Top 10 Wished-For Candy

Thursday, December 18, 2008 - by Robby

A lot of the time, I wish candy companies had a suggestion box that went straight to the candy makers themselves. If such a thing existed, I would constantly bombard them with my dream concoctions of how they could revamp their products. This is a Top 10 list dedicated to candy I’d most like to see hit the shelves.

10. Fruit Stripe Lollipops: I, like all chewers of Fruit Stripe Gum, love the flavor, but hate how it disappears so rapidly. The solution? Make it a lollipop! You can lick, suck, and munch on the flavor all you care to, and for true lovers of gum, you could always insert it in the center.

9. Dark Chocolate Almond Baby Ruth: O.K., for starters, I think Baby Ruth is to candy what the Pythagorean Theorem is to math. It’s just that awesome, and I can’t imagine a candy world without it. That said, it’s one of the few popular candies on the market that never was made over to include alternate versions. Some dark chocolate and almonds might just be the thing to spruce it up when you want a little change from a classic.

8. Starburst Gum: So it’s no secret that I don’t like gum. It’s also no secret that I love Starburst. I feel these two can meet somewhere in between and make me very happy. The problem I have with most gum is its flavor; but if there were gum that tasted like the Starburst I adore, I would have no problem chewing away.

7. Gummy Worm Licorice: So I guess this isn’t really a new product in my mind as it is a super-sizing of a great candy. I want gummy worms the size of Twizzlers! The problem with gummy worms is that they are so small, and thus, they find their way into my stomach too quickly. But make them a good eight inches long and sell them in a pack, and there goes my Saturday afternoon.

6. Pumpkin Twix: Pumpkin is a flavor that is unfortunately underutilized in the confection world. Though it could be thrown into a lot of candy out there with great results, I think the pumpkin filling would best replace the caramel part of a Twix. The filling just seems like it would taste great over the cookie part.

5. ButterCrunch: So this is a purely hypothetical situation. What would happen if someone were making a Butterfinger Crisp in a Nestle factory? And what would happen if the vat that contained the chocolate coating were swapped with Nestle’s Crunch Dark? And what would happen then if you made a Butterfinger Crisp bar embedded in a Dark Chocolate Crunch Bar? Well, I’ll tell you what would happen – you’d have a week worth’s of my paycheck buying these things.

4. Jelly Belly Taffy: The only problem I really have with Jelly Bellys, aside from flavors that include buttered popcorn, is that they are sooooooooooooo small. I mean, I can eat a billion juicy pears. But there are hardly that many in a package. The solution? Turn this confection into a taffy so that you get a larger dose of the flavor that you can chew for a while.

3. Crispy Crunchy Reese’s: After my failure with the new Reese’s Crunchy Peanut Butter Cups, I had an epiphany. What if there were a crunchy Reese’s Peanut Butter cup? And not crunchy because of peanuts, or any nut/legume for that matter. I think the insertion of crisp rice or a toasted peanut butter center would taste amazing in this staple product.

2. Pecan Pie Snickers: Pecans are my favorite nut in candy, but they are so rarely used. Why candy makers? Don’t you like pecan pie? I bet you do! You just never thought of using it in candy. Snickers is such a malleable piece of candy that if any bar can infuse the fabulousness of pecan pie into candy, Snickers can.

1. Dark Chocolate Reese’s Pieces M&Ms: I never much cared for M&Ms, but when the Dark Chocolate varieties arrived, the party really got started. I have also always adored Reese’s Pieces, but thought a thicker coat of better chocolate could be added to balance the peanut butter’s strength. That is why if you took Dark Chocolate Peanut M&Ms and swapped Reese’s Pieces for the peanut, you’d have the making of an awesomely addictive candy.

So there you have it. That’s what I would want to see on the candy shelf if I controlled the world. But what about you? Do you like any of my suggestions, or do you have your own improvements to the ones I listed? Even better, let me and everyone else know what you would make if you had the power by posting a comment about your ideal candy below.

• More Top 10 Lists At Candy Addict