When I did my review last week of Turkish Delight, Joanna of SugarSavvy.net suggested that I try Aplets & Cotlets. Since I’m allergic to walnuts, I did a little digging on their site and found that they have some nutless products and then I fortuitously found some at the 99 Cent Only Store over the weekend.

I’m already partial to Turkish Delight and I figured this was an American version and it pretty much is. They’re American flavors and they sounded interesting on the package:

Cherry Amaretto - oh, well, this one just combines two of my least favorite flavors! Actually, it wasn’t as bad as all that. It was more like a cherry pie (which I like) and had little cherry bits in it. It didn’t have much of an amaretto note, so I’m guessing folks who like amaretto would be upset by the false advertising, but I was thankful.

Apple Spice - an interesting idea but not very apple-y or very spicy. It was sweet and had a nice kind of apple pie scent, but not much flavor to go with it.

Orange Ginger - this one is the star and if I could buy a package of just this, I probably would. The orange rind bits were noticeable and provide a zesty and sometimes bitter snap. Not much ginger burn or spice to it, but a good earthy flavor.

Strawberry Conserve - very sweet but at the same time intensely fragrant without any sort of artificial note to it. No tartness, just all the sweet berry notes. Quite a few seeds in there too.

The strangest thing about this package was the array. The package was a tray with nine slots in it. But there were four flavors. So which one do you think had a bonus? The other odd thing was that each pair of flavors looked the same. It turns out that the bonus piece was Strawberry Conserve. I have no idea if yours will be the same.

The texture missed on actually being Turkish Delight, as it was a bit denser and more flavored. The candies are covered in fine granulated sugar instead of powdered sugar, so they’re not at all messy. They’re not really a candy that I would sit and munch on while watching TV or a movie, but I think it’d be nice to serve with tea. I’m kind of curious now to try their other varieties, especially the mint and true Lokum. However, the sizes they sell on the website are a little large for my desire to just sample, so I’ll keep my eye out for these smaller packages in stores.

Note: the website sells these in a section called “Nut Free”, however, if you have severe nut allergies, the package notes that the candies may contain traces of peanuts and other nuts.

One of the most talked-about candy stores in New York City has to be Dylan’s Candy Bar. Unlike Economy Candy, Dylan’s is all about display and experience. Also unlike Economy Candy: you pay a premium.

Located on Third Avenue at 60th Street - it’s a tony address - though not quite Park Avenue it is kitty-corner from Bloomingdale’s. If I could compare the store to something it would be FAO Schwartz. The store is brightly lit and on two levels. The street level boasts a large ice cream bar and featured huge Easter displays when I visited. The ceiling fixtures and shelves are candy themed, with large panels looking like some sort of vine of lollipops growing into the ceiling and large rainbow colored candy canes.

Dylan’s Candy Bar sells a huge range of products, both edible and wearable. The big feature, of course, is candy. The cornerstone is bulk candy and the bins are everywhere. They had a huge selection of all the sugar candy you can think of: gummis, Jelly Belly, Dubble Bubble flavored gumballs and licorice. They have chocolate too, from M&Ms (Colorworks), chocolate covered Oreos and malted milk balls as well as their own line of fine chocolates and flavored Belgian chocolate bars.

There were plenty of folks on hand to help out, none of the lines were very long (I expected the place to be crowded before Easter, but I did make sure to go on a weekday at lunch instead of on the weekend). The salesfolk seemed knowledgeable about the inventory too, which is a pretty big accomplishment with such a wide number of products. The prices for the bulk candies ran about $9.99 and they had some funky stuff, not just in the bulk bins but some fun displays. They had a HUGE selection of PEZ and a great big display of favorite candies chosen by famous people on the lower level. (Frankly, I don’t care much what famous people eat ... I’ll probably care when they ask me to do a custom mix.) There’s lots to look at and do in the store and I saw some children running around having the time of their lives (and their parents looked pretty pleased, too).

Their website features quite a few regional candy bars, so I was hoping to find an Idaho Spud, but it seems that they were fresh out. But I was able to find my Nut Goodie there and I also picked up a few other items that I’ll write about soon. There were also some funky items in the bins, like banana flavored gummi bears and a large selection of candy sticks in a wide variety of flavors and lollipops of all shapes, sizes and colors.

