Candy Blog

Holy Moly! I just found this awesome post from last week about some truly inventive Limited Edition candy bars. Go see what Stephen at Cotton & Sand has been up to.

(There’s a world where I could actually believe a Snickers with Bacon and a Crunch with Ketchup.)

If you like that, you really need to order one of his tees ...

There were quite a few caramels at the Fancy Food Show. Here are two vastly different caramel products.

Hammond Candies makes a product unlike all their other wonderful twisty/swirly hard candies, it’s a caramel covered marshmallow block called Mitchell Sweets. I have no idea why they’re called Mitchell, but hey, I guess if I had a great caramel and marshmallow product, maybe I’d just start calling it Mitch, too.

The Mitchell Sweet comes in two varieties - plain and chocolate. They’re pretty big, about 2 1/2” long, 1 1/4 inch square and weigh 3/4 of an ounce. They’re a bit messy, but not as messy as you might guess.

The caramel is soft and chewy without being too stiff. The marshmallow, on the other hand, is rather stiff and solid. It still maintains a lightness and bouncy texture which helps it stand up to the caramel.

The chocolate one didn’t smell any different but I have to say I was really pleased with how fudgy it was. The chocolate caramel was even a little salty and set off the otherwise sweet marshmallow really well. This is a real standout candy. I could use a little honey or extra vanilla hit in the marshmallow itself, but Hammond’s has been making these treats for a long time, so who am I to say they need an adjustment?

Notes: you can buy them direct on the Hammond’s Candies website for $17.00 a pound. These are very similar to the Littlejohn Caramel Marshmallows.

I give them a 7 out of 10

If I was looking for a candy that advertised its honey flavor, then Caramoos to the rescue. Caramoos aren’t quite the chewy caramel that we’re used to though they are indeed caramelized sugar. It’s more like a light fudge. They come in two flavors in the Caramel Crumble: Original & Honey and a bunch of others in their Creme Fudge line: Dark Chocolate, Mocha & Vanilla

They’re cute little square rods, perfect to pop in your mouth whole or do it in two bites.

They smell very buttery and have a very grainy texture. The sweetness is mitigated by a little hit of salt and of course the darker flavors of the caramelized sugars. The Honey one smelled like a sweet hand cream instead of a caramel. The fragrant candy grew on me so much that in the end I preferred it to the Original flavor.

The Creme Fudges are a little different. They don’t have the distinct crystallized structure to them. The Dark Chocolate one reminded me of a very good Tootsie roll. Soft, smoky tasting and a little salty. Mocha was rich and milky tasting with a wonderful flavor of rich espresso. The Vanilla one was also chewy and soft and had a nice milky taste to it but not the buttery flavors so apparent in the Caramel Crumble.

They’re an interesting new look at caramelized sugars.

Notes: Caramoos are made in Poland. There’s no ordering info on their website (I emailed but haven’t heard back) but you can get them on Amazon for $14 for 2.5 pounds ($5.60 a pound). Nicole from Slashfood was equally smitten with Caramoos. Quite a few folks also got samples of them from Amazon last year.

I give them a 7 out of 10

So it looks like you want more of the regular old stuff and less of the artisans & chocolatiers.

Your wish is my command! I do have some chocolatiers to get through (because of gifts) but I’ll try to limit that to twice a month (or provide them as bonus weekend reviews). That leaves you with approximately 20 other limited edition, mass market, regionally manufactured, limited edition items each month!

I also have a HUGE backlog of candies, you can browse the ones that I’ve taken photos of here.

I have to admit that I’ve never been terribly fond of Twix bars. I know that they fill an important niche in the confectionery pantheon: a cookie, some caramel and a chocolate enrobing. I did quite like them when they were first introduced in 1979 in the United States but found that other crunchy caramelly chocolate candies (like the 100,000 Dollar Bar) fit my desires a little better.

I even gave the Classic and Peanut Butter Twix another try recently.

I decided that the cookie is too sweet for me. I like the combination of textures and I rather like how “sandy” the cookie is, but it either needs a hit of salt in the cookie (like a shortbread) or in the caramel. The Peanut Butter Twix is a little closer to what I like, but even with the mellow peanut butter, it still ends up being too middle-of-the-road. I rather enjoyed the Dark Chocolate and think that was a great bar but really thought the White Chocolate was a move in the wrong direction.

Enter Mars’ newest Limited Edition offering: Triple Chocolate. Yes, it’s all chocolate all the time with this bar. A chocolate cookie with a stripe of chocolate caramel covered in milk chocolate.

For such a chocolatey bar it didn’t smell much like chocolate. It smelled sweet and kind of like vanilla caramels. The bar as a whole has the familiar mix of textures with the crumbly/crunchy cookie bar, the soft and chewy caramel and then the smooth and sweet milk chocolate.

If it’s got triple the chocolate, it’s just not there for me. I wasn’t getting much in the chocolate realm at all (maybe I’m still on my dark chocolate high from the Fancy Food Show) ... just sweet. So sweet my throat hurt.

I wish they’d wrapped it in dark chocolate.

Note: Mars is now using PGPR in their chocolate as well (Hershey’s was the first company I noticed that changed their chocolate formulation). PGPR is an emulsifier like Soy Lecithin that’s usually derived from Castor Beans. The emulsifier keeps the chocolate smooth and flowing for the manufacture process and also replaces some of the cocoa butter.

Here’s what others observed at the show:

SFGate noticed the salty side of things, and I’m not just talking about the sea salts.

C(h)ristine has a great photo array that captures things far better than words (well, not better, but it sure takes up less space) as well as her observations. Pay careful attention to those “collagen marshmallows.”

Bay Area Bites covered the keynote by Eric Schlosser of Fast Food Nation fame (I think Michael was sitting in front of me at the keynote). Take special note of the mackerel in a tube photo later in the post. See, being so focused on candy means I don’t have to give those things a second thought!

Elise has a fantastmic photo of Mashti Malone’s Lavender Ice Cream ... love their stuff! She also profiles quite a few other items I missed and links to even more coverage.

Dvorak was even there, with some video of the Whiffle machine - which makes these puffed tortilla shaped waffley things. I didn’t eat them and the machine scared me (seriously, it SHOT those things out with a bang all day every day).

If you want more video, definitely check out YumSugar (they have a lot of coverage) and their video from the floor.

Anna’s Cool Finds mentions things on the savory end but covers the Monkey Treats which were frozen fruit covered with chocolate - I had the banana and it was very tasty, something I’d buy in the summer. YummySF covered the tea scene (there was a LOT of tea) and finally, as I mentioned on Tuesday, there’s a lot of trading and giveaways at the very end of the expo, Jalepeno Girl, who worked the show as a “booth babe” has the goodies to prove it (and some fun rules for attending food shows).

I have a huge pile of chocolate and candies and I’ll have lots to write about for the next month or so. Stay tuned.

Related Candies

1. Show Notes - Fancy Food Show - Tuesday
2. Show Notes - Fancy Food Show - Monday
3. Show Notes - Fancy Food Show - Sunday
4. Fancy Food Show