So last night on the way home from work I stopped at Walgreen’s and CVS to see what was still around. Both had 50% off sales. Now, this may sound like a good deal, but this is off of the “regular” price, which they don’t usually sell stuff for anyway. (At least I don’t buy stuff at regular price.)

Here’s what I got:

There isn’t much in online sale land. Godiva hasn’t put their stuff on sale yet, there are a few things at Lake Champlain and See’s never seems to have sales. Pop a note here if you see a great deal though.

Deeper discounts come as more time elapses, but then the selection decreases. The trick, I’ve found, is to shop at a store where people don’t usually stock up on candy. I’m not going to tell you where that is until I’ve plundered their selection yet! (I love you, sweet readers, but not that much!) I’m actually looking for stuff like the Lindt bunnies and Easter truffle assortments I saw a few weeks ago, but no luck yet.

I’m going to do a little deeper digging later this week (I have a bunch of deadlines right now and can’t quite devote as much time to candy acquisitions as I’d like). What have you found so far?

Das Foods is a curious little company that carries the two essential products for human life: Salt and Caramels. (I keeeed ... everyone knows that chocolate is also essential.) Aside from the heaps of Hawaiian sea salts in a rainbow of colors you’ll find that the Fleur de Sal Caramels are priced about the same (well, a smidge more expensive, but then again they’re individually wrapped ... try that with salt!).

The little boxes are deceptively small. But pick one up and it’s a dense, quarter-pounder with caramels. Each caramel is wrapped tightly in wax paper (folded, not twisted, space is at a premium here). As an artisan product they’re hand cut and vary in shape and size but most are about an inch long and a half an inch square. The flavors lean on the classic side with a few surprises.

These are very soft caramels, smooth, buttery and creamy with a big zap of salt crystals. (I had to re-form the unwrapped one in the picture because it kind of pulled and elongated when I unwrapped it.)

Classic - a smooth and creamy caramel with the lightest touch of honey and lavender.

Chai Latte - a lovely and mild combination of cinnamon, nutmeg and cardamom with just a hint of cloves. The creamy buttery flavors blend well with the light spices.

Orange & Honey - these smelled juicy and zesty. The orange was a great addition to a traditional caramel, but the salt here was just too much. I’m not sure if the proportion is different of I just got a batch that had a little too much tipped into it. I didn’t finish these.

Ginger & Pistachio - oh, this was a lovely combo. The green nuttiness of the pistachios went so well with the buttery background of the caramels, and far into the chew the rooty-spicy flavor of the ginger came out (but no burn). Not as salty as the other, just the right hit to make the other flavors noticeable. These were the first to be consumed.

Though Das Foods carries a wide variety of salts, all of these caramels featured Fleur de Sel (Hand Harvested French Sea Salt).

They make two other varieties I didn’t try: Chocolate Walnut and Lemon & Honey. The website says that they source their ingredients locally (except that sea salt) to their Highwood, IL kitchen. My only complaint was how devilishly hard it was to get the waxed wrapper off some of them. It was easier if they were chilled slightly, but then that made them firmer in the mouth. Somewhere in the cool of the morning there was a compromise of a low room temperature that meant I could take the wrapper off but still chew the caramel. (I have to say that as wrappers go, if I end up eating waxed paper it’s not nearly as bad as eating cellophane or, the worst, foil.)

I don’t think these are available in stores, but Das has a webstore.

I thought I’d put together a list of the conversations I’ve seen out there about the FDA’s proposed shift in the definition of chocolate to include products without cocoa butter. Thanks to everyone for the linky love on the issue!

Can I just say Wow! It makes me feel like we’re mobilizing ... that we might actually be heard on the issue. (Those were in no particular order and I may have some blog names wrong.)

On the other side of the fence we have some interesting commentary (and I totally understand some of their points):
John Wright at Libertarian Reason (this is an older post about the “vegelate” moniker for UK chocolate)
Joe at JoePastry.com - makes the argument that non-cocoabutter confections are valid and deserve to be explored, like spreadable chocolate.  (My feeling is those are totally cool things, which can be sold now and don’t need to be sold as “chocolate”.)

Hopefully I’ll be updating this list or posting a new one as the word spreads. Remember, April 25th is the deadline for comments. (Anyone who’s posted about it is eligible for a raffle ticket for my Keep it Real Raffle, too!)

