I check in with Valerie Confections from time to time, they’re about a mile from my house. The crazy little secret is that I go there for their teacakes. Especially in the summer, when I want something with a touch of chocolate but can’t bear a whole piece, the bottoms are dipped in chocolate. The cakes are moist, dense & lightly infused with flavors.

At the Fancy Food Show, however, Stan & Valerie were excited to show me their new Valentine’s collections. There are three:

The set called Pour Homme is for the gentleman. It has 11 pieces and comes in the dark brown box. Visually it’s dominated by large flat dark milk chocolate hearts that have fleur de sel and little almond toffee bits in them. It’s filled in with dark chocolate hearts with flowing caramel centers.

The set called Pour Elle is geared towards the gals and comes in the classic ivory box. This features large flat white chocolate hearts with rose petals and the small bittersweet chocolate hearts filled with rose petal and passionfruit ganache.

Both have 11 pieces and retail for $30.

For folks who want to share or prefer a different assortment there are boxes of various sizes (9, 18 & 36 pieces) that hold the bittersweet ganache hearts, gianduja rocher, and bittersweet chocolate with almond toffee bits.

I’ll just run down a few of the items I tasted:

Bittersweet Chocolate with Almond Toffee Bits (the smallest dark chocolate hearts shown above) - a simple pleasure. A mix of smooth bittersweet chocolate that has a glossy and smooth melt with little toffee chips and almonds. Sometimes I felt like I wasn’t getting enough toffee ... but then again, if I wanted chocolate and toffee, I could just order the chocolate covered toffee, so this piece is more about chocolate.

Bittersweet Chocolate Hearts filled with Liquid Caramel - a little taller and wider than the other filled hearts, this one has a wonderfully thick and gooey caramel. Lightly salted, it has all the flavor of a toffee but the smooth texture of a custard. Lightly salted, the dark chocolate lends the perfect container and dark woodsy sweetness.

Bittersweet Chocolate Hearts filled with Rose Petal Passionfruit Ganache - a little petal graces the top of these pieces, but just sniffing it I could tell from the fragrance that it was the rose. The center is a white butter ganache with the tangy and tropical bite of passionfruit. The slightly soapy rose took some of the passionfruit earnestness away. There is a bit of a lingering aftertaste, kind of like jasmine. I suggest eating these last. Your dessert’s dessert.

Large Rose Petal White Chocolate Hearts (shown in a small version in the picture above) - this one was a little bland for me, and I did eat it first in my tasting session because I know that white can be a bit delicate and finicky. The white chocolate was smooth and not overly sweet, with a slight malty taste of cocoa. But the floral infusion didn’t quite hit me, but did leave a fresh aftertaste.

Gianduja Rocher - a sweet milky explosion of salt, buttery toffee chips and creamy sweet chocolate. It’s not a pasty, sticky gianduia. It’s a solid form that gives a soft and silky melt to the chocolate and a punch of roasted hazelnut flavor. It is sweet though, luckily the toffee chips and the salt cut through that.

Darkened Milk Chocolate Hearts with Almond Toffee Bits and Fleur de Sel - I want this in bar form year round. The “darkened milk chocolate” tastes like a cross between bittersweet and a European dairy milk chocolate. The dairy notes are complemented well by the toffee chips and the whole thing is set off by powerful zaps of salt in liberal reservoirs throughout.

Bittersweet Ganache in Bittersweet Shells Finished with 23 Karat Gold (the picture here is of a round version of the same truffle - the uneaten one is above). Delicate mix of flavors, as this is all about the chocolate. The ganache is soft and smooth. There’s an immediate acidic bite that gives way pretty quick to some dark charcoal and alcoholic notes like fine cognac and tobacco. The gold version has a bit more chocolate to it, because of the geometry ... the gold flakes do nothing for me, except distinguish it from the toffee chip dark heart.

The attention to detail in the items, with their perfectly placed decorations and well tempered chocolate is exquisite. No bubbles or voids, everything glossy and gorgeous. On the personal side of things, I go all weak in their knees for their nougat and am a little disappointed they don’t have it again this year for Valentine’s (as that’s what my Man gave me last year). But I like it when they try new things and enjoyed the darkened milk with toffee chips most of all. (So I guess I’d have to opt for the Pour Homme ... luckily the box doesn’t say anything about it being geared for fellas.)

