In Part 1 of our Great Chocolate Experiment, we conducted a series of scientific tests in an attempt to determine which foods go well with chocolate. (You may wish to reacquaint yourself with our original hypothesis and research methodology, as well as the results of the first experiment.)

Based on the results of the first test, this researcher and her trusted Research Assistant came to the conclusion that some foods taste good coated in chocolate, while others do not. But the results were largely inconclusive – we knew that there were still many foods in the world that could prove to be chocolate’s undiscovered perfect partner. Clearly, more tests were required. So, we carefully hand-selected a new batch of quality ingredients, gathered our materials, and forged ahead into the great unknown wilds of candy making.

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Bali’s Best Green Tea Latte Candy is a hard candy with infused green tea that “originates … exclusively in the islands of Java.” The package continues: “Mindfully hand-plucked, our tea derives its fresh & lively flavor and light floral scent from the sultry Javanese climate and rich soils.” I don’t know what it means to “mindfully” pluck tea leaves (I’d bet that a long day of harvesting tea would quickly become a mindless task), but I’m excited to try these individually-wrapped candies made in Indonesia. They’re also all-natural - with ingredients you don’t need a chemistry degree to understand.

But what do they taste like? Do I really want tea in my candy?

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Watch this video and I dare you not to have this song stuck in your head… “Oh, I’m a gummi bear. Yes I’m a gummi bear…”

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As the outer rain bands of Tropical Storm Fay reach my house, I’m met with a sense of resignation that my weekend will be spent inside. The atmosphere at work Friday evening was one of tense anticipation, but when I woke up this Saturday morning, I was pleasantly surprised to find a windy, gray, dry sky. I was able to run, walk the dogs, and lay down the basketball goal in case of strong winds. As the sky continued to stay dry, two thoughts crossed my mind - I wanted to go to the beach, and I wanted candy.

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Every year on my birthday, my parents would take me out for a special dinner. I used to love getting all dressed up and heading out to what I considered to be a fancy restaurant; the kind of restaurant that required reservations, served Shirley Temples in sparkling crystal glasses, and had beautiful chandeliers hanging from the ceilings. My mother would lay out a freshly ironed dress and a pair of patent-leather shoes for me, and I’d quickly get myself ready for my big birthday night. But it wasn’t the fancy lights or the Shirley Temples or the general fanciness of the restaurant that got me excited - those things were just added bonuses, background prettiness for the real star of the evening: the fancy awesome birthday dinner dessert.

Every year, my parents would “surprise me” by ordering a piece of birthday cake and having the waiters come over and embarrass me to death with a variation of the birthday song. And every year, I’d hand the cake over to my dad and order a big old glass of chocolate mousse.

There’s nothing better than good chocolate mousse. When you go to a restaurant that does it up right, eating chocolate mousse is akin to eating a giant vat of melted 3 Musketeers, with a dollop of whipped cream on top. It is brilliant and lovely and wonderful and all of the things that chocolate should be. Bad chocolate mousse is another story, as it tastes like stale chocolate milk crossed with an egg-crate mattress. It’s bad news, bears.

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To all who know me, it’s no secret that I can eat my weight in Junior Mints, so when I first heard about Junior Mints Deluxe, I checked the mail impatiently every day until my samples arrived. When they did, I was a little sad to see that the Florida sun had taken a toll on the confections, but they were still mostly intact, and I got ready to chow down on some minty, chocolaty goodness.

The Deluxe candies are shaped a lot like cherry cordials, but otherwise the concept is the same as regular Junior Mints - dark chocolate on the outside, soft, minty filling on the inside. Here’s what Tootsie Roll Industries has to say about their latest Junior Mints product:

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Back in 1996, a new candy appeared on the scene here in Canada. They were created by two guys from Winnipeg, Chris Emery and Larry Finnson, who decided to try marketing their Grandma’s candy recipe. They were an overnight sensation, and today they’re found on store shelves everywhere next to the big boys like Werthers’ and Starburst. The name? Clodhoppers.

According to the Phrase Finder website, clod hopper is a very old term for “a rough, unsophisticated countryman” or, more recently, a pair of ploughman’s boots. Clods, of course, refers to clods of dirt. What kind of candy names itself after a lump of dirt? A darn good one, as it turns out.

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Have you always dreamed of running your own candy company, making all the decisions, guiding the fate of flavors? Well, you still can’t do all that, but you can have a say in the choice of the newest Jelly Belly Jellybean flavor.

Out of over 200,000 flavor suggestions, five have been chosen to vie for public opinion and the chance to make it big as an official Jelly Belly flavor. The five choices are Sublime Chili Lime, Honey, Thai Iced Tea, Mojito, and Acai Berry. You can vote once per day through August 31, so if you see something you’d really like to try, get out there and vote!

A little while ago we came up with some new flavors of our own - check out Candy Addict’s Girly Beans! Somehow none of them managed to make it into the final five… oh well, maybe next time!

For the record, my choice is honey, but I think Acai berry could be interesting as well. Let us know your pick in the comments below!

• Jelly Belly Dream Bean Contest
• Jelly Belly Dream Bean Contest News Article
• Jelly Belly New Flavor Contest Press Release

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Have you ever taken a bite out of a candy bar and thought “This is so wrong!” Do you feel that your love for all things candy is not adequately represented in any product on the market? Is there just a brilliant candy bar buried in your mind that your just waiting to see materialize one day?

If you, like me, answered yes to those questions, then you will understand why I am undergoing a process of creating my own candy bar. All too many times I have been disappointed by hollow promises of candy wrappers beguiling me into purchasing bad candy. No more excuses! I have decided to make my own bar so that way I control the quality of ingredients and make sure there is nothing in it that I don’t want.

Seeking inspiration for this bar, I turned to the month. August. Well… here in Austin, TX, it’s incredibly hot and humid, but that’s summer for you. And what says summer like going out into the woods and camping? And can you really camp anywhere without making s’mores? So in honor of all things woodsy and s’mores-related, I have concocted an inverted s’mores black forest bar that I call Lost in the Woods.

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A lot of people don’t like Butterfingers (I am kinda in the middle myself), but even if you don’t, it’s a candy bar you should appreciate for its uniqueness. Sure, it’s not as good as a 5th Avenue (before they started using mockolate), but it actually predates the Hershey version by thirteen years to be the oldest, most popular peanut butter candy bar on the market.

Over the years, Butterfingers have undergone a variety of changes. They were reinvented as Butterfinger BBs, Butterfinger Stixx, and Butterfinger Crisp (the best candy spin-off to date). Each version offered a new way of consuming the classic flavor with some twist. For those readers old enough to remember the 90s, you might even recall Bart Simpson popularizing the bar with his catchy slogan of “Nobody better lay a finger on my Butterfinger!”

Over the years, one spin off I often saw was the Butterfinger Giant tempting me from numerous candy aisles; however, I never bothered to buy one. I was actually a little confused by them, to be honest. The packing is similar to the über-large Crunch bars Nestle also produces. Since the wrapper reads “Butterfinger pieces in milk chocolate,” I was always left speculating if this was a flattened and large Butterfinger bar, like how Crunch bars are all the same taste, just varying in size, or was this a Nestle milk chocolate bar with Butterfinger pieces loaded inside?

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