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Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Pez Hedz - Hello Kitty

Pez HedzOn an episode of Candyology 101 last year we talked about this new product called PEZ Hedz. The come in two varieties currently, Bearz and Hello Kitty. I picked up the PEZ Hedz Hello Kitty variety because they were strawberry and raspberry flavored ... two winning flavors from the start.

The whole PEZ branding on them was kind of odd, I wouldn’t expect good candy out of them, because PEZ is really a toy company, not a candy company. Their toys just happen to have candy in them. However, PEZ Heds are made by Katjes in Germany. If it didn’t say that on the package, I would have guessed from its origin and the fact that they’re just the cutest little deposit molded faces. Katjes also makes other face-shaped candies like Tappsy and Percy Pig. So, that was a good sign, because Katjes does a great job with their candies.

Pez Hedz

I wanted to post this review after detailing what is and isn’t a gummi candy, just to clear up any confusion. Pez rightfully calls these soft candy chews, as they’re not quite gummis. The ingredients are interesting as they use a base of glucose (wheat syrup that’s gluten free) and sugar that’s thickened with pectin and potato protein. Though the colorings are from all natural sources, the flavors are a mix of natural and artificial.

When I first looked at them through the clear window in the package, they looked a lot like the Katjes Tappsy, which is a foamy gummi. (They’re not quite marshmallows, but a little fluffier than gummis.) There are two colors, the striking white face with the pink bow is the traditional Hello Kitty and is strawberry. The light pink color with the purple bow is raspberry.

The faces are big, about 1.5 inches wide and 1 inch high. They’re smooth to the touch, kind of like a cross between the soft texture of a river pebble and the flexibility of an eraser. Until I ate one, I wasn’t quite sure what the texture was going to be.

Pez Hedz

The texture is very smooth with a really vibrant flavor.The strawberry has a mostly tangy note at first with good floral and cotton candy scents that waft around when eating it. The pieces are big, kind of two bite portions. The raspberry was much more floral, a little on the soapy side but with a creamy vanilla note towards the end. The bows were actually more dense and sweet versions of the face.

The texture was a little tooth-sticky, like Swedish fish, but ultimately a little cleaner feeling in the end. There were no weird aftertastes (probably because there’s no Red 40 in there), so I found them to be exceptionally pleasant. I found they went really well with some strong black tea in afternoon.

They’re in no way like a vegetarian gummi, they don’t pretend to be. They’re more like Swedish Fish, with a bit of personality.

The package says they’re 99% fat free, gluten free, vegetarian and gelatin free. There’s a bit of beeswax in there, for vegans who were wondering and the package says they may contain traces of milk.

Related Candies

  1. Marks and Spencer Percy Pig
  2. Sugarfina Beverly Hills & Trio of Goodies
  3. Hello Kitty Pineapple Marshmallows
  4. Hello Kitty Lucky Stars Candy
  5. Katjes Tappsy
  6. R.M. Palmer Quax - The Yummy Ducky
  7. Katjes Tropical Gummis & Yogurt Gums


Name: PEZ Hedz
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Katjes
Place Purchased: Cost Plus World Market (Farmers Market)
Price: $2.32
Size: 5 ounces
Calories per ounce: 92
Categories: Candy, Katjes, Jelly Candy, 7-Worth It, Germany, Cost Plus

POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:42 pm     CandyReviewKatjesJelly Candy7-Worth ItGermanyCost Plus

Monday, April 20, 2015

Candy Encyclopedia: The Difference Between Gummi and Jelly

Haribo Red GummiThe world of happy, fun and beautiful candy should be blissfully simple. Chocolate is made from cocoa beans, lemon drops from lemon juice and sugar and licorice from licorice root.

But there are some terms which have become so generic, they’re losing their meaning. I want to correct that course, or at least clarify how the terms are used on Candy Blog.

There is a wonderful, and rather recent invention called the Gummi Candy. It was innovated in the 1920s in Germany and popularized by the Haribo Gold Bear. Once these unique candies became popular in the United States, they expanded into a very broad and diverse candy category.

A gummi has a base of gelatin. Gelatin is often bandied about has a horrifying ingredient in viral listicles to unsuspecting people who apparently have never read a list of what’s in their food before.

Gelatin is a protein. It’s most often made from pork sources, found in the connective tissues (knuckles, hooves, as well as skin), but it’s also made from bovine or fish sources to create a Kosher/Halal version. Gelatin simply cannot be vegetarian. The protein of gelatin is amazing, it creates a translucent, flavorless base with an inimitable texture. I call it bouncy. Many gummi candies are fat free, or have nominal amounts of fat, so they’re very low in calories per ounce.

