Candy Blog

About a month ago I went off to visit another candy factory. This one is out in Covina, CA and is run by David Klein, inventor of the Jelly Belly jelly bean, so I know he’s got an inventive mind. His current candy life involved a product called Sandy Candy.

Sandy Candy is like sand art, but it’s made from candy powder (ala Pixy Stix). You can buy

kits and then pour the different candy powders into tubes and bottles, creating tasty, colorful layers.

While there on site he showed me some new products he’s working on, which involved using large panning machines (they look like cement mixers). But of course the bulk of his operation is devoted to the Sandy Candy which is HUGELY popular with clubs and groups.

The kit comes with the candy powder in little bottles (like travel-sized shampoo). Just flip the top and tip them over to fill up the little tube. You can make your candy tube according to the flavors (which are marked on the bottoms) or by color (the bottles are milky-translucent, so the actual product is brighter in the tube). The powder itself is far smoother and finer than Pixy Stix which have always been a bit grainy.

Peach (peach)- a nice tangy tingle on the tongue and a good floral/fruity taste.

Tangerine (light orange)- come to mamma! Tart and citrusy with a little more zazz than a normal orange flavor. Goes well with most other flavors, which is a bonus.

Blue Raspberry (medium blue) - really nice. Tangy and floral and not as artificial tasting as it looked. And it’s seriously, deeply blue.

Watermelon (pink) - a sweet flavor, it’s fruity but has a very odd and very distinctive bitter aftertaste.

Banana (light yellow) - a sour banana, not just sweet. Good flavor but a little odd to have the tangy bite to it.

Root Beer (light brown) - I am in LOVE with this flavor. It’s soft on the tongue but has a nice spicy mellow feeling to it. It doesn’t mix well with most of the flavors.

Black Cherry (gray) - nice and tart with less medicine flavor and more of the lighter cherry notes. The color is not really black, but kind of a sparkly charcoal gray.

Pear (medium green) - tangier than I expected with only a slight hint of pear.

Green Apple (light green) - good and tart and with a strong artificial taste that I come to expect from green apple. A winner.

Wild Berry - (purply gray) - smells like cotton candy and tastes like strawberry and raspberry. Fruity and with a little tart zing.

Cotton Candy (light blue) - sweet and slightly tangy but with no other flavor. Not really cotton candy in my book.

Grape (medium purple) - very sweet and with a good fake grape flavor that one expects. Not tangy though.

Lemonade (medium yellow) - super tart but not much flavor. A winner.

Wild Cherry (medium red) - nice and tart with a good blast of cherry flavor. Not at all different from black cherry except for the color.

Fruit Punch (medium blue) - sour and floral with a very ordinary punch flavor going on.

Bubble Gum (blue/purple) - sour ... why is it sour? I should be sweet with a hint of cotton candy or strawberry or wintergreen in there.

Tart Apple (white) - pretty much green apple, but not green.

Cherry Cola (medium red) - definitely cola and definitely cherry. Blech. (Just not my thing)

Wild Berry (medium purple) - yes, berry! Sweet and tart and floral and really tasty. A winner.

Key Lime (light green) - lime with a slight soft flavor to it but still some tang.

Lemon Lime (light green) - lemon and lime, reminds me of Koolaid (and not in a bad way). A little tangy but with good flavor.

When you combine all of the above you’ll find your tongue becomes and dark green/black color.

Phew! You might think that’s all, but it’s not. That’s just what was in my two tower assortments. Other sweet flavors include: Sweet Cherry, Orange Creme, Sweet Vanilla Cola, Chery Creme, Sweet Fruit Punch, Sweet Lemonade, Cola Blue, Lime Creme & Strawberry. Personally I think the Banana and Cotton Candy flavors should be sweet, not tart, but who am I to argue?

Then there’s more! Another line includes Candy Pebbles, which are kind of like Wonka Nerds, but a little smaller. They’re about the size of sesame seeds with a good light crunch and zap of flavor. What’s really cool about these isn’t just that they can be used in the Sandy Candy Art, but that you can use them for other things. I think they’d be great as an actual flavored cupcake topper instead of lame plastic tasting jimmies.

