Candy Blog

I bought this one just for you, dear readers. I’m not sure why I thought you wanted to read about it, but here it is, the Palmer Bee Mine hollow milk chocolate figure filled with compressed dextrose candies.

This actually came in another variety, which featured a cow and some pun I can’t remember, like “you moo-ve me” or something like that. If they had a little train that said, I choo-choo-choose you, I would have bought a case even if they were made from mud.

But the Bee Mine features Yummy Honey Flavored Candy Bees Inside! and if there’s one thing I have trouble resisting it’s Yummy Honey Flavored Candy Bees (tm). (Well, I don’t really know what Yummy Honey Flavored Candy Bees (tm) are, but I figured I’d find out and then I’d know for sure if they’re irresistible.)

First, the box design is nice. It featured the choco-creature inside well, the cutouts are attractive. The box is a bit big, but I forgive that when it comes to molded chocolate items, as I know a little space tends to preserve shape. The foil design is also nice. It’s bold and endearing. It’s also a nice heavy foil that’s easy to unwrap and re-wrap.

The little guy inside was also nicely designed. He happend to be kind of cracked open already, but I think that might have been because I kept shaking the box. I figured yummy honey bees liked to be shaken before being set free. The little face molded in chocolate actually matches the foil design.

What’s more, it’s designed in 306 degrees. He has a little stinger and six little feet.

Like many Palmer chocolate products, he actually smells pretty good too. On the smoky side of the chocolate smell spectrum, but not overly sweet. He has a nice sheen and was pretty blemish free thanks to the packaging.

Once I pulled the two hemispheres apart I found my bounty of Yummy Honey Flavored Candy Bees (tm).

But first the chocolate. It’s Palmer chocolate. Basically, disappointing. Well, saying that I was disappointed means that I had expectations ... I have no expectations of tastiness when it comes to Palmer.  But I do credit them for cute and attractive products. It was far too sweet, had a grainy melt and virtually no taste of chocolate or milk. It was like a Tootsie Roll flavor. (I did a little computation and Palmer chocolate has 12% sugar in it than Hersheys ... which is already pretty sweet stuff.)

My Yummy Honey Flavored Candy Bees (tm) are a compressed dextrose candy (like a SweeTart without the tart). They’re an attractive beige and smell like the Palmer chocolate. They’re shaped like a little bee, just like the package says they are ... in fact, the package has them at 100% scale. They’re okay ... I mean, who wants to eat compressed dextrose flavored like honey? It’s sweet and has a little dark honey flavor to it, but that’s about it. I give them points for originality though, I don’t know if I would have ever had a honey flavored compressed dextrose bee if not for this.

This was only $1.50 on sale, so it’s not like I paid a lot. (I think they’re $2.50 regularly.) The back has a greeting card layout “to” and “from” so you can just use a bold Sharpie and hand this to someone instead of a Hallmark card and have change to spare. But I’d say only give it to someone you want to confuse with your intentions ... bad chocolate does not say you care. It says, I was thinking of you ... but I wasn’t thinking nice things.

Oh, and for the record, I now have no trouble resisting Yummy Honey Flavored Candy Bees (tm).

Note: the logo on the back proudly states that this product is Made in USA but the Yummy Honey Flavored Candy Bees (tm) were made in Malaysia.

Related Candies

1. Palmer Nest Eggs
2. SpongeBob SquarePants Heart
3. Elmer’s Chocolate
4. Palmer Milk Chocolate Balls

Last year I ordered some wonderful products from Artisan Sweets which included this Nougat aux Figues: Cuit au Chaudron. I promptly took a photo of the product and then ate it.

Made by Suprem’ Nougat G. Savin in Montelimar, France it is much like the Arnaud Soubeyran Montelimar Nougat  that I’ve had previously, meaning it has wonderful lavender honey in it along with a generous embed of almonds. Of course it also has bits of figs in there too, as you might have guessed from the picture and name.