Au'some 3Dees Gummy Easter Shapes

Often jelly candies are categorized as gummis, because they are also colorful, translucent and fruit flavored. However, a jelly candy is somewhat different. Jelly candies are solidified using carbohydrates, not proteins. So, a jelly bean center is usually made with corn starch. Other jelling ingredients are pectin, tapioca, potato or arrowroot starch. Gums are also used sometimes to jell candy, which is how the original gumdrops were made, with gum arabic, mastic or gum tragacanth.

Now, I have nothing against jelly candies, but you probably already innately know the different between a Swedish Fish and a Gummi Worm. There’s a substantial different to the texture.

Jelly Belly Fish

The easiest way to tell the difference, without even putting a candy in your mouth, is to pull it apart. When you pull a Swedish Fish or Spearmint Leaf apart, it’s pretty easy. What you see when you look closely at the spot where it splits is that it creates little strings at the separation. The softer the candy, the more stringy it will be. It’s generally sticky, as in, it will stick to you, your fingers, the package, whatever.

Harbio Saft Baeren

When you pull a gummi apart, you’ll get a lot of stretch, but eventually it will break. So the edges of a gummi will usually be flat, a full clean break. Though the broken surface will be sticky, the strength of the gummi means that it is unlikely to transfer to your fingers or pockets.

I prefer to use the original German word for the candy, gummi, instead of gummy. Since gummy already means something in English which is not necessarily descriptive of actual gummis, it’s easier to just keep them as separate names. However, here on the blog I used the name of the candy if it happens to be Gummy or Gummies.

Trolli Gummi Bear-Rings

Gummis are unique enough they shouldn’t be lumped in with jelly candies, no more than compressed dextrose and chocolate should be, just because they’re basically solids at room temperature.

Though there have been attempts to make vegan or vegetarian gummis, there really isn’t anything quite like gelatin in the plant world. So, you may find marshmallows made with agar agar, but they’ll never be quite the same as gelatin marshmallows. For some candies that use gelatin, such as Mentos, they were able to swap out the gelatin in the chewy mints for gellan gum, which is made from bacteria.

Ice Cream Cone Gummis

Perhaps scientists will be able to synthesize a protein from plants someday, but in the interim, there’s nothing wrong with omnivores making some fun confections by utilizing all parts of the animals we raise for food.

Related Candies

  1. Albanese Rainforest Gummi Frog
  2. Sugarfina: The Gummis
  3. Skittles replace Lime with Green Apple
  4. Jelly Belly Soda Pop Shoppe Gummi Bottles
  5. Haribo Gold Bears from Turkey and Germany
  6. Albanese Gummi Butterflies

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:50 pm     CandyGummi CandyHighlightFeatured News

Friday, April 17, 2015

Jelly Belly Pancakes and Maple Syrup

Jelly Belly Pancakes & Maple SyrupThe newest flavor from Jelly Belly is Pancakes & Maple Syrup.

Though the name of the new flavor is a little trendy, the idea is pretty solid. Maple is a great, distinctive but mild flavor. It’s an ideal addition to Jelly Belly’s line because it can be combined with other flavor beans. Though I didn’t have any on hand to try out, I would think that Banana and Strawberry would go well.

The packaging is fun, an aqua gingham motif on the bag gives it a homespun feel. The image on the front, though is not of Vermont maple trees with running sap and buckets, like I might have imagined, instead it’s more in line with what I see any neighborhood diner, a plate of pancakes with butter and a little pitcher of syrup. (Now, I love my little diner I go to, but I highly doubt they use actual maple syrup because their menu just says syrup.)

Jelly Belly Pancakes & Maple Syrup

The beans are uniform looking, a medium caramel color, kind of like Sugar Babies. The bag does smell a lot like maple syrup, which is a sweet smell with notes of bourbon and vanilla with a little molasses or pipe tobacco.

The interesting things is that these are not just maple flavor but also pancake, so there are other flavor notes to the actual beans. Though the primary flavor is definitely, and perhaps over-the-top maple syrup, I also caught sort of buttery notes. It’s not the overwhelming buttered popcorn flavor, just a sort of salty and creamy flavor to it. (There are 25mg of salt per serving.)

So, there’s lots of maple-y flavor and buttery notes, but no actual pancake, which is fine, because just a jelly bean that tastes like pancake topping is good enough.

