Candy Blog

I’ve been to San Francisco quite a lot, I love the city, mostly because I know so many great people here. But also because it has such a wonderful confectionery tradition. San Francisco is a candy town. I spent my first night after driving up at the Ocean Park Motel, way over by the ocean (a part of San Francisco I’ve never explored before). After checking in I took a walk, got some eggs at a diner and then walked down to the beach where I spotted a whale and watched it for about ten minutes as it made its way north to its feeding grounds (kinda like me!).

In the past three years I’ve visited Miette Confiserie, Ricchiuti Chocolates, Jelly Belly’s factory, Scharffen Berger, Charles Chocolates (in both their old & new location), CocoaBella, Fog City News and The Candy Store.
But there are always new places opening up, and plenty more that have been here for ages that I still haven’t gotten around to.

On Friday morning I packed up my car (my destination was Oakland for a meeting at 4PM at the National Novel Writing Month headquarters, but there were many zags and zigs along the way) with a nicely chilled cooler ready to be filled. Well, it actually held three boxes of candy bars and another six or seven pounds of other stuff for the staff to munch on.

Here’s how the day went:

Chocolate Covered
4069 24th Street
San Francisco, CA
(415) 641-8123

Total: $57.65

Sampled: Caffarel flower bud, Domori Porcelana?, Vegan/Raw chocolate from Marin and something else that I’ve spaced on completely.

I had an absolutely awesome talk with Jack who runs the place. He’s tasted everything there and is really committed to his inventory. He tries to carry the best bars that each company has to offer (so you won’t find all of the Domori ... or anyone’s line). He also does a lot of repacking, so you can just buy a package of two Lillie Belle truffles, and then two Cluizel Champignon ... it’s the best thing for candy lovers who are still searching for the most amazing experiences. (And if it’s not an amazing experience, then you’re only out a couple of bucks!)

Christopher Elbow
401 Hayes St
San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 355-1100

Total: $27.50

Sampled: Ecuadoran single origin bonbon.

An interesting new space. Rather clinical and spare, it reminds me more of Los Angeles than San Francisco. The selection is immense and includes Elbow’s bonbons and prepackaged items (bars, chocolate covered nuts & gift packages) as well as a brief menu of cafe selections. I made my chocolate selections (picking some of the items that I’ve tried before like the Strawberry Balsamic that used to be in white chocolate and is now in dark) and picked out a hot chocolate. I had it prepared to go, but did sit for a moment in the lounge area. The woman who prepared my chocolate that morning (it was about 11 AM) said that things would usually get very busy in the evening, as it was a popular after dinner spot for people to come on Friday and Saturday nights. (This is exactly the thing I want in walking distance from my house!)

After making some notes for myself I walked over to:

Miette Confiserie
449 Octavia Boulevard
San Francisco, CA 94102
(415) 626-6221

Total: $12.93

Sampled: Haribo Smurf (actually a raspberry jelly candy, not a gummi)

Again, a lovely experience as I got to chat with Caitlin (one of the owners) about Napoleon bonbons & the little tins they come in, licorice and the lack of similar candy shopping in Los Angeles. (Though we’re coming along.)

Fiona’s Sweetshop
214 Sutter St.
San Francisco
(415) 399-9992

Total: $8.25

I found out about the shop on SFGate.com. It wasn’t quite as impressive as the story (and comments) made it sound. It was very small, I didn’t feel like I could look at everything and I was rushed (and didn’t get to finish ordering my items before my card was swiped and I ended up paying cash for my Turkish Delight). I actually meant to try a couple of other things, but didn’t see them until after that ... sigh, there’s always next time. The cool thing is that it’s walking distance to Fog City & not far at all from the Ferry Terminal.

Fog City News
455 Market
San Francisco, CA

Total: $27.92 (Discount! 20%)

Sampled: Michael Mischer Salted Peanut Butter Cup (awesome but really salty) & Amano Ocumare. Had an excellent talk with Adam, who runs Fog City. (He recognized my name when I signed up for the newsletter so I could get some discounts on my bars. I don’t necessarily hide my identity but I don’t go up to the counter and say, “I blog about candy, now gimme some!”) They have an awesome sale on Amano right now (25% off) if you’re in the neighborhood. My favorite is definitely the Ocumare.

