Be prepared ... some fancy candy updates from the Fancy Food Show in San Diego this year.

I’ll have more later. Here’s a tease ... stone ground chocolate ... all-American chocolate grown on Oahu ... chai tea toffee ... honey and lemon licorice ... new nougats.

On New Year’s Eve we tried something a little different. For the past few years we’d done grown-up things, like have a nice dinner party where my husband makes an excellent feast of something like homemade pot pies or a roast of some kind.

This year it was bit more low key, but I usually make the dessert so I decided to make it more interactive.

Specifically, after giving my studio a little purge, I gathered up the errant and orphaned candies into a bowl, bought two tubes of Pillsbury Crescent Roll dough and pre-heated the oven.

My neighbor Robin and I just took what was lying around and wrapped it in dough and baked it.

She was very conservative, erring with items that actually sounded good. Things like shaved chocolate with crushed almonds. Orange marmalade. Shaved chocolate with orange marmalade and so on.

I, on the other hand, was curious to see what would happen with things that didn’t necessarily sound good at first. My experiments included:

The process is pretty simple. Just follow the directions on the package of your Pillsbury (or other brand) Crescent Rolls. My biggest suggestion is to use baking parchment on your baking sheet, as it is extremely likely that something will leak and this prevents sticking and makes cleanup a snap. I baked them for the recommended time and found that the centers generally ended up hot and melted but not burned.

In general simpler, consistently textured items work best. While I enjoyed the less-sweet taste of the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup in a Crescent, it was kind of dry because of the baked peanut butter and smaller proportion of chocolate that seemed to creep into the corners. A similar thing happened with the 3 Musketeers Mini. First, the Mini is too small, I think a Fun Size would work better. Second, the center stays intact but the chocolate goes everywhere. The center also seems to get a bit more grain to it, especially if you left the roll cool completely. The Peppermint Pattie was rather dreadful, as the center became inconsistent ... a little chewy in places and in other places downright chalky. The Pecan Pralines turned out fantastic, just like a Pecan Sticky Bun filling. The M&Ms’ shell seemed to lose its color (that’s the lavender blob in the first picture), which I’ve never had happen before with baking with M&Ms, there must be more moisture in crescent roll dough than cookie dough. The Lemon Jelly was tasty and moist but a little bland. The Java Twix was baffling, we couldn’t figure out what it was, it was just sweet and grainy. A twice baked cookie is probably not a good idea. (Though I’m still curious about what would happen with a KitKat.)

For the record, Robin’s Shaved Dark Chocolate with Blood Orange Marmalade was good, probably the best of the bunch.

After tasting about eight of them, we all felt a little sick and the rest remained untouched, so I can’t say whether they were considered successes or not. They’re definitely better right out of the oven, so if you’re making them for a small group, try baking three or four at a time in succession instead of all at once to pace yourself.

For kids it’s a fun little, “no mess, low stress” thing to do, maybe even for a party. I can also recommend marking them somehow ... we couldn’t figure out what some of them were and it’d only been 20 minutes since we made them! (Okay, it was New Years and we’d already had a bottle of wine.)

This is definitely an experiment I plan to continue. I saw that Pillsbury makes a jumbo roll, which might be better for larger candy bars, like a Snickers Fun Size. I also want to know what happens when you put taffy, hard candies, marshmallows or caramels in there. You can also just use candy-like ingredients like Nutella, Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chips, Sprinkles, Crushed Candies and so on ...

So, have you ever tried something like this and how did it turn out?

I give the results of this project a 6 out of 10.

Related Candies

1. Peeps Monster Mash Ups
2. Chocolate Hellfire Chip Cookies
3. Peeps Mash Ups
4. 33 Uses for Leftover Candy Canes
5. 2006 Independent Food Awards

I’ve been to my local drug stores and picked up some fantastic deals. Most of the places were still at 50% over the weekend, but they had a lot of non-holiday candy included.

I think my best score was in the baking aisle at Von’s where they had Smooth & Melty mint chips on sale for $1.24 for 12 ounces. (I also bought two bags of the regular Guittard Chips which were also 66% off, you know, just cuz.)