Jelly Belly Pancakes & Maple Syrup

The fun part for many candy fans is that Jelly Belly are gluten free and peanut free. So if you can’t have actual pancakes because you’re gluten intolerant, you can have these.

I think the trendiness of these makes them appealing in the short term for buzz, but maple should stand the test of time. Of course the Honey jelly beans introduced a five years ago didn’t do so well and I think those did better in combination with other flavors than Maple.

Related Candies

  1. Suss Pecan Maple Caramels
  2. Jelly Belly Draft Beer Beans
  3. Russell Stover Santas: Gingerbread, Peppermint and Maple
  4. Jelly Belly Peas & Carrots Mellocreme Candy
  5. Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans by Jelly Belly
  6. Maple Ice Mints
  7. Jelly Belly Chocolate Dips


Name: Pancakes and Maple Syrup Jelly Beans
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Jelly Belly
Place Purchased: Samples from Jelly Belly
Price: $2.50
Size: 3.1 ounces
Calories per ounce: 99
Categories: Candy, Jelly Belly, Jelly Candy, Kosher, 7-Worth It, United States

POSTED BY Cybele AT 1:48 pm     CandyReviewJelly BellyJelly CandyKosher7-Worth ItUnited States

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Candyology 101 - Podcast Episode 12 - The Sweet and the Tart

Candyology101-ep12

In the latest episode of Candyology 101, Maria and get back to study of candy with Compressed Dextrose, or whatever SweeTarts and Smarties are supposed to be.

Download the MP3 and of course check out the show notes.

 

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:29 pm     CandyCompressed DextroseHighlightRadio Interviews

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Nature Addicts Fruit & Chocolate - Apple Orange

DSC_8216rbChocolate covered dried fruit is one of the simplest confections. Raisins, candied orange peels and ginger and cranberries are the most common chocolate coated items. Every once in a while a company comes along to put a little twist on the idea.

Nature Addicts (which goes by [N.A!]) makes Fruit Sticks, which are basically pureed fruit formed into easy to eat pieces. Then they went one step further and coated them in chocolate. They just call them Fruit & Chocolate, which is a descriptive name but not particularly distinctive. The only flavor is Apple Orange.

[N.A!] nuggets made 100% from fruits coated with a fine layer of premium 70% cocoa dark chocolate for a unique experience.

The fruit filling is made from concentrated apple puree, concentrated apple juice, concentrated orange juice, pectin, citrus fiber and natural orange flavor. The chocolate coating is 70% made with reduced fat cocoa powder, in addition to cocoa liquor. It’s sweetened with cane sugar. There’s also a little honey in there, so it’s not marked as a vegan product.

DSC_8220rb

The nuggets are made in The Netherlands, and it’s all non-GMO ingredients. They’re not terribly attractive. There’s no glaze on the panned chocolate coating, so they’re a little lumpy, a little scuffed. They’re mostly flat rectangles, about 1/2 an inch long and 1/3 of an inch wide.

Nature Addicts Fruit & Chocolate

Even though the fruit bits are really more apple than orange, they taste like orange. It’s an immediately zesty flavor, but also very tangy. The texture of the filling is less of a jelly and more like a fruit paste, think a very soft fruit roll up.

It’s a good combination, though the sweet and sour of the chocolate and the filling is a little jarring because both are intense.

Even though it’s a dark chocolate product, they seem pretty kid-friendly. Smaller children probably won’t like the intense bitterness of the chocolate along with the intense sour of the filling, but older kids may find this a nice compromise candy for families that want something with a little cleaner ingredients for snacking. The bag is just over one ounce and only 110 calories, though there are 2.5 grams of fat, there are also 2 grams of fiber and 1 gram of protein. I wouldn’t call them nutritious, but they’re tasty enough as a between meal snack or an addition to a trail mix.

Related Candies

  1. YumEarth Organics Gummy Fruits
  2. Jelly Belly Beanaturals: 14 Flavors
  3. Chuao Orange A Go Go Chocopod
  4. Torie & Howard Organic Hard Candies
  5. Niederegger Marzipan Orange


Name: Fruit & Chocolate - Apple Orange
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Nature Addicts
Place Purchased: Samples from Fancy Food Show
Price: $1.49
Size: 1.06
Calories per ounce: 113
Categories: All Natural, Candy, Green Halloween, Chocolate, Jelly Candy, 6-Tempting, Netherlands

POSTED BY Cybele AT 2:54 pm     All NaturalCandyGreen HalloweenReviewChocolateJelly Candy6-TemptingNetherlands

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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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