I like supporting a local business and that everything is made fresh ... not last year and has been sitting in a warehouse. If you go to the store you can get the petits fours and the tea cakes by the piece.

Valerie Confections
3360 West 1st Street
Los Angeles, CA

(213) 739-8149

Related Candies

1. BonBonBars: Malt Ganache & Scotch
2. Mori Ex Cacao Gift Set
3. L’Artisan du Chocolat
4. Valerie Lemon Hazelnut Nougat
5. CocoaVino
6. Valerie Toffees & Nougats

In the world of chewy twists (red licorice) there are a lot of flavors. I’ve tried all sorts of fruit flavors (raspberry, strawberry, pina colada & cherry), chocolate, cinnamon and root beer.

The one that I was most intrigued with of late is Spearmint Licorice found at Vermont Country Store. (However, I believe that they’re manufactured by Kenny’s Candies - I’ve just never seen them in stores anywhere, just online.)

The packaging isn’t terribly compelling (not even featured on their website). Just a clear plastic bag highlighting the translucent green twists.

They look like they could be green apple at first glance. And if you were expecting green apple and ate one of these you’d probably be pretty surprised.

They’re a wheat-based twist. There’s no molasses in it like most American & Australia-style licorices. They’re glossy, soft and flexible.

The open bag doesn’t smell like much. Not minty fresh, maybe just a little sweet.

The flavor is very subtle. It’s not a blasting mint like the sizzling flavor of the Cinnamon Fire Twizzlers. Instead it’s a not-very-sweet spearmint.

At first I didn’t like them. They were too soft and seemed a bit artificial. The spearmint has a light zing to it, but there’s no cool minty aftertaste.

Then I left them open for about a month and they got stiff and a bit dried out. Kind of hard to peel apart. But the flavor mellowed and though there’s some work on the chewing front, I’m really pleased to say that I’ve eaten over a pound of them now. They’re a comfort flavor, like Spearmint Leaves (those jelly candies sanded with sugar) - they’re not sexy or innovative ... just pleasant. (Even though I call them pleasant, I’m bumping their rating to worth it.)

Kenny’s Candy is Kosher, but this package doesn’t say Kosher on it (so may have been repacked at a non-Kosher facility).

Related Candies

1. Twizzlers Chocolate Twists
2. Barley Mint Mentos
3. Twizzlers (Strawberry)
4. Cinnamon Fire Twizzlers
5. Kenny’s Licorice Pastels & Root Beer Twists
6. Hot Tamales Ice
7. Twizzlers Rainbow Twists

Jelly Belly has had their own take on the ubiquitous Valentine’s Conversation Hearts for several years (introduced, I believe, in 2003). They’re called Conversation Beans.

They include the Sour assortment: Sour Apple, Sour Blueberry, Sour Cherry, Sour Grape, Sour Lemon, Sour Orange, Sour Peach, Sour Raspberry, Sour Strawberry & Sour Watermelon.

The sour family of flavors come in rather vivid, opaque hues, without any speckling. So they’re easy to tell apart as long as you can remember that raspberries are darker than cherries and apple is lighter than watermelon.

What’s special about these is that they’re sporting teensy printing on them.

I’d hazard the visibility of this printing is similar to that noise that only children & teenagers can hear. It’s quite small and rather faint on the lighter color beans (and nonexistent on others).

The words range from mildly flirty to downright benign. Think of it like a very limited version of magnetic poetry. Here are some three bean masterpieces:

Hi, like joy?
You love cool.
U & Me not kiss.
Y Not try lips.

Overall, they’re fun. If you like Sour Jelly Belly or more importantly, if you can’t stand Necco Conversation Hearts but want to spend three times as much to make a sweet connection, this is the candy for you.

I liked most of the flavors. I picked out the Sour Peach ones, which tasted like they had Dr. Pepper added to them, and the Sour Cherry and was pleased with the rest of them. (Eventually I forgot I was supposed to be reading the words ... which I do with Conversation Hearts, too.) The highlight flavors for me were orange, lemon and grape (which was completely fun and artificial) while the blueberry and raspberry were much better than expected. As far as sour goes, well, they’re zappy compared to most regular Jelly Belly.

