on the stove top.
• The wrong way: make instant pudding.
  

• The right way: keep your pudding vanilla flavored. No squished bananas, no spices, no nothin'.
• The wrong way: make banana flavored, or any other flavored pudding.
  

• The right way: use ripe, but not overly ripe, sliced bananas
• The wrong way: use green or overly ripe bananas that you've squished, chopped, or cooked.
  

• The right way: use Nilla Wafers.
  
• The wrong way: use homemade or any store bought cookie other than a Nilla Wafer.
  

• The right way: alternately layer the three main components - cookies, bananas, pudding in that order. Repeat if necessary.
• The wrong way: not getting at least one layer of bananas and cookies underneath the pudding.
  

Let me take you step by step:
Make pudding from scratch (recipe is at end).Cover the bottom -- and sides if you like -- of a serving dish with vanilla wafers. If you want to get fancy with individual servings in martini glasses or canning jars, that's fine. Use ripe bananas -- not too green and not too brown.
Layer sliced bananas on top of vanilla wafers.
I got excited and forgot to photograph the pudding layer that comes next, but you can see it underneath the second layer of vanilla wafers. So, that's pudding layer, then repeat, starting with vanilla wafers again.
Second banana layer!
Second pudding layer!
More often than not, there is a decorative top layer, be it more vanilla wafers, meringue, or homemade whipped cream. All three of these toppings are totally legit. I've always gone with more wafers. Banana Pudding
makes about 6 servings

As this dessert sits, the wafers soften and the bananas start to turn brown. In my opinion, the optimum time to eat banana pudding is about 30 minutes to 3 hours after being made, because the wafers and bananas have softened a bit from the warm pudding. I usually can't help myself and eat some the second it's made while the wafers are still a little crunchy. If you want soft and crunchy wafers, decorate the top with wafers right before serving. At around 12-18 hours the bananas start to get brown and ugly, i.e. do not make this dessert a day ahead! It won't hang around a day any way.

1/3 cup flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 cups milk
3 egg yolks, beaten
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 package Nilla Wafers (may not use all)
3-5 bananas, sliced (may not use all)

• Combine flour and sugar in a sauce pan. Gradually stir in milk. Then add egg yolks and salt.
• Cook over medium heat until thickened (about 8-10 minutes, but thickening will take place almost suddenly and you will know when this occurs), stirring constantly (very important). Remove from heat and add vanilla and butter (butter can be skipped if you want to make the dish ever so slightly healthier), stirring to incorporate.
• Layer vanilla wafers, then bananas, and then one-half of the pudding in a deep dish. Repeat layers. Finally, top with a decorative layer of vanilla wafers.
  
• Serve warm or chilled.

Extra Fruit Sensations Strawberry Banana

I don't know that it's fair for me to rate strawberry banana flavored things, because I'm just not keen on banana flavoring. Sometimes the strawberry mellows it out, and if it's very authentic, then I have no problems at all, because real strawberries and bananas actually taste great together.

This gum was not very authentic. The first taste has the strong tingle of cherry-flavored liquid medicine, and I really want to call it Cherry Pepto Bismal or a cherry throat lozenge with a liquid center. It's not strawberry or banana. In any case, it's a tangy red flavor. I guess at least it was a strong flavor, though it's not really a plus here. Once that dies down, it's got that stale, rotting banana taste of Bubbleyum chewed too long.


This gum was not sensational. Two other friends tried it and neither went wild, but I know some people like the taste of cherry medicine. If not, pass on this one.

D

Extra Website

Laffy Taffy

Back when I was younger, I had braces. Taffy tops the list of things you can't eat when you have braces; one of my freinds broke a bracket eating Tangy Taffy once. Whatever happened to Tangy Taffy? Anyhow, there was a time in my life when I couldn't eat taffy, so perhaps that makes me want to eat it more now.

The packaging feels like it's aimed at the 10 year old me, growing up in the 1990s. Bright colors and "cool" fruit. Just check out the sour apple guy in this picture. He looks like a beat poet! The goatee and shades are pretty cool.

