ABOUT

FEEDS

CONTACT

  • .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
  • Here are some frequently asked questions emailed to me you might want to read first.

EMAIL DIGEST

    For a daily update of Candy Blog reviews, enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

CANDY RATINGS

TYPE

BRAND

COUNTRY

ARCHIVES

March 2008

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Candy Blog had a Little Downtime

Surf Sweets Organic & Vegan Sour WormsNo, I was not in some sort of sugar-shock. Just a little site difficulties today with some nasty spammers clogging up the works. My apologies to anyone who was trying to visit earlier today and had trouble reaching the site.

I’ve disabled a few things while I wait for it to abate, so I’ll turn comments back on soon and the search will be back shortly after that.

Many thanks to the folks at Nexcess.net and Travis at Hop Studios talking me through the problems from the airport on his way back from SWSX!

All I can say is that I really, really want some chocolate now. (The photo is of some organic gummi worms ... it’s intended to reflect how I felt about my recent spam infestation and in no way reflects my affection for the actual candy.)

POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:59 am     CandyFeatured News

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

The Adventures of Melted Chocolate!

Vosges graciously sent me a full set of their adorable and tasty chocolate rabbits. Unfortunately, my UPS driver must like to drive my packages around in the hot sun all day before delivering them. The included dry ice was completely gone ... and the precious little rabbits were melted & runny.

But I’m ever the optimist and improvisationalist ... so I did another Peeps Mash Up with the pre-heated fondue!

         When Life Gives you Molten Chocolate

(See even larger here)

Suffice to say, they all made my Peeps taste much better, I really enjoyed the Barcelona, which has little bits of sea salt and smoked almonds in it. The graininess of the Peeps crust and the sea salt bits made for an interesting texture and riot of activity on my tongue with all that creamy chocolate and spongy marshmallow. Guanduja was my second favorite with the only drawback being the sweetness, followed by the lemon and peppercorns of the Amalfi. The Red Fire with its dark chocolate and smoky chili flavors was great on its own but didn’t match my high hopes for the fondue (not that it was designed for that!).

Someday Vosges will open a shop in Los Angeles and I’ll be happy to stop by and pick them up in person. Until then, I think I need to swear off chocolate deliveries at home unless UPS starts guaranteeing they’ll use a refrigerated truck.

Related Candies

  1. Peeps Monster Mash Ups
  2. Peeps Mash Ups
  3. 2006 Independent Food Awards
  4. Candy Mash Ups - Marshmallows & Chocolate

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:10 am     CandyMash UpVosgesFeatured News

Good and Fruity

It’s a candy resurrection story! Good & Fruity  has been reissued by Hershey’s after being off the market for several years (could this petition have anything to do with it?). It should be available in stores any day now.

image

Good & Fruity is the companion candy to Good & Plenty, which is a sugar-shelled licorice. Really, there’s very little that’s similar about them, though at one time Good & Fruity was a candy coated fruit licorice nib.

The current incarnation of Good & Fruity, simply put, is jelly beans. Tiny, narrow jelly beans in a box.

They’re a little different from typical jelly beans, the shell isn’t as grainy, mostly because there’s so little shell. It’s crispy and has a light cool feel on the tongue with the sweeter flavors.

Lemon  - tart, but not quite lemony.
Lime  - a good mix of sour and lime essence.
Cherry  - sort of mellow, pretty standard black cherry flavor
Orange  - tangy and with a very strong orange zest component. A really good orange jelly bean. 
Blue Raspberry - a bit of raspberry and a bit of blueberry, neither flavor the best those berries have to offer.

Some of the G&F were a little inconsistent. Some were tangy, others were plain and sweet, like they’d missed their flavor coats.

The colors are vibrant and really compelling. Like little pieces of beach glass.

These are probably a good movie candy, a palatable mix of flavors, easy to eat with a very low mess factor. I’m just not that into them. They’re Kosher and unlike Good & Plenty, the colors here are all artificial so I guess it’s okay for vegetarians. Earlier versions of the candy were known as Good ‘n Fruity.

UPDATE 5/4/2010: For those who miss candy coated red licorice, you might want to find Wiley Wallaby Outback Beans. While they’re not exactly like the original Good ‘n Fruity, they’re closer than this.

Related Candies

  1. Jelly Belly - All Natural
  2. Blueberry Hill Spice Jelly Beans
  3. SweeTart Jelly Beans
  4. Organic Surf Sweets
  5. Jelly Belly Soda Pop Shoppe
  6. Starburst and Jelly Belly Jelly Beans
  7. Jelly Belly - Full Line
Name: Good & Fruity
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Hershey's
Place Purchased: samples from CandyWarehouse.com
Price: $1.59 retail
Size: 5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 107
Categories: Jelly, United States, Hershey, Kosher

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:06 am    

Monday, March 10, 2008

Jelly Bean Week

Jelly Bean Week at Candy Blog

I have a roundup of new jelly beans and some overlooked classics: Smarties Jelly Beans, Wonka Nerds Bumpy Jelly Beans, Jelly Belly Dark Chocolate Jelly Beans, Gimbal’s Gourmet Jelly Beans.

