Random candy tidbits

I've got a new computer, which should be a good thing, but it came equipped with Windows 8, which is a bad thing. It's the most un-intuitive, difficult abomination of a system I've ever experienced. I'm telling you this because I'm just going to start posting some random candy stuff since everything seems to be working okay tonight. You never know what will happen tomorrow.

First up, candy from Singapore. The Sugar Baby's friend from preschool (who has the same name, only spelled differently), moved to Singapore for a couple of years. But last summer, Shuger Babee returned from the other side of the world, much to everyone's delight. And lucky me! His mom brought me some super yummy hard candies called Sticky. I love these. First of all, they're visually fantastic. The Passionfruit Rock looks like little pieces of passionfruit. The I (Heart) Mango Pudding has little red hearts in the center and the Pineapple Rock has pineapples in the center. The Lychee Pillows are little pink and green puffs. They're adorable. Even better is the taste. They're juicy and tart. Why can't we have hard candy like this in the U.S.?

 

 

 

Next up, a picture of the contents of the Sugar Baby's piñata. He turned 7 in May and I filled his Minecraft Ghast piñata with Ring Pops, Laffy Taffy, SweetTarts, Bottle Caps and other assorted sugary delights.

 

Lastly, we have this York Peppermint Patty-flavored creamer. My boss put these out at work one day and I couldn't wait to try some in my coffee. Looks yummy, right? Wrong. It was too artificial tasting and it didn't do anything to satisfy my chocolate craving.

What we're eating

I'm happy to say that we've finally found some new candy to try here at Candy Yum Yum. It seems like the candy world has been so slow lately. Limited Editions have come and gone and now it's just the occasional random new thing that makes its way onto the shelves. What's going on, candy makers? I'm bored! I want more!
I took the Sugar Baby to a cabaret-style play yesterday and we loaded up on the snacks. One of the fun things I brought was a bag of Snyder's of Hanover York Peppermint Pretzel Sandwich. These are round pretzels filled with peppermint filling and dipped in dark chocolate. I wasn't sure about them at first, but then I discovered that if you pry the top pretzel off with your teeth and eat that first, then you have a layer of bumpy peppermint fondant filling that you can eat next. It tasted much better to me that way. Needless to say, the Sugar Baby loved these. I wasn't paying attention to how much he was eating until I looked over at him halfway through the play and saw that he was holding his stomach. Oops.

As for Mr. Goodbar and I, we've been fighting over a bar of Lindt Limited-Edition Mocha Coconut. This new flavor was the winner of the Lindt Excellence Recipe Challenge, a scholarship contest for students at the Culinary Institute of America. According to the press release, Meredith Walker developed the concept for the bar after pairing mocha and coconut to create a birthday cake for her mother and uncle. Holy cannoli, this bar is good. Get one while you can. Check it out at www.lindtusa.com.
 

Whitney's Mint Trio: 3 Drops of Cool Peppermint Yumness

Take a gander at these beauties. These are Whitney's Mint Trio. I've never heard of Whitney's, so I looked them up and it turns out they're a relatively new company, started in 2007, based out of Ohio.
I saw the Mint Trio in the vending machine at the Super 8 in Brattleboro, Vermont (where we decided to stay after the first hotel we checked into turned out to be the setting for the next Arachnophobia movie).
I kept passing the vending machine and looking at these mints, which stood out amongst the other usual suspects of Reese's, Doritos, etc. At 90 cents, I thought they were a bit pricey, but that just goes to show you how long it's been since I've gotten anything from a vending machine.
The three mints are more bon-bon shaped than patties. These were really good. Really, really good-- kind of what a York Peppermint Patty should be. That's because the filling was just minty enough and was relatively smooth.
I had been saving the wrapper, because the description was very funny, almost like something you'd see on a Japanese product ("These mints will take you to your bliss and beyond," or something groovy like that) but Mr. Goodbar threw it out. This makes me sad, because I was really looking forward to sharing it with you. Oh well. I'll just have to stop by the Super 8 next time we go up north.

Candy Kitchen

Even though the cupboards were chock full o' Whoopie Pies (oh wait, that's not true. The Baron ate them all), the energetic Lake Glory Hi campers decided to attempt to make homemade Snickers and Peppermint Patties.

We chopped, we melted, we layered and refrigerated. We followed the dang recipes to a T and what did we get? A giant pan of break-your-teeth Snickers and lots of peppermint-flavored patties o' goop. What went wrong?? In the case of the Snickers, apparently we melted the caramel too long because when it set up, it became like shards of sticky evil glass that magnetized to any and all fillings in our teeth. Quite a disappointment, because otherwise, these would've been pretty darn good.

As for the Peppermint Patties-- who knows what went wrong. All I know is they weren't dippable (they crumbled under the weight of the chocolate, even after we added oil to thin the chocolate out), and we couldn't even just drizzle them. It was a very messy undertaking, and now the Baroness is stuck with lots of leftover weird ingredients that she'll never have another use for.

Lesson learned. Shell out the $1 and just buy a stinkin' pre-made candy bar.

What I've Been Eating

Pizza and caramels. These two will forever be linked in my mind as foods that the cool kids liked in grammar school, but that I didn't necessarily care for. It was the cheese on pizza that bothered me. I didn't like its slippery chewiness. As for caramels, they just seemed too "sporty" to me. (What caramels and sports have in common, I have no idea, but I guess you just think of these things when you're little.) In any case, my opinions have changed with age.

I like pizza now. It's not my favorite food, but give me a good pepperoni pie and I'm happy. Same thing with caramels. I won't take the caramel over the nut cup in the Whitman Sampler, but if you offer me a really good caramel, then I'm all over it. So when I received a package of Sander's caramels, I wondered how they would be. To start with, they're pretty. They're covered in milk chocolate but have dark chocolate stripes across the top. (Forgive my lame picture; my camera just isn't cut out for details.) And then the taste: YUM. The caramel is buttery and complex and its chewy, but not hard. I think that's the key to a good caramel: the texture. If it's too hard, you lose the taste. These have just enough chew to keep your teeth busy, but not so much that you'll break your jaw.

I also got a box of Sander's Mint Patties. There's something so wonderful about the initial aroma you get when you open the box. I can't quite place why it makes me so happy, it just does. Again, texture is key with peppermint patties. Here, the chocolate has a nice snap to it, while the peppermint cream is soft and flowy, unlike a York pattie which is stiff and crumbly. The only problem with these is that they're addictive. You think you'll just have one, but then you find yourself reaching for another. And another.

Sander's is based in Detroit and you can order their candy from their website.