If puckering isn’t quite your speed for Valentine’s Day, a new item that Jelly Belly sent me to sample a few weeks ago is their Jelly Belly Love Potion. It’s a little re-closeable plastic bottle that holds an assortment of five flavors of Jelly Belly. (They use this same package for their Soda Pop Shoppe assortment.)

There’s no special printing on the beans besides the Jelly Belly logo.

The pink, red and white mix is rather attractive and might make a nice little offering in a gift basket. (Though if you really love someone with a sweet tooth, back up this little package with a big bag! Then they can refill it.)

The flavors are Strawberry Cheesecake, Bubble Gum, Coconut, Cotton Candy and Very Cherry. All the flavors went together pretty well (though I could have used a pink grapefruit instead of cherry) and the color combination is pleasing if a little feminine.

I don’t know the retail price on these, but the Soda Pop Shoppe bottles sell for about $1.50 to $2.00 retail.

Don’t Miss the Candy Dish Blog & Candy Blog candy giveaway!

Related Candies

1. Jelly Belly Ice Cream Parlor Mix
2. Gobstopper Heart Breakers
3. Jelly Belly - All Natural
4. Sour Patch Kids
5. Junior Mints - Heart Shaped
6. Jelly Belly Soda Pop Shoppe

See’s candy shops carry more than their distinctive boxed chocolates.

Usually for holidays they’ll have some other panned sugar candies. For Valentine’s Day this year the trend seems to be cinnamon flavor. So I picked up a bag of their See’s Hot Hearts and their Cinnamon Lollypops.

The Hot Hearts were a bit expensive, in my opinion, for a sugar candy. It was $4.50 for a 12 ounce bag of what are basically heart-shaped Hot Tamales.

But hey, the bag was pretty and included a real piece of ribbon on it and a thick plastic bag with pretty little red foil printed hearts.

While See’s makes their own chocolates and lollypops, I’m pretty sure they have their sugar candies specially made for them by an outside company. I was hoping my trip to the Fancy Food Show might shed some light on that, because, spoiler alert ... these were good and I think I might want some more after Valentine’s Day!

The candies are a deep red color, lightly glossy and almost an inch across at the widest part of the heart.

The candy shell is crisp and a little grainy. The jelly center is sweet and very cinnamony. The sizzle of these heart-shaped jelly beans is substantial.

The cinnamon flavor is both woodsy and fiery, capturing all of the great aspects of cinnamon.

Even though there’s a fair amount of food coloring in these (including Red 40), there’s no bitter aftertaste. Not that there ever is an aftertaste, since I don’t actually stop eating them.

Yes, I want to know how to get them all year long, or themed for other holidays, like Fiery Eggs for Easter or a Screaming Phoenix for Halloween.

See’s has been making their own Lollypops for years. The flavors change from time to time, but lately they’ve been adding in their seasonal flavors.

See’s Cinnamon Lollypops are the same rounded block shaped lolly made from a hard caramel base.

The scent is odd. It smells like caramel and cinnamon. But the scent and the flavors are never completely integrated. They just exist side by side.

Mmm, toasted sugar and butter flavors. Then, wow, a pop of hot cinnamon. Then the mellow and sweet caramel.

I liked them, but not quite as much and not in the same way as the Hot Hearts. They last a long time, but the combo of boiled sugar and butter with cinnamon never quite meshed for me. Plus there was a bit of a bitter artificial color aftertaste on these.

The pops are a great, reliable candy. They’re only 70 calories each, but be warned, they’re not fat free. Not that fat is a bad thing, it’s pretty much necessary for a caramel. Their Butterscotch lollypop is still the best (and the Root Beer is the best of their seasonal flavors). I’ve picked up the other flavors for review twice ... but ate them before I could photograph them.

Related Candies

1. See’s Pumpkin Spice & Root Beer Lollypops
2. Cinnamon Fire Twizzlers
3. See’s Hollow Eggs with Novelty
4. Cinnamon Imperial Hearts
5. Gimbal’s Lavaballs
6. Chewy Lemonheads & Atomic Fireballs
7. See’s Awesome Nut & Chew Bar

I’m a the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco right now and just completed the first day on the floor as I write this.

