As a woman, I just enjoy shoe shopping. What could possibly be better than that? How about shopping for chocolate shoes? I’m talking about solid chocolate edible shoes. Gayle Harte is a chocolate fashionista and artist. Besides creating cool animal shaped chocolates (like sharks and tigers), she has created a collection of chocolate shoes that would never last in my closet.

The shoes range in style and colors from golf shoes to a special Royal Wedding shoe made in honor of Kate & William’s wedding. Each shoe is solid chocolate and weighs between 4 ounces and 14.5 ounces. Most are 7 inches long and almost 6 inches tall. They are amazing little edible works of art. I know some people would say they’d never eat them because they’re so pretty. Not me, I’d eat one in a heartbeat.

• Gayle’s Chocolate Shoes

Everyone who walks down a city street has seen them, blobs of bubblegum spit out on the sidewalk. It’s not a very distinguished end to a tasty piece of chewing gum. Well, someone has invented a fine solution to littered gum blobs. There is a gentleman in England by the name of Ben Wilson who turns these gum blobs into works of art.

According to The New York Times, Ben was tired of all the litter in the city so he decided to take matters into his own hands. In order to turn these blobs into works of art, Ben will first soften the gum blob with a small blowtorch and then he sprays it with a lacquer and some coats of enamel. After that, he paints! He uses tiny paint brushes and then seals the painting with a lacquer to preserve it. He has painted “thousands” of these gum masterpieces all over London.

So, instead of looking at flattened gray blobs of ABC gum (already been chewed), you get to admire tiny works of art. Another great way to recycle, even if it is recycled, used gum.

• More About Ben Wilson’s Gum Art

• More Photos of Ben Wilson’s Gum Art

Craftgossip has a cool list of 9 different crafts you can make with conversation hearts. I never really cared for the taste of them, so maybe I should start making stuff with them instead!

• 9 Conversation Hearts Crafts

File this under coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time. Miam! is the amazing work of a team of French filmmakers. The animated short follows a young boy as he journeys up the shelves of the candy aisle and into a magical world of candy. Along with a candy princess, he goes on an adventure through this land of candy, eventually fighting the Great Blob of Mockolate to save the princess. (Ok, maybe it’s supposed to be chocolate and not mockolate, but could chocolate really be so evil? I say nay! ‘Tis the work of the evil mockolate!)

And boy is there candy! Every kind you can think of, amazingly rendered and animated. From gummi bears to licorice to gumdrops and lollipops, it definitely looks good enough to eat. It’s like a Candy Addict’s dream come to life… on film, at least.

Many thanks to Laurent, one of the creators, for sharing this with us!

• Miam! Website

Tung Toos – an interesting concept in the candy world. I remember how popular the temporary tattoos were when I was in junior high. A tattoo for your tongue – a candy tattoo for your tongue? Okay, sounds good! Or so I thought when the makers of Tung Toos offered to send me a sample for review. Unfortunately, I’ve gone down a series of disappointing steps since receiving the package.

First let me point out the positives of Tung Toos. They are visually appealing with bright colors and fun pictures that will draw any kid’s attention. I received three packages – one decidedly meant for girls and two that would be preferred by the boys. The girls’ pack has castles, crowns, magic wands, and the word Princess. The boys’ packs have sports balls – soccer, basketball, baseball, and football – and military vehicles – helicopters, jeeps, tanks, and ships. Since I have three boys and no girls, this was a good mix of Tung Toos for my family.

The idea of having a picture on your tongue – to stick out at all your friends – is, presumably, attractive to the younger set. Personally, I don’t feel the need to stick my tongue out at anyone and don’t want to see other people with their tongues wagging around either. Call me a dud, if you wish….

Now on to my actual experience with Tung Toos. I found the packages themselves extremely hard to get open. Each sheet of Tung Toos is sealed within a plastic envelope – an envelope that has not a single ‘tab’ to facilitate opening. After jerking and pulling at every potential spot, I finally had to cut the pack open. The first set we tried (the sports balls) was actually adhered to the bottom of the envelope. I had to literally rip them free, but this seems to have been a unique mistake in the packaging. The other sheets slid out easily once I cut the envelopes open.

The battle to try the Tung Toos didn’t stop once I freed the sheet of ‘ttoos. The sheet is perforated with two Tung Toos squares per section – each section is sealed in yet another plastic envelope. Oh, the agony! Fortunately, these small envelopes do have a tab that you can rather simply pull to tear open. For some reason, though, the backside of the Tung Toos (where the directions are printed) is actually attached via a light adhesive to the plastic envelope. After more tearing and dropping a very large amount of plastic waste paper onto my carpet, we could at last try the Tung Toos.

