Candy Blog

Russell Stover has been branching out into more pie flavors for their novelty confections. The Big Bite line already includes S’mores and Apple Pie, now there’s Russell Stover’s Big Bite Pecan Pie.

Pecan Pie is actually just candy in a flaky pastry dough, as far as I’m concerned. The pecan pie filling is a cross between a custard and a fudge, a mix of fats and sugar ... all topped with caramelized pecans. Most pecan pie lacks enough pecans as far as I’m concerned, and I usually want mine in the filling, not just on top.

Even though this traveled about a thousand miles, it did well. The graham cracker base was just a little rounded off and about half of the pecans fell off the top. (But were very easy to just pour into my mouth from the package.) This version of pecan pie has milk chocolate ... which isn’t a bad thing, I often enjoy a chocolate pecan pie, or at least a pecan pie with a hot fudge sauce on it.

Like many pecan pies, the center here has no pecans in it, it’s just a penuche-type fudge center with excellent butter and brown sugar notes. The milk chocolate is actually less sweet than the center, which is nice, and the graham cracker moderates it all even more. The pecans are not integrated into this at all, which is disappointing, because they shouldn’t be the afterthought, they should be the center.

Still, as a confection, it’s quite nice, very sweet but a lot of textural interest. As a candy version of pecan pie, it fails. Don’t worry, I’m willing to eat Russell Stover’s mistakes.

Related Candies

1. Russell Stover Big Bite Apple Pie & Pumpkin
2. Russell Stover Eggs: Carrot Cake, Birthday Cake and Wedding Cake
3. Russell Stover Pumpkin Pie
4. Russell Stover Big Bite Caramel Apple
5. Russell Stover Red Velvet Santa
6. See’s Holiday Pie Truffles
7. Russell Stover Big Bite Pecan Delight Egg
8. Ghirardelli Holiday Squares
9. Ethel Holiday Assortment

It’s November and all over the world men are growing mustaches in support of men’s health issues and research. This annual holiday is known as Movember and can be tricky for children to participate in, since they’re usually facially hairless.

Enter a Christmas treat that’s available a little early ... the Trolli Santa & Elves Mustaches.

The package says: Wear it on your lip, then wiggle it into your mouth. Different mustache shapes and flavors twisted together for awesome gummi good times.

The flavors are Cherry, Cherry & Lime and Strawberry & Cherry.

For the record, I rarely like cherry flavored candies ... and I don’t actually like mustaches.

The Green and White is Cherry & Lime: the texture is soft and chewy, very nicely molded and quite easy to bite. The tartness of the lime is apparent, though the cherry is still the dominant flavor. The color is strange but actually looks pretty good on the face.

The Red and White is Cherry & Strawberry: this is a little more mild than the lime one, the strawberry notes give it a floral berry note, but still has enough of a tangy kick to keep me interested. The cherry is balanced, definitely a partner and not overwhelming. I could tell the flavors apart, easily, even without looking at the colors.

The White is Cherry: I was actually hopeful that the lack of red food coloring would allow me to really taste the cherry flavor. The black cherry notes are woodsy and deep, with some excellent jam flavors in there. I thought this was an excellent cherry gummi. Nothing I’d want to keep beneath my nose for any length of time, but quite appealing.

These are genuinely fun, a unique version of a candy with an interactive element that both girls and boys can enjoy. (I can see them featured in lots of Christmas photos.) I didn’t care for the cherry ubiquity, but maybe there will be an Easter version in all citrus flavors.

Gummis are made with gelatin, so not appropriate for vegetarians. This version contains coconut oil and is made in a facility where milk, tree nuts, peanuts and soy are present. There was no statement about gluten.  Trolli also makes a version called Swirly Mustaches in vibrant colors.

Related Candies

1. Trolli Soda Poppers
2. Trolli Gummi Bear-Rings
3. Au’some Easter 3-Dees Gummy
4. Trolli Little Green Men
5. Big Bite Gummy Bear
6. Albanese Gummi Butterflies
7. Upscale Hollow Chocolate: Michel Cluizel & Hotel Chocolat
8. Gummy Fishies

In this episode Lauren, Maria and I are taking on chewing gum, all its variations and waxing nostalgic about the gums of our youth.

Listen now:

You can also download the MP3 file, subscribe in iTunes or Stitcher.

Check out all the links & show notes on the Candyology 101 website.

Christmas candy is mostly about peppermint and chocolate and shiny colored foil wrapping. Holiday gum is rather unusual, so I was pleased to see Concord Confections part of the Tootsie Roll company has a variety for winter: Dubble Bubble Snow Balls.

