Candy Blog

A couple of months ago all the foodie world was a’blab about the prospect of chocolate made from the milk of camels instead of the milk of cows.

I didn’t find this terribly exotic, since there’s already chocolate made with goat’s milk and sheep’s milk on the market. But of course I didn’t realize that camel’s milk is kind of hard to come by at this time.

Al Nassma is the first chocolate company to make camel milk chocolate. And instead of just plopping themselves in the middle of the crowded deluxe chocolate bar market, they’re positioning themselves as fine chocolate with a unique taste and possibly some other splendid properties.

There is only one place in the United States to buy Al Nassma, it’s at a little shop I’ve visited before in San Francisco called Chocolate Covered. Happily a friend was visiting the city and agreed to pick up my chocolate for me (I dare not try to send the stuff as it was a brutally hot late summer ... though camels bear it well, their chocolate does not). Yes, I have chocolate mules.

The chocolate is made with camel’s milk from Dubai but manufactured in Vienna, Austria by a chocolate maker named Manner. Some folks may recognize that company, as they make Chocolina’s Sheep’s Milk Chocolate (photo here) in the same facility. After the basic chocolate is created it’s shipped back to Al Nassma’s facility in Dubai to be combined with the final ingredients and molded into bars & chocolates.

Camel’s milk is reported to have many fabulous attributes. It has more protein, no lactose, a higher concentration of vitamins and minerals ... lots of wonderful things to recommend it. I don’t actually hear much about it being really, really tasty ... but there are studies going on to see if it can treat autism, diabetes, tuberculosis and Crohn’s disease (yeah, big stuff). Still, I see the value of trying different milk products in chocolate in order to maximize its nutritional profile and also improve digestibility for those with allergies.

The milk chocolate comes in four varieties: Whole Milk, Whole Milk with Dates, Macadamia-Orange and Arabia. I went for the bars (mostly because that’s what’s available so far here).
So I’ve had the bars for a few months, instead of rushing into them and making rash evaluations.

I love the packaging. It’s spare and elegant. A simple deep brown and metallic gold wrapper. The heavy paper overwrap is even printed on the inside with little camel line drawings. The same camel and palm tree logo is embossed on the stiff gold foil wrapper underneath.

The stack as a whole has a comforting scent to it. A bit like unburnt incense and potpourri. I get a vague whiff of orange and spices but also just a comforting clean smell. I don’t know if it’s that my chocolates, which are each different flavors, have commingled to the point that I won’t be able to tell them apart or not.

Once I opened each bar, I was aware that though some flavors may be shared, they’re definitely different.

The Whole Milk Camel Milk Bar is nicely molded and tempered. It’s quite a dark looking milk chocolate bar. It has a distinct, thick snap to it.

The flavor is immediately a bit salty to my tongue. The caramel flavors are noticeable as is the smooth texture but still on the rustic side. It’s not quite fudgy but also not completely slick or oily like some milk chocolates. It’s sweet but also well rounded with toasted notes and maybe a hint of malt and cheese. The ingredients on all bars list honey, though it’s far down on the list and I didn’t really get the honey notes here. The chocolate flavors are mild but more to the malt and woodsy side of things than raisins/berries or coffee.

The Dates bar felt like a classic Arabian combination.

I rarely eat dates straight, as they’re exceptionally sweet, but I enjoy their grainy texture and deep molasses notes.

This bar didn’t quite capture that. While it was sweeter than the straight Whole Milk, I didn’t get the berry and musky notes of the dates. Instead I got the texture - the kind of papery skins and grainy sweetness. I didn’t get the same salty notes as the Whole Milk either, which might have helped.

I thought the Macadamia-Orange smelled like oranges from the outside, I was certainly surprised at how strong it was once I opened the foil. The scent reminds me of candied orange peels boiling away in sugar syrup on the stove. Warm and steamy.

The orange is present in the whole bar as an essence, but also as little bits of candied orange zest. The pieces aren’t crystallized and grainy like some bars, which means that they don’t distract from the smoothness of the chocolate and also, they don’t add any additional sweetness. Instead, at moments, they can add an orange oil bitterness.