As I mentioned, Dylan’s Candy Bar has their own line of chocolate bars, so I picked up a nice assortment. They come in 10 different flavor combinations, but I picked of the little 1.75” tasting squares as an introduction:

Dark Raspberry - it was a nice dark chocolate bar. Not terribly sweet with a good overtone of raspberry essence to it, but none of the tart bite. The berry flavors mixed well with the earthy and fruity notes of the chocolate itself.

Dark - glossy and dark, there was no indication of the cocoa content here or on the website. It was nice, a little on the smoky side, but very smooth and a tad bit sweet.

Hazelnut - this bar is in the Guanduja-style, the first ingredient is hazelnut paste and the rest of the bar is made up of milk chocolate. It’s soft and creamy and a bit sticky feeling. The overwhelming flavor here is not the hazelnuts but the whole milk powder. The nuts add a level of satisfaction to the bar, but the milkiness just beats the nuttiness out of it to my dismay.

Dark Espresso (unwrapped) - a nice snap but a fair bit of grain in this bar from the ground coffee in it. The coffee flavor itself was good but completely overwhelmed the chocolate flavors and it seemed much sweeter than the Raspberry bar.

Can you tell I’m underwhelmed?

Maybe it started with their frustrating website, maybe I’m spoiled, but I want more info on my purchases. (I had a similar experience in the store.) Maybe I have no idea what a clodhopper is and the clothing ... maybe they could give me info on the fiber content. I want to know how much is in the package, and I want some indication of ingredients. 

Maybe the article I read last year about Dylan Lauren rubbed me the wrong way and that’s colored my evaluation of the store. The NY Times line that got me was this:

Ms. Lauren considers herself the model for the sparkling creature around which her business is coalescing: the Candy Girl, who appears every now and again in conversation. As in: ?The Candy Girl can be sexy and young and thin. Candy?s not about fat people.”

What’s most interesting is that as I was there, I did not see “The Candy Girl” shopping there. I’m not the sexy, young, thin woman she pursues as a demographic (though maybe two out of four counts). As much as she might be positioning herself that way, the store is about kids - the displays obviously acknowledge that as there was quite a bit of the merchandise marketed to the under-four-foot set. While the store makes it socially acceptable for an adult to come in there and make a purchase(s), a destination like this will always be about children.

The other frustration is the price. Candy bars like the Nut Goodie I picked up are $1.49 and the bulk candy, such as Swedish Fish, in a plain plastic bag is $9.99 a pound. The same candy bar at Economy Candy is $.69 and probably about $1.00 at any of the many corner stores in NYC. The same Swedish Fish at Economy Candy were $3.49 a pound. What are you paying for here? Convenience of the address? Packaging? Isn’t that what Ralph Lauren has been selling us for years anyway? Except RL wasn’t taking Levi’s 501s and slapping his own logo on them and selling them for $100 a pair. Is Dylan’s Candy Bar doing that by taking other brands of candy and just dumping them into a clear plastic paint can?

Though I struggle with the the premium I pay at Vosges or Jacques Torres (which is like a fantasy land as well) I can rationalize it because they own their merchandise; they formulated it, they invented it, they make it. When I go into a mega-mart like Target or Toys-r-Us I expect better prices. Dylan’s just throws all of those expectations out the window. Sure, they have their own line of chocolates, but they sell everyone else’s too. They’re just selling you a brand, a bag and a logo. Sure, I have a similar complaint with the candy stores in malls where everything is in bulk bins and they’re selling it all for $8 a pound, whether you’re picking up plain old peppermint hard candies, gummi bears or M&Ms. But when I’m in Santa Rosa, CA, my candy store choices are limited and I accept the premium for variety. Dylan’s is in NYC, one of the most candy cities I’ve ever visited and Economy Candy is a scant four miles away.

