Way back in 2005, Cybele reviewed Orange Creme Hershey's Kisses at Candyblog. The orange-flavored white chocolate kisses didn't last too long at the time, but Hershey's has just re-released them, labeled as a "limited edition" offering for their year-long 100th anniversary celebration.

The original review noted - and I completely agree - that these chocolates taste a lot like orange creamsicles in the way that they blend orange and vanilla. The chocolate has a tempting orange scent and melts into your mouth smoothly and easily when you bite into one. Unfortunately, these kisses also have an almost overpowering sweetness to them that makes it difficult to eat any more than one at a time without having something to wash them down with.

The concept for these kisses is a good one. I'd try mixing these up with dark chocolate kisses (or other dark chocolates) for some variety and to subdue the sugar.

The bag makes no mention of how long the release will last, but I wouldn't be surprised if they stick around at least until Easter at the beginning of April.

Dark Chocolate Dipped Altoids sounded so good after reading Joe's initial review that I decided to keep an eye out for them while shopping. Target seems to be a veritable gold mine of new and limited edition candies, so it didn't surprise me when I saw a box near the checkout and picked them up.

At least, I thought I saw a box of the candies I was looking for. I didn't discover that I picked up a tin of Dark Chocolate Dipped Cinnamon Altoids instead until I took a closer look at the package later that day. I'm not a big fan of cinnamon candies in general, but I have to admit that the chocolate-coated cinnamon Altoids were pretty addictive. The chocolate was not too sweet and melted fairly easily in my mouth, cutting the normally sharp cinnamon flavor substantially and leaving behind an almost Mexican chocolate-type flavor.

I still haven't had a chance to sample the regular chocolate covered Altoids, but I think I'll be satisfied with my accidental purchase for a while yet.

Chocolate cereals that are designed to appeal to adults - to women, specifically - rather than to children are one of the hottest new trends in the breakfast industry. Chocolate Oat Crunch Life is the first one out of the starting gate and is already available in stores. The cereal is regular, whole grain Life cereal that has had chocolate granola pieces added to it. It is touted as being low fat, high in fiber and as a generally healthy (2.5 grams fat, 190 calories per 1-cup serving), yet indulgent, breakfast option.

After trying a box, I think I would pass on this as breakfast food.

Just Born is always expanding their Peeps lineup, as the sugar-coated marshmallows are one of their most popular products. Instead of only offering yellow chick Peeps at Easter, they have chicks, bunnies and egg shapes in a variety of colors and flavors. And for other holidays, they have themed Peeps, with hearts on Valentine's Day and trees at Christmas.

At Halloween, Just Born introduced cocoa-flavored black cat Peeps, which I passed on because I was somewhat put off by the color. I am a huge fan of Peeps, but I like my Peeps in the spring. While shopping this week, however, I came across Cocoa Bunny Peeps and, as they were Eastery-enough to meet my standards, I picked up a package for a taste test.

The important thing to note about these candies is that they are not chocolate marshmallows, despite the promising light chocolate color. They are merely cocoa-flavored and that flavoring is entirely limited to the sugary coating on the outside of the bunny. The subtle chocolate flavor didn't really do anything to enhance the Peep and, although I would eat them again, if I really want chocolate with my Peeps, I'll stick with Milk Chocolate Peep Eggs - or better yet, a dark chocolate Peeps s'more using a regular Peep.

For a closer look at the cocoa bunnies, click past the jump. *warning - the photo after the jump is graphic, and may not be suitable for all viewers*

Dubbed "lollipops for the new generation" by the company, Jelly Belly's LolliBeans are one of the company's newest products and were promoted at the SF Fancy Foods Show along with their new pomegranate jelly beans. Lollipops are hardly innovative, as far as candy goes, but the company seems surprisingly excited about these pops. Each one is shaped like a very large (over 1 inch long) jelly bean and is embossed with the famous Jelly Belly logo, and 10 flavors - very cherry, watermelon, sizzling cinnamon, strawberry cheesecake, cotton candy, blueberry, tangerine, bubblegum, grape and lemon - all of which are as true-to-life as the original Jelly Bellys are.

Perhaps if I had picked up a Strawberry Cheesecake pop instead of a lemon I would have been more impressed, but this was simply a good - not fantastic - piece of candy.

The Lollibeans are available at candy and gourmet stores nationwide and will probably be more widely available as we head into Easter.