Oh, and the jokes. You buy Laffy Taffy for the jokes, right? Most of them are recycled, but then credited to (presumably) a child, as if they thought it up themself. For example: Why can't a nose be 12 inches long? Because then it would be a foot. I don't think Jennifer B. in Ft. Lauderdale, FL really came up with that herself.

I still haven't gotten to the actual Taffy. As far as I know, it tastes the same as it did when I was a kid.

Sour Apple: It's an electric green color (again with the 90s marketing) and starts out tasting almost like apple, but about halfway through, there was a weird, chemical taste that I didn't enjoy. Still, the taffy was pretty juicy.

Strawberry: A bright pink color, I can't really say it tastes like straberry, but it's somewhere in the ballpark. It's a nice, sweet, berry flavor, and they managed to mask the chemical taste much better.

Grape: Considering how most artificially flavored grape candy tastes like cough syrup, these aren't too bad. They are a pale purple, and they remind me of good grape popsicles. The ones that didn't taste like Robutussin.

Banana: I've never been a fan of banana flavored things. I love actual bananas, but banana candy is its own taste. My husband loves it and I just can't stand it. These are the epitome of banana-flavored candy, and I couldn't finish it. It just reminded me of the smell of rotten bananas.

Overall, I think the pieces are too big, and it kind of felt like chewing a balloon at times. All the flavors are artificial, and it shows, but they're all right. I doubt I'd buy them again, but I mostly bought them for nostalgia anyhow.

B-

Wonka Website

Mars Starburst Tropical

I should know by now to be wary of "tropical" versions of things. I learned my lesson many years ago with Tropical Skittles. But I guess I forgot that lesson when I bought this bag of Tropical Starburst. Let me break down each flavor.

Mango Melon: I don't really taste mango, but I can kind of taste the melon (cantaloupe). I don't think either fruit is as sour as this tastes, though.

Royal Berry Punch: Tastes a lot like clear gummy bears, but not good ones. I don't really taste berry at all, actually, although the first bite was almost cranberry, in a bitter sort of way.

Pina Colada: Very plastic-y taste. I think it's from the attempt at tasting like coconut. The pineapple is almost there, but the sugary taste is overpowering.

Strawberry Banana: I liked this best of the bunch. It tastes very artificial, but at least it does hit its target of strawberry banana. Not that it's a very tropical combination.

Starburst is one of those candies that was better as a child. Now they all just taste too sweet. I can still eat the originals, although too many gives me heartburn, as I recently discovered. If I get the urge for Starburst again soon, I won't pick Tropical.

C

Starburst Website

Banana Pudding Smackdown

Thanks to cooking with my Nanny (grandmother, not sitter) when I was young, banana pudding is one of my top favorite desserts. She made banana pudding by making pudding on the stove top first, and then pouring the pudding over layers of Nilla Wafers and sliced bananas. The homemade pudding is the key!

I rarely find banana pudding on dessert menus, and I only make banana pudding about once a year, so when I do find banana pudding, I'm all over it.

I ran into banana pudding at a bbq joint, a restaurant, and a grocery store while in Charleston, SC. Styles and tastes ran the gamut. Who won?A quick stop into Bessinger's Bar-B-Q on Hwy 17 to pick up some mustard bbq sauce, and I couldn't resist a container of banana pudding from their cooler. I enjoyed the dessert on the beach, because...what? pudding isn't a beach snack?

The banana flavored Jell-0-esque pudding is not ideal (the only banana flavoring in banana pudding should come from the bananas), but fills that cheap, junk food craving.
Fat Hen restaurant on John's Island has really good food...and a good wait to get in the door. There aren't a lot of veggie options, but what I did have was awesome. I quized our server on the banana pudding prep. Pudding homemade? Not banana flavored? Yup. Yup.

Awesome!! Just like homemade. I can't believe it didn't come in a larger mason jar (isn't that cute), and I had to share it with three other people. I hate sharing.
What's that? Banana pudding in the cooler at Piggly Wiggly? Got it. Lets go! You'd be suprised at how nice Piggly Wiggly is now a days. The ghetto Piggly Wiggly we shopped at for the first eleven years of my life was just that -- ghetto.

