I originally planned to take a picture of the new Pumpkin Spice M&M’s in a seasonal and traditional setting laced with a backdrop of Indian corn, scarecrows, and autumnal delicacies. Heck, I would have even settled for an NFL tailgate. But since these new chocolate candies started hitting stores before kids went back to school and because my garden is filled with nothing but basil, feel free to use your imagination when looking at the photos throughout this review.

Not that I’m complaining about the arrival of anything pumpkin related. I was the guy who hoarded Pumpkin Pie Spice Pringles last year. But pumpkin means fall is here (or around the corner) which means exchanging humid summer days for watching football during breezy fall afternoons.

I’m sure the usual pumpkin spice-flavored suspects will be out in force again this year — Pumpkin Pie Pop-Tarts, McDonald’s Pumpkin Pie, and my personal favorite, Edy’s Pumpkin Ice Cream – but joining the pumpkin patch for the first time are these lovable M&M’s. Lovable because seriously, how can you not love a talking chocolate candy guy with a pumpkin on his head?

Pumpkin Spice M&M’s are bigger than your standard M&M’s (shown here in white) but not quite as oblong or imposing as Peanut of Almond M&M’s. I’m guessing the shell color choices of orange, green, and brown were meant to correspond to a pumpkin’s color. Beyond each colored shell is a sweet milk chocolate.

Now I know what you’re thinking. “Whoa there, why not white chocolate? That buttery, frosting-like taste was such a winning flavor with the Carrot Cake M&M’s, and would go pa-pa-perfectly with the pumpkin spice!” Well all I can say is hey, I feel you. While I don’t think anyone but the Nazis have opposed classic Milk Chocolate M&M’s, the simple truth is that they’re kind of plain on their own.

And Pumpkin Spice M&M’s aren’t much different. As I crunched down on a single candy, all I initially tasted was chocolate. True, it’s better than tasting raw pumpkin, but I was expected something a little more scrumptious. Then, almost as an aftertaste, a hint of cinnamon emerged. Here’s the thing though; it’s not that traditional vanilla and cinnamon warmth that one usually associates with pumpkin. Instead, it’s kind of a wimpy version of Cinnamon Red Hots. Cool and vaguely spicy, it’s more of a sensation than a flavor, and it’s not something that goes with the milk chocolate flavor. To use a gardening analogy, it’s like a pumpkin in a field of basil.

I may lack the discernible taste receptors to differentiate on the minute differences between cinnamon, cloves, ginger, allspice, and whatever else might go into the ubiquitous “pumpkin spice,” but having tasted the flavor in a variety of products, I’m pretty sure at least a few of those spices were left out of the party. While the taste of cinnamon resonates weakly in the aftertaste, the truth is you’ve got to eat these one at a time and slowly to really take advantage.

Yeah, like anyone actually does that with M&M’s.

If you’ve been one of the few people who’ve secretly got their candy fix by chugging both Milk Chocolate M&M’s and Cinnamon Red Hots, well, these Pumpkin Spice M&M’s are going to make you happy. Otherwise, you’ll just want to stick with your standard favorite M&M’s variety.

(Nutrition Facts – 1.5 oz. – 210 calories, 80 calories from fat, 8 grams of fat, 5 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 30 milligrams of sodium, 0 milligrams of potassium, 30 grams of carbohydrates, 1 grams of dietary fiber, 27 grams of sugars, and 2 grams of protein.)

Item: Pumpkin Spice M&M’s
Purchased Price: $3.00
Size: 9.9 oz. bag
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Forcing autumn. Bigger than standard M&M’s. Tastes took much like regular M&Ms. Doesn’t melt in your hands. Using candy to help defeat the Nazis.
Cons: Weird cinnamon aftertaste doesn’t go with chocolate. Not really pumpkin spicy. No actual pumpkin involved, despite oddly noted gram of fiber. Bigger than standard M&M’s, which could mean eating about 75 grams of sugar without realizing it.

The color blind life can be challenging. I can remember struggling with colors since a young age, receiving criticism from my teachers for coloring the grass orange and pumpkins green in my coloring book – even though that’s what I actually saw. My inability to properly identify many of the colors soon brought forth a dislike for multicolored objects. Even sitting through an episode of Reading Rainbow was excruciating because of all the different colors in the logo – and I love LeVar Burton!

With so much color-related difficulty in my life, you might think that I would hate such a colorful candy as M&M’s, but no. For some reason, I love the little rainbow candy-coated pieces of chocolate. Sure, I might not be able to correctly tell you which colors I’m eating, but they still taste amazing. Plus, their tiny size makes them so easy to eat! My record is 154 M&M’s in three minutes. (I’m like Takeru Kobayashi, but instead of shoving wieners in my mouth, I eat candy.)

I was pretty excited when I heard about Mars’ new M&M’s Chocolate Bar. So excited, in fact, that my inner Tommy Wise broke free, and I thought, “Oh hi, Mars. M&M’s inside my candy bar? You think about everything, ha ha ha.”