The macadamia chips are quite small, and sometimes barely noticeable. Macadamias, when this small, may as well be coconut as far as I can tell. They’re slightly chewy, a little buttery and have that tropical coconut note to them.

I don’t know if it was the orange or not, but the honey was more lively here. A kind of musky and low background for the whole bar. I liked the intensity of the orange and thought the macadamias added a little peppy crunch.

After the plain bar, I was most looking forward to the Arabia bar. I like spiced chocolate and thought a blend specific to the culture & food of the Arabian peninsula would be fantastic. Of course I didn’t know what that would be and the wrapper doesn’t say much about what spices specifically are included. I could tease out perhaps coriander or nutmeg or one of the other woodsy spices and black pepper or perhaps a note of saffron. There’s something slightly floral and maybe musk-like in it (but that could be the honey). It’s also a little grainy with the spices. It’s not quite as pungent and chaotic as Indian Chai.

As a whole line, they’re nicely made and well thought out. They’re incredibly expensive, but novelty does that (as does shipping and of course small inventories). For folks looking for something to point to as a source of pride, well, camel fans certainly can. The whole nutritional aspects are probably not going to bear out when put into a product like chocolate, but for lactose intolerant folks this is certainly some of the nicest stuff you’re ever going to get.

I would like to try some of the filled chocolates in their line, but I’m hesitant to shell out close to fifty dollars and fret over whether it will make it to the house in the heat any time soon. (I still have plenty left to eat on these bars as it is.)

Sara has a review on her site of the Whole Milk and Dates bar and Graeme Wood at The Atlantic went all the way to Dubai to look the camels in the face.

Related Candies

1. Amano Milk Chocolate Ocumare
2. Askinosie White Chocolate (Plain, Nibble & Pistachio)
3. Theo 3400 Phinney Bars
4. Chuao Chocolatier
5. Dagoba Chai

Every once in a while I wander into a Gelson’s grocery store. If you don’t have this small upscale market chain in your area, perhaps you have a similar one. Regular food you see everywhere, only more expensive, but then they also carry hard to find and superior items. They do have a good produce selection, but charge a premium.

What I find interesting about the store is the candy. They have Twizzlers and 3 Musketeers but they also tend to have an odd idea (or maybe perfectly appropriate for their customers) of what Halloween is like. Their trick or treat selection tends to be a little upscale.

One of the items in their area was not a trick or treat item, but just a Halloween themed one: Jelly Belly Deluxe Halloween Mix. I got a similar mix a few years back for Easter, but this one seemed a little different so it was definitely worth a try. (Even though it was $3.99 for a 9 ounce bag.)

The mix likely offers something for everyone. There are mellocreme items, a few jelly beans, crisped rice milk chocolate balls and some licorice dots.

There aren’t that many jelly beans in there. As far as I can tell, they’re lemon, licorice and orange. All are definitely favorites of mine, so we’re off to a good start.

Mellocreme Mix

The story goes that the Goelitz family was making Candy Corn sometime around 1900, one of the earliest candy corn makers (and they made a lot of other mellocremes, which they called Butter Creams). They might not have been first, but they’ve definitely be doing it uninterrupted for over 100 years.

The Candy Corn in this assortment is the big stuff. It’s basically an equilateral triangle, but the tip is just a bit pinched. (Yes, they look a little breast-like to me.) The texture is smooth and the flavor quite mellow. Not as salty or honey tasting as the Brach’s/Farley’s stuff. There is a slight butter note to it.

Mellocreme pumpkins are cute. They’re quite squat and about half the height of the Farley’s/Brach’s stuff, but with a much more pronounced stem. They’re quite firm, but still have a smooth and not-quite-grainy texture. The flavor was surprising. It’s supposed to be orange, but it was just horribly bitter to me. I can’t fathom why, as they’re not that intensely colored, but I ate them several times over a week and each time they were just so bitter to me that I couldn’t finish a whole one.

The yellow ears of corn are the cutest of the bunch. Long and narrow, they’re a pretty big punch of pure sugar. The design on them isn’t very well defined so they didn’t photograph well. The flavor is lemon. It’s sweet and more of the floral lemon, now the tangy or zesty kind. Far too sweet for me.