I did enjoy browsing the displays, but the frugal part of me couldn’t get over the prices or the sheer gall of selling something that probably cost about $2 a pound wholesale for $10. There were candies there that I haven’t been able to find in other stores, so I appreciate that there were unique items there and there was a wide price range as well so you could get out of there with a bag of candy for under $5 with careful decision making. Part of the attraction of candy for me has always been its affordability and Dylan’s takes that part of the fun away. It’s no longer a simple pleasure, it’s an expensive one.

As the Candy Blogger, I’ll probably return. But as a simple candy consumer, it’s not a place I’d patronize. I found my second home in New York, it’s Economy Candy.

Dylan’s Candy Bar
1011 Third Avenue (between 60th and 61st street)
New York, NY 10021
(646) 735-0078

I’ve never had a GooGoo Cluster, but I figured if I’m going to start, I’d better start at the top. I found these GooGoo Supreme at Economy Candy in NYC, which had just about everything ... except the regular GooGoo Cluster of course.

The GooGoo Supreme is made of marshmallow, caramel and pecans, all covered in milk chocolate. It’s a bit smaller bar than its bigger brother, the GooGoo Cluster, I’m guessing because of the inclusion of a premium ingredient like pecans. I prefer when companies just downsize the entire bar so that the proportions can be maintained, instead of just skimping on an element like the nuts.

I was rather excited about this combination as pecans are one of my favorite nuts and caramel and milk chocolate sound like great elements ... I wasn’t keen on the marshmallow idea, but something has to be the goo.

It’s not really gooey at all. It’s more like a turtle with a soft nougaty center. The milk chocolate is very sweet and has a slight waxy quality to it, but I’m wondering if my bars weren’t the freshest. The first one I opened (pictured) was a little chalky. The second one (the one reviewed) was quite a bit better in texture. The pecans are nice and super-abundant and the caramel gives it a soft chew. However, the whole thing descends into a sugary graininess towards the end that is just too sweet for me.

I don’t know if the bar was not fresh enough, so if I see another, I might give it another go around. I’m also still curious about the GooGoo Cluster, as I’m a fan of peanuts and caramel together.

Some history: the GooGoo Cluster boasts being the first combination candy bar (there were plenty of chocolate bars before that, but no one had thought of making combinations of ingredients and individually wrapping them like chocolate bars).

I’m a little tired from my trip and thought I’d let you do the work today!

I took this photo a couple of weeks ago of a candy I’d never bought before. When I took it out of the wrapper I found it, um, mystifying. It looks like a mummy, don’t you think?

It was actually pretty tasty though! I gave it a 6 out of 10.

Anyone know what this candy is? It’s about four inches high ... submit a comment if you’d like to guess. I’ll reveal the answer on Easter Sunday!

UPDATE:

Yes, it is a marshmallow rabbit!

Made by Necco, the package boasts real chocolate and it was actually pretty good. The marshmallow was soft and fluffy without being too sweet. I got it for 25 cents, so keep your eye out for after-Easter sales if this is your sort of thing. The look of the candy suffers from the fact that marshmallow isn’t the best for creating detail, but hey, it’s for eatin’ not staring at.

Happy Licorice Day! Did you know it’s National Licorice Day?

So, it’ll be all licorice all day here on Candy Blog ... if you don’t like the black stuff, just move along and come back tomorrow and it’ll be something chocolate or maybe something nutty or perhaps something sour. If you do like licorice, well, browse around through my archives by clicking on the Licorice category for all the licorice reviews.

I picked up an assortment of Dutch licorices when I was in Pittsburgh. Because this is real licorice which can have side effects when consumed in large quantities, I’ve been tasting it responsibly for the past six weeks or so.

Beehive Honey Licorice - these little black beehives boast 8% honey! They’re smooth and soft and instead of the strong charcoal flavor of molasses as a base, these boast a fine honey flavor with the nice woodsy and sweet qualities of licorice. They really don’t taste anything like a licorice vine that I’m accustomed to, reminding me more of an herbal tea.

Katjes (kittens) - these are dark looking and a little firmer with glossy black coats. The licorice flavor is strong and melts away to be rather watery on the tongue because it doesn’t have molasses or wheat flour in it like many of the vines do. Good flavor and good balance. Of all of them these went best with coffee because of the clarity of the flavor. I actually enjoy the mix of coffee and anise or licorice together, which I think is a pretty common Italian combination.