I enjoy novelty gums for the same reason I enjoy other candy coated morsels: they’re fun to look at before eating. The Snow Balls are extremely cute. Each is the size of a garbanzo bean and rattle around easily in the theater size box. What I also liked about this particular gum was that they were white ... there was no artificial coloring (though there is titanium dioxide as a whitener), so I didn’t have to worry about anything getting into the flavor except what they intended as the flavor. The gum is made with sugar and corn syrup with no artificial sweeteners.

The pieces are beautiful. They’re rough and white and though spherical, they don’t roll around. The bite was wonderfully soft and easy to chew, but the flavor is ... well, it’s kind of like fabric softener at first. It’s floral - somewhere in the neighborhood of violet and maybe musk. After chewing (two pieces seemed like a good portion), the crunchy shell and gum base were very soft. However, within a minute, the sugar dissipated to the point that the gum was getting quite stiff ... another two minutes and it was an unchewable lump that was less appealing than a wad of paper. My style is to switch out at that point anyway, so I just spit out the first piece and repeat.

Now, since this was bubble gum, I should comment on those qualities. It works. The bubbles can’t get that big, as the gum base is too stiff and unforgiving. But it’s not particularly sticky, which is a plus. But it’s most definitely not bubble gum flavored, and any children you give this to might be turned off by the soapy notes.

After chewing, even a half hour later, I did notice a lingering floral taste in my mouth, rather like jasmine tea.

Dubble Bubble is peanut free and gluten free ... and in this instance is also free from dyes but may contain traces of soy. The gumballs are made in Canada.

Related Candies

1. Bubble Gum Flavored Peeps
2. Dubble Bubble Gum Cigars
3. Musk Beechies Chewing Gum
4. Ball Gum Balls (Football & Tennis)
5. Jumbo Gum Ball Eggs
6. Dubble Bubble Chick Eggs

I feel like there is a perfect gum out there for me, I just haven’t found it yet. So when I saw Simply Gum at the checkout at Lolli & Pops one afternoon, I bought it on impulse just because of the name of the flavor: Fennel Licorice.

Upon further reading I saw that there was more going on here than just the unusual flavor and enticing package. Simply Gum is made with real chicle instead of synthetic gum base along with organic sugar and glycerine.

The packaging is spare and thoughtful. Inside the flip top, there’s a little sleeve that holds “post chew wraps”, so even thought the pieces don’t come in little papers, there are papers to responsibly dispose of your gum when you’re through.

Though the box is square and the nuggets inside fill the package, after I dumped them out for photographing, I found that there was a spacer bit at the bottom. As if they’d either originally specified more gum in the box but later decided for less but didn’t want to change the package, or it’s just intended to mislead the consumer. The box only says 12 pieces (there were actually 18 in my box but they’re not consistently sized), but never says how big each piece is, the weight I came up with in the stats box is from weighing the pieces.

The nuggets are just that, a rope of the brown-sugar hued gum is snipped into pieces. They’re a little smaller than a regular portion of gum, but not by half. When I chewed it, I wanted maybe 1.5 times as much.

The pieces don’t stick together, they have a little rice powder on them (kind of like a corn starch). They smell like fennel, just like sticking your nose in a bottle of fennel seed. The chew releases the sweetness quickly, and instead of becoming more firm, like most gums do, this became thinner. It was too thin really. It’s like riding a bike in the wrong gear, my jaw is going too fast for this gum. I’m just spinning and the gum is squishing around.

Aside from the texture, I love the flavor. It was earthy and substantial. The licorice flavors weren’t overly sweet or metallic. The mineral notes weren’t rusty. Instead it tasted rather of beets. I felt like it freshened my mouth, yet still went well with coffee or tea. The flavor lasted quite long and though the sugar was gone, fennel and licorice have a natural sweetness that lingers. But the gum base was just too squishy.

So, if you’ve been looking for an all natural gum that chews better with a glass of iced tea than hot tea ... well, this is your gum. I might try another flavor, like Maple, just in case the particular batch I got was anomalous. However, it’s pretty expensive, at $3.50 a box.

Related Candies

1. PUR Sugarless Gum - Coolmint & Cinnamon
2. Glee Sugar Free Gum
3. Fruit Stripe Gum
4. Hollywood Chewing Gum
5. Wee Glee Gum
6. Classic Gums: Black Jack, Clove, Beemans & Teaberry
7. Sugar Coated Fennel
8. Short & Sweet: Gums