Related Candies

  1. Gimbal’s Gourmet Jelly Beans
  2. Smarties Jelly Beans
  3. Good and Fruity
  4. Wonka Nerds Jelly Beans
  5. Jelly Belly - All Natural
  6. Blueberry Hill Spice Jelly Beans
  7. SweeTart Jelly Beans
  8. Organic Surf Sweets
  9. Jelly Belly - Full Line
I may have to throw in some regular candy reviews, just because it's been so long.

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:44 am    

Wonka Nerds Jelly Beans

Nerds Jelly BeansHere’s a new jelly bean for flavor fans.

Nerds just don’t appeal to me much, part of it might be that they’re kind of hard to eat (maybe they should be sold in straws like Pixy Stix?), but I love the idea of them. Enter the Nerds Bumpy Jelly Beans.

Where regular jelly beans lack texture, each Nerds Bumpy Jelly Bean has oodles of nooks & lumps on a crunchy candy shell.

Where regular jelly beans lack a flavorful punch, each Nerd has a tasty tart layer just below the candy shell.

Nerds Jelly Beans

Yes, they look like freakish confectionery mistakes or maybe wads of leftover acrylic paint. They’re hard and have uneven textured shells. But they’re also vividly colored, so there’s no confusing any muted colors (is this pink or magenta?).

The biggest contribution these beans have to the jelly bean pantheon is crunch. They’re really crunchy.

Orange: a nice mellow orange flavor, with a rather tart flavor layer under the shell.

Lemon: the tartest of the bunch, it does kind of lose its zazz when I got to the end of chewing it up when it was just a big wad of sweet.

Strawberry: I was afraid this was going to be cherry, it’s not quite the vivid red I photographed, just slightly on the pinker side of red. A nice sort of cotton candy delicate floral strawberry with a dose of sour power.

Green Apple: my mix seemed to have an inordinate amount of these, which is too bad, because they were my least favorite. They are sour and do taste just like artificial green apple.

Grape: fantastically artificial, like having a Grape Shasta (complete with a slight fizz mimicked by the crunchy shell).

Nerds Jelly BeansIt’s funny how excited I am about these. Let’s face it, there hasn’t been much innovation in the jelly bean world since Jelly Belly started adding more flavor by using both a flavored center and a flavored shell.

These are fun to eat because there are so many options. You can just pop them in your mouth and chew them up, or let them dissolve or nibble away at the crunchy coating.

The centers are clear and have only a light flavor and a vague tartness to them.

I think they’re a great change-up from the milder jelly beans out there and will definitely appeal to kids, but are still palatable for adults. I enjoyed all the flavors (though picked around the green ones after I finished my review). Still, I found that I couldn’t eat as many of them as I can eat jelly beans. The tartness gave me a tummy ache after about a quarter of the bag. (See the levels of testing at Candy Blog Labs that I go through?)

Nerds Giant ChewThe interesting news though is that while I was shopping at Walgreen’s a few weeks ago, I also found this little bag of Giant Chewy Nerds. I bought them, at first thinking they were a clearance item, perhaps a test marketing. But the expiration is December 2008, so they were definitely fresh.

So, it looks like this is what they’re called in the “Non-Easter Season”. I can find no mention of either of these products on the Wonka site (does that surprise anyone?).

SugarHog.net also has a review (and got hers at Target for $1.99) plus another review from Sugar Hi.

These have a variety of artificial colors in them as well as Carmine, making them unsuitable for vegetarians.

Related Candies

  1. Jelly Belly - All Natural
  2. Blueberry Hill Spice Jelly Beans
  3. SweeTart Jelly Beans
  4. Organic Surf Sweets
  5. Jelly Belly Soda Pop Shoppe
  6. Starburst and Jelly Belly Jelly Beans
  7. Jelly Belly - Full Line
Name: Nerds Bumpy Jelly Beans
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Wonka (Nestle)
Place Purchased: samples from CandyWarehouse.com & Walgreen's
Price: $1.99 retail + $.69 single serve
Size: 13 ounces
Calories per ounce: 99
Categories: Jelly, Sour, United States, Nestle, Easter

POSTED BY Cybele AT 8:07 am    

Page 5 of 7 pages ‹ First  < 3 4 5 6 7 > 

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

 

 

 

 

Facebook IconTwitter IconTumblr IconRSS Feed IconEmail Icon

COUNTDOWN.

Candy Season Ends

-2547 days

Read previous coverage

 

 

Which seasonal candy selection do you prefer?

Choose one or more:

  •   Halloween
  •   Christmas
  •   Valentine's Day
  •   Easter

 

image

ON DECK

These candies will be reviewed shortly:

 

 

image