But wait – haven’t I seen this M&M’s Chocolate Bar somewhere before? Oh, that’s right. Back in 2004, Mars introduced the M-Azing chocolate bar, which was only available in peanut butter and crunchy flavors. I can vaguely recall tasting an M-Azing bar and disliking it. Let’s hope this M&M Chocolate Bar does better.

I found the M&M Chocolate Bar at my local Target in the candy bar section next to the check-out line. At a mere seventy-nine cents per bar, it seemed like a true bargain.

After removing the chocolate bar’s wrapper, I instantly noticed the imprinted design of an anthropomorphic M&M man. I don’t usually find anthropomorphic creatures on my candy bars, so this was a pleasant surprise. The chocolate bar is divided into eight sections for easy distribution among eight friends. Or if you’re like me and don’t have any friends, you’ll have to distribute the eight pieces to the various homeless men who follow you home from work everyday.

The brightly colored mini M&M’s can be seen peeking through the chocolate, giving the bar a subtle rainbow appearance. When compared to more commonly purchased chocolate such as the Hershey Bar, the M&M’s Chocolate Bar’s smell is a bit more rich and powerful, but the scent is pleasant nonetheless.

After taking my first bite of the M&M Chocolate Bar, I was surprised that the M&M’s contributed significantly less crunch than I expected. Since the M&M’s are the mini variety, they don’t add much texture to the bar. In fact, I found it pretty difficult to distinguish the M&M’s from the normal chocolate part of the bar while chewing. Everything blends together into one chocolatey mass.

Unfortunately, the chocolate used in the bar isn’t the best. It’s super sweet, almost too rich, and the M&M’s give it a somewhat chalky texture. Furthermore, it left a funny aftertaste and a strange feeling in my throat after eating all eight pieces.

Perhaps if Mars had used a higher quality chocolate in their new M&M’s Chocolate Bar, I might be a bit more of a fan. Although it’s super inexpensive, there are other chocolate bars on the market I would prefer to purchase. The M&M’s found inside of the bar fail to enhance the already unsatisfying chocolate base. Maybe if the M&M’s Chocolate Bar magically cured colorblindness, I’d consider purchasing it again, but next time, I’ll be passing this one by in the supermarket.

(Nutrition Facts – 1 bar – 220 calories, 110 calories from fat, 12 grams of total fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 15 milligrams of cholesterol, 30 milligrams of sodium, 27 grams of total carbohydrates, 1 grams of dietary fiber, 26 grams of sugars, and 3 grams of protein.)

Other Milk Chocolate M&M’s Chocolate Bar reviews:
Candy Blog

Item: Milk Chocolate M&M’s Chocolate Bar
Purchased Price: 79 cents
Size: 1.5 oz.
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 4 out of 10
Pros: Super cheap. Pleasant chocolatey scent. Awesome anthropomorphic M&M man imprint. References to Tommy Wiseau.
Cons: Low quality chocolate. M&M’s blend in with the rest of the bar. Funny aftertaste. Doesn’t cure color blindness.

Back in the good ol’ medieval days, when the world used catapults and ate turkey legs the size of canoe paddles, some hungry, conquering genius gathered a bunch of leftovers and root vegetables, shoved them in the oven, and called it a recipe. Thus, the lumpy, bumpy carrot cake was born.

Now, for those yet to be familiarized, a carrot cake is a spice cake that had dashed dreams of being a fruit cake: it’s fluffy cake crammed with all sorts of this-n-that’s (raisins, carrots, maybe some pineapple) and topped with a honking slather of buttercream or cream cheese frosting. Its warm spices have been known to carve a soft spot in the calloused hearts of one-eyed sailors and, when placed before me, it disappears.

Unfortunately, I’m no baker, so when I heard the folks at Mars were serving up that experience in a lentil-shaped white chocolate confection, I sped, tight-knuckled, pedal-to-the-floor, to the nearest Walmart to dig them from their hiding spot in the dusty display case.

These are pudgy ovoids, notably bigger than a regular M&M. If you’ve had the white chocolate limited edition, you have a feel of what we’re dealing with here: they’re a smidge wider in diameter than milk chocolate M&M’s and have a rounder belly.

See? They’re huge.

The colors come in a trio of light orange, green, and beige, which not only stays with the theme of “carrot colors” but also reinforces my inner belief that all good things come in threes, and it’s always nice to have my inner beliefs spontaneously reinforced.

Like its white chocolate cousin, these sweet bits have a thicker shell, adding a crunch before the white chocolate filling, which is soft, sweet, milky, and melts as fast as the memories of those poems I had to recite back in high school (“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…” [she shudders])

One of the biggest problems I’ve faced in white chocolate M&Ms of the past is that, due to all that sweetness, it’s hard to eat more than a handful without passing out cold on the floor from a belligerent sugar rush to my frontal lobe. I celebrate with such gluttonous joy to find that these are far easier to eat. These start off sweet and, while there are no visible spices, there is a certain cinnamon/nutmeg-ish vibe that comes in the middle to contrast with the white chocolate, encouraging a higher ratio of consumption. They may give me a root canal, but I don’t care. That yoga teacher I took classes from three years ago told me to stay in the present, so I shall enjoy these right now…

And now…

And now…

In the end, eating these makes me want to do something good for the world. Like adopt a rescued guinea pig. Or educate elementary school kids about the importance of their credit score. Or pay those library fees I’ve neglected for four years. These are a solid rendition of a seasonal offering: creative enough to be pushing the boundaries, but familiar enough to inspire mouth-shoving tendencies. What’s even more exciting is that Mars took a risk and it paid off. The only downside is that I’m running out of them…and fast.

