Candy Blog

The Chuao Chocopod line is a funny little set of mini versions of their large chocolate bars. It’s a great way to try something before committing to 3 ounces.

There’s a shop by my office that has very wide inventory of them, so I’ve been able to try a few Chuao varieties. The Chuao Orange A Go Go Chocopod is a rather standard combination of flavors, orange and dark chocolate.

The little choco pods are shaped like a cocoa pod. It’s about 2.75 inches long and only .39 ounces. Not even a full portion of chocolate, but at 50 calories and one dollar, it’s a good way to control your portions.

The texture is very smooth, the chocolate is not particularly dark at only 60%, but nicely rich. Even though it’s not very dark, Chuao does not use milk fillers in its dark chocolate, so this is considered a vegan bar (though is made in a facility that processes milk, nuts and wheat). The ingredients list orange peel and orange extract along with bergamot extract. There were a few pieces of orange peel that I detected in my portion, but not large pieces. More like tiny coconut flakes would be. The orange flavor, though, was very well moderated. Not so strong as to create an oily or bitter note, but not too subtle to be overpowered by the woodsy and rather coffee notes of the chocolate.

It’s pricey if you’re picking this up for anything other than a sample before committing to a large bar. The large bars are 2.8 ounces and about $5 retail ($1.79 per ounce) and these work out to about $2.56 per ounce, even when you buy a box of 36 on the Chuao website. However, they’re a fun favor, if you’re considering something for a shower or wedding, especially since they’re rather gender neutral.

Related Candies

1. Ritter Sport Winter Edition Caramel-Orange
2. Marabou Noblesse Crisps: Original, Dark & Orange
3. Chuao Honeycomb & Potato Chip Chocolate Bars
4. Chuao Panko
5. Chuao Chocolate Blocks from LEGOLAND
6. Chuao ChocoPods
7. Mounds Island Orange

Lindt Gold Bunny Hazelnut is a new introduction that’s sadly not available in the United States. I saw an announcement about it a couple of months ago and put it on my London shopping list. Not only did I find it, they were on sale, two for £5 ... which is still pretty pricey at $4.25 with the exchange rate at the time.

Honestly, I never read past the name of the product and I was sold. So, I didn’t know quite what to expect, I simply assumed that this was going to be an giandiua product, a sort of milk chocolate with hazelnut paste blended in for an extra rich texture.

The bottom label on the foil covered rabbit explained that it was milk chocolate with hazelnut pieces. It’s actually 20% hazelnuts while the chocolate is 30% cocoa solids and then another 14% milk solids. In addition, there’s a touch of malt extract (I don’t know what that means when it comes to gluten status). There’s no actual allergen statement, just bolded items on the ingredients which include dairy, soy, hazelnuts, and barley plus traces of almonds.

The bunny looks a little odd, with the variations in the color, but oh, my goodness it smells great. It’s a roasted hazelnut scent that just makes my mouth water. The ears are nearly solid, so the first bite was quite a treat. The chocolate is a bit softer than the Lindt Dark, though their regular Milk Bunny is also on the soft side and also has a touch of malt.

The melt is immediately milky, but it’s not that dried milk flavor that so many Swiss chocolates have, this is much fresher and brighter.

The note of malt is not completely overshadowed by the hazelnut either. It just moderates the sticky sweetness of the Lindt milk chocolate, as do the generous hazelnuts. The hazelnuts are crisp and crunchy with a macadamia or coconut crispness. They’re quite small bits (as they’d need to be for a molded item like this).

This is amazingly good. Easy to eat, filling but not too sweet. It’s expensive ...but really cute and very well executed. I would love to see these introduced in the United States next year. I was poking around online and saw that they may be available in Canada and there’s always a few eBay sellers that do European confectionery imports.

