As the All Candy Expo for 2008 comes to a close, writers from all over are heading home and this little trickle of stories is just the start of what will be a summer of fun coverage of new products & trends:

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1. Crackheads
2. Caffe Acapella - Coffee Confections
3. The Traveling with Candy Balancing Act
4. M&Ms Line
5. Jacques Torres

Name: Stainer Chocolate
Description: comprises one of The World’s Largest Selection of Gourmet Chocolate Bars. Our lines include unique flavors such as chili pepper, rose, world spices, green tea and jasmine, champagne, and many more. Our base chocolate includes organic, sugar-free, single origin, dark, milk, and white chocolate.
Release Date: 5/6/2008
Notes: This isn’t a new product, but their appearance at the All Candy Expo marks their move into the North American market. This Italian brand has lovely packaging and of course a huge array of flavors. I picked a couple up at Chocolate covered in San Francisco, so I’ll have some tasting notes in the coming months, hopefully as they start appearing more regularly in American stores.

Name: American Classics: Mississippi Mud Truffle, New York Cheesecake Ganache & Southern Pecan Chocolate Torte
Brand: Russell Stover
Description: Chocolate medleys inspired by some of America’s best-loved, homespun desserts.
Release Date: 5/1/2008
Notes: So far it only says that these come in little squares in single flavor packs (no mixed bags).

Name: Dan’s Chocolates
Brand: Dan’s Chocolates
Description: Dan’s Chocolates makes all natural individually wrapped chocolate bars and truffle bars by blending the finest chocolates and funky inclusions. With names like “Peppy-R-Mint,” “The Caffeinator,” and “Trail Hound,” we try not to take ourselves too seriously.
Release Date: 5/20/2008
Notes: The packaging is cute, with nice bright colors and pretty easy-to-understand but distinctive names, Dan’s is poised to at least raise some interest in the crowded premium market. No word on the retail price though.

Name: Yummiees LOW GI Natural Fruit Flavored Jelly Candy
Brand: Allseps & Capricorn Liquorice
Description: made with Natural Colours, Natural Flavours and do not contain Cane Sugar or Artificial Sweeteners. yummiees are sweetened with a Natural LOW GI Fruit Syrup and are also low in sodium. 4 varieties - Aussie Animals, Party Mix, Snakes & Frogs
Release Date: 1/8/2008
Notes: When someone says lower GI, I think lower gastrointestinal tract, not low glycemic index. (But that’s my baggage ... too many doctor shows.)

Related Candies

1. Friday’s San Francisco Candy Adventure
2. Brach’s Gummi+Plus & Tropical Gummis
3. Russell Stover Private Reserve Vanilla Bean Brulee
4. Lindt: 60% Extra Dark Truffles

I know I don’t do many gum reviews, I don’t consider myself a great connoisseur of the stuff. I’m perfectly happy with good old Peppermint Chiklets. But the All Candy Expo box included about 25 packages of gum, here are three that caught my attention:

Glee Gum Bubblegum Flavor: The natural pink coloring here is from beets and I can’t think of a more lovely way for a beet to be displayed. The little chicklets in this case are made with actual chicle, a natural sap from Manilkara trees native to the Americas. Very few gums are made with this natural base these days. Harvesting the gum from the trees is rather like tapping Maple trees for sap or Rubber trees for latex - it doesn’t harm the trees and helps to preserve forest & their inhabitants. (Though they harvest it by making huge gashes in the bark that allow the gum to ooze out for collection unlike the little metal spiked taps that they use for maple harvests, the trees are essentially unharmed.)

I’ve tried Glee before, it’s sold at the checkout at Trader Joe’s and the infectiously cute box tempts me every time. I didn’t care for orange, which seemed grainier and stuck to my fillings, but have had the peppermint a few times since then.

The crunchy sugar shell is lightly flavored, bubblegum flavor is usually fresh tasting, a little like cotton candy with a little dash of root beer. The sugary sweetness doesn’t last that long, then it’s a very mild flavor and a good soft & smooth chew.

I have had some of my amalgam fillings replaced with composite, so I’m not having the sticking problem I used to. I don’t think the bubblegum flavor is for me, probably because it’s not actually bubble gum. (See more about this all natural gum at the Glee Gum website.)

Rating: 7 out of 10

WOWzers Strawberry from Maxim International describes itself on the package as Explosive and Sour Powder Bubble Gum. I wasn’t really sure what it was. At first I thought it was a tube of something like Pixy Stix that you chew until it becomes gum (like a powdered Razzle).

Instead, it’s a long tube of bubble gum (strawberry flavored, in this case) about as big around as a bubble gum cigar. Inside it’s hollow and filled with a white crumbly, crunchy & grainy sour powder (a la Pixy Stix).

It feels overpackaged. It’s inside a long mylar wrapper, which has a little waxed cardstock tray that wraps around three sides of the product. The version I have is 1.2 ounces but the one I teased yesterday are 3.6 ounces (and probably about three times the length). They also come in Fruit Punch, Apple & Grape.

