Reese’s Big Cup with Pretzels
I’m taking a quick break from the Christmas songs to try the latest version of the Reese’s peanut butter cup. I think we all know the ratio of peanut butter to chocolate varies in each version of Reese’s and everyone has their favorite. Stick with me here because I’m going to go deeper than a supermarket candy bar really deserves, but it’s a Sunday afternoon during a pandemic and what else have I got going right now?
To me, the Halloween pumpkins and Christmas trees and Easter eggs are better than the original Peanut Butter Cup – although I do really miss the ridges around the edge of the original. I don’t think I’m alone because a couple years back, Hershey introduced the Big Cup – a peanut butter/chocolate ratio more like the holiday specials that still has the fluted rim. It’s a big flavor bomb of salt and sugar and peanut and chocolate. God Bless America.
Now, there’s a new version of the Big Cup that also has pretzel bits in the peanut butter. Here’s what’s odd… These aren’t the same pretzels that are in the Reese’s Take Five candy bar (which also has caramel, peanuts and chocolate, BTW). The Take Five pretzels are made with wheat flour, while the Big Cup pretzels are brown rice flour and potato starch. That makes this new candy officially gluten-free, which is great news for folks with celiac disease, but I think there’s another benefit that’s just about the experience of eating candy.
The Big Cup pretzels are more a texture thing than they add any flavor to the Big Cup. The pretzel fragments don’t just crunch, but almost shatter as you bite down. It’s very satisfying and breaks up the big layer of peanut butter you bite through. I don’t think regular wheat pretzels would “bite” the same and I suspect they’d get soft from weeks or months inside the Big Cup.
If you like Reese’s PB candies, this new one is definitely worth a try. In January, Hershey’s will also release bags of Peanut Butter Cups with Pretzels Miniatures. The press release didn’t say whether those will also be gluten-free, but I’d guess. In March 2021, Hershey will also be releasing a new limited-time product – Reese’s Big Cups with potato chips.