Using them isn’t hard at all. You simply lay the ‘ttoo face down on your tongue for a couple seconds and then lift off. The picture left behind is decent and looks reasonably like the picture that was on the paper. If you apply a second Tung Too, however, (and who wouldn’t?) the image is distorted and you end up with a bluish-black blob that looks exactly like you just ate a Charms Blow Pop or a handful of SweeTarts.

Okay, taste. Isn’t that the most important part of candy? Isn’t taste the entire reason we eat candy?

When I laid a Tung Too on my tongue, there was a mild tangy flavor. After I lifted the tattoo paper off and kinda licked around in my mouth, I detected a slightly sweet flavor. Within ten seconds, any hint of flavor was completely gone. Flavor is obviously not the intended drawing point of Tung Toos.

I offered Tung Toos to a 22-year-old friend of mine, who is much more hip & happ’nin’ and up-to-date with fads and being popular than I am. I figured if Tung Toos was appealing in a “youth culture” sort of way (boy, do I feel old talking like this!), he would find the appeal in it. After using one, he said (of the flavor), “That’s just a tease.”

My eight- and five-year-old sons did keep using them (would it make sense to say “eating them”?) for a couple days, but I can’t say they were ever thoroughly enamored. If you were throwing a kid’s birthday party, these would probably make good party favors. But I can’t personally imagine any kid wanting to request them on a regular basis. I figure they’d rather have Fun Dip or Smarties.

• Tung Toos Website

I got this awesome email the other day from a mom who helped her son make this totally cool jelly bean portrait in school. Check it out! (It looks even better the further away from it you are.)

It was done by 2nd graders in at Saugatuck Elementary School in Westport, CT and is made out of 3,500 jellybeans. The students were “inspired by Vik Muniz and all of his amazing works with food.”

And don’t forget to check out our other jelly bean art articles:

• George Clooney Immortalized in Jelly Beans
• The Jellybean Woman

And of course we have an entire category dedicated to different forms of candy art!

• Candy Art at Candy Addict

I come to you today with a Barbie bonanza.

You may notice that our first Barbie is of the non-edible variety. I have a sneaking suspicion that there are some Candy Addicts lurking over at Mattel because why else would they come up with a Hershey’s-chocolate-inspired Barbie? The official explanation on Barbie’s box says: “For well over a century, Hershey’s has been the chocolate of choice! Now Barbie doll celebrates the sweet story of Hershey’s excellence.” But I’m sticking to my theory that there are a bunch of chocoholics hanging about at Mattel. Which, by the way, just makes me think that must be a cool place to work even more than I already did.

The Hershey’s Barbie Doll is part of the American Favorites collection. I can see the Hershey’s inspiration in the color and shape of the dress as well as the cute Hershey’s sash – they remind me of a Hershey’s Kiss. For a Barbie collector or a candy memorabilia collector, this doll is a treat!

Now, over in the edible section, we have Dylan’s Candy Bar’s Then & Now Chocolate Square Pack of Barbie milk chocolate squares. The squares feature pictures of different Barbies throughout the years and I gotta tell you some of these Barbies are a hoot. The 1986 Barbie picture had me howling and wincing at the same time. Not that I’m admitting to wearing eye shadow like that – ahem.

Besides being fun to look at, the Dylan’s Barbie chocolates are quite tasty. They’ve got a good chocolate flavor in the same quality ballpark as Cadbury or Dove. However, I found the texture a bit perplexing. It wasn’t bad, it was just a bit weird. The chocolates are kind of chewy and, instead of dissolving quickly in my mouth, they kind of took their time. Since they taste good, it wasn’t a problem for me but I found the slight chewiness a bit disconcerting.

If you like Barbie-themed candies, Dylan’s has an array to choose from – the website gave me the giggles and some great ideas for presents for my niece.

Overall, it’s a good month for Candy Addicts with a Barbie fetish!

• Hershey’s Barbie Website

• Dylan’s Candy Bar Website

The last time I headed into Dylan’s Candy Bar it was for a fairly hideous Swedish Fish event. So, it was with some trepidation that I ventured back for a media get-together with Beth Kimmerle, author of Chocolate: The Sweet History and Candy: The Sweet History (among others). Thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable the afternoon turned out.