First, the product looks, well, a little odd out of the package. Kind of like a 9 inch long extremely thin hot dog. It’s not made into individual portions, which I’d figure is about 2 inches.

The bite is soft and easy, immediately tangy and grainy. The candy sand dissolves and dissipates pretty quickly. It’s sour and certainly gets the salivary glands working, much in the way the old Quench Gum did. After that wears away with chewing it’s a rather sweet and plain strawberry bubble gum. It’s a very soft chew which takes a while before it’s appropriate for bubble blowing.

These are made in China. I don’t think they’re for me, but it’s a fun new blend of confections and might please some kids.

Rating: 5 out of 10

Okay, I was kind of liberal with the “pink” part of the title. Hubba Bubba Glop Strawberry Gush is actually red when it comes out of the package. It gets pink when you chew it. It also comes in watermelon flavor.

These are already available on stores, I saw them at CVS in Hollywood earlier this week. They come in a hard plastic tube with a flip top. It seems like a bit too much packaging, though I can see a few ways to reuse the tube, which is coded 05 (polypropylene) for recycling. The outer wrap comes off, so it’d just be a plain red tube good for holding extra batteries, more candy, a very small portion of carrot sticks, condiments or some headphones.

Inside are five huge pieces. They’re shaped like footballs and are the size of a small pecan in the shell.

While most gumballs are hollow, the glop part of this gum fills that void. The gum has a hard crunchy shell, then the soft and sweet gum then a reservoir of sweet strawberry goo in the center. The goo is tangy and sticky, but pretty flavorful.

It’s a good chewing bubble gum. I don’t think I need the gooey center, but it’s interesting and as long as you know it’s going to be there, adds some more flavor. The bubbles were good, large without being too sticky. A single piece was a good portion for chewing.

(I’m really intrigued by this Cola version available in Australia - regular Hubba Bubba is also available in Cola flavor in other parts of the world.)

Rating: 7 out of 10

Related Candies

1. Tiny Size Chiclets
2. Gold Mine Gum
3. Short & Sweet: Gums
4. Sandy Candy
5. Giant Pixy Stix
6. Dubble Bubble Fluff
7. Glee Gum: If You Like Stuff Stuck to Your Teeth

I knew the Roca Buttercrunch Thins were coming out, but I still haven’t seen them in stores. There are four varieties, milk chocolate, 60% dark, dark truffle & caramel truffle. Luckily I got this sample box of the 60% Cacao Roca Buttercrunch Thins from All Candy Expo (the one that I was most interested in!). 

While I love the toffee center of Almond Roca (and the Mocha Roca), I’m not fond of the greasy mockolate coating and messy crushed almonds. (Yes, I sometimes scrape them off and just eat the center.) Isn’t it nice that Brown & Haley finally recognized that they can use better ingredients.

The 2.8 ounce box holds 8 pieces, each in their own little slot in a divided tray. It’s about the size of a VHS box (maybe a little thinner), but it seems like a lot of packaging and protection for what are probably pretty durable little candies.

The initial description of them as Thins was intriguing, I was picturing little toffee tiles like Valerie Confections sells. Instead I saw a post on Chocolate Traveler that showed that these are little sticks, which is fine with me.

The smell like toasted nuts, burnt sugar and dark chocolate. The dark chocolate coating, in my case, was slightly bloomed (and I blame myself for that, as it started to get absurdly hot in Los Angeles and didn’t follow my own precautions). The texture was just fine though. (And the last two got really bloomed, so I know what bloomed chocolate is in this case.)

I love the Roca toffee, it’s crispy and buttery at the same time. It has wonderfully complex burnt sugar flavors and the added nutty bits of almonds. The dark chocolate was also a smooth and creamy, adding a little more dimension with its own dark palate of flavors.

While I consider this a very successful confection, I find the packaging a little overdone. Does it really need to have both the fold over flap (hand purse style) box, plus the tray? The whole thing is then overwrapped in cellophane.

The price point, as far as I can tell from the Brown & Haley website is $3.95 a box, which puts it at over $22 per pound. For that price I’d either go up a notch and have some Carey’s of Oregon, Poco Dolce or Valerie Confections, or go down a notch and have a Heath Bar (why oh, why won’t they make them in dark chocolate?).

Related Candies

1. Sconza 70% Dark Chocolate Toffee Almonds
2. Shaymee’s Toffee
3. Valerie Toffees & Nougats
4. Enstrom’s Toffee
5. The Rocas

Jelly Belly is always coming up with new flavors and themes. This spring it’s their new Ice Cream Parlor Mix inspired by Cold Stone Creamery. Cold Stone is known for their freezing plank of granite where they scoop & mix your custom mix of ingredients (or you can pick from their standard menu). An appropriate tie in with Jelly Belly that already produces an extensive list of “recipes” for combing beans.

As a mix, the list of flavors here is pretty short: