Honeycomb, cinder toffee, hokey pokey, sponge toffee, seafoam candy, puff candy…whatever you call it, can we all agree that it is delicious? And up for review I have an Australian version of this carbonated sugar toffee – ‘Bumbles Original Candy Honeycomb‘.
Produced by established confectioners Menz, of South Australia (est. 1850), this big bag of chunky honeycomb blocks has only carried the (somewhat adorable) name of ‘Bumbles‘ since 2019. Prior to this re-brand, the ‘chocolatly‘ coated confection was marketed as ‘Menz Choc Honeycomb‘.
This bee-themed re-brand was an attempt to provoke a sense of nostalgia in the Australian public as it is more reminiscent of old fashioned, homemade candies: one that ‘radiates the cosy brand values‘.
It is Australia’s biggest selling chocolate honeycomb brand. However Menz also now produces the famous ‘Violet Crumble‘ – a honeycomb chocolate bar, invented by Abel Hoadly, which pre-dates the British ‘Crunchie‘ by a whopping 16 years (made in 1913)!
Like the ‘Violet Crumble‘ and ‘Crunchie‘ bar, the star of the this confection is the honeycomb. Made from sugar and baking soda, ‘Bumbles‘ honeycomb is very light and airy, extremely crunchy and rapidly dissolves on the tongue. It’s a heavenly and dangerously addictive sensation. As quick as a flash the sweet toffee has melted in your mouth leaving a substantial portion of thick, ‘candy’ coating (they’re not calling it chocolate).
And it doesn’t quite taste like chocolate either, which is the only real downside to this sweet in my opinion. Had the cinder toffee/honeycomb/sponge been enrobed in a generous layer of milky, silky real milk chocolate then this would be an even better product. Because the toffee melts away so quickly I can’t help but analyze the taste of the remaining ‘candy‘ in my mouth, and the more I chew, the less like cocoa it tastes and more like ‘something else’.
That being said, I demolished this big bag in a relatively short amount of time because the taste, texture and big ol’ size of these chunks are too tasty to resist. You can’t simply eat one…you have to eat eleven at least.
Have you tried ‘Bumbles‘, ‘Violet Crumble‘ or ‘Crunchie‘? How do they compare to you? Also, what do you call ‘honeycomb‘ where you live?
The British Candy Connoisseur 