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January 2007

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

One Dollar Bars

My mother lives in a neighborhood where, without fail, every time I visit there’s a kid at the door at some point either trying to sell her something or delivering something she bought. This time it’s the One Dollar Bar. (Actually, I’d never seen these before, I’d only seen the World’s Finest Chocolate bars.)

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The bars are sizeable - at 2.25 ounces it’s like a king size bar and at a buck, it’s a pretty good deal as consumer chocolate bars for a cause go. (I remember buying single boxes of M&Ms from the band kids when I was in high school, the boxes were probably a buck but had less than a similar king sized snack pack ... and that was, um, a few years ago.)

The Roasted Almond bar comes in a red wrapper and like all the One Dollar Bars, it’s certified peanut free. The little domed segments smelled nice and sweet with a bit of a milky boost. The chocolate is very sweet but creamy and has a good nutty note from the almonds. The almonds were fresh tasting and extra crunchy. One the whole, the milk chocolate was far too sweet for me to eat, even with the nuts cutting it. I think with some extra almonds on the side or maybe some salty pretzels I could make do with this bar.

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The Mint Chocolate bar is milk chocolate with a flowing mint fondant filling. The bar was beautifully glossy, smelled sweet with a light hint of mint. Though the chocolate here was identically sweet to the Roasted Almond bar, the creamy consistency of the filling and mint hit seemed to moderate it well. I’m guessing part of the reason for that is the filling is a sugar and condensed milk concoction with some salt in it as well. (The Almond bar has 20 mg of sodium, the Mint bar has 140 mg!)

I’m not sure I’d ever buy these just because I wanted one, but if some kids were selling them in front of the grocery store (where I buy all my fundraiser candies ... the just don’t seem to go door to door in Los Angeles as much) I might pick up a couple since they’re decent quality. They come in a few other varieties as well - Crispy Rice, Creamy Caramel, Dark Chocolate & Tasty Truffle.

Van Wyck Confections, who makes the One Dollar Bar is based in Denver, CO, but the bars were made in Canada. I’m not quite sure who makes the chocolate for them.

Name: One Dollar Bar: Roasted Almond & Mint Chocolate
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Van Wyck Confections
Place Purchased: gift
Price: $1.00!
Size: 2.25 ounces
Calories per ounce: 151 & 133
Categories: Chocolate, Nuts, Mint, Canada, Kosher

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:11 am    

Monday, January 15, 2007

Short & Sweet: Japanese Goodies

I have too much candy and at one review a day I’m never going to get to it all.

And if I review more than one a day, well, I’m just not going to have enough time for anything else.

So here it is, a “Short & Sweet” review of a buncha stuff Japanese stuff:

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High Concentration Milk Candy (made by UHA) -are little hard candies, kind of like a hard toffee. They taste distinctly of milk and are very sweet. They’re also rather satisfying without being too sticky. I’m sure there’s some high calcium content in there but the wrapper was all in Japanese.

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Cubyrop (made by Bourbon) - oh they’re such cute candies! Little fruit flavored hard candies in Strawberry, Pineapple, Orange, Peach, Lemon, Muscat and Grape. Some flavors were very tasty, but I didn’t care much for the peach, which was a rather difficult flavor to distinguish from the orange. Lots of vitamin C.

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They came in little wrappers that held two little candy cubes. They were completely random, so you’d never know when you were going to get a muscat and grape together.

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Look Nut ala Mode (made by Fujiya) is a strange little tray of chocolates in a box with a wide, envelope-like flap. Great for sharing, they’re pretty and of descent quality even for less than $2.00.

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It took me quite a while to realize that there were four different nut flavors ... not that each chocolate contained all flavors. I have no idea, beyond the rather green pistachio one which was which. I enjoyed all of them except for the macadamia, which seemed more coconutty.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 6:49 am     CandyReviewBourbonUHAChocolateHard Candy & LollipopsNutsToffee6-TemptingJapan

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Candy Around the Net

imageHere are a few links for the long holiday weekend:

Missed Manners did more than just a gingerbread house for the holidays. He and his family recreated the seige on Helm Deep from Lord of the Rings book Two Towers in gummis, licorice and even catapults made from Tootsie Pops.

Pretty inventive stuff. If I had to do a diorama for a book report, I’d definitely tackle it in candy like they did!