Del Monte's brand new Fruit Chillers line is sure to be a hit with both kids (and adults) this summer, even though it is a little on the cold side right now in most parts of the country. The Chillers are individual sorbet cups, but there are a couple of things that set them apart from the average individually portioned kids dessert. The first, and most important, thing is that they are made with real fruit purees, rather than concentrated juices that have artificial colorings and flavors added to them. In fact, there are no artificial flavors in them at all and they contain 100% of the recommended daily value of vitamin C (150% in the mango flavor) and 3/4 serving of fruit, based on the nutrition pyramid. The other interesting thing about these is that they are not found in the frozen foods section of the grocery store. They are packed sealed and unfrozen, so you can simply pop them in the freezer before you are ready to eat them. The Chillers are fat free and contain about 190 calories per 4.5-ounce serving.

bConsumer Reports recently taste-tested four widely available brands of coffee - McDonald's, Burger King, Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts - to see where you could find the best coffee in the country. They were treading old water with their report, as both AOL and USA Today have done identical taste offs in the past. Unlike the previous tests, however, CR picked McDonald's as offering the best coffee of the bunch, describing it as "decent and moderately strong. Although it lacked the subtle top notes needed to make it rise and shine." USA Today, in their test, picked Starbucks.

Needless to say, you can do a lot better than McDonald's - no matter what CR says. One option is to brew coffee at home. With a little practice, you can beat out any store bought coffee, and it's less expensive in the long run. Another option is to try different local coffee houses, where you will be able to find a real cup of coffee, not just fast food coffee that is better than the rest.

New Yorkers can get started with the recommendations in the NY Post, where they didn't look too kindly upon CR's taste in coffee. Their top picks include Amy's Bread, 71 Irving Place and the MUD Truck.

I am a big fan of my Baker's Edge pan and use it just about every time that I bake bar cookies or other treats I might ordinarily use a rectangular pan for, including brownies and cheesecake bars. The pan's unique design allows for more even cooking and a higher crust-to-center ratio for baked goods. Cooking for Engineers set out to scientifically test the pan in a side-by-side bake off with a 9"x13" rectangular pan. Their goal was to test the evenness of the cooking, as compared with the standard pan, and to see how the crustier batch appealed to tasters.

The Baker's Edge cooked very evenly and produced pieces with appealingly chewy edges (unlike the hard edges that can result in regular pans), but the brownies weren't quite as popular with center-piece lovers as the brownies from the larger, more traditional pan. A few batches later and C for E found that a slightly shorter baking time made the whole batch of Baker's Edge brownies just like center-pieces.

Their overall verdict was that the pan worked extremely well, with the only real drawback being that it was difficult to get out the first piece. Of course, as the chef, having a sample piece for yourself isn't such a bad thing, is it?

To be completely honest, I am not usually impressed too much by nuts, even those coated in sugar and spices. I can easily make my own. So with this in mind, it was a complete surprise to me that I liked the Nutorious Nuts I sampled at the Fancy Foods Show so much.

• Oooo La La Original - classic buttery sweet combination
• Cha Cha Chipotle - savory and a little spicy, an updated bar snack
• Door County Cherry Vanilla Crunch (my favorite!)- a sweet nut mix with the addition of some dried cherries coated in the same sugar crust
• Cranberry Orange Crunch - nuts mixed with cranberries and tossed in an orangey sugar coating
• Chocolate Coconutty (updated!) - amazingly addictive, with chocolate and toasty coconut.

I think that Cybele, who writes Candy Blog, gets a lot of her candy samples from convenience stores, which are more likely to stock the limited edition varieties of bars than the average grocery store. It just so happened that, while on a little bit of a road trip, I spotted this Limited Edition Triple Chocolate Twix in such a store.

The bar had the same milky, sweet chocolate covering that most Twix bars do, but also had a layer of chocolate caramel on top of a chocolate cookie. The cookie went wonderfully in the bar. It had a good chocolate flavor and was very light and tender, especially when compared to the much firmer cookie that is usually included in the candy bar. The caramel did not seem all that chocolaty when eaten alone, but it really tied the chocolate coating in to the chocolate cookie. When taken as a whole, the bar was excellent. It was lighter and more addictive than the standard Twix, with a good balance of chocolate and sweetness. It's hard to say how long a limited edition bar will stick around once it has been released, but this flavor is clearly a winner, so let's hope it is available for more than a couple of weeks.

The first aerated chocolate that I tasted was a Nestle's Aero bar. Never having seen aerated chocolate before, I was intrigued by the prospect of bubble filled chocolate and eager to find out what it tasted like. It was light, crumbly and quite unlike any other chocolates that I had had. I wasn't hugely impressed at the time, but many years and many chocolate bars later, I realize that I was probably expecting a more impressive sensation from the bar.