Zout (salt) - yes, this is the single salt version of the Dubbel Zout I tried after Christmas. These are lozenge shaped (diamond) and bear the Zout label on them, lest you get confused in a mixed bag! Wow, I’m so glad I gave these another try. They certainly have a zing to them, though it’s not the same electric thing that I had with the DZ. The salt really brings out the licorice flavor without tasting too sweet (which licorice often suffers from). This version also doesn’t have the strong ammonia quality that the others I’ve tried, though towards the end where I was finding little bits in my teeth I did get the strange sensation of basement or catbox. I’m still not sold on it, but I didn’t spit out ANY of the pieces I ate. (I know, faint praise.)

Klene Muntdrop - a little coin, mine came in denominations of 1, 5 & 10. Very mild, not too sweet. I let mine get stale (not on purpose, but it seems that a paper bag isn’t the proper way to store them), but they’re kind of pleasant that way too. They melt away into a kind of woodsy, sticky goo. Still, there’s an odd note to the flavor that’s slightly acidic and slightly musty. I’ve had a bit of a cold lately and these are kind of nice in a “keep your throat happy” way.

Wax Seals - I have no idea what these are called or who makes them, but they’re fantastic! They look like little stamps made in wax, like you’d seal a letter, but maybe they’re coins. They’re mellow and smooth and ultra soft (where the other ones go stiff and hard in the paper bag, these stayed soft and yielding). They have a good molasses bite without the wheat flour doughy quality that some other American and German vines can get.

If you’re feeling adventurous, just get a mix of things. The cool part is that each little licorice is quite unique in how it looks and it shouldn’t be hard to find them again and get just the ones you liked. I only gave these a 6 out of 10 as an average, but a mix of the beehives and wax seals would get an 8 out of 10 on their own.

The Original “Flowing Center” Candy Cups!

I’ve come to realize that about half of how we experience things we eat has to do with experience that we bring to it. A piece of the most amazing cake or the best chocolate during a horrible dinner or at a traumatic time in your life may, actually, leave a bad taste in your mouth. The most mundane sugar morsel might be elevated to ambrosia based on other fantastic associations. Things like candied apples, candy corn and cotton candy all seem to benefit from this phenomenon.

Candy is most often associated with good experiences, as it’s often a reward or an indulgence in the first place. So Valomilks were getting high marks before I even ate them because of my pursuit of them and the lore associated with them. 

But really, 2,400 words and four posts later, you’re wondering, what’s all the fuss about? Are they that good?

The chocolate is smooth, a little sugary and has a slight cool feeling when melting on the tongue. The cream is impossibly sticky, though I never had the “run down your chin” experience with them. The flattened marshmallow is sweet, without being cloying or sappy, but it lacks a vanilla kick I was hoping it would have. I was hoping for real vanilla bean essence here, and perhaps it’s my fault for making the candy into something in my head that it would never be. It was smooth, and it’s true that the chocolate and filling go together well, the proportions are just right, but to be honest ... I wasn’t that keen on them.

I’ve given them at least a half a dozen chances now. I’m not a neat freak, but I really don’t like being sticky. It’s just too hard to eat. As I sit here and eat another package of them, I have a moistened washcloth with me to keep wiping my hands and face. I end up taking bigger bites than I want,  and instead of thinking about what I’m eating, I’m thinking about what a mess it is. Really, if there were a candy I could advocate for the nude, this would be it (as long as they’re not sitting near an ant hill).

I know there was a lot of build up in this series, but most of that is immaterial to the candy itself. I may end up doing the same for some other coveted bar in the future, though I hope it’s one that’s more transportable.  I hope you’ve enjoyed the Saga of the Valomilk and hopefully the actual Valomilks should you get a chance to try them.

In case you didn’t notice, All Easter Week kind of overlapped and is now two weeks. (I don’t hear any complaints!) Of course any discussion of Easter candy would be incomplete without Peeps which is why I saved them for last.

