Incredible Crunchkins - Baked Goods in a Candy Shell

This Shouldn't Work
Crunchkins are the kind of candy you walk past in the supermarket aisle and roll your eyes at.  Its starburst-meteor packaging is kind of cheesy, the name is lame and non-specific, referring as it does to texture rather than flavor, and its operating premise is ridiculous: that you can somehow take the taste of birthday cake, fudge brownies, and glazed donuts, and cram it down into a little ball inside a thin candy shell.  But one careful taste of these things will make you a believer.

The faux space-age packaging evokes the losers of the candy world, like the Zero or SkyBar, but Crunchkins actually are a technological marvel.

From the Minds of Topps and Bazooka
The package reveals that Crunchkins are produced by the Bazooka Candy division of the Topps company, which is better known for mediocre bubble gum that nobody would ever buy were it not included with either comics on the wrapper (which nobody would ever read if they didn't come with bubble gum) or trading cards.  It's been years since I've tasted Topps bubble gum but one can never forget those powder-dusted planks that splinter under the teeth and only coalesce into a coherent mass of chewable sweetness after a good 25 seconds of diligent grinding and salivating. This does not inspire confidence.  But the company has an interesting design innovation up its sleeve.

What is the meaning of the porous and airy center?  Read on and find out.

An Ingenious Crisped-Rice Center
The central challenge for the Crunchkin concept is how to replicate the taste of a perishable baked good within a shelf-stable candy.  Borrowing a page from the dessert themed Oreos we've discussed previously, Topps has given these candies a core of airy, crisped brown rice that, when moistened in the mouth and combined with the creamy, white-chocolate-like candy that surrounds it, creates the impression of crumbs from the baked good that it's supposed to replicate. Another critical quality, which you can see in the above photo, is the extreme thinness of the candy shell.  Whereas M&M and Skittle candy shells are relatively thick and crunchy, returning fairly stiff resistance as you munch down on them, this candy shell is paper-thin and yields with almost sensual gentleness, almost folding in on itself and embracing your teeth as they press down.  Hence the line between candy and baked good if further blurred.

Suitable for serving to your most refined guests, these candies almost resemble a postmodern, evolved iteration of the famous board game Go.

Flavors Both Natural and Artificial
Crunchkins amply demonstrate the virtue of the deft deployment of artificial flavors.  I don't believe for a second, for instance, that the glazed donut (that's the tan one) candy could succeed without it.  This brazen ball of rice and sugar not only calls forth the flavors of fat-fried dough (which you could never put into a candy naturally) but even the flavor of icing.  We don't even think of icing, which is essentially just water and confectioners sugar, of having a flavor, but it's plainly recognizable.  The birthday cake ball pulls of a similar trick, giving you the taste of white icing in a manner that makes you hyper-aware of its components as though the whole had been exploded into a three dimensional 360 view of each puzzle piece; you taste icing yes, but you taste shortening, you taste food coloring and artificial vanilla and, yes, you taste the lemon-yellow crumb beneath it all.  As for the brown ball, if you can call up in your mind the taste of chocolate bubble gum or a tootsie roll, you can roughly imagine the fudge brownie candy as well.  It doesn't taste completely artificial because it does contain some real cocoa powder, but artificial flavorings elevate the bare cocoa base by lending notes of fudge icing and raw batter. If you close your eyes, you might think you're licking the bowl.

Can this industrial confection transport you to the bake sale table at your neighborhood swimming pool back when you were ten years old?  Yes. Yes it can.

Conclusions
Candy consumption can be many things: a consolation on a bad day, an indulgent reward, a retreat to innocence, or a mindless mid-day chomp.  Crunchkins makes it an adventure and an experience that provokes reflection and wonder.  Not a bad deal for $1.19 at the Wal-Mart.  Well played, Topps, well played.