Aerated chocolate is chocolate that has lots of small air bubbles suspended in it, giving it a somewhat honeycombed appearance and a light texture. The thin walls separating the bubbles snap easily, so the chocolate crumbles into your mouth before melting from the heat. In the past, this type of chocolate has not been very popular in the US and it is generally only found in stores that stock Aeros imported from Australia, Canada or the UK, but that may change because Bubble Chocolate is an American company that is hoping to capture the hearts, and tongues, with their version of the candy.

Hershey's brand new, limited edition Dark Chocolate Raspberry Kisses are clearly intended to be for Valentine's Day, as the little red hearts decorating their wrappers are a reliable indicator of the holiday that they are affiliated with, despite the fact that they aren't mentioned on the Hershey's Valentine site. When I first saw them, I expected these candies to be a dark chocolate shell with a raspberry filling of some kind, either a jam or a cream. The combination of raspberries and dark chocolate is right up there with strawberries and chocolates, so the prospect seemed promising and I hurriedly opened the bag when I got home.

Popular ingredients to combine with chocolate include mint flavoring, peanut butter, crisped rice, nuts, dried fruits and cacao nibs. Some chocolates even add chilies and cinnamon for extra flavor. The combination of lemon and pepper, however, is one that would seem to suit fish or chicken better than chocolate. Nevertheless, Swiss chocolate maker Frey used that very combination in their Citron & Poivre Chocolate Bar.

I was gifted a bar of this chocolate for Christmas and was somewhat hesitant to try it. The mild burn of chilies suits cocoa, while pepper can be more aggressive. Would the lemon be too bitter? The promise of high-quality extra dark Swiss chocolate made me set aside my doubts and taste the bar.

Surprisingly, it was delicious. The lemon flavor came through as very zesty and bright, not at all bitter and with a much cleaner flavor than orange, which tends to linger in the mouth long after you have finished a piece of orange chocolate. There was only a hint of pepper, although if you were to eat the whole bar in one sitting it would probably be more noticeable. The chocolate itself was excellent, with a silky smooth texture that melted right into your mouth. I would definitely buy it again (it is sold at some select Target stores) and plan to keep an eye out for the brand's other unusual flavors, like Rhubarb & Aloe Vera (in white chocolate), Coeur de Macadamia (caramelized macadamia nuts in milk chocolate) and Pécan & Caramel (pecans and crunchy caramel pieces in milk chocolate)

I picked up a box of the Fleur de Sel Caramels from Trader Joe's last week as a holiday treat with the intention of reviewing them, as well as enjoying them. At less than $7 for 14-ounces of one of the hottest candy items of the year, they were a terrific deal and I wondered how well they would stack up to some of the other salted caramels that I'm familiar with.

Individually wrapped, the large candies are very sticky and chewy, exactly the sort of things that your orthodontist would have told you to avoid if you ever had braces. They have a pleasant, but relatively mild (compared to some other salted caramels) saltiness that makes your mouth water as you eat them and tempers the naturally sugary taste of caramel. Buttery and smooth, these are very good caramels, especially at the price.

Cybele, from Candyblog, wrote up her own review of these the other day, so be sure to check hers out for another perspective on their flavor and a fantastic shot of what the caramels look like when unwrapped.

One of the best ways to practice portion control is to get into the habit of measuring or weighing your foods and the easiest way to do that is to add a kitchen scale to your countertop. Such a scale can be used for weighing ingredients for baking (useful if you like to use cookbooks from outside the US), but more importantly today, they can be used to measure portion size to ensure that you don't break your diet by over-estimating portions. There are even some new scales that come programmed with the caloric value of various foods so you can find out exactly what you're about to eat. The WSJ's Catalog Critic put several popular digital scales to the test to see what worked, what didn't, and which one is really going to work for you.

Three of the scales - the Soehnle Food Control Digital Kitchen Scale, Salter Nutri-Weigh Dietary Scale and the Escali Cibo - all provided nutritional data and all were deemed to be more difficult to use than the standard digital scales. While it was convenient to have the calorie/fat information right in front of you, the testers felt that the difficulty of use would prevent most people from actually using them on a regular basis. Additionally, the caloric contents didn't take into account cooking method, so the counts were not accurate in terms of what food was consumed.

The two top scales - the Cuisinart Precision Electronic Scale and Polder Digital food scale - were both easy to use, with large buttons and clear functions in both standard and metric measures. You'll get the proper portion size quickly and easily and you can always use a website to check the calorie count if you need to.