I have to call ludicrous hooey on this product on the Williams-Sonoma site: Handmade Peppermint Snow (6 ounces). Guess what it is? Yes, you are correct, it’s crushed red and white peppermints. Handmade peppermints. All in this lovely jar and marked down from $10 to $6.99 ... what a deal!

Crate & Barrel has Mini Mighty Marshmallows (4.5 ounces) marked down from $6.95 to $1.75.

Dean and Deluca has one fabulous deal to report, these Karmamel Kickbacks (21 ounces) marked down from $48 to $12. They sound really good, “includes chocolate, chocolate nut, kahlua, mint, nougat caramel and pecan nougat center. Individually wrapped in a gift box and adorned with red ribbon.

Godiva is offering up to 50% off in their post-holiday Chocolate Covered Sale.

Artisan Sweets has a deal on French Candied Chestnuts marked down from $50 to $25.

Lake Champlain has had a few interesting items cycle in and out of their sale bin. Check out the current list here.

Chocosphere always has chocolate on sale in their bargain basement. Right now they have some Domori bars for half off. Always something good to take a chance on in there.

Have you found anything ridiculously cheap lately?

I wrote this February 16, 2007 and it’s been sitting in my drafts folder ever since. I opened it up because I was researching some of the info in here because my husband has a bit of a cough right now. I’m not sure why I never posted this.

So I went to the doctor today. Because I’ve lost my voice. Because I’ve been coughing a lot. Because I have asthmatic bronchitis.

Blah, blah, blah.

I go round and round with this. I’ve been getting bronchitis rather regularly since I reached adulthood. (However, this is the first case since I started on Singulair two years ago, so cutting my incidence in half is a success in my book.)

Now, my guess is right now you’re saying, “This is a lot more personal post than Cybele regularly writes.” This is true ... don’t worry, it’s candy related.

While I was waiting for the doctor (who kindly fit me in on a Friday late in the afternoon on a holiday weekend) I was reading a magazine called WebMD. Mostly because all of the other magazines available were either golf related or about parenting. This one had Hugh Laurie on the cover, who is not a doctor but plays one on TV (and plays an American, to boot).

It was filled with lovely factoid pages, with a special section that advised me to use the first stall in a public bathroom because it’s the least used and least germy and to never, ever touch the handrails on an escalator ... because after all, I don’t want some rhino virus on my fingers when it’s much better to stumble face first into those spiky edges of the moving stairs ... much better to embed those germs into open wounds. But again, I digress. Somewhere there was a page that mentioned that chocolate is a good cough suppressant.

At that moment I think I hacked up part of my lung and then went and had it X-rayed to be sure. (To clarify, they X-rayed my chest, I discretely disposed of the thing I coughed up.)

I made a mental note that I had to research this further, however, I went home with a lovely prescription for a promising cough medicine called Tessalon (you remember him from the Lord of the Rings books, right?), so it was only kind of in the back of my mind at that point.

After several hours of feeling better (though still unable to speak above a whisper), I recalled my mission:

In November 2004, the Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology published a study that examined the efficacy of using theobromine in chocolate as an anti-tussive (cough suppressant). The study found that 1000 mgs suppressed coughs as well as codeine for four hours with no side effects. (Check this out: Theobromine inhibits sensory nerve activation and cough.)

Last time I tried to go to the store and buy pure theobromine I was stymied.

Now, my big question is how much chocolate do you have to eat to get that 1,000 mgs of theobromine?

Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate Bar (1.45 oz) has 184mg of Theobromine
Unsweetened (Baker’s) chocolate (1 oz) has 390-450 mg Theobromine
Milk Chocolate (1.55 ounces) has 75 mgs of Theobromine
Cocoa powder, unsweetened 1 tbsp, has 111 mgs of Theobromine

It’s obvious the best bang for the buck is gonna be straight cocoa. So, one tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa has 12 calories and 111 mgs of theobromine. So if I need to consume 1,000 mgs every four hours, I’ll need to eat ... um, a lot of cocoa (9 tablespoons/108 calories per dose and figure I’m awake for 16 hours a day that’d mean 36 tablespoons/432 calories). That’s a lot of calories with very little enjoyment. (I’d figure I would put them in gelatin capsules and swallow them.)