One of the items that I’ve tried every year is the Koeze Cream-Nut Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cluster but never actually saw them in stores until I found them at my local cheese shop. (And then later saw them at Williams-Sonoma.)

Koeze Company used to be known as a tried-and-true roasted nut company, mostly cashews. You may have even gotten it as a corporate gift at some point.

The sad part is that I paid $10.50 for this box of five pieces and it was bloomed. I could have, and probably should have, taken it back for a refund. But I’m kind of lazy and I realized that in this case, they weren’t that bloomed, as in the chocolate wasn’t chalky, so I ate them.

The other cool thing is that I knew I was coming to the Fancy Food Show and would have the opportunity to try them again ... just to confirm.

The construction of the cluster is pretty simple. A base layer of whole pecans (or are they half pecans?) covered in a thick layer of Koeze’s combination of their peanut butter and “white confection” and then the whole thing is coated in dark chocolate.

A candy that combines pecans and peanut butter certainly isn’t common. What’s great here is that that the elements of each of those nuts is used to its full potential. the pecans are light and crispy with a great woodsy flavor. They’re plentiful and the nice size of the pieces means that it’s a lot of pecans.

The peanut butter layer is the unique selling point here though. While they say it’s white chocolate, close inspection of the ingredient label shows that it’s really “white confection” and sadly contains no cocoa butter. However, things like fractionated palm oil and hydrogenated palm kernel oil aside, what this white confection does is add some dairy to it - some none fat milk and whole milk along with the super fine & creamy peanut butter that Koeze Cream Nut is known for.

It’s not a thick and sticky peanut butter layer, instead it’s a light and creamy peanut cream. A touch of salt but mostly it’s a slick and silky peanut sweet.

The pecans are so light and airy as well, they’re not crushed to bits and packed in there, instead they’re just loosely lumped there, it makes the whole thing feel, simply light.

The dark chocolate is also silky smooth. More of a semi sweet than a really dark, it holds it all together, but the nuts are the true star.

There’s really nothing else like it on the market. It’s extremely munchable, very satisfying.

My big complaints, really, are the price and the pseudo-cocoa butter. But good nuts are worth it. And if you have the money or what to give an indulgent gift to a nut lover, this is a pretty good option.

In Los Angeles this week it’s been in the eighties. Yes, in January. So the thought of Mike and Ike Italian Ice doesn’t feel a bit out of place in this strange heat spell.

Though Mike and Ike are available in single serve bags, I see them most often in the movie boxes. I think it’s cool, I like the bold designs on them and of course they’re usually a better value than the single serve. But the packaging itself has been bugging me for a while. Inside the rather large box (for something that holds 4.2 ounces) is a plastic bag. I’d be just as happy to pick up a peg bag for the same one dollar as the box. (A package that collapses as you eat it is handy, too.)

To have both the box and the bag is wasteful, though probably ensures freshness and keeps the soft candies from getting crushed.

I’ve had my fair share of Italian Ice over the years, though usually in the little cups from the convenience store freezer. And always lemon. What distinguishes Italian Ice flavors from other fruity flavors? There’s no indication on the box, except that it tells me that it has Your Favorite Italian Ice Flavors. Which isn’t exactly true, since as I mentioned, I really just like lemon and they’ve put four other unnecessary flavors in here.

The colors are similar to a set of highlighter pens. A little less vivid, a little less dark than the regular Mike and Ike.

The flavors here are:

Light Red = Cherry: A light woodsy cherry flavor. Because the color isn’t quite as dark, I’m guessing it didn’t need as much food coloring so I don’t get a typical bitter aftertaste. Which makes this a flavor that I don’t have to avoid. (Though it was still the last flavor left after I picked over them anyway.)

Light Blue = Blue Raspberry: this one has flavors on the darker end of the raspberry flavor profile, kind of like jam. But then there was a pop of menthol or mint in there. I don’t know if this was the Italian Ice part of it that was supposed to emulate that cool feeling of sorbet, but really it just make me think I was eating a cough drop.

