I saw George Duran while at the All Candy Expo back in June and figured I should keep an eye on his show to see how he covered it.

I haven’t seen anything on All Candy Expo pop up yet, but the Ham on the Street does have a new episode on candy that you might want to catch.

The episode has all sorts of little tidbits in it, including an explanation of how Wintergreen Lifesavers make a spark and of course Mentos and Soda Pop.

He also takes some fun candies from Aji Ichiban out on the street to see what people think of candied crabs, fruit jellies and durian hard candies.

It’s not a cooking show if he doesn’t make something, so he invents his own candy bar, which is a base of two pretzel sticks topped with fresh hazelnut paste covered in chocolate. He takes it out to have folks help him name it ... you’ll have to watch the episode to find out what wins.
Ham on the Street - Candy on Food Network:
September 07, 2006 1:30 AM ET/PT
September 10, 2006 5:00 PM ET/PT
October 28, 2006 2:30 PM ET/PT
October 29, 2006 5:00 PM ET/PT

Interesting fact: in the trivia quiz portion of the show he wears the same lollipop tee that I saw him wear at the All Candy Expo.

Thanks to everyone who entered. It was, by far, my most popular giveaway yet with over 200 entries.

Here’s how the process went to pick a winner:

Export all entries from the system to an Excel spreadsheet.

Remove duplicate entries, verify that all remaining entries are unique to the best of my abilities.

Sort the list according to super-secret criteria.

Go to Random.org and get a random number and match it to the row of that number.

And the winner is .... Audrey Feather of Washington State!

She emailed me her address and the $50 worth of Chuao gift certificates will go in the mail right away.

If everyone enjoyed it, I’ll try to do more giveaways soon.

I’ve blogged about regional “vacation” candies before, and here’s yet another example of them: Texas Pralines. I first had Texas Pralines, which are chewy like a soft caramel instead of grainy like a fudge with pecans about three years ago when we got an assortment as a holiday gift. Since my husband was off to San Antonio for a business trip, I told him to keep an eye out for they chewy pralines.

I’m no snob, I don’t mind if my candy comes from the airport. (These days, who knows if a chewy praline is considered a liquid anyway?)

These Texas Chewie Pecan Pralines are by Lamme’s, which has been making candies since 1885! The history of the company is rather interesting, so if you have a sec, go read it on their website. The company uses a lamb as part of their logo to help people remember how to pronounce the name, I’m sure it doesn’t help folks spell it though.

This gift box had six individually wrapped “plops” in it, each weighing about an ounce. They’re darker than the usual caramels you see and have a good woodsy, sweet smell to them. The caramel is chewy and a bit salty but surprisingly not that sweet. The smoky and dark caramelized sugar flavors go well with the fresh pecans. They’re a little messy, as you have to eat them either holding part of in the wrapper or get your fingers sticky. But I wouldn’t want the pieces to be any smaller because that would mean that the pecans couldn’t be whole and crunchy. These are definitely a winner.

The other assortment I was given were these individually wrapped ones from Monterrey Products Company. They were three different versions of a chewy praline, each with different proportions of caramel to pecans.

The first one, the “more caramel to pecan” was pretty and smelled nice, but was very grainy without a good balance of butteryness or crystallization. The pecans were fresh, but of course there were only three of them. I wasn’t wild about it.

The second one was “equal caramel to pecan” - wow, this was gorgeous. The scent was like maple sugar and the nuts were crunchy and infused with the buttery goodness of the caramel. The caramel itself was grainy but in a crystallized way that made it dissolve and support the other caramelized sugar and nut flavors. Fantastic, I wish all three were this variety.

The last one was “more pecans to caramel” and was shaped more spherically than the others. For some reason this one stuck to the cellophane wrapper and I had to pull the candy apart and off the cello in order to eat it. The pecans were large and whole and sweet, but as a candy this one failed. Some nuts were nicely coated in the soft caramel, but others were untouched. I loved the nuts, but the balance was off as a sweet treat. It might be nice pulled apart and thrown in with some salty popcorn though.

I think I prefered the Lammes but the Monterrey had an impressive ingredients list: Pecans, Sugar, Evaporated Milk and Corn Syrup. Lammes had a few more ingredients, including hydrogenated oils (which meant .5 grams of trans fat per plop). But they were both a treat I’m not likely to have again, but I’m happy to recommend them.

I’ve avoided Cocoavia since it was introduced last year. There’s something disconcerting about selling candy as health food in my mind. I don’t disagree that things like chocolate can have beneficial elements in them, but the fat and calories and lack of other positive characteristics makes it seem like we’re kidding ourselves when we believe that chocolate is good for us.

But all things in moderation, eh?

I’ve only seen the bars at the store, so I wasn’t particularly interested in what appeared to be a Dove bar with a lot of health benefits. But then I found a product I hadn’t seen before, Dark Chocolate Covered Almonds. Inside this large but light box are five one ounce packets of dark chocolate covered almonds. I usually buy Trader Joe’s mix of dark & milk chocolate covered almonds, but these were in individual packets, which is a nice feature and a quick glance at the box showed that they were even fortified with extra vitamins and minerals.

Each packet has an ounce, which is about 13 chocolate covered almonds. The package is appealing, with luxurious dark colors and some sassy photos of the candy within. The chocolate is glossy and dark though it doesn’t really smell very compelling. It melts readily on the tongue and though the package says semisweet, it’s not sticky, sickly sweet at all and buttery smooth. It has a nice smoky and complex flavor without much acidity. There’s a little floral note to it that gave it a little lightness. The almonds are superb, crunchy and fresh and a decent size.

I was really surprised at how good these were. Though I still don’t subscribe to the whole “eat these for a healthy heart” thing, I will definitely finish the box. The packages provide a good degree of portion control and each bag is only 140 calories. It also offers 3 grams of fiber and protein, 20% of your calcium, 4% of your iron and 10% of your Vitamin E, Folic Acid, B6, Vitamin C and B12. The almonds contain essential fatty acids and of course the chocolate has cocoa flavanols that recent studies are showing can have a positive effect on cardiovascular disease risks. Even though there are all these things on the box and the marketing that are saying how healthy these are, I’d prefer to think that they’re at least not a detriment to your health when eaten in responsible quantities.

So, if you’re on a restricted diet and are looking for a little treat that won’t throw you off whack, I’m a huge believer in the nut and chocolate combo as a satisfying sweet. (Not nearly as bad for you as, say, a dish of ice cream.) The benefit over any old chocolate covered nuts is this proprietary Cocoapro (tm) process that’s supposed to pack more flavanols in there that can lower bad cholesterol levels. The price is, well, pricey (about $16 a pound) but try to find them on sale.

Nestle has decided to get into the chocolate numbers game.

They’ve introduced a new line of baking products with higher cocoa content than their usual products: Nestle Chocolatier. They have chocolate chips in 53% and 62% cocoa solids, baking pieces (chunks in 53% only) and baking bars. Their new website offers some pretty decadent dessert recipes to make full use of the purported smooth chocolate experience the higher quality product is supposed to offer. (There’s even a Molten Chocolate Cake which I suppose you’re free to use any other brand to make.)

UPDATE: They shut off new signups yesterday. Apparently they didn’t understand how quickly this stuff spreads and they’re retooling.

UPDATED UPDATE (10/17/2006) - The M80 campaign was pulled completely. I’ll have more later but I would rate this as a “debacle” as viral marketing goes.