Now of course the tastier way to do involves actual chocolate. I don’t think I’d be able to stomach the amount of baker’s chocolate required, so let’s just go with the assumption that an ounce of high quality very dark chocolate (70%+) has about 300 mgs of theobromine. So 3.5 ounces is required, which just so happens to be the normal size for many premium bars. I would figure I would buy them by the box, because I’ll be needing to eat four of those a day. And logging 550 calories on average with each one ... um, yeah, that’s pretty much whole whole day’s caloric intake (on days where I’m particularly active, I might add).

The average price for a premium super dark bar is about $3.50 ... so it would cost $14 a day. But then again, because it’d be my full day’s worth of calories, I wouldn’t have to cook or eat anything else!

The thing to take away from all this though is that a strong cup of hot chocolate when you have a serious cough just might be the best thing for you. Try one quarter cup of good quality cocoa, 2 tablespoons of sugar and 8-10 ounces of milk. Heat over the stove in a small saucepan or in the microwave. Be careful not to boil. Drink. Feel better.

When I was a kid my grandmother made caramels every year for Christmas. We’d get a huge tin from her to take home, each piece wrapped in twisted plain wax paper. They were bigger than an adult’s thumb, at least two bites. Soft and chewy, stringy and long-lasting. Buttery, milky and not too sweet, they were usually made with some sort of nut. Sometimes hickory nuts but usually walnuts or pecans.

When I was 16 years old my grandmother gave me the recipe (I’d been begging for it since I was twelve) along with a candy thermometer (which I broke some years later after my third move).

They’re not easy to make. The ingredients and technique is simple, but it’s time consuming. It also helps for it to be a dry day. Humidity is the enemy of caramels.

Grandma’s Caramels

The sugar and corn syrup are boiled over medium high heat until they become clear. Stir constantly but not vigorously, scraping down the sides to incorporate any sugar crystals.You shouldn’t be able to see any undissolved sugar crystals.  Make sure your pot is heavy and sturdy.

Then add, bit by bit, small pieces of the butter and little tips of the milk. If the mixture boils up a lot when you’ve added it, you’ve added it too quickly. Keep stirring and adding. This process can take at least five minutes.

Once they’re added in, add the candy thermometer and stir constantly until the mixture reaches soft ball stage (235 F). Be sure to move the candy thermometer to mix behind it or else you’ll be little burned bits.

Once at soft ball, turn off the heat and add nuts. Pour out into either a greased large pan (9 x 14) or onto a piece of buttered marble. (Parchment works well, too.)

Allow to cool completely (overnight), then cut into small bites and wrap in waxed paper. Cellophane is okay, but tends to stick more (but is obviously prettier). You can put a little sprinkle of artisan salt on them if you like.

Now, this year was the first time I’ve made the caramels in about four years. The vexing part was that I didn’t want to use Karo because it contains high fructose corn sweetener. So I went on the hunt of some sort of real corn syrup. I finally found it at Whole Foods, but instead of coming in a 16 ounce bottle (the amount I needed) it came in an 11.5 ounce bottle. And it was the last one. So I bought the closest thing I could find to a corn syrup, which was a rice syrup. This happened to be brown rice syrup. Now, looking back at this, it may not have been a good idea. Corn syrup is made of glucose, primarily. Rice syrup is maltose and a little glucose. So it has a different flavor profile and likely a different chemical behavior when boiled. Glucose is a monosaccharide and maltose is a disaccharide.

In addition, my mother was helping me out and reflexively picked up skimmed evaporated milk instead of the whole variety. We decided to use it anyway, instead of going back into the store. (Nothin’ more fun than a grocery store on the weekend before Christmas, eh?)

So, here’s the new recipe and outcome:

As with above, I boiled the sugar and syrups. However, it never became clear. It was always a little cloudy, but eventually became transparent. The important thing is to be sure that the sugar crystals have completely dissolved.

The rest goes as above as well, just added the butter and milk. The color, however, was darker and smelled more malty than buttery during the whole process.

I was a little nervous that it wasn’t going to caramelize properly because of the different sugar balance and lack of milk fats from the evaporated milk, so I went slightly over the soft ball stage because the water drop test seemed a little soft. (You take a spoon of caramel and drop it into a glass of cold water and then pull it out and feel the texture.)