I saved this review for after Easter. They package makes them look like an Easter product, but after having those Godiva eggs (even if they were freaktacularlly expensive), there was just no way that they were going to compare well. Now that they’re a distant memory, I feel that I can give the Hershey’s Coconut Creme Kisses my undivided attention.

I have to say that I loved the blue wave design on the foil. It was tropical and also different enough from the other foils out there that I could guess that this was coconut.

Inside the foil was a molded Kiss with a soft creme filling of coconut.

The shell of the Kisses were rather greasy. This wasn’t as noticeable when I chilled the Kisses (thanks for the suggestion!), but the chocolate outside still felt a little weird on the tongue, no matter the temperature. A little cool, a little less crumbly that the regular Kiss chocolate and of course it tasted like coconut before you got to the center.

The filling was interesting. The creme part was actually more like creme and less like fondant than the Cherry Cordial Creme I tried before. This actually seemed a bit buttery. There were also crisp little flecks of coconut in there.

It’s not at all like an Almond Joy center.

I enjoyed them, but I don’t think I’m a fan. The greasiness is just offputting. It makes the little flags translucent and of course makes my fingers oily if I linger too long while unwrapping. I enjoyed the nutty taste, but I know some other people didn’t like them. I found the lighter flavor of coconut like munching on some chocolate and suntan lotion. Like a summer at the pool. (Okay, maybe that’s not an appealing image, but it’s been so gloomy and overcast here in Los Angeles lately, maybe I’m just looking for something ‘sunny’.)

Previous Kiss Reviews: Cherry Cordial Creme, Orange Creme Kisses, Caramel Kisses, Peanut Butter Kisses, Candy Cane Kisses & Mint Kisses and Chocolate Truffle Kisses.

Note: These are limited edition, but it’s unclear if they are an Easter item. Some stores will put all the Limited Edition stuff on sale with the Easter goodies (that’s how I got my KitKat Mini Dark Mint), so keep a look out ... when in doubt just ask!

UPDATE April 12, 2009: Coconut Kisses returned again for srping 2009. Since some folks have noted it in the comments, I did taste this years version and agree, they’re not greasy. Perhaps Hershey’s rectified the ingredient/production issue that was making them that way.

Related Candies

1. Hershey’s Mint Truffle Kisses
2. Candy Corn Kisses
3. Kisses Chocolate Truffles
4. The Mint Kisses: Chocolate Mint & Candy Cane
5. Peanut Butter Kisses
6. Cherry Cordial Creme Kisses
7. Head to Head: Rolo vs Caramel Kisses
8. Short & Sweet: Caramello /  Mega M&Ms / Orange Kisses

Finally there’s some big media coverage of the FDA’s new proposal to replace cocoa butter with other vegatable fats.

Robert Noel of ChocolateGuild.com & Gary Guittard of Guittard Chocolate on CBS 5 in the Bay Area.

I picked up these Koppers chocolate morsels called Cayenne Pepper Savory. They were powerful strong. Every once in a while I would eat another one and I’d be back to my original assement, “It burns! It burns!” (Review over here.)

But I really liked them and thought there might be a way to use them in something else that would temper that sizzling aftertaste.

So I dug out the traditional recipe for Nestle Toll House Cookies and mucked around with it.

375 F Degree Oven - Bakes 9-11 Minutes - Makes 48 cookies (I make mine big)

Here’s where I diverged from the regular recipe ... I didn’t have the 3/4 of a cup of brown sugar the traditional recipe calls for so I just made up the difference with white sugar. Really, this is a bad compromise. Get yourself some brown sugar - the cookie part was just too bland and didn’t have that good crystalized crunch that brown sugar gives it.

Second divergence, I only had 1 cup of the Cayenne Chocolate, so I chopped up another cup of a mix of milk and dark chocolate Wilbur Buds. (That probably saved the cookies from being totally noxious.)

Third divergence, I prefer Pecans in my chocolate chip cookies. But I didn’t have those. So I took some raw whole almonds, chopped them up coarsely and stuck them in the pre-warming oven to toast up.

I used my new KitchenAide mixer and place the butter and sugar in there and blended on low with the mixing paddle until it seemed pretty smooth. Then I added one egg at a time and let those beat in. Then a dash or two of vanilla.

In a separate bowl I combined the other dry ingredients: flour, baking soda and salt. Then poured that in, in thirds, to the mixer and let it mix together on one of the lower settings.