Lucca Delicatessen
2120 Chestnut St
San Francisco, CA 94123
(415) 921-7873

I stopped as I was walking down the street because I spied some La Florentine Torrones, but was so pleased to find the BruCo Anise bar.

Sweet Dish
2144 Chestnut Street
San Francisco, CA
(415) 563-2144

Total: $9.76

I read about this shop on Chowhound and definitely wanted to see how it measured up to the grand San Francisco tradition. It has a very young vibe to it, it feels much more “accessible” to children. They have a great selection of gummis, traditional favorites (candy jewelry) and some crazy hard to find items like C.Howards, UK import Cadbury bars, a really good selection of Koppers ... I could go on and on. The prices per pound are specific to the candy (instead of just pricing the whole shop at one point which makes things like Smarties crazy expensive and chocolate malt balls kind of reasonable), so you get what you pay for.

I had other places on my list, like Z Cicciolato and XoX Truffles but I really needed to balance out my purchases of perishable items, so they’ll have to wait until I return in the summer.

I’m kind of logging all this stuff so you’ll know what sort of items you can buy at these shops, and what they cost. (And also because I have a tendency to forget these things.)

Total spent today: $153.77 (yeah, I’m kind of feeling candy buyers remorse, mostly because I haven’t actually eaten any of it, I just get to look at it and tally up how much money I spent, not how much enjoyment I’m getting).

I’m in Oakland, CA right now, just back at the apartment I’m staying at for a little rest. Mostly I wanted to take a moment to begin documenting what I’ve been doing. Usually when I come up for a weekend, I pay for my lodging (as well as the gas). This time I’m fortunate enough to have a friend putting me up for two days (thanks Chris!) so with the money I’ve “saved” I’m throwing it all into candy. (I have to wonder if I can actually spend $150 a day on candy ... hmm.)

On Thursday morning I headed up to San Francisco for a long weekend. Usually when I go to the Bay Area from Los Angeles I take the 5, which is very fast and efficient but rather boring (as there’s very little of interest to candy-minded people besides what can be found at a gas station). So I decided to take the slightly longer & slower 101 N route.

Along the way I had three stops planned (I would have stopped in Santa Barbara, but I passed through town at about 9:30 AM, before some of their promising shops open, so that’ll be later this summer when I go up for one of my whale watching adventures).

San Luis Obispo is about three and a half hours north of Los Angeles, so it’s a pretty quick drive and a logical place to stop for a cup of coffee anyway. Sweet Earth Chocolates is an organic & fair trade confectioner based right there, they also sell their sweets right from the Splash Cafe, so it was perfect rest/candy stop.

Sweet Earth Chocolates @ Spash Cafe
1491 Monterey
San Luis Obispo, CA
(805) 544-7567

Here’s what I picked up (some for later review):

(plus a vegan turtle sample)

Total: $36.42

This is also the point where I stopped for gas. That was $33.57 (I have a Prius ... which doesn’t hold a lot of gas, so even at $4.09 a gallon, I only needed 8.2 gallons).

The other high priority stop for me along the way was in San Jose, which is another three hours north of San Luis Obispo.

Holland Pastry & Gift Shop sells a huge selection of licorice, and in all sorts of different sizes of packages from the original manufacturer. Now that I’ve sampled quite a bit from my other candy trips, I was ready for some bigger bags of the tried & true favorites and some more experimentation. The best part about the shop is that everything is a fraction of the price I’m paying at the upscale shops. Of course without all the fancy packaging, ambiance and prime location in choice neighborhoods, too.

