Coffee Crisp usually gets top billing as Canada's most-missed chocolate bar - we've covered its own story separately - but it's really just the entry point into a much bigger aisle of bars most of the world has never tried.
Big Turk, Wunderbar and Mr Big: the layered-bar family
Nestle Canada built a whole family of bars around the layered-wafer-and-filling format that made Coffee Crisp a household name. Big Turk swaps the coffee cream for a Turkish delight style rosewater jelly, coated in chocolate - an unusual flavour choice for a mainstream chocolate bar that's stuck around regardless. Wunderbar layers peanut, caramel and nougat under chocolate, closer in spirit to an American candy bar than Canada's more delicate wafer bars. Mr Big goes bigger again, stacking wafer, peanuts and caramel into a longer bar built to be shared, or not.
Caramilk and the decades-long secret
Cadbury Canada's Caramilk bar is arguably as famous for its advertising as for the chocolate itself. For decades the brand ran a marketing campaign built entirely around \"the Caramilk secret\" - how the caramel filling gets inside a bar that looks solid from the outside - turning a straightforward manufacturing process into a long-running piece of national marketing folklore that Canadians still bring up unprompted.
Smarties: same name, different sweet
Here's the mix-up that catches almost everyone out. Canadian Smarties are the same sweet UK shoppers already know - a chocolate button in a crisp coloured shell, similar to an M&M. American \"Smarties\" are something else entirely: a chalky, tablet-style roll candy with no chocolate in it at all, made by a different company altogether. Canadians travelling to the US, and Americans travelling to Canada, both discover this the same confused way - by opening the wrong packet expecting the wrong sweet.
For more North American imports alongside the odd Canadian find, browse our American Candy & Snacks collection.
Frequently asked questions
Is Canadian Smarties the same as UK Smarties?
Yes - both are the chocolate button. American \"Smarties\" are an unrelated chalky tablet candy.
What is Caramilk and why is it famous for a secret?
A Cadbury Canada caramel-filled bar, made famous by decades of advertising built around how the caramel gets inside it.
What is Big Turk?
A Nestle Canada bar with a Turkish delight style rosewater jelly centre, coated in chocolate.