The best part of the weeks leading up to Christmas? Holiday craft sales. From tiny indy affairs hosting young artists with edgy, Etsy-style offerings, to old-lady church basement sales chockablock with crocheted sweaters, knitted scarves and hand-painted ornaments, I love ‘em all. Edmonton’s biggest holiday craft sale, which takes place at the Butterdome, the University of Alberta’s ridiculously yellow, butter-pat-shaped athletics building, combines the best of both worlds.
As much as I love looking at arts and crafts, my favorite corner of the Butterdome craft sale is the one where the food vendors are – or, as I like to call it, “sample city.†After mooching more than my fair share of ciders, hot chocolates, baked goodies and more different kinds of dips, spreads and tapenades than I can count on both hands, I went looking for candy items to review – no easy task. From several kinds of home-made toffees to chocolate-covered fruits to the folks from Calgary with 50 kinds of fudge, the candy options were as numerous as they were delicious.
Finally, I settled upon an offering from Davenport’s Tasty Sensations, who make a very fine caramel toffee popcorn, as well as “Cowboy Crunch,†which you can think of as a more upscale version of Clodhoppers. I selected a bag of Davenport’s Chocolate Covered Caramel Corn. (Though caramel corn straddles the line between “candy†and “snack,†in my opinion, anything coated in this much chocolate and caramel has left snack territory and wandered firmly into candy country.)
The pieces are big, hefty and uneven, about the size of large-ish marbles. The surfaces of the pieces are glossy with that confectioner’s shellac, and biting into them feels like eating a Whopper or a Glossette’s piece (except with, y’know, actual chocolate). When you bite into one, you get a very light, soft popcorn crispness under the heavier layers of soft chocolate and crunchy toffee. (I was afraid that the popcorn might be stale, but the airtight packaging and/or the protective layers of chocolate and caramel have kept it fresh-tasting.)
The dominant flavor here is the sweet milk chocolate, actually a little too sweet for my taste. The caramel layer adds a slight burned sugar toastiness to the pieces, but functions mainly as a crunch. Some pieces have enough caramel that you can really taste it, others don’t have very much – just a thin barrier that adds a little extra crispness to the popcorn.
Overall, I found this a bit too sweet for my tastes – it’s not something I would eat a lot of at one sitting. As a big caramel/toffee lover, I prefer the straight-up caramel crispness of Davenport’s regular toffee popcorn. Too bad I have to wait for the spring craft sale at the Butterdome before I can get some….
just stumbled across your blog and I love it! i am a candy addict and will definitely be back. actually found you googling cactus candy. I bought some of the prickly pear at the phoenix airport for the novelty of it and found it to be really good. this chocolate covered caramel corn and the toffee sound delicious. thanks for sharing : )
December 30th, 2008 at 11:29 pmi think i would have to agree with you on this. as much as i like chocolate and popcorn, it just seems you can’t meld the two harmoniously because of the kernel’s inherent softness and prone damage to moisture. maybe you can make some of your own for your next chocolate covered experiement.
January 4th, 2009 at 11:36 pmyou have missed the boat if you didn’t try Davenport’s coated butter nut crunch. this must be the very best i have ever tried. i do agree that the chocolate coated caramel corn is more for the chocolate lovers…..
August 17th, 2009 at 10:13 pmbut the rich buttery taste of the toffee corn is out of this world….orah and ellen would both go wild over it