Holland’s Best (aka Holland Pastry & Gift Shop)
524 S. Bascom Ave
San Jose, CA 95128
(408) 293-1441

(plus a trollendrop sample)

Total: $39.88

The last stop was mostly because I was there, literally, it was just an exit off the freeway. So I stopped at the See’s Factory, which has a little store attached. Now, as far as I know, See’s rarely has “outlet” sales. I know that some folks pick up after-holiday merchandise there on sale, but that’s pretty rare. I didn’t find any grand deals there, but I was happy to see the homeland of happy-habit chocolates.

See’s Factory & Store
210 El Camino Real
South San Francisco, CA 94080
(650) 761-2490

(plus a Mocha Truffle sample)

Total: $11.40

So that total for Thursday: $122.66 (includes departure cup of coffee at Winchell’s in Silverlake).

When I was afraid I was getting sick earlier this winter I turned to candy. After all, many candies started out as medicine. The cough drops of yesteryear are the root beer barrels and cherry LifeSavers of today. Sometimes I eat vitamin C enriched hard candies, figuring, what could it hurt and it might help.

The government keeps candy companies from making grandiose claims, but that doesn’t stop them from trying to nudge us to buy something because it might have nutritional value (I seriously doubt I’m at high risk for scurvy). I spied these Brach’s Gummi+Plus (is that supposed to be said aloud as Gummi Plus Plus?) at the 7-11 and though they might ease an aching throat. I was also intrigued because they had different flavors: Cranberry, Pomegranate, Orange, Apple, Strawberry & Blueberry. I was really curious to taste a pomegranate or cranberry gummi!

They look just like any other gummis, each in a little fruit shape. What gives these their +Plus is an infusion of three antioxidants: 25% of your RDA of vitamin A, Vitamin C & Vitamin E.

Though they’re throwing “immune boosting” powers at us, it’s obvious that they didn’t really commit to the whole line, as they didn’t even bother to make up molds for these new fruits.

Blueberry looks like a bunch of grapes. Let me tell you, blueberries do not grow in bunches.

Besides the freaky shape and unnatural color, the flavor is, well, kind of like a berry of some sort. You could tell me it’s a black raspberry and I’d probably believe you.

The Strawberry looks comfortingly familiar. What’s more, it’s a delicate shade of light red (though actual strawberries are a very deep and rich color).

It’s soft and tangy and has a good strawberry jam flavor to it.

Not exciting in a plus plus way, but tasty.

The package had no purple on it, but did show a red “berry” that I’m going to guess is this one: Pomegranate. The shape is a pretty good patch to what pomegranate seeds look like if you peel away the membrane carefully.

It’s quite a good flavor, like a combination of raspberry and cherry ... not quite pomegranate, but certainly a lot less fuss.

Very traditional shape for the Apple and of course they go with the green instead of red.

It’s a good apple juice flavor instead of just the fake green apple (but there’s a little bit of that in there too).

In fact, the ingredients list apple juice as an ingredient (I’m guessing they use it instead of a splash of water so they can say “made with real fruit juice!”

You’re thinking, oh, that’s cherry. Uh, uh. This is Cranberry. I’m also here to tell you that cranberries do not grown on paired stems like this.

No matter, this one is much like the pomegranate. Very deep, with a much more tart and acidic overtone. I welcome the cranberry to the gummi mix! I hope it sticks around, as far as super sours go, cranberries are overlooked.

Ah, the classic Orange. This one has a lot of zest to it, almost too much. It’s downright bitter.

I rather liked that, it made it feel more medicinal, more like candied orange peel or some sort of soothing tea.

As far as the antioxidant properties, I still got the flu, but then again I didn’t finish the bag until I decided to write these up while I’m traveling. (Gummis are great traveling candy.) I couldn’t detect any flavors that were particularly indicative of “vitamins” and vitamin E can be like that sometimes.

Brach’s also offers an assortment of Tropical Gummis. One of the fun parts of this was that the only flavor that intersected with the Gummi +Plus was Orange. I got to test whether the fortified gummis really tasted different from the regular ones. (Nope.)

You can tell here, too, that they’re similar molds.

Orange was just as zesty.

Purple was probably raspberry. It’s hard to tell because there is no retail label on the bulk bag. It tastes like a very sweet raspberry jam.