The thing is, there are lots of people who talk about Peeps and chances are you either love them or hate them already. Here’s what I think about Peeps: I think Peeps are pretty cute. The colors are great and the idea of a crusty crusted soft marshmallow is a good one. I think the name Peeps is pure genius. And the idea of a little yellow marshmallow candy shaped like a baby chicken is pretty good too. The manufacturing variations of them allows them to have their own personality. (According to the Peeps factory tour on their website their eyes are added by hand. It gives them a rather personal touch.)

But see, I don’t really like the taste of them that much. They’re sweet and all, and that’s good. And I know yesterday I said I liked plain old rock candy, so it seems odd that I wouldn’t like fluffy sugar.

If I do like Peeps, it’s when they’re stale. At least they have a little texture then. They’re tacky and lose their springiness and suddenly have a little tooth to them (well, Peeps can’t have teeth). Anyway, a slightly stale Peep is chewy and kind of a nice change of pace. A very stale Peep is almost like cookie. I’ve tried toasting them, but it’s tricky, because they catch fire quite easily. I guess the best thing to do with them is to do a mashup where you pull one apart and mash it into something else like crushed Oreos or chocolate chips.

There are several iterations of Peeps. There are different colors of the little chicks and little bunny shapes (which I don’t like as much for no good reasons I can verbalize). You can get white egg shaped ones for decorating and of course they’re not just for Easter anymore with other shapes/colors/flavors for all the major Candy Holidays.

Of course the thing I most like to do with Peeps is take photos of them (stay tuned for more of those, my new camera arrives today). There’s a whole Flickr group devoted to them, called Peep-Tastic. Then there’s Peeps Research, more Peep Research,  a PeepShow, and of course the official site. For more literary expressions in Peeps, check out Lord of the Peeps, Peeps Haiku and then the definitive resource, the Wikipedia entry. Click here for some worksafe PeepPr0n and finally, for the last word on Peeps, check out this article from Salon’s archives.

I took my photos about two weeks ago and the Peeps have been in an open plastic baggie every since, I think they’re ready to eat.

So, do you love em’ or hate em’ and how do you eat ‘em?

Related Candies

1. The Adventures of Melted Chocolate!
2. Peeps Chick & Bunny Candy
3. Peeps Monster Mash Ups
4. Peeps Mash Ups
5. Peeps Lollipop Rings
6. Peeps Spooky Cats & Cocoa Bunnies
7. 2006 Independent Food Awards
8. Candy Mash Ups - Marshmallows & Chocolate

I’m not sure what’s going on with the illustration on this package. That’s a little yellow chick there, and she’s wearing a hat (or it’s a baby rooster in drag). Then there are her shoes. They’re extra wide purple shoes that are obviously orthopaedic. Then I notice she’s carrying some flowers, which I’m sure is her way of trying to curry favor with the kids who tease her on the bus because of her humongo corrective shoes. She tries to keep a brave face and quotes her mother saying that she’s just an ugly duckling that will one day be a beautiful swan. Then the ducklings on the bus remind her that she’s a chicken. Baby farm animals can be cruel.

I’ve always thought of gum like the trick birthday candles of the candy world. You keep chewing and chewing and it doesn’t go away.

These are exactly what you think they are. Little bubble gum balls shaped like eggs and given pretty speckled and jewel colored coats.

They taste like JuicyFruit and the flavor doesn’t last long. It’s possible the different colors are different flavors, but I wasn’t catching any differences, the purple ones seemed a little different, maybe. It takes about three to make a good wad for bubble blowing. It’s not fantastic gum, but they’re extra cute.

My style of chewing gum goes something like this. First, if it’s bubble gum, I’ll put on some lip balm. It helps to keep it from sticking to my lips. Then I pop three pieces and chew it up. When enough sugar is gone, I’ll blow some bubbles. I’m pretty good at it. When it loses its flavor (or sugar) I toss it out and start over again. Some afternoons I go through a box of Chiclets. These little chick eggs were satisfying in that same way, but lack the lasting power of minty freshness.

They’re a nice change of pace, but tomorrow it’s back to Chiclets.