The color is much darker, but the flavor is absolutely wonderful. I don’t miss the slightly less fat in it (it probably has less water when it boils so long, so the concentration of fat is probably similar).

I’m not at all scared to use the brown rice syrup again, but I’ll probably still keep it at a half & half balance instead of completely replacing the corn syrup. But I’m leaning towards using the full fat evaporated milk (do not use sweetened condensed milk, that’s way too much sugar). Of course one of the big sticking points to this is that Karo is super-cheap at about $2.75 to $3 a bottle. However, that organic, non-gmo brown rice syrup cost a whopping $5.39 for 16 ounces and the diminutive organic corn syrup was $4.99 for 11.5 ounces.

There’s nothing quite like homemade caramels, and if you’ve never had them or have been paying silly high prices for them at candy shops, it might be time to make your own. You can also vary the recipe by adding flavors at the same time as the nuts. Perhaps some spicy hot? Maybe a little chai spice? How about a touch of matcha?

Related Candies

1. Caramel Previews: Mitchell Sweets & Caramoos
2. Trader Joe’s Fleur de Sel Caramels
3. Texas Chewy Pralines
4. Miette Patisserie
5. Littlejohn Caramel Marshmallows

Here’s a quick guide to all things chocolate up for grabs in the Menu for Hope IV fundraiser for the United Nations World Food Programme. You can see a full list of the prizes and the instructions on how to enter the drawing. Tickets are $10, you can buy as many as you like for any prize.

It’s a great selection of chocolate and I envy each and every person who wins and applaud everyone who enters/donates!

Here’s some good news! Candy Blog is one of the finalists for the Food Blog Awards in the Theme category.

I’m up against some pretty serious food blogs: Eat Local Challenge, Fat Free Vegan, Lunch in a Box & Meathenge.

Go vote! (Deadline is Friday, December 14th.)

Check out all the categories, you might find some fun new reads. (Rosa at ZOMG Candy was also nominated for best new blog!)

One of the great new products I picked up in San Francisco last weekend was the new Akoma Extra Semisweet Chocolate Chips from Guittard. They’re Fair Trade certified from beans sourced from West Africa (one of the hotspots of poor working and wage conditions for plantation workers).

Unlike the standard Guittard semisweet chips, these are 55% cacao ... just a smidge darker than the usual chips. They come in a sassy metallic pink package instead of the also-easy-to-spot gold package for regular Guittard Dark Chocolate Chips.

The chips have a nice rounded chocolate flavor. Some strong berry notes, a little light smokiness and a good creamy melt. They maintain their shape when baked, as all good chips do. The ingredients are pretty simple as well: cacao beans (fair trade certified), sugar, soy lecithin and real vanilla.

I haven’t seen them in stores in Southern California yet, but you can definitely buy them at Chocosphere for the same price as their regular chips. So good fuzzy feelings for Fair Trade and still a decent price.

My choice to make something with these for Thanksgiving was a Cardamom, Orange & Chocolate Bread Pudding.

Dice the peel of the orange and place in a microwave safe cup with 1 cup of milk with five crushed cardamom pods. Microwave until warm, stir and let sit for 30 minutes, then stir again and heat again. This can be done a day ahead of time and refrigerated (this will make the orange peel especially soft).

In a sauce pan put the 1 cup of pre-made milk mix (dig out the cardamom pods) along with the other 3 cups of milk, sugar and the loosely beaten eggs. Clean and crush the cardamom in a mortar & pestle. Add to the mix, warm over low heat.

Put half of the bread into the bottom of the baking pan. Add half of the milk/egg mixture to the pan. Stir to combine and get the bread soaked. Take half of the chips and cover the egg/bread mixture. Then put the rest of the bread into the saucepan to get it completely wet. Add that to the top of the baking pan. Sprinkle more chips on top.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 40 minutes. The pudding will pull away from the sides when done and the center won’t move. It’s a pretty dry bread pudding, so try it warm with a little milk or perhaps some ice cream or whipped cream.

Related Candies

1. Mary Jane’s Bread Pudding
2. Elvis Reese’s Peanut Butter and Banana Cup
3. Chocolate Hellfire Chip Cookies
4. Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews
5. Panda Bars