Strawberry Banana was kind of cute. At first I didn’t know what that shape was. But the pink color and mild, sweet strawberry flavor (less tart than the Gummi +Plus) kind of cinched it. It reminds me a little of yogurt. The banana component is a little artificial tasting, but that’s okay with me.

Lime was cute. It’s nice to see lime instead of apple. It was zesty, a little bit of that bitterness that I noticed in the orange, but definitely convincing.

Lemon was pretty dark in color and I often mistook it for the orange. The shape and size were perfect, but the flavor was sadly bland. Not bad, just not rising to the same level as the rest.

Pineapple was what drew me to this mix in the first place. Look at it, it’s a cute little pineapple shaped gummi! Soft and tangy, with the floral note and that little thing that only pineapple can do to the salivary glands. (But luckily it didn’t burn my tongue, like I do sometimes with fresh pineapple.)

The texture of the gummis is far softer than something like Haribo, but not quite as pliable as Trolli. They do well sitting out, I left some out on my desk, and though the outside was a little drier after a weekend, they were still soft. The flavors are distinct, the molding very good and of course the price is quite reasonable. So many of the Brach’s candies are made overseas, these were made in the USA.

Related Candies

1. Starburst GummiBursts
2. The Simpsons Fruit Snacks
3. Krunchy Bears
4. Gummi Lightning Bugs
5. Lifesaver Gummies
6. Haribo Gummi Bears vs Trolli Gummi Bears

Mmm, what a tasty name! Yes, I got my hands on a lovely and pristine Tcho Beta Batch No. C Ghana 0.7 AH bar.

Tcho is one of the newest American chocolate factories, this one located in the Bay Area, which has no lack of chocolate factories as it is. They proudly state that they’re the only chocolate factory in San Francisco.

Instead of making a package that accommodates a 12 section bar, they make the long bars, snap them in half, stack them and then insert them into these waxed kraft paper square packets.

It makes for a unique look, but makes me wonder why they don’t just make the chocolate that size to begin with. Or design the package to fit the bar.

Tcho eschews things like cacao percentages, varietal & origin, instead focusing on easily understood classifications for their chocolates. This one is called C - which stands for Chocolatey. According to the flavor wheel included, it might have been citrusy, fruity, floral, nutty or earthy. (I’m not sure what the letters for those are ... that would make two possible Cs and two possible Fs.)

The ingredients are simple:

Ingredients: cocoa beans, cane sugar, vanilla beans, soy lecithin and possibly traces of milk and nuts from processing equipment.

The bars are 50 grams (1.76 ounces) ... though you wouldn’t know that once you got a hold of it. It’s not on the package, just on the website.

The chocolate smells sweet, a bit woodsy and a lot like bourbon vanilla.

It’s very dark, very brown (no hint of red or caramel tones here).

It’s only mildly sweet on the tongue, as it melts it’s a bit rough ... not quite chalky as it does have a good level of cocoa butter, but the particle size is a bit big for my texture preference. I was pleased with the deep rich flavors. There are dark cedars, tobacco and a bit of a mulchy note that almost pushes it into the earthy realm except for the consistent feeling that I’m eating hot chocolate.

The finish continues with a lingering woodsy note and a rather parching dryness. Overall, it’s a satisfying bar. After four squares, I didn’t feel like I wanted more for quite a while.

Personally I prefer a butterier bar, a nuttier set of notes. But this tops some of my experiences with the very dark bars from Theo (which I haven’t written up) but does not beat out the Amano or Chocovic Ocumare (okay, not American-made) or Guittard Chucuri.

I’m hoping Tcho has figured out their shipping problems. (More on that history here.) Just a note, they shipped my replacement bars on a Friday over a holiday weekend, not really a good tactic either, they arrived on Tuesday and though everything turned out fine, unless the USPS made it overnight, the package was guaranteed to sit around for at least two days. (I’ve talked to many candy shippers, I don’t know many that would ship chocolate products on a Friday, and certainly not when Monday was a mail holiday.) A note went out to the folks on their email marketing list that they were implementing hot weather shipping. My second package didn’t have any warm weather protection, it was the exact same metallic bubble wrap envelop folded tightly over and taped. If you’ve ordered from them more recently than February, maybe you can chime in with how yours arrived.

