Reese's Dark Peanut Butter Cups: A Product Review

"Reese's Dark Peanut Butter Cups" come in a bright orange wrapper with brown edges. I am reviewing the full size cups, which come in a two-pack. I don't know if this variety of "Reese's Peanut Butter Cups "comes in the miniature size. "Reese's Dark Peanut Butter Cups" are manufactured by the H.B. Reese Candy Company, which according to the packaging is a division of the Hershey Company. I am guessing that they operate independently because Reese's chocolate and Hershey's chocolate are distinctly different from one another.

I bought "Reese's Dark Peanut Butter Cups" at Casey's convenience store for the inflated price of $1.09. I know you can get them at Wal-Mart for about half that. But I had been wanting to try these, and there was an instant win game on the wrapper, so I "gambled" the extra fifty cents and indulged my sweet tooth. (I was not a winner. Bummer.)

My husband has always been a big fan of "Reese's Peanut Butter Cups" in all their milk chocolate incarnations. (Did you know they come as "eggs" for Easter?). He had tried "Reese's Dark Peanut Butter Cups" before and didn't like them as much as the original. He feels that Reese's milk chocolate and Reese's peanut butter only really go with each other, and separated or mixed with other things they just don't work. (He's not even a fan of Reese's pieces, though I enjoy them. Though I love "E.T.", so perhaps it's partly sentiment.) But as I love dark chocolate and he isn't crazy about it, I wanted to decide for myself.

In my opinion, "Reese's Dark Peanut Butter Cups" are as good as, but not better than, the original "Reese's Peanut Butter Cups". The peanut butter is the same dryish, sweet, peanut butter paste concoction as in the original cups and it still tastes good. For some reason the odd texture just works in this candy. The dark chocolate was good, but not great. For my taste, it needed to be a bit darker to really stand out against the peanut butter. When I nibbled the edge for the full effect, I found it was a little darker than the original "Reese's Peanut Butter Cups", but probably only about the same intensity as Hershey's Special Dark chocolate bars. The flavor of the dark chocolate by itself was not quite as good as Special Dark, but, as a blend, it worked for me.

If you are a "Reese's Peanut Butter Cups" purist like my husband, you may not love "Reese's Dark Peanut Butter Cups, as they don't really improve on the original (though I don't personally feel they take away from it either). But if you like chocolate and want a little indulgence (this is not a low fat snack!), or if you want to try something a little different, I recommend "Reese's Dark Peanut Butter Cups".