The figs gave the nougat a bit of texture, with the crunchy little seeds and combined well with the musky notes of the lavender honey. It seemed to make the whole thing a little sweeter, but it was a fresh taste. It’s expensive stuff, so it’s a sometimes-indulgence for me. ($8.00 for 3.52 ounces.)

I picked up these nice sized samples at the Fancy Food Show from K.L. Keller Imports. She also handles the excellent G. Savin nougats

This particular nougat has full macadamias in it. It’s a light nougat, it actually felt lighter than many nougats in the hand. The scent was a light vanilla, almost like toasted marshmallows. Wow, the marshmallow comparison was evident once I bit into it. The nougat is fluffy and completely smooth ... there’s no hint of sugary grain to it at all.

While I was completely missing any honey notes and macadamias aren’t my favorite nut, this was fantastic. Sweet without being sticky or cloying and just the right balance with the neutrality of the macadamias.

Walters is a South African company (which explains the macadamias) and besides these samples and a store I found in the UK online, I don’t know where else to get this. I guess I’ll just have to keep hitting Keller’s booth at the trade shows. Here’s a review from Our Adventures in Japan of the Almond variety.

I’ve been on the prowl for good sources of Caffarel in the United States. Besides picking up those few pieces at The Candy Store in San Francisco and seeing them at trade shows, I’m completely at an impasse on how to find them besides hyping them on Candy Blog in hopes that more shops will carry them.

And why? Their products are good quality and in most cases so freaking cute I want to put a leash on them and buy them squeaky toys.

Above is one of the new items they were showing called Conetto, which is like a teensy Drumstick Ice Cream Cone (warning, sound on that site).

The little confection is about 3 1/2” tall. The waffle cone holds a firm guanduia that is then rolled in little toasted cereal “nuts” with a few little chocolate chips tossed in there. The hazelnut paste is soft enough to bite like ice cream with the added bonus that it doesn’t melt. So take your time.

It only weighs .9 ounces, so it’s probably not a show-stopper when it comes to calories and since indulgence is partially about appearance, this might be an excellent calorie controlled treat. (Of course the wrapper doesn’t say how many calories, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say it’s not more than 150.) Now the only things holding me back are where to get them and how much do they cost?

Another little sample from another hard-to-find Italian chocolatier.

BruCo makes wonderful flavored chocolate bars. I’ve had their orange one and rum one and thought they were quite nice with an attractive package. Last year at the Fancy Food Show I also tried their spiced chocolate and found it far too spicy for me. This year that had some other items that were definitely to my liking: BruCo Salt Tasting Chocolate, Ciocc’Olio & Cabosse.

Ciocc’Olio: The firm white chocolate center has a quick buttery melt. The taste is not strongly of olives. I was expecting a sort of grassy quality to it, but instead it was more nutty. It was definitely smooth and set off by the equally smooth and slippery melt of the dark chocolate shell.

Cabosse: I wasn’t quite sure what this was supposed to be. At first I thought it was a dark chocolate guanduia, but later I thought it was simply a firm ganache with cacao nibs in it. Strong and fruity, this was a nice piece, the perfect size and really attractive.

I also tried a Salt Tasting Chocolate set. I’ll probably have a full review of that at a later date. Basically it’s two different versions of a salted chocolate in one package. Hooray for variety.

One of the other companies that I see at the trade show a lot is Marich. They’re known for their fine panned chocolates, especially their Holland Mints and produced the first gourmet malted milk balls in flavors like Espresso and Peanut Butter.

They’re based in Hollister, California (which seems to be a hotbed of panning with other confectioners like Jelly Belly, Sconza and Gimbal’s nearby) but seem rather hard to find. Part of it is that they sell in bulk to many shops that repackage the product without reference to the supplier or they end up in bulk bins. In this case I found this little package of their Triple Chocolate Toffee at Ralph’s in Glendale after trying them at the All Candy Expo.

They were absurdly expensive considering everything else in that aisle, $2.89 for that handful pictured above. But they are lovely to look at. They smell great too, like burnt sugar.