Light Green = Watermelon: Grossly artificial tasting and a strange aftertaste, especially when paired with the citrus ones. (Bitter & slightly medicinal.) Bad artificial watermelon may replace my dislike of cherry very soon.

Light Orange = Orange: Nice blend of orange essence and orange juice flavors. Could use a little bit more tartness.

Light Yellow = Lemon: Light, tangy but also a little fizzy. Didn’t quite have a minty taste. Becomes rather sweet and flavorless quickly.

As you can guess, my favorite assortment so far was been the Mike and Ike Alex’s Lemonade Stand. But Tangy Twister comes in second and if you look sharp in late February you’ll probably see the Jelly Bean variety for Easter as well (I bought them last year on an after-holiday sale and, well, ate them).

Other reviews of the Italian Ice: Candy Addict and Wisconsin Candy Dish.

These are filled with artificial colors & flavors but are technically vegan.

Related Candies

1. Dots Elements: Earth, Air, Fire & Water
2. Organic Zootons
3. Good and Fruity
4. Hot Tamales Ice
5. Mike and Ike Jolly Joes
6. Mike and Ike Orange ‘n Cream

Skittles Crazy Cores were announced late last year and have been on shelves for at least a month. I was lucky enough to find some at a convenience store in Studio City while I was refueling my car yesterday.

The orange package fits in perfectly with the current array of Skittles but sports one of Mars’ new features, front of package nutritional labeling.

It says right on the front what’s inside. You’re gonna get 230 calories per pack, that’s 12% of your daily caloric intake.

I don’t know if that makes it a good value for 99 cents or not. (Actually, I do know that it’s not a very good nutritional value.)

Crazy Cores are two flavors in each Skittle, and the centers are even colored.

Mango & Peach - is a pleasant creamy light orange color on the outside and a peachy color on the inside.

I don’t know what the layering on this was as I often find peach flavor and mango flavor rather similar. The coating, I belive, is peach and the center is a bit more peppery which would make it mango.

I love fresh peaches and mangoes, but I’ve never been a big fan of the candy flavors that come from them. These are no different. I didn’t avoid them, but they’re not a color I’d pick out for initial eating.

An odd note, I found the center of all of these to be rather hard, harder than a fresh Skittle should be.

Blue Raspberry & Lemon

Sadly I only got four of these blue beauties in my package. I usually eat blue things last as they’re often punch flavors. In this case it’s just a blue colored raspberry which is fine with me. The soft floral outside went really well with the tangy citrus chew of the inside. Kind of like a raspberry lemonade.

Melon Berry

This was another one of those odd colors that Skittles sometimes end up. It’s mauve or maybe raspberries & cream.

It sounded pretty bad to me, but then again, I actually eat fresh melons and berries together all the time, so it’s not like this idea is so far fetched.

The outside is a soft watermelon flavor, rather like a Jolly Rancher. Inside it’s more tangy and also rather melon tasting with a little bit of a strawberry flavor.

Strawberry Watermelon

At this point I was wondering which flavor was supposed to be on the outside, not that it should really matter. As with the Melon Berry, Watermelon Strawberry is a natural combo with fresh fruit.

It has a very strong artificial flavor component, but overall I was pleased with the fake watermelon and passable Strawberry Starburst flavor.

Cherry Lemonade

I thought I could make a go of this one, but the cherry was very much like cough medicine and not like Lifesavers. The lemonade was missing that good citrus burst & tangy component so it was a total loss.

Here’s the deal, there are five different Skittles here, each a combo of two flavors. But the number of flavors represented isn’t ten, it’s only seven (maybe eight, depending on how you categorize melon & watermelon as distinct flavors).

1. Lemon & Lemonade
2. Cherry
3. Mango
4. Peach
5. Blue Raspberry & Berry
6. Watermelon & Melon
7. Strawberry

I didn’t think I could be more disappointed in a package of Skittles since the Chocolate Mix ones came out in 2007. But these are just dreadful. There are some great fruit flavors out there that could have been combined to great effect. Instead it’s far too much in the melon & peach family, which will probably make some candy lovers very happy and I wish them all the best with these.

Odd note: gelatin is not listed in the ingredients. In fact, the wrapper now says “Gluten-Free, Gelatin-Free.”