The pudding is Jell-O pudding-like. But it's not banana flavored, which is a big up. They also do this little trick of layering a bunch of wafers on the bottom so not all of the wafers get super soggy. Some one was thinking! Piggly Wiggly has a really good fast food version of banana pudding.

Recap:
Bessinger's - Not really
Fat Hen - Hells yes
Piggly Wiggly - Yes

Banana Pudding Ice Cream

The instructions for the ice cream maker I found at a garage sale were quite simple – freeze container, turn on machine, fill container, wait 30 minutes. Settling on the first batch of ice cream to make was not so simple. In fact, it turned into a big deal.

So excited to make ice cream, I went out and bought The Perfect Scoop, an ice cream and frozen dessert cookbook by David Lebovitz, with anticipation of making one of the esoteric flavors like goat cheese ice cream or basil ice cream. My partner was not too excited about such flavors, and wanted something basic. After an entire night of debating ice cream flavors, we agreed on the classic Italian chocolate and hazelnut gelato.

A day packed with activities caused us to reach the grocery store most likely to have hazelnuts in stock at a time other than Christmas late in the day. The store was closed. The Crapme (Acme) had nothing but long lines moving no where. Long story a little shorter, I didn’t quite follow a recipe from David Lebovitz’s book, although it was my every intention to follow directions, but the world was against me. The first ice cream batch sucked – not the Perfect Scoop’s fault. Next time I'm going to add the recommended ingredients.

The world was working with me the next day. Really, I wanted banana pudding ice cream all along, but the boy said, "No." Thankfully, he went home and left me to my devices – and vices. Banana pudding is one of my favorite homemade desserts, and one of the first things I learned to cook by my grandmother’s side when I was young. Banana pudding is made with vanilla custard cooked over a stove, not banana Jell-O pudding. If this is all you’ve ever had, you’ve not had banana pudding.

Hmm, custard that goes in banana pudding is exactly like custard that goes in ice cream. I cracked open The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook in hopes of finding a banana pudding recipe, but there wasn’t one. There was a recipe for banana pudding ice cream, though. Sweet ice cream Jesus, my prayers have been answered.

This ice cream tastes exactly like homemade banana pudding, and the texture is perfect – perfect! – after a day in the freezer. I almost considered charging myself $5.89 per scoop, it was so good.

I added more vanilla wafers to the recipe, and think it could stand for even more, but I’ll print it as I made it. (The additional wafers are the only deviation from the original recipe.)

Banana Pudding Ice Cream
Makes about 1 quart
Adapted from The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook by Matt and Ted Lee

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
¼ cup packed dark brown sugar
2 ripe bananas, sliced in half crosswise and lengthwise
2 tablespoons dark rum
2 large egg yolks
⅓ cup sugar
1 ½ cups whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
14 2-inch vanilla wafers, coarsely chopped

• Melt butter in a skillet over medium-high heat until frothy. Add brown sugar and sauté the sugar until it bubbles, abut 1 ½ minutes. Add bananas, stir and turn in sugar for about 1 ½ minutes until softened.
• Pour rum over bananas in skillet, and let cook for a couple of minutes to burn off the alcohol (important, or else ice cream won’t freeze). Place contents of the skillet in a blender or processor.
• Beat the egg yolks with a whisk, then add the sugar and beat until the mixture is a light yellow color, about 1 ½ minutes.
• Warm the milk over medium heat in a saucepan, stirring occasionally, until a thermometer reads 150° (6-8 minutes). Pour ½ cup of the hot milk in the blender with the banana mixture, and puree for 1 minute.
• Add the remaining hot milk slowly to the egg mixture while whisking constantly. Pour this mixture back into the saucepan, and cook over low heat, stirring constantly until the thermometer reads 170° (8-10 minutes or until the mixture is thick enough to coat the spoon). Turn off the heat.
• Add the banana mixture to the custard and whisk for 1 ½ minutes. Let the custard cool to room temperature, then whisk in the cream.
• Refrigerate for 4 hours or until the custard is cold. (I skipped this part with no resulting problems.)
• Poor mixture into the ice cream maker and churn. A few minutes before the ice cream is done, add the cookie bits and churn for a few more minutes.
• Eat right away for instant, soft ice cream gratification. Freeze ice cream in the freezer to harden.