I didn’t know at first if the triple was referring to how much chocolate was on the outside or the fact that there were three different kinds. But suffice to say that either title works, because there is a lot of chocolate on each of these ... a pretty precise proportion that matches well with the chunk of butter toffee at the center. The toffee itself is wonderfully crisp and has that great cleave that very buttery toffee has. A little salty, it balances well with the not-so-dark but also not-too-sweet chocolates.

I’d probably pick these up again, but not at this price. Luckily Marich has a webstore.

Everything here gets an 8 out of 10 but no further specs as I don’t know retail prices (unless otherwise noted), calorie profile and often not even the ingredients.

Related Candies

1. Fancy Food Show 2010 - Day 3 Notes
2. Marich Chocolate Sea Salt Cashews
3. Laica & Caffarel Chocolate Eggs
4. Caffarel Figs & Chestnuts (Fico & Castagna)
5. Nougat de Montelimar

I admit that they look more like hockey pucks than decadent candy. I’ve probably even seen them before, but walked right by them. But this year for the Fancy Food Show, because I had so little time on the floor, I prepared a hit list by clicking through to every website of any company that listed themselves in the confectionery category.

That’s when I found Colt’s Bolts. At first, by the name and photo of the product, I thought they were some sort of sports tie in. (Really, I had this whole story in my head that had formed about this southern Indiana hockey team - of course that makes no sense, Colts Bolts are made in Tennessee and have nothing to do with hockey or football.)

They’re gourmet peanut butter cups, with a little twist.

Instead of sitting in a fluted cup, these are a layered confection. A chocolate base, a peanut butter middle with crunchy whole almonds and then a chocolate layer to top it off.

(Oops, now that I’ve looked over their site again, they show the Colts Bolts flipped over with the small side on the top. How embarrassing!)

The Milk Chocolate variety is pretty hefty. They weigh in at 2 full ounces.

Inside the outer foil wrap the puck is wrapped in some plastic wrap ... and extra layer of protection.

After fumbling with that (it’s cling wrap ... it clings!) the scent of the peanut butter is quite strong. It’s a dark roasted smell, but the appearance of the peanut butter is rather light and has a hydrogenated vegetable oil in it as well as some actual butter. Biting into it, the peanut butter is smooth but not sticky. And then there are the almonds. I don’t think I took a single bite of this without getting an almond. They’re not huge almonds, but they’re crunchy and plentiful.

The chocolate is mild and melts well, giving a creamy and sweet counterpart to the otherwise “it’s all about the nuts” center.

I enjoy dark chocolate, but I’m never quite convinced that it’s the best choice for peanuts. The darker notes of chocolate seem to bring out the bitterness of peanuts and the more charcoal flavors.

In the Classic Dark Chocolate’s case it was true as well. This puck was much less sweet and more about the textures and powerful single notes. The flavor of the dark chocolate stood apart from the peanut butter. The textures though were amazing. The dark chocolate was quite buttery, actually slippery on the tongue which lubricated the stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth peanut butter, thus keeping it all swirling about.

This particular dark puck didn’t have quite as many almonds in it, but I’ll chalk that up to variations in a handmade product.

The peanut butter here is rather different from the crumbly & slightly crunchy version that Reese’s fans are accustomed to. This is truly a paste, very finely ground so it’s more about the flavor of the nuts than the texture.

They’re actually pretty well priced for an upscale treat at $29.00 for two pounds on their website (less than $1.00 per Bolt). I’ve never seen them in stores but if you do see them, they’re certainly worth $2 retail for a single.

Related Candies

1. See’s Egg Quartet
2. Trader Joe’s Mini Peanut Butter Cups
3. Choxies in Boxies
4. More Satisfying Snickers Almond?
5. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Line
6. Take 5 Peanut Butter

Back when I could eat all the dairy I wanted, I loved milkshakes. Thick, chunky milkshakes with lots of malted milk in them. I prefered chocolate shakes, but my second favorite was strawberry. There’s something about the creaminess of ice cream and the fresh taste of strawberries and then that extra dark kick of malt that got my tastebuds-a-tingling.