Kits can be ordered with the mini bottles for home use or with big ketchup-sized bottles for large events. They look like a great fundraiser for a school fair or just an activity to do with kids where they get to eat what they create. The little 6 inch tubes that came with mine are a good amount of candy, about the size of five single Pixy Stix, so they’re not going to get too amped up.

If you’re someone who always wanted to order Pixy Stix by the pint, your search is over. I ate the whole Lemonade bottle while typing up this review. And part of the Root Beer ... hey, they’re both drinks, aren’t they?

If anyone out there has ever used these, please let me know how it went. It looks super-simple and now that I have this huge kit, I wish I had some kids around to play with it.

There are two ways to order. For retail orders go to SandyCandy.com. For wholesale orders go to NiftyCandy.com. The extra large kit shown here is $50 and has 50 candy straws and includes 20 bottles of different flavors. Smaller kits are also available.

I give the whole kit a 7 out of 10. I really love the concept and think that it’s great fun for kids, especially if you spring for the fun shaped bottles. The variety of flavors is great, especially the fact that there’s Root Beer in there! The only drawback is the difficulty of ordering and the packaging isn’t really that all that exciting. (If I could just order single bottles of my favorite flavors, well, I’d be in trouble.)

Finally! Someone’s making it easy to give wholesome, slaveless candy for Halloween!

I just popped over to Artisan Sweets (who seems to be the ONLY place on the internet to find Montelimar Nougat) and they’ve got a Natural Trick or Treat candy bag!

72 pieces of yummy all natural candy you can feel good about handing out. Approximately 24 pieces each of Endangered Species ethically traded milk chocolate bites, Yummy Earth organic fruit lollipops, and pure honey mint patties. All packed in a Halloween-y treat bag.

All for $20.00, so if you don’t have a store near you to get what you’re looking for, finally someone has combined the hard candies and the chocolates into one batch. Yeah, it’s a little expensive, but you know, not using slaves just drives up the price of things! They’re running a special - 10% off of Halloween treats, but please, for the love of all that’s holy, don’t give children Sunspire Drops.

Link to Artisan Sweets Halloween.

I mentioned in my All Candy Expo coverage that there were a few Food Network video crews working the floor and those shows are finally hitting the air.

George Duran included a snippet of his All Candy Expo experience in a recent episode of Ham on the Street, but he has a full special called Candy Convention that will air on October 28th. It’s 1 hour long - check your listings for an air time.

Jim O’Connor of “The Secret Life Of…” is also doing an episode from the show floor called Sweet and Sour Candy - it starts airing tonight (October 16th). Check the listings for this half hour episode in your area.

So this was the first poll here at Candy Blog, and I wanted to start simple.

The poll question was about what your favorite candy bar is and I used the top ten selling candy bars as the possible choices. The most surprising thing, of course, was that the number two selling candy bar, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, was by far the winner.

Other interesting things were how unpopular the non-nut bars were. The least popular bars on the list were Nestle Crunch and Hershey’s Milk Chocolate.

I hope you enjoyed the poll. Polls are purely for fun and only represent people who agree to answer the question, happen to visit Candy Blog and are in no way scientific.

Flippin’ Fudge was so happy with the review and response here that Candy Blog is going to give away some FUDGE! That’s right, a $50 gift certificate which is more than enough for the deluxe 28 piece box including the shipping.

To enter simply .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with the subject line “FLIPPIN’ GIVEAWAY” by

October 21st at 12 noon Pacific

. One lucky winner will get a gift certificate good for $50 online at FlippinFudge.com. (The fine print: The winner can be from anywhere in the world,

but they currently ship to US addresses only

. One entry per person. Failure to follow rules will result in disqualification for drawing and general irritation.)

UPDATE: 10/20/2006 - I just got word that Flippin’ Fudge now ships internationally (though the cost may eat into the actual amount of product you can get with $50) ... so enter accordingly! I am going to extend the entry deadline to Monday, October 23rd at noon Pacific.

UPDATED UPDATE: 10/23/2006 - the entry box is closed. I’ve picked a winner and emailed that person! Thanks to everyone who entered, based on the overwhelming response, I plan to run lots more giveaways in the future, so keep reading.