Clay Gordon has an extensive article about Tcho on The Chocolate Life. I was sure to not read through it until after I’d done my tasting notes.

I might try this again, but I’m much keener on trying other bars from companies that I’ve either developed an affinity for or some of the other new chocolate makers like DeVries, Taza, Rogue Chocolatier or Askinosie (I have one of those already in my hands). The price is a bit steep as well, they’re now $5 on the site and with the shipping, that’s a steep price for less than two ounces that are still in beta. It was supposed to feel like a fun experiment, like I was part of something, but I think I’ll leave it to others to work out the kinks.

Related Candies

1. Amano Single Origin Bars: Madagascar & Ocumare
2. Dagoba Single Origin
3. E. Guittard Single Origin Tasting Kit
4. Equal Exchange Chocolate
5. Single Origin Chocolate

I’ve gotten a few emails about a favorite candy that some readers have, they’re simply called Cherry Sours, made by Texas-based company Judson-Atkinson Candies.

Judson Candies was started in 1899 by E.J. Jenner who later brought J.W. Judson in as a partner in 1910. Judson later bought him out and renamed the company. Most notably Judson developed the “more tart jelly bean” in the 1930s, which is the chewy sour ball that we all know today from so many different companies. Judson Candies was then purchased in 1983 by the Atkinson family (already a popular company in Texas with the Chick-o-Stick) and renamed Judson-Atkinson Candies.

I was hesitant to pick up a whole box of Cherry Sours (but ended up being given this box as a sample at All Candy Expo), so I was pretty happy when I stumbled across these little packets of Assorted Sours at the 99 Cent Only Store.

They do look like little gumdrops with a bright jelly bean coating.

The bag holds a variety of five flavors. Though the package design is a little, I don’t know, elementary-school looking. If you can’t make it out here in the photo, there’s a lemon about to slam dunk a cherry (who seems pretty happy about it) and a green apple off to one side waving his arms like he’s open (as if the lemon is gonna pass it to him and not do his dunk?).

All that aside, what’s inside is a candy that I think pleases all ages.

Each sour ball has a crunchy, crumbly candy shell like a jelly bean. The center is lightly flavored and colored. The outside is really brightly colored.

Green Apple has both the artificial chemical “invented” green apple flavor and a nice hint of real apple juice flavors. It’s not terribly tart, but certainly flavorful from start to finish.

Lemon has a bit of a powdery lemon flavor, like lemonade mix at first, which then mellows out into a rather nice zesty lemon. Not sour.

Tangerine was the one I looked forward to the most, as I love tangerine candies. It was similar to the lemon, it tasted more like tang than tangerine, but a little more on the tangy side.

Cherry is what Judson-Atkinson is known for. These taste like tangy, chewy Cherry Lifesavers. After the tartness goes away, it’s a little more medicinal than floral.

Grape is the one that really bugged me (really, I was fine with Cherry). It reminded me of violets and those scented magic markers more than grapes or grape candy. While the apple had real apple-ness to it, this one just felt more like too much red food coloring. Luckily there weren’t that many of them in my assortment.

The centers are very firm, but extremely smooth, probably because they use both corn starch and tapioca to give them a extra jelled texture.

I would love to see what they could do for Pineapple and Grapefruit ... maybe Lime. (A Blue Raspberry exists, but isn’t in this mix and a Tropical but that features Pina Colada, Peach, Mango, Watermelon & Fruit Punch.)

The ingredients list lots of artificial colors: Yellow #5 & #6, Red #3 & #40, Blue #2 and Carmine (which makes these unsuitable for vegetarians/vegans).

Related Candies

1. Gimbal’s Gourmet Jelly Beans
2. Wonka Nerds Jelly Beans
3. Sour Jujyfruits
4. Jelly Belly - All Natural
5. Black Ace Licorice
6. Sour Bloops