But I admit that I didn’t just swoop into the nearest store and pick up the new Whoppers Strawberry Milkshake.

I mean, it’s not like Whoppers are fantastic to begin with, they have that greasy, waxy fake chocolate on what is an otherwise decent malt ball (see review of the candy coated holiday version). But I figured if I was going to eat fake chocolate, it may as well be fake strawberry confection.

I admit they smelled nice. Kind of like summer & shortcake, cotton candy & carnival midways. And they are quite pretty. Instead of an unnatural fuschia as I thought they might be from the image on the box, they were actually a lovely soft pinkish/peach color.

The candy coating was a little waxy, but sweet and had a nice creamy but mild strawberry flavor to it. No tartness that I’d associate with the berry which is often present in ice cream that uses berry pieces.

The malt center is crisp and mellow, it doesn’t have a super-strong malt hit, but still a very nice salty counterpart to the sugary outside.

I wish they used a real white chocolate compound with real cocoa butter in them, but Hershey’s is having other troubles and can’t be bothered with quality at the moment. But for what they had to work with and for 99 cents, they came up with a pretty good item here that actually delivers what they say on the package.

They’re a bit fattier than the Sno-Balls I had over Christmas (I haven’t compared them to Robin’s Eggs, which haven’t hit the stores yet) so I’ll probably stick to the sugar shell ones if I need a cheap malt fix and can’t fine real milk chocolate covered ones. Whoppers has also introduced a Reese’s Peanut Butter themed one. But to be honest, I think that a chocolate malt ball is just fine the way it is.

Related Candies

1. Cafe Select Chocolate Coffee Trios
2. Brach’s Fiesta Eggs
3. Naked Chocolate Maltballs
4. Jelly Belly Chocolate Malt Balls
5. Mars Maltesers

Those industry analysts say that licorice is the next big thing. It’s a trend. It’s fashionable. It’s hip. There will soon be licorice bars, licorice tastings ... licorice afficianado magazines. (Actually, I heard when I was a Miette Confiserie buying a Dutch assortment that they wanted to do a Sake tasting paired with licorice.)

I don’t know about all that, I’m not adverse to seeing more licorice available on the market, but I fully understand that some people simply don’t like it. Much like some folks don’t like coffee, root beer or cinnamon. (Otherwise referred to as irrational people, which does not apply, of course, to folks who don’t like cherry, butter popcorn Jelly Belly or Dr Pepper, who are perfectly rational.)

I got this ample sample of Australia’s own Kookaburra Licorice at the All Candy Expo.

These nuggets are pretty big, at least two bites in my-sized world. It’s a nice soft chew, sometimes I think it’s a little too soft, like they’re some sort of fleshy thumbs or something, so I left the bag open for a while. They didn’t get rock-hard stale, just a little drier.

I liked the flavor, definitely on the dark and smoky side even if it’s a little mild and more about the molasses than licorice. The first ingredient is treacle as well as some molasses, wheat syrup and raw sugar. These all go so well with the woodsy and very sweet qualities of real licorice. It’s very filling even though the caloric density is exceptionally low for candy: 92 calories per ounce. Kind of a “stick to your ribs” kind of candy treat.

Unlike many American licorices, this boasts real licorice extract ... as well as “natural flavors”, palm oil, soybean monglyceride, artificial colors (Red 40 & Blue #1 & Yellow #5) among other things.

I think as super-soft licorice goes I might prefer Panda (especially for the ingredients list), but this is pretty good stuff. As for the naming, a Kookaburra is a bird, a species of Kingfisher. (While it probably doesn’t have much to do with licorice, it’s far more related to Australia than the Panda is to Finnish licorice. And while we’re not on the subject, there’s also a Cocteau Twins song called Kookaburra, which has even less to do with the bird, as all CT songs are wont to do, than Pandas do with Finnish licorice ... have I digressed enough?)

Related Candies

1. Kookaburra Choc Coated Liquorice
2. Organic Finnska Soft Licorice
3. Good & Plenty (Fresh from the Factory)
4. Jelly Belly Licorice Bears
5. Dutch Licorice