There are some candies I get a hold of and I simply do not want to eat them.

Grave Grabbers from Flix Candy are billed as a handful of fruit flavored gummy! and they certainly do deliver on both the hand and the gummy part.

Maybe it’s that they’re not shaped like something I would normally want to eat. Maybe it’s that they’re made in China. Or maybe it’s that I have such a low appetite for flesh.

They come in three flavors, and each one is individually and uniquely designed. Each piece is 1.94 ounces, and though not as large as an adult’s hand (they’re only about 4.5 inches long), they’re still impressive to handle.

Green Apple is the left hand (hah-hah, the others are right hands!) in a dark green with black fingernails and knobbly knuckles. It also has a lightly textured skin that looks a bit like a lizard’s or snake’s. The gummy texture is soft, but not too soft and sticky that it makes a greasy mess when you play with the candy. The flavor is rather mild but an actual pleasant green apple flavor. Almost realistic with some apple juice notes.

Strawberry is the skeletal one in the center. It’s a light and creamy white with gray cartilage. The fingers are longer than the others, but the palm is also less fleshy. (And the attachment of the thumb makes me think this is chimpanzee hand or foot more than a human hand.) It’s a very mild strawberry flavor. A little light tangyness but it’s mostly the florally & berry fruity that we’re accustomed to. 

Blue Raspberry is a strange thing to call this, since there are no blue raspberries, they’re just a made up flavor and this isn’t even a blue colored candy. Instead it’s more of a zombie hand, sinew & open flesh, even some bones and gory bloody bits showing. The flavor was pretty unremarkable. I lost the package for this one and had to muck around on the internet until I found someone else mention with a picture.

They’re obviously too expensive for Trick or Treat, with a recommended retail of $1.25 (though you may find them cheaper). They’re a fun candy for kids to play with or to use as a decoration for a Halloween spread. The one odd impulse I have with this is to smack someone on the face with them a la a glove for a good old fashioned challenge. Luckily I’m alone in a hotel room today and there’s no one to do that to.

Flix also makes giant insect versions in similar flavors (though bolder colors). I think they’re far more inventive & creative than some of the other Flix items I’ve had, though still nothing that appeals to me.

Related Candies

1. Disney Pixie Perfect Gummies
2. R.M. Palmer Quax - The Yummy Ducky
3. Ratatouille Pocket Slider Lollipop
4. Gummy Fishies
5. Peeps Lollipop Rings
6. Oriental Trading Company Candies

I’ve had a few Hachez chocolate products over the years, though I haven’t written much about them (just this one review). They’re a German chocolate maker (though they have Belgian roots).

My boss was traveling in Europe recently and returned with a stack of candy, and this bar was definitely blog-worthy (all others were tummy-worthy).

The Edel Vollmilch Nuss is a dark milk chocolate bar studded with hazelnuts.

The wrapper is odd in that it doesn’t look like the other Hachez products I’ve seen, which are long narrow bars. However, the classic shield and seal that accompanies the logo is the same. The wrapper here is a heavy and glossy paper wrap with a light drawing of a squirrel holding a nut and some nuts growing on a limb. (And of course the little image of the chocolate bar itself.)

It’s a thick bar, and even so the nuts protrude from the bottom of it in a cobblestone look.

The bar smells smoky and woodsy with a strong grassy hazelnut scent and a slight hint of dairy.

The texture I’ve experience with Hachez before is extremely smooth with no grit and this was no exception. The melt is slick and silky and the twang of the dairy notes were spot on perfect. The notes have a toasted flavor to them that echoes some of the darker notes of the rather dark milk chocolate (37% ... but remember that 24% of the mass of this bar is just hazelnuts).

It’s a wonderful eating bar. The hazelnuts are a little small, but then again there were a lot of them. Every one was roasted to perfection so it was crunchy with just a slight sweet note to it. I enjoyed it simply as a hearty snack and a decadent little treat after dinner. And now it’s gone and I’m going to have to find a way to get them in the United States.

