Friday, January 11, 2013

Fralinger’s Creamy Mint Sticks

Fralinger's Creamy Mint SticksFralinger’s Salt Water Taffy is a New Jersey favorite, known best for their classic wrapped taffy rods, also makes some excellent peanut chews, fudge and molasses paddle pops. But what I know them for is their Creamy Mint Sticks, which I only seem able to find at trade shows as samples. So, I was pretty pleased to see them, if only seasonally, at Cost Plus World Market this Christmas.

I’m a sucker for butter mints (those soft colored little pillows), and specifically don’t buy them because I will devour them. But in the interest of the blog, I picked up this box of Fralinger’s Creamy Mint Sticks on clearance at Cost Plus World Market after Christmas for review. The mint sticks are similar to the puffy butter mint brethren, except that they’re individually wrapped and less airy.

The ingredients include no artificial colors or flavors. It’s a mix of sugar, invert sugar with a touch of palm oil, emulsifiers, glycerine and cream of tartar along with real peppermint oil.

Fralinger's Creamy Mint Sticks

The sticks are generous for a mint, the same size as Fralinger’s Salt Water Taffy logs. They’re in a clear cellophane wrapper with twisted ends, inside that is the waxed paper with the Fralinger’s logo on it. These also bear a bar code, I don’t know if that’s for internal tracking or if they actually sell these individually. They’re a little over two inches long, are white inside and come out of the wrapping easily.

They’re soft, though I wouldn’t say that they’re damp, they’re not oily either. This is the big difference between these and butter mints, they’re creamier. The texture is like a wad of very smooth, compressed powdered sugar. They dissolve readily and have a powerful amount of mint in them. Though they’re nearly all sugar, they don’t have a throat searing sweetness to them.

The candy is extremely simple and I appreciate that. They’re a little harder to eat than some wrapped candy, it takes two hands to unwrap the ends and then carefully unroll from the waxed paper. But every one of them was in good condition, so it does the job.

I’ve had quite a few other versions of these before: James’ Butter Mint Rolls (photo) which are part of the Fralinger’s family now and Angel Mints. What I’ve noticed is that they’re best when sold in a sealed package. In the case of this box, it was shrink wrapped, and then inside the box the mints were also sealed inside a poly plastic bag. When I’ve bought them as “changemakers” or in a bulk mix they’ve been a bit more chalky and with a bit less of a mint kick. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But in this case I was actually blown away with how fresh these tasted. I can’t imagine paying the full price for these even though I know I would eat them all.

They’re exquisitely simple, and for me they’re quite addictive. Basically, I kept going into Cost Plus World Market all week long, checking to see if they were still on the shelves. I bought one box at 75% off (they were regularly 6.99 a box, but at that discount they came to $1.75) ... but then yesterday they went to 90% off so I bought another two boxes because, well, 70 cents for 12 ounces. They are best before March 2013, but I doubt they’ll last that long.

Related Candies

  1. Katharine Beecher Party Mints
  2. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Honey Mints
  3. 2012 Fancy Food Show Notes - Day 3
  4. Head to Head: Haviland Thin Mints vs. Maxfield’s Cream Sticks
  5. Christmas Mint Round Up
  6. Molasses Pops
  7. Trader Joe’s English Soft Peppermints


Name: Creamy Mint Sticks
    RATING:
  • SUPERB
  • YUMMY
  • TASTY
  • WORTH IT
  • TEMPTING
  • PLEASANT
  • BENIGN
  • UNAPPEALING
  • APPALLING
  • INEDIBLE
Brand: Fralinger’s & James’
Place Purchased: Cost Plus World Market (Farmers Market)
Price: $1.75 (75% off)
Size: 12 ounces
Calories per ounce: 115
Categories: All Natural, Candy, Christmas, Fondant, Kosher, Mints, 9-Yummy, United States, Cost Plus

POSTED BY Cybele AT 3:07 pm Tracker Pixel for Entry     All NaturalCandyReviewChristmasFondantKosherMints9-YummyUnited StatesCost Plus

Comments
  1. I LOVE these mints and would gladly pay full price, any time!! I haven’t had them in years. I loved the molasses paddles and salt water taffy but these are my absolute favorites! (I’m glad you liked them too!)

    Comment by Bonney on 1/12/13 at 5:27 am #
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