Taste Test: Take 5 Marshmallow
Photo courtesy of Cybele May at Candy Blog.
Due to popular demand and the fact that we love trying weird foods and candies, The A.V. Club will now regularly feature "Taste Tests." Feel free to suggest disgusting and/or delicious new edibles for future installments: E-mail us at [email protected].
Our last Taste Test delved into one of candy's beloved elders, the Tootsie Roll. But if America excels at anything, it's snack science, and the Tootsie Roll's time has passed. Our instant-messaging, MP3-downloading, multitasking culture wants–nay, needs–ambitious candy, candy that crams as many flavors and textures inside chocolate as possible. And that, my friends, is the Take 5.
This Hershey's product debuted a scant three years ago, and its ingredients make it the supergroup of candy bars: milk chocolate, peanuts, caramel, peanut butter, and pretzels. Each package contains two roughly half-dollar-sized amalgams of all that is good in candy.
But is something still missing from this, the Traveling Wilburys of candy? (Hmm, maybe that analogy doesn't work.) Hershey's has tweaked the formula in its White Chocolate, Peanut Butter, and Chocolate Cookie (also a limited edition) varieties. They continue to experiment with the marshmallow limited edition, which replaces the caramel with another substance that tastes good on virtually anything: marshmallow crème.
Take 5 has many fans among the A.V. Club staff, all members of which have kept a monogamous relationship with the original variety of Take 5. Would the lovin' feel the same with its fraternal twin sister? Taste: As awesome as the original Take 5 is, the smooth caramel flavor tends to get lost behind the more dominant peanut butter and chocolate. That's not the case with the marshmallow, which cuts through everything with surprising boldness. There's no mistaking the marshmallow flavor, but in this case, that's not necessarily a good thing. Office reactions:
— "It's too sugary. It tastes like a Peep crammed into a chocolate bar."
— "I like it until I taste the marshmallow."
— "It's a marshmallow taste that I'm not into."
— "Half-assed marshmallow. It's hard to beat caramel."
— "Deflated marshmallow. The original Take 5 is ingenious, but this is just okay." Where to get them: Any retailer with a generously apportioned candy aisle. We found ours at a local 7-Eleven that's surprisingly hip to all new candies. However, Candy Blog reports that Hershey's stopped making these some time ago, so your chances to find one grow slimmer by the day.