Related Candies

1. Walkers Nonsuch Roasted Hazelnut Toffee
2. Short & Sweet: Hazelnut Bites
3. Ritter Sport White Chocolate with Hazelnuts
4. Valerie Lemon Hazelnut Nougat
5. Caffarel Gianduia 1865
6. Dagoba Hazelnut
7. Hachez Chocolates

Candy Corn haters probably think all candy corn is alike. And for the most part it is. It’s just a very sweet fondant lovingly crafted to resemble a stylized piece of field corn.

There are dozens of new version that are flavored, but by far the most popular and best selling is the classic stuff that comes in the Harvest Mix of mellocreme items.

Farley’s is an old company, making candy under the Farley’s name since 1891. They’ve distinguished themselves by making a huge variety of generic and popular candies such as gumdrops, candy coated peanuts and hard candies. In 1996 Farley Candy Company merged with Sathers Candy Company, a company with a strong distribution arm to become Favorite Brands International. In 1999, Nabisco bought up Favorite Brands and then within a year Kraft Foods purchased Nabisco. Then in 2002 Kraft Foods sold off Farley’s Candy Company and Sathers Candy Company which became Farley’s & Sathers Candy Company, Inc. Since then Farley’s and Sathers has swallowed up a few other candy companies, most recently Brach’s in 2007. Other brands include the classic Fruit Stripe Gum, Heide, Now and Later, Trolli Gummis, Super Bubble and Bob’s.

I found this Farley’s Harvest Mix at the Dollar Tree. The Harvest Mix (or Autumn Mix) is usually a combination of Candy Corn, Indian Corn and Mellocreme Pumpkins. This is no different. I found the bag a little odd. It’s a pretty big bag, and I think that 9 ounces for a buck is a good value, but the bar seemed barely half full. 

Farley’s Candy Corn is made in Mexico, as is Brach’s ... which as I mentioned earlier (if you didn’t skip that paragraph) is now owned by Farley’s & Sathers, so I have to wonder if it’s just the same stuff. Both are made with honey and both contain gelatin (most other brands of fondant type candies are made with egg whites).

They look very much the same (well, most candy corn looks the same). I wouldn’t call the attention to detail fantastic, some were smudgy at the margins of the colors, others were of course shortened two color or one color versions. But the general flavor of them was a smooth and sweet dissolve. The texture is only slightly grainy and satisfyingly dense with a light moisture to it to keep it from being completely crumbly.

The honey note is noticeable as is a little hint of salt, which keeps the sweetness in check.

The Indian Corn from Farley’s is definitely not the same as Brach’s or any else that I’ve photographed to date.

Instead of three color stripes, there are only two here. A deep brown base and an orange top.

The brown base has a light cocoa flavor but the orange top seems less like the traditional candy corn. It doesn’t have that little bit of salt or honey flavor. It’s just bland and sweet. There’s not enough of the cocoa to balance out all that sweetness, so this Indian Corn, though it has a nice texture, is just too sweet.

I also got a little bit of a bitter aftertaste from it, which I suspected was from the food coloring. (More orange means more Red #40.)

These little pumpkins are quite cute. They’re nicely made, I found virtually all of them to be well formed, without bubbles or uneven bottoms.

The green stem and deep creases give them a nicely stylized look of real pumpkins. (If real pumpkins were smaller than your thumb and had flat bottoms.)

Like most other Mellocremes, these are just a dense sugar fondant. The flavor isn’t as pronounced or salty as the corn, so it’s all sugar. The texture is extra smooth, as the centers are quite soft.

But the sweet is simply too electric for me. It shoots bolts straight through my teeth and into my brain, leaving me feeling weary and abused after eating a half. There’s also the orange aftertaste, a lingering metallic note.

UPDATE: I talked to a representative at Farley’s & Sathers who confirmed that the Farley’s Candy Corn & mixes are now the same as the Brach’s. (They kept the Brach’s recipe.) So there you go ... I just re-reviewed the same product.

Related Candies

1. Toffee Flavored Chocolate Covered Candy Corn
2. Halloween Dots: Bat, Candy Corn & Ghost
3. Brach’s Chocolate Candy Corn & Halloween Mix
4. Milk Maid Caramel Apple Candy Corn
5. Candy Corn Kisses
6. Gourmet Goodies Candy Corn
7. Brach’s Autumn Mix