Every now and then, probably more often than I’d like, the diet quest leads me off the healthful eating beaten path, as it did when I tried the Milky Way Midnight Dark Candy Bar. This is a dark chocolate lover’s dream, especially if they enjoy eating the milk chocolate Milky Way products, but prefer more of a semisweet dark chocolate flavor.
Benefits and Features of Midnight Milky Way Bars
- Thick dark chocolate coating, surrounding a vanilla nougat and caramel core.
- More nougat than caramel.
- Air tight plastic wrapper, not paper, that prevents other aromas from contaminating the flavor of this bar.
- Stays fresh for well over a year as long as you keep this candy bar in a cool place, and do not open the wrapper. No direct sunlight, thank you.
- Features the simpler form of the Nutrition Facts label, called What’s Inside. This is easier to read and displays only the most relevent nutrition information, and bold black print on a green background.
- Made by the Mars candy company, who also make M & Ms and other popular brands of chocolaty sweets.
Disadvantages
- Great taste, in this case, comes with a high-calorie price, at 220 calories per candy bar.
- Contains hydrogenated oils.
- The nougat in this dark chocolate candy is vanilla; not light chocolate as it is in the original bar. So the switch to a dark chocolate coating was not the only change made to this version of the ever-popular Milky Way candy. I prefer the chocolate nougat to this vanilla stuff.
- Melts easily in a warm vending machine.
Milky Way Midnight Ingredients
Semisweet chocolate (sugar, chocolate processed with alkali, cocoa butter, milkfat, soy lecithin, natural and artificial flavors), corn syrup, sugar, hydrogenated palm kernel oil and / or palm oil, skim milk, less than 2% of milkfat, lactose, salt, egg whites, natural and artificial flavors.
Allergy warning: May contain peanuts.
Nutrition Facts
- Serving Size: One bar, 1.76 ounces, or 49.9 grams. Servings per container: 1.
- Calories: 220. Calories from fat: 70.
- Total fat: 8 grams, 12% DV.
- Saturated fat: 5 grams, 25% DV.
- Trans fat: 9 milligrams.
- Cholesterol: 5 milligrams, 2% DV.
- Sodium: 90 milligrams, 4% DV.
- Total carbohydrate: 36 grams, 12% DV.
- Dietary Fiber: 1 gram, 4% DV.
- Sugars: 29 grams.
- Protein: 2 grams.
- Vitamin A: 0% DV.
- Vitamin C: 0% DV.
- Calcium: 2% DV.
- Iron: 2% DV.
- Riboflavin: 2% DV.
Product Rating
I’m a sucker for just about any candy that contains chocolate and sugar. So I like this bar a lot, simply by virtue of that fact. The vanilla nougat tastes pretty good but represents, in my view, an unnecessary degree of divergence from the original Milky Way candy bar recipe. I mean, if the primary selling point of this candy is its dark chocolate, then why would you also change the nougat from chocolate to vanilla? If anything, they ought to have made the nougat from dark chocolate, which would have really driven home the dark chocolate theme here. Additionally, this product possibly contains hydrogenated palm kernel oil, which is not only a health hazard, but is rather archaic given how long we’ve been aware of the harmful effects of hydrogenated oils (more than a decade now). But the over all flavor here is pretty good. Definitely satisfies a sweet tooth. All things considered therefore, I’d rate this product at 80 out of 100. Get rid of the hydrogenated oils and I’ll raise my rating by 10, at least.
Where to Buy the Milky Way Midnight Dark Candy Bar
Milky Way bars are sold at most any food or convenience store, big and small, all over the United States and beyond. Look for this candy bar in the black wrapping with the white and yellow letters, and a few purple stripes around the logo.