(Nutrition Facts – 1.5 oz. (about 1/4 cup) – 220 calories, 100 calories from fat, 11 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 40 milligrams of sodium, 0 milligrams of potassium, 29 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of dietary fiber, 28 grams of sugars, and 2 grams of protein.)

Item: White Chocolate Carrot Cake M&M’s
Purchased Price: $2.88
Size: 9.9 oz. bag
Purchased at: Walmart*
Rating: 9 out of 10
Pros: Bigger than the average M&M. Smooth melt. Crunchy shell. Spice taste balances white chocolate. Spontaneous reinforcement of inner beliefs. Rescued guinea pigs.
Cons: Never enough in the bag. Limited time. Only available at Walmart. Poobahs. Poems memorized in high school. Disco-ball-related accidents.

*If there’s a miff I have with these, it’s how hard they are to find. They’re available at “select” Walmarts only, which may or may not involve a fill up of your gas tank (a tragedy within itself)

When I bite into a White Chocolate Peppermint M&M’s, I get the sensation that I’ve just stepped out of the shower and into a freezer.

My nipples perk out and other body parts perk in. Every hair on my body stands up and every muscle in my body twitches uncontrollably in response to the cold environment. Then, when I can feel my organs failing, I think to myself, “So this is what it’s like to die on Mount Everest.”

But then I realize, just like in the York Peppermint Patty commercials, what I’m feeling is a complete exaggeration in my head and is no where close to what it actually feels like to take a bite into any peppermint chocolate candy. And it turns out all I’m really doing is standing naked in front of a window on a breezy day.

However, when I bite into a White Chocolate Peppermint M&M’s a second time, I get the sensation of sadness because I realize this tasty seasonal candy won’t be available come January or February, unless I’m willing to pay anywhere from $9.99 to $15.99 for a bag from an avaricious eBay or Amazon Marketplace seller.

These new minty M&M’s are great, but not $9.99 great.

Although that sadness could taste significantly less bitter if I became an avaricious eBay or Amazon Marketplace seller who gouged desperate souls wanting hard-to-find candy.

After opening the bag of White Chocolate Peppermint M&M’s, my olfaction was greeted with a blast of mint. It was as if someone stuck the hook end of two candy canes up my nostrils in order to drag me away. The minty M&M’s were coated with either red or white candy shells and are noticeably larger than regular M&M’s, but slightly smaller than Peanut M&M’s.

So how pepperminty are these M&M’s? Well, let’s just say that, in a pinch, I would pop a couple in my mouth to freshen my breath so I can invade someone’s personal space. They’re also minty enough that a cooling sensation lingered in my mouth for a while after eating them. The White Chocolate Peppermint M&M’s tasted slightly more minty than sweet and I found them to be much more satisfying than the other minty M&M’s — mint milk chocolate and mint dark chocolate.

However, all is not perfect with this candy.

First, I don’t like how these white chocolate M&M’s tend to “sweat” when in slightly warm temperatures, making their candy shells a little greasy. Although that might be my fault for living on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Also, while these White Chocolate Peppermint M&M’s are really wonderful, I find them to be like dense cheesecake in that it’s hard to eat a lot of them. I want to eat more, but I can’t.

If you’re a fan of peppermint, I’d highly suggest heading down to your local Target to pick up a bag (It’s a Target exclusive). Or if you want to be an eBay or Amazon Marketplace seller who charges unreasonable prices for hard-to-find candy, head to every Target within driving distance to pick up every single bag you can find.

(Nutrition Facts – 1.5 ounces – 220 calories, 100 calories from fat, 11 grams of fat, 7 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 5 milligrams of cholesterol, 40 milligrams of sodium, 28 grams of carbohydrates, 0 grams of fiber, 27 grams of sugar, 2 grams of protein, and 4% calcium.)

Other White Chocolate Peppermint M&M’s reviews:
Candyblog
Spoil Your Dinner
Fatguy Food Blog

Item: White Chocolate Peppermint M&M’s
Purchased Price: $2.99
Size: 9.90 ounce bag
Purchased at: Target
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Wonderful. Best mint M&M’s ever. More minty than sweet. Works as a mint in a pinch. Making money by selling bags of M&M’s for $15.99 on eBay and Amazon Marketplace.
Cons: Candy shell gets greasy in warm temperatures. Target exclusive. Hard to chain eat them. Seasonal item. eBay and Amazon Marketplace sellers who charge $15.99 for a bag of M&M’s.