Then I pulled out the beater paddle and mixed in the two cups of chocolate and the nuts (remember to let the nuts cool, I didn’t, and they can make the batter a little runny).

Scoop small spoonfuls onto a clean, ungreased cookie sheet and place in center of oven to bake.

Mine ended up going about 13 minutes each. It might have been the change of the brown sugar/white sugar that made the difference, or I might just prefer mine a little crispier.

If you’re looking for a cookie recipe that you can make and not end up eating all of them at once, well, this might be for you.

I give these a 4 out of 10. (My husband gave them a 7 out of 10, but he doesn’t have the same issues with overly spicy things that I do.) I don’t like having to pick the chocolate out of my chocolate chip cookies. What was I thinking?

Yes, it’s Easter morn in my house. Though the Easter bunny no longer visits, I still have plenty of goodies to chomp on. And of course lists to make for the big sales that start tomorrow ... after all, Easter is the last Candy Holiday for Candy Season.

Did you see this clip from the Conan O’Brien show? BJ Novak (of The Office) has an interesting rant. (Good Enough Cook tipped me off in the comments section to check the downsizing of the Cadbury Creme Eggs this year.) Just a note, Novak mentions that the Cadbury site denies changing the size, however, that is the UK site. The CCEs he presents for his demonstration are the American ones, made by Hershey’s. So if you’re buying CCE’s on sale, you might need more than past years.

What are you going to stock up on?

Just a few more days until Easter and I thought I’d throw out a few more “green” choices for the Easter baskets.

Pure Fun sent me some Fair Trade and Organic Cotton Candy last year (who knew such a thing existed?). It’s really not that they created a more socially responsible treat that got me, it was that they made it in Root Beer and Maple flavors! This year I got to visit them at their booth at Expo West. Let me say that they’re the best kind of candy people - friendly, inviting and eager to share. I see the whole ample samples as a sign of confidence in their product.

And I’m not let down. Their candies don’t look like a compromise when it comes to all the best things about hard candies: they look tasty. Glossy, luminous, brightly colored and with a wide assortment to please most folks.

The Citrus Slices are drop dead gorgeous. And the taste does not disappoint. They’re tart, flavorful and just the right size (a little smaller than a regular starlight mint). Lime, Orange & Lemon. (Everyone knows I would also like to see a grapefruit in this mix.)

Barrels of Fun - root beer float with vanilla. I would have preferred a straight root beer barrel, but this was nice. More on the smooth and creamy side of things than the zesty tingle of a root beer.

Chocolate Meltdowns - tangerine, raspberry & pepsin with chocolatey centers. These were the ones I liked the least of all of them. The flavorful outsides were great, but the lack of chocolate punch on the inside made me wish they were just plain old solid candies.

Fruit Rocks - goji berry, pomegranate, honey lemon & sour green apple. Really sassy and flavorful. I can’t say that Goji Berry is really my favorite flavor in the world, but the honey lemon was great and a less artificial tasting green apple rocks.

I tried Yummy Earth last year at the All Candy Expo when they introduced their all natural Organic Lollipops. Not just the plain old flavors like lemon and orange but also pomegranate, raspberry and watermelon.

They have a line of hard candies to go with their lollies in both fruity flavors and peppermint. These are a little different, a little smaller than regular hard candies.

Larger than Altoids but smaller than regular hard candy disks.

I covered Wet Faced Watermelon, Cheeky Lemon & Pomegranate Pucker over here. The new flavors for me were:

Mango Tango - this pretty little swirled candy. I’m not sure what the mango was tango-ing with, but it was definitely tropical. Kind of like a Bonne Bell lipsmacker with a REAL kick of flavor.

Peppermint (not shown) - this was very strong, much like an Altoid only smoother. I took these on Whale Watching trips all winter.

Either one of these brands has the right attitude ... don’t make your candy look all mousy and plain ... jazz it up with vibrant colors to match their vibrant flavors.

Of course they’re a little more expensive, but my guess is that the economies of scale will kick in as more people demand organic and all natural stuff and the prices will drop.

I’ve seen some of the Yummy Earth in Whole Foods but you can also buy direct from them on their website and Pure Fun is available at Whole Foods.

Both products are organic, gmo-free, no artificials flavors, no synthetics, no gluten, no casein, kosher, vegetarian ... and vegan ... whew!