I bought two packages and will now find someone who will eat the second one. (And I still have some Carnival Skittles left, so I’ll eat those instead.)

I’m going to say it one more time. Mars, make Citrus Mix Skittles: tangerine, meyer lemon, key lime, sweet orange & pink grapefruit.

Related Candies

1. Runts
2. Skittles Chocolate Mix
3. Skittles from the UK
4. Skittles Carnival Flavors
5. Skittles (Fruits, Wild Berry, Tropical, Smoothies & Sour)
6. Skittles Fresh Mint
7. Skittles Ice Cream

Ah, after Christmas sales. It’s the best part of Candy Season - the Post Season Sales. After all, the candy is just as good two weeks after the holiday as it was two weeks before.

I checked through plenty of stores and found Walgreen’s had the best selection by the time the 75% off discount came around. This is when I jump on items I only eye at full price and then hem and haw over at half off. One was this Ghirardelli Squares Limited Edition Holiday Chocolate Assortment. Full price was $8.99, so $2.24 for over nine ounces of chocolate sounded like a great deal even if it was seasonally themed.

The assortment includes Peppermint Bark, Egg Nog and Chocolate Pecan Pie.

Ghirardelli, I think, is known for their Peppermint Bark. It’s one of the few brands that dependably makes the stuff and actually uses cocoa butter for their white chocolate.

The construction of the square is pretty simple. A milk chocolate base layer is covered with a minted white chocolate studded with little crunchies.

The scent isn’t overpoweringly minty, which probably saves the other chocolates in the bag from tasting like mint, too.

The texture of the chocolates is smooth and silky, very sweet but not achingly so. The little crunchies in the white chocolate aren’t crushed candy canes though, they’re corn flake bits (colored red). The crunch is a bit more cereal than hard candy but still puffy.

It’s kind of odd that this sort of confection isn’t available year round, but since Ghirardelli has been bringing it back faithfully each winter, I shouldn’t complain.

Of the three flavors in the bag, this was the one that sold me on it: Egg Nog.

It’s just extra vanilla-y white chocolate (with real cocoa butter) and a visible dash of nutmeg.

I love the flavors of egg nog, but never really cared for sweet or thick drinks so the idea of a solid, melt-in-your-mouth version of it is ideal for me.

The square is a creamy yellow color and smells like nutmeg.

The white confection is sweet but pretty smooth and has the woodsy blast of nutmeg and tastes, like, well, Egg Nog. It could use a little more vanilla and maybe a slight hit of rum.

A real winner, if only because no one else makes a plain old white chocolate with nutmeg bar. Truffles, yeah, but not just a block of white chocolate. Great idea, well done, bring it back next year and I’ll probably buy it before it goes on clearance.

One of the reasons I thought that this review, even at this late date, would still be of value is that the Chocolate Pecan Pie is not a limited edition item. It’s available now as an individual bar or in single-flavor bags of the Squares. (Also, I don’t think Pecan Pie has a season.)

This little milk chocolate square smells wonderful, like maple, hot chocolate and caramel.

The milk chocolate is smooth, though plenty sweet. Mixed in is a light crunch of toffee coated pecan bits. They have a little salty hit and of course the caramelized & buttery crunch of pecans.

(The photos make it look like the chocolate is bloomed, I don’t think it was, I think it was the fatty pecans messing with the sheen of the chocolate. Mmm, fatty pecans.)

Overall, the array is fun and something I feel comfortable eating out of season at the moment. Especially because I love individually wrapped squares. A bonus is that a sandwich of the Egg Nog & Chocolate Pecan Pie actually go pretty well together. (But the Peppermint Bark doesn’t work with either.)

The only thing that really bugged me was that the ingredients weren’t listed separately for each of the squares. I was able to get the ingredients for the Peppermint Bark because it’s sold separately, but I really like to know what’s in items that I’m able to choose from a dish.

Related Candies

1. Hershey’s Pumpkin Spice Kisses
2. Ghirardelli Intense Dark
3. Ritter Sport White Chocolate with Hazelnuts
4. Trader Joe’s Peppermint Bark White Chocolate Bar
5. Green and Black’s White Chocolate
6. Ghirardelli Squares