Second - if you haven’t read it yet, there was an interesting expose by Scott at DallasFood.org about a super-expensive chocolate called Noka. If you read through all of it, including the comments in the forums you’ll find out that Noka later engaged one of the defenders of Noka in the comments. It’s a very odd story. I have nothing against expensive chocolate. I highly doubt that any chocolate is worth that much, but as has been pointed out in the newest press release since this whole thing broke, you get a really nice collectible box! (I’ve never tried Noka but now I’m curious to try Bonnat.)

Powell’s Sweet Shoppe has opened in Boise, Idaho. I mention this because people have been visiting Candy Blog looking for info about this. I did email Powell’s corporate headquarters for more info, but my request went unanswered. Luckily KTVB did a story on it and gave me the scoop.  The new store (only the second outside of California) is off Parkcenter in Bown Crossing.

I’ll use this as my opportunity to rant about the Powell’s website, which has NEVER listed the locations of the other stores besides the one in Windsor.

UPDATE 1/16/07 - I found the Boise location:

Powell’s Sweet Shoppe
3064 S. Bown Way
Boise, ID

(208) 424-6099

Hours:
Mon-Sat 10AM to 9PM
Sun 10AM to 8PM

Finally, if you’re planning a wedding, there’s a great article about the new trend in Candy Bars for a make your own wedding favor area at the reception. What’s really great about it is that people get to pick. It’s great when a wedding recognizes that the people who attend are individuals and might not like the little chocolate truffles and might prefer some jordan almonds. And let’s face it, a huge table of candy can be drop dead gorgeous. You can adapt this idea for all sorts of occasions like birthday parties, corporate thingies, baby showers, engagements, retirements and anniversaries.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:31 am     CandyFun StuffNews

Friday, January 12, 2007

New Years Resolution Poll Results

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Wow, these are really interesting results. Not to mention the fact that this was a poorly constructed poll, because it assumed that you either made resolutions about candy or you made no resolutions at all.

I’m actually glad to hear that so many folks are going to try to eat better candy. I mean really, life’s too short for bad candy! I’m hoping that those who said that they were going to eat less candy meant that the candy they were going to eat was going to be better as well.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:43 pm     CandyPolls

Blow Pop Minis

imageI’m a big lollipop fan. (No, not that I like big lollipops.) My favorite cheapo lollipop is the Orange Tootsie Pop (though I enjoyed the Limited Edition Tropical flavors last year, too). Blow Pops aren’t quite as good, mostly because the gum isn’t candy and they don’t come in orange.

While wasting time at the Pittsburgh Airport, I found these Blow Pop Minis. They herald, “It’s a Blow Pop with NO Stick!” Hallelujah! Now adults can eat their Blow Pops without being branded Rejuveniles.

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While they say they’re Blow Pops without sticks, they’re also without mass. They’re wee little candies, about the size of a smooshed garbanzo bean. And they’re mostly candy. They come in four flavors: Watermelon, Blue Razz, Cherry and Sour Apple. (No, no grape, which is a classic Blow Pop flavor.)

imageI talk a lot about proportions when it comes to candy. Sometimes something can be coated in too much chocolate or not have enough of a particular element. Let me just say that the blow part of the Blow Pop Minis is sadly lacking.

First, the gum is hard and tacky. Some of the time it wouldn’t even chew, just sit in the crevasses of my molars until I picked it out or ate something to dislodge it. Second, if I got the gum to chew, it was a wee amount. We’re talking the size of a BB. It would probably take six candies to make the amount of gum in one Chicklet.

These are stupid. Why not make one large enough to hold a responsible amount of gum? These little candies are probably a third of the size of a Root Beer Barrel. And you’re wondering, why not just sell them has plain old unfilled hard candies? Well, then they’d just be Charms.

The gum ends up being tough and flavorless ... rather like chewing a stamp or a piece of paper.

The candy part isn’t bad but, of course, none of the flavors are favorites of mine.

This is just a bad idea.

Name: Blow Pop Minis
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Tootise
Place Purchased: Eckert (Pittsburgh Airport)
Price: $.69
Size: 2 ounces
Calories per ounce: 100
Categories: Hard Candy, , Gum, SourUnited States, Tootsie, Gum

POSTED BY Cybele AT 7:11 am    

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Meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world. And the occasional other sweet adventures. Open your mouth, expand your mind.

 

 

 

 

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