Hot Cocoa m&m's - Walmart (Exclusive)

Hot Cocoa m&m's - Walmart (Exclusive) 

Happy New Year everyone! I hope your 2016 is off to an amazing start! Sorry for the hiatus, if you follow my Twitter (that I'm trying to use more) you'll know that my car was involved in an accident right before the holidays and that my life has been pretty hectic getting all of that straightened out. I was able to buy a new used car a few days later to get back to work, and the second I got back into my old routine...I got sick. Really sick. My voice sounds oh so sexy right now, but I'm not going to let that stop me! The show blog must go on!

These Hot Cocoa m&m's were a Walmart exclusive, and they were the seasonal counterpart to the Target Exclusive Café Mocha m&m's. (Which I was a big fan of and reviewed HERE.) I was originally going to skip this seasonal sweet because, well...I thought it was a gimmick and nothing more. I mean, m&m's are already chocolate flavored, and hot cocoa is just a drinkable milk chocolate, so how are these going to taste any different than the normal candy? After talking to Cybele and seeing The Impulsive Buy's photos showing the layered candy inside, my curiosity got the best of me, and I grabbed a bag for myself.

I feel like the fall bags were so much more appealing than the winter ones. Again, we have the Red m&m (with his magically floating eyebrows), a fluffy but lazily rendered Santa hat, a winter-y blizzard, and a cup of cocoa with marshmallows that looks suspiciously like chocolate pudding. It's not awful, or unappealing, but it looks so lackluster when compared to the texture that both of the fall flavors had.  

Unlike the mocha m&m's, which were a Christmas-y mix of red and green, these candies are white, a warm peach-toned color, and dark brown. Which is similar to the colors from the Pecan Pie flavor. The white and brown I understand, they represent the cocoa and marshmallows, but why this peach-y color? The last time I remember seeing this shade was in the Carrot Cake m&m mix, which made sense, but this? What does a peachy color have to do with hot cocoa? It looks really out of place, and the color combination of all three in a candy dish isn't very appealing or winter-y. Why didn't they use two shades of brown? Like how there used to be a light brown (tan) and a dark brown in the original m&m's line-up before the introduction of blue in the mid 90's.

The candies don't smell like much, maybe they're slightly more vanilla'd than normal m&m's, but I can't seem to smell much difference between these and normal candies. I took a bite, and sure enough, there were layers to this candy. You get the normal panned candy shell, a layer of dark chocolate, and then a milk chocolate center. Does it taste like cocoa? Not at all! What the heck went wrong with these? I can taste some kind of m&m quality dark chocolate mixed with an artificial vanilla-like flavoring that I believe is their attempt at marshmallow, and a Hershey's syrup-like finish. As a whole, these come off tasting very artificial, and I really don't care for them.

These don't taste awful, and I can still manage to finish off this bag if I take it to work (where I am stuck at my desk and snacking all day), but these were no where near as good at the Target Mocha m&m's. If you normally make your cocoa by using sugar free instant packets and hot water, then this might be the candy for you. I personally wouldn't buy these again, and I already feel pretty sick of them after eating a few handfuls for this review.

For the record, here's how I enjoy my cocoa: I use the marshmallow lovers style packets mixed with heated whole milk and, if I have it laying around, I might add a few chocolate candies into the cup to melt into the mixture, or a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

© Maria Smith http://poison-and-antidote.net
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