The event basically showcased Beth’s crafty creations using candy. Some of the things were absolutely amazing (I especially liked the pretzel butterflies – see above), and all were great ways to find creative uses for candy as well as being fun to do with the kids. Beth is a big fan of Life Savers Gummies (who isn’t?) and a lot of her creations seem to utilize the tasty treats. One big thing I found out is that the packaging is changing for Life Savers Gummies – instead of that tubular thing that never seemed to hold quite enough, they’re now coming in small bags. They’ll still fit in your purse, but you get more. Woot!

When we left we got a gift bag containing the ingredients to make some of the creations. Now, let’s face it: these tasty candies are never going to make it past the “open package insert into mouth” stage of creation, but it was a nice thought. We also got some of the recipes highlighted at the event, and I thought our more ambitious readers might enjoy trying one out. So, without further ado, here’s the recipe for those gorgeous Pretzelfly Pops:

Add a little wing to your spring! Use pretzels and Life Savers to make these gorgeous butterfly lollipops that are sure to brighten your afternoon. These beautiful bugs are the perfect sweet treat for an afternoon tea party or baby shower!

To create 10 Pretzelfly Pops, you will need
1. (1) 16 oz. bag of thin pretzels
2. 80 pieces 5 Flavor Life Savers
3. 5 pieces colored licorice (for antennae)
4. 10 lollipop sticks
5. Small plastic bags
6. Parchment paper
7. Cookie sheet

Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees.

2. Place Life Savers into small plastic bags, separating them according to color. Seal bags tightly and using an object with a flat surface, like a small pot, gently crush bagged Life Savers into small pieces.

3. Place thin pretzels on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper, arranging together in pairs so the pretzels look like wings. Insert a lollipop stick in between each pair. For best butterfly results, arrange so that your lollipop stick and two pretzel ends are touching. Leave ample room at top for licorice antennae.

4. Take the bagged Life Saver candy bits and carefully sprinkle them into the interior part of the pretzel (open space between the rods). Use larger clear pieces to fuse wings and lollipop stick together by placing directly on stick. Use generous amount of Life Savers pieces so they will gel together when melted to achieve the desired effect.

5. Once all pretzel wings are filled with Life Savers, cut 2” pieces of colored licorice and carefully place in top area. Be sure that enough Life Savers are used for proper effect.

6. Steadily place cookie sheet in the oven, making sure all pieces remain in place. Cook your creation for five to eight minutes (at 175 degrees), checking progress regularly to see that Life Savers are melting evenly. Once Life Savers are melted, take the cookie sheet out of oven and allow to cool completely. Once cool, gently take butterfly pops off of parchment paper.

If you make some, let us know how it goes! And keep your eyes peeled for more fun recipes coming soon!

UPDATE: A reader tried the recipe but had some trouble with the temperature. If you plan on making these, you may want to give yourself some extra time and experiment with the temperature if you have a problem. I’ll let you know if the recipe authors have an update on the temperature.

• Beth Kimmerle’s Candymonium

Buy Life Savers Online:

• at Old Time Candy
• at Amazon.com

Today’s chocoholics are more demanding than ever before. There was a time, perhaps half a century ago, when “chocolate” meant “chocolate.” As our parents and/or grandparents skipped home from school, they contented themselves with plain Hershey or Snickers Bars. They didn’t give any thought to the quality of their chocolate, its regional origin, or its physical attractiveness. They didn’t care about cacao percentages or exotic flavorings. Unless they happened to be in the culinary field, neither did their parents. In that simpler era, all that most people considered was whether or not their chocolate tasted sweet, good, and at least slightly chocolaty.

It doesn’t take a cocoa connoisseur to see those days are far behind us. With dark chocolate now labeled a “health food,” it seems like new purveyors of handcrafted artisan chocolate materialize every day. In an effort to keep up with trends, retain old customers and attract new ones, old-standby chocolate makers such as Hershey have released lines of upmarket chocolates, often quite successfully.

On a recent trip to CVS, I noticed that old standby chocolatiers Whitman’s/Russell Stover, best known for their holiday chocolate collections, have gotten in on the act. While perusing the already center stage Valentine’s Day candies, I picked up Whitman’s “Soho” collection. I’d seen a similar collection the year before. I’d passed it by, less than eager to spend $5.00 on a 6-piece selection of drugstore chocolates, but my curiosity won out this time.

As its name might imply, the Soho is a selection of “Artist-inspired chocolates.” The packaging is chic and eye-catching. The overall impression of the decoration is sexy and upscale, quite a switch from the usual, old-fashioned look of Whitman’s boxes. By the time I arrived home, I was actually quite excited about sampling the chocolates!

The glamorous, appealing presentation continued as I opened the box. In the gilