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

July 2009

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Morning Glory Confections: Chai Tea & Cashew Brittle

Morning Glory Chai Tea & Cashew BrittleWhile picking up a birthday cake for The Man a few weeks ago at Lark, a neighborhood bakery, I also sampled some locally made artisan nut brittles.

Morning Glory Confections makes a short list of nut brittles in quirky flavor combinations: Chai Tea & Cashew, Cocoa Nib, Coffee Bean & Pecan, Fleur de Sel & Peanut, Indian Curry & Pistachio and New Mexico Chili & Pumpkin Seed.

I’ve tasted all of them, but chose to buy a little package of the Chai Tea & Cashew. It wasn’t cheap, the 2 ounce package that contained four slender planks cost $4.95. But the artisan name was supported by the tantalizing ingredients:

Cashews, sugar, corn syrup, butter, chai spice (it included a list), Darjeeling tea leaves, baking soda, Madagascar vanilla extract, Kosher salt.

Morning Glory Chai Tea & Cashew Brittle

The glossy and narrow bars are lumpy with the cashews within and speckled with the tea & spices.

It smells a bit buttery and like warm tea and spices ... a bit like carrot cake, actually. The cashews are toasted to a crunchy light brown and have a darker flavor to them than I would have expected. The salt comes forward first then a little kick of creamy butter and the crisp flakiness of a toffee.

The baking soda keeps the salt note a bit on the mineral side of things, but also keeps the candy from tasting too sickly sweet. The key with Morning Glory brittles, all that I’ve tasted, is that it’s not about the nuts. While the nuts are nice, it’s about the flavors imparted to the brittle.

While I really enjoyed my four pieces, the price is just staggering (oh sure, it’s not so bad when you buy a larger quantity at $32 per pound.) I appreciated that the inner wrap was actually a zip lock to protect my precious bits from evil, evil moisture.

(I would also take this opportunity to recommend Lark’s cakes. They have an impressive carrot cake that is both beautiful and fulfills my husband’s and my particular issues: he doesn’t like raisins and I can’t eat walnuts. So it’s all about the moist carroty cake with warm spices and a light, not-too-sweet cream cheese frosting. We’ve picked up this cake three times in the regular size and one of the itty two-serving size since they opened.)

Related Candies

  1. Ginger Chews: Hot Coffee
  2. Seeds of Change: Dark Chocolate with Mango and Cashew
  3. See’s Pumpkin Spice & Root Beer Lollypops
  4. Sanders Caramels & Titans
  5. Wha Guru Chew
  6. Dagoba Chai
Name: Chai Tea and Cashew Brittle
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Morning Glory Confections
Place Purchased: Lark Cake Shop (Silverlake)
Price: $4.95
Size: 2 ounces
Calories per ounce: unknown
Categories: Nuts, Toffee, United States, All Natural

POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:15 am    

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Scharffen Berger Tome Acu & Asante

Scharffen Berger Tome AcuOne of Scharffen Berger’s new projects is the Chocolate Makers Series with limited runs (about 120 cases) of single origin beans. There are two on the market right now. A Scharffen Berger rep sent them to me after I twittered about my obsession with the Milk Nibby bar.

In this case the both of the bars are 65% cacao dark chocolate - an easily accessible for nascent chocolate tasters, but not too sweet for hardliner chocophiles.

The boxes are quite smart - simple kraft paperboard boxes with a wrap-around label including tasting notes for the bar.

Inside the package the bar is enclosed in a glassine sleeve and sealed with a sticker. It’s well done, I found it easily protected the bars and was great for munching on a little, breaking inside the sleeve & serving to others.

Scharffen Berger Tome Acu

The Tome Acu is sourced from cooperative farmers in the Brazilian State of Par?, which if you look on a map is a big, wide area far from any roads.

From the package

Notes: A single origin from deep within the Brazilian Amazon - unlike any cacao we’ve ever tasted.

Profile: Notes of wild apple & pear with the finish of a fine dessert wine.

Here’s what I got: Light green wood scent with slight bitter notes. Very sweet at the forward flavors but kind of in the honey/syrup arena with notes of cinnamon, raisins, green olives and green tea. The bitterness was high pitched and short lived, but gave way to some lower boiled cherry and plum notes. Still, quite a tangy chocolate and what I have come to expect from the Scharffen Berger style.

Scharffen Berger AsanteThough Theobroma cacao originated in the New World, more cocoa is grown in Africa than anywhere else in the world. Ghana is second only to C?te d’Ivoire in production. The earliest plantings in the area were from the Amelonado cultivar which, interestingly enough was also from Brazil (like the Tome Acu).

The Asante bar is named for the Ashante region & peoples (map). They’re known for their beans as well as the care the farmers & cooperatives take in the fermenting process, which is crucial to making good chocolate. (Underferment and the chocolate is acrid, overferment and the chocolate is musty.)

Scharffen Berger Asante

From the package

Notes: A single origin bar with a long finish and the deep chocolate flavors of Ghananian cacao.

Profile: deep, rich chocolate with hints of wild cherry, citrus and spice.

Here’s what I got: Coffee, cedar & cardamom plus a strong molasses/sugary vibe. The chocolate punch in here was strong and clear reminding me of the smell of chocolate cake without much of the sourness that I often get from Scharffen Berger bars.

The texture of both bars was excellent. Plenty of cocoa butter, smooth and silky melt without grittiness. The snap on both was bright & crisp.

You can follow along with the Chocolate Maker’s Series in the journal on the Scharffen Berger site, even if you never buy one of the bars, the process is quite interesting to read along with great photos from all over the world.

Related Candies

  1. Scharffen Berger Dark Milk (68%)
  2. Amano Jembrana
  3. Askinosie Chocolate
  4. Scharffen Berger Milk Nibby Bar
  5. Amadei
  6. Amano Single Origin Bars: Madagascar & Ocumare
  7. Scharffen Berger - Cacao Nibs
Name: Chocolate Maker's Series: 65% Cacao Tome Acu & Asante
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Scharffen Berger
Place Purchased: samples from Scharffen Berger
Price: $7.00 retail
Size: 3 ounces
Calories per ounce: 127 (I have a hard time believing that)
Categories: Chocolate, United States, Scharffen Berger, Kosher, All Natural, Single Origin

POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:19 pm    

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Meiji Pokka Coffee Caramel

Meiji Pokka Coffee CaramelOne of the iconic candies in Japan are caramels. There are oodles of caramels available, most in the classic style of a hard, short caramel (meaning it’s rather chewy but dry).

Often they come in different flavors, but the classic caramel has endured for nearly 100 years. One line is the Meiji Dice, which are little caramels that come in pairs inside cube boxes that also double as dice.  More recently, as Meiji has acquired the Pokka Coffee company, they introduced the Pokka Coffee Caramel.

The cute packages feature half with icons of the Pokka coffee brand with their logo & seal. The other half are the dice - in this case using little coffee beans on each side to mark the numbers.

Meiji Pokka Coffee Caramel

The caramels are bigger than the Morinaga ones I’ve had before, or the other, similar Meiji cubes.

They’re about 5/8 of an inch square with a distinct checkerboard texture on them. Each pair is wrapped in waxed paper and tucked into a box. So there are eight caramels total.

They smell very sweet and a lot like dark roasted coffee or espresso. There’s very little milk taste to it, though milk is a major ingredient. It’s definitely a sweet black coffee flavor. (Some coffee caramels taste like coffee ice cream.) I liked it much better than the grainy & gone texture of the Chewy Coffee Rio.

The dark, rich flavor and the soft, ample chew was really appealing to me. I found I ate three of the boxes before I was even ready to do this review. They were a bit on the expensive side for a mass-manufactured candy ... and the overpackaging is sweet for the first day or so, but silly and wasteful after that. I’ll likely stick with the Morinaga Caramels I know and love so well, or perhaps try the Meiji Chelsea Coffee if I can find them.

Related Candies

  1. Beechies Force Chewy Candy
  2. Coffee Nips
  3. Japanese Black Sugar & Tropical Chews
  4. The Candy Dump 2008
  5. Coffee Beat
  6. Green and Black Caramels
Name: Pokka Coffee Caramel (Dice)
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Meiji
Place Purchased: Nijiya Market (Little Tokyo Plaza)
Price: $1.59
Size: 1.58 ounces
Calories per ounce: 132
Categories: Caramel, Coffee, Japan, Meiji

POSTED BY Cybele AT 12:50 pm    

Monday, July 13, 2009

Limited Edition Snickers Fudge

Snickers FudgeJust when I thought Mars had done every variation of the Snickers bar, they’ve got another one waiting in the wings: Limited Edition Snickers Fudge.

The simple bar features Fudge with peanut butter nougat & peanuts wrapped in milk chocolate. Like most other limited edition bars, it’s smaller than the standard, this one is the smallest yet at 1.78 ounces.

Snickers Fudge

While the bar may feel a little light, it’s pretty dense and the textures consistent throughout.

I’ve often felt like the Snickers/Milky Way/3 Musketeers nougat is more like a fluffy fudge than a nougat anyway, so this seemed like a stack of dense fudge on top of a layer of light fluffed fudge.

Snickers Fudge

The peanut butter nougat layer has a light creamy color with a distinct salty hit and peanutty flavor. The peanuts studded in the fudge are distinct, a little on the soft side but crunchy and tasty.

The fudge itself has a slight but consistent grain to it, a nice chocolatey flavor and good salty/sweet balance.

The creamy chocolate coating brings it all together.

Snickers Fudge

I missed the chewy caramel, but give this one its due because it is rather different from other existing bars. The salt keeps it from being cloyingly sweet like a Milky Way. Also, I noticed as I was trying to do my bites & slices that there were quite a few voids in there around the nuts. I can’t tell if this is normal or if mine was just an anomaly.

It’s quite a satisfying bar and I can see it being a big success all on its own.

Clocking in at 250 calories, honestly it doesn’t need to be bigger. (Regular bars are 2.07 ounces and 280 calories.)

This bar is supposed to be on shelves in August, but that’s what they said about the Coconut M&Ms which are actually out, so look sharp they may already be available. I’m planning to try another one when I find them.

Related Candies

  1. Snickers Nougabot Bar & Transformer M&Ms
  2. Snickers Adventure Bar (Indiana Jones)
  3. Snickers Rockin’ Nut Road Bar
  4. Snickers Charged
  5. Snickers Nut ‘n Butter Crunch
  6. Snickers Almond Dark
  7. Snickers Dark
  8. Snickers Xtreme
Name: Limited Edition Snickers Fudge
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Mars
Place Purchased: sample from All Candy Expo
Price: $.85 retail
Size: 1.78 ounces
Calories per ounce: 140
Categories: Chocolate, nougat, Peanuts, United States, Mars, Limited Edition, Kosher

POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:12 pm    

Friday, July 10, 2009

Trolli Sour Brite Eggs

Trolli Sour Brite Crawler EggsAt the same time I picked up the Trolli Sour Brite Crawlers, I also got a smaller bag of Trolli Sour Brite Crawler Eggs.

While I knew what gummi worms were, I never had these before and wasn’t quite sure what they were.

They certainly look like jelly beans but the ingredients, with gelatin as a key component, read like gummis.

It turns out, after just opening the package and squishing one between my fingers that they’re jelly beans with gummi centers.

(I appreciated that the package on this one had a clear best by date - which the Brite Crawlers did not have.)

Trolli Sour Brite Crawler Eggs

Like the Crawler worms, there are three color varieties here:

Trolli Sour Brite Crawler EggsRed & Yellow = Cherry & Lemon - I loved the look of these when I bit them in half, it’s like tie-dyed candy. The color goes through and through, and the flavor is virtually identical to the worms, a mix of cherry and lemon but with the added texture of the sandy candy shell.

Blue & Pink = Raspberry & Strawberry - for some reason my blue & pink ones were remarkably larger than the two other varieties. Like the worms, I liked this variation best. The woodsy berry & cotton candy with a little tangy pop goes well with the grainy jelly bean coating.

Green & Orange = Lime & Orange - because I was eating these whole instead of biting one end or the other, the combination of flavors was much more important. Lime and orange make a great citrus combo, so I’d say this one works better than the worm version.

The attention to detail and the readily identifiable flavor combos made this a really distinctive candy. As far as jelly bean shaped gummis, I’m not sure anything could supplant the Meiji Gummy Chocos. They come in a close second though. They’re not really sour as advertised, but that aside, it’s a fun, easy to share candy ... perfect movie food.

Related Candies

  1. Spree Jelly Beans
  2. Dr. Doolittle’s Pastilles (Lemon, Grapefruit & Wild Berry)
  3. Chocolate Covered Gummi Bears
  4. Wonka Nerds Jelly Beans
  5. Jelly Belly Deluxe Easter Mix
  6. Krunchy Bears
  7. Starburst and Jelly Belly Jelly Beans
Name: Sour Brite Crawler Eggs
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Trolli (Farley's & Sathers)
Place Purchased: Rite Aid (Vermonica)
Price: $1.29
Size: 4 ounces
Calories per ounce: 80
Categories: Gummi, United States, Farley's and Sathers

POSTED BY Cybele AT 10:06 am    

Page 3 of 5 pages  < 1 2 3 4 5 > 

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

-2548 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