Related Candies

1. Eclat Chocolate Caramelized Hazelnuts 65%
2. Poco Dolce Hazelnut Bar
3. Ferrero Eggs: Hazelnut & Cocoa
4. The All American Chocolate Bunny Battle
5. Riegelein Confiserie Hollow Chocolate
6. 3400 Phinney: Fig, Fennel & Almond and Hazelnut Crunch
7. Lindt Chocolate Carrots
8. Lindt Chocolate Bunnies (Dark & Milk)
9. Dagoba Hazelnut

Alongside the Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Eggs on shelves this year are the new Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Covered Almond Eggs.

They’re not something particularly Easter-themed, as chocolate covered almonds are already rather egg shaped. But they’re still a welcome item, since some chocolate covered nuts sound less sweet than the many other marshmallowy, sugar-crusted and white chocolate items that typify the holiday fare.

They were expensive, as real nut items often are. I picked up this 7.1 ounce bag for $3.29, which is on par with what I’d usually pay for an item from Whole Foods ... yet I bought this at Target.

They look great. Dark and glossy. They varied in size quite a bit, from a peanut all the way up to an almond in the shell. I expected this, because almonds themselves vary.

The chocolate itself is Hershey’s tangy, cheesy, fudgy chocolate ... it’s odd. But it goes well with the almonds, which are well chosen, nicely crunchy and good quality. I ate the whole bag in about two days, so I must have liked them, but I didn’t feel satisfied by any particular element. The chocolate is gritty and has that Hershey’s burp note ... the almonds are good, but the fact that I spent over $3 on less than half a pound of a Hershey’s chocolate product was a little odd.

Hershey’s had a version of these in their Pieces line that had a candy shell which added to the texture experience, but I haven’t see those in stores for a while.

If you’re a lover of the Hershey’s Milk Chocolate with Almond bar and wanted an Easter version, I think these ratios are good.

The allergen warning only says that these may contain traces of peanuts. They are made with soy, dairy and almonds as well. There’s no note on gluten or wheat at all.

Related Candies

1. Ritter Sport Winter Edition Caramelised Almonds
2. Starbucks Salted Almond Chocolate Bites
3. Toblerone Crunchy Salted Almond
4. Valor Milk Chocolate with Almonds
5. Trader Joe’s Almondictive Bits
6. Hershey’s Special Dark with Almonds
7. Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Almonds

One of the top candies on my list to buy when I was in London was not actually a British sweet, it’s Persian. It’s Pashmak Persian Fairy Floss.

Pariya is an Australian company that imports Iranian confections and distributes them around the world. Since I live in Los Angeles, a lot of Persian favorites are actually made locally, such as Turkish Delight, confetti and Persian-style Nougats. The confections often use pistachios, rosewater, cardamom, saffron and orange blossom as ingredients. However, I have never found Pasmak before.

Pashmak is a form of cotton candy, but made in a different way. Traditional fairy floss or cotton candy is made by spinning melted sugar to create long threads. In Persian (and Asian) confectionery traditions, they made the impossibly thin threads through pulling. This tutorial of how to make it with sugar beautifully illustrates the mathematics of it all ... just pull, double over your coil of melted sugar and repeat until the strands are as thin as an angel’s hair.

The big difference with this Pashmak, though, is that it’s made with sesame paste. So it’s not just spun sugar, it’s a lighter-than-air halvah. The ingredients list is very short: sugar, sesame, flour, vegetable oil, orange blossom extract and natural colors. It’s triple packaged, inside the thick, frosted zipper bag is a sealed cellophane and then another bag inside there. Moisture is the enemy of this candy.

So, what is this impossibly light halva actually like? It’s impossibly light, but strangely dense and heavy.

The fibers pour out of the bag in clumps, it’s as if an edible pashmina shawl has been shredded and pulled into packets of strands. It’s not sticky in the slightest, and has a light orange blossom scent to it, mixed with a note of nigella seeds.

The texture is like cashmere, soft but heavy. The strands stay together, though don’t stick. It dissolves quickly with a light floral flavor, a slight bergamot note towards the end. The sesame flavors are light and clean; it all feels a lot more substantial than pure sugar cotton candy. Late in the dissolve, there’s a little creamy but grainy residue, which I’m guessing is the sesame. It leaves it a little more filling than just a plain sugar candy.

One of the drawbacks of this is how difficult it is to eat and how messy it is. I loved the flavor, but there’s no real way to portion it easily. My method for consumption was to pull out a bit with a fork and put it in a little bowl (as shown) and eat it with my fingers or that fork. I shouldn’t end up with dirty dishes when I’m done eating my candy. I can see this is being used as an ingredient with other confections more than a confection on its own. The package suggests layering it with berries in a martini glass. I could see using it on top of a teacake as well.

It was very expensive, so not something I’m likely to buy again, even though I was curious about the other flavors. It comes in chocolate, pistachio, saffron and vanilla.

Related Candies

1. Las Trojes Pepitoria Brittles
2. Joyva Sesame Crunch
3. Fard Cardamom Sugar Plum
4. Nory Rahat Locum
5. Fard’s Persian Pistachio Nougat
6. De la Rosa Mazapan
7. Pure Fun Candy Floss
8. Halvah and Turkish Delight
9. Dubble Bubble Fluff

While most hard candy is considered “old people candy”, Jolly Rancher really sets itself apart as an intense sweet for all ages.

Most of us encounter Jolly Rancher candies as little twist wrapped pieces in a bowl. So when I saw this little rectangular pack at Target, I thought it was an interesting way to format the iconic candy. Jolly Rancher Strawberry and Green Apple Hard Candy has 1.2 ounces and 9 pieces inside. Each is wrapped in a piece of clear cellophane, easy to carry, easy to share and with just two flavors.

The pieces are different from what I’m accustomed to with Jolly Rancher candies. They’re not little rods, they’re squares. The ingredients are also slightly different. The original Jolly Rancher hard candies are not aerated, there are no bubbles in them and they’re ever so slightly soft, like some sort of viscous solid. The ingredients list corn syrup first, then sugar. In these little squares, it’s sugar first, then corn syrup. Looking at the candies, they’re not glassy transparent either, so it appears they’ve been aerated slightly.

I started with Green Apple, because that’s the iconic flavor that Jolly Rancher is known for. It’s a tough flavor, because part of its profile is its artificiality. It was definitely tangy and caustic at first, like some sort of chemical peel for my tongue. That faded quickly into the familiar acidic green apple flavor. What was most surprising was the crunch ... I could crunch it. Because the pieces are small, you can crunch away immediately and there’s not tooth-cement issue. Still, the artificial flavor has a sort of of “sour but maybe bitter and salty at the same time” flavor going that was not as good as I recall the truly authentic version having.

Strawberry is quite tart at the beginning and reminded me immediately of sorbet (which often has an extra little pop of lemon juice in it). The flavor is bold and pretty well rounded and only has a slight note of metallic artificiality to it. It’s fresh tasting, overall. I like the crunchy, it’s not too much candy.

My roll had three Green Apple pieces and the rest were Strawberry, so the flavors are not evenly distributed. (Lifesavers always had an order to them, though you might not get a roll that started with the same flavor, they always went in the same progression once you started.) The way the package is made, you have to tear the outer wrapper to get to the inner pieces ... they seem to be glued in there.

I felt these were missing one of the key attributes of Jolly Rancher hard candies, the smooth, syrupy dissolve. Without that, the flavor was just passable, nothing terribly exciting. I might feel differently if they had the Fire Stix in this format, as there really is no other cinnamon hard candy roll out there (since Reed’s disappeared), even if they don’t have the same texture as regular Jolly Rancher. But they’re not a great value and difficult to unwrap.

These are made in Mexico. There’s no nutritional information on the wrapper and nothing, at this time, on the Hershey’s webpage for Jolly Rancher that lists it for this particular version of the product. There is also no statement about allergens, but does contain soy.

Related Candies

1. Dilly Dally Pickle Candy and Barrels of Yum
2. Assorted Charms Hard Candies
3. Jolly Rancher Caramel Apple Lollipops
4. Jolly Rancher Crunch n Chew
5. Jolly Rancher Awesome Twosome Chews
6. Napoleon BonBon
7. Foxes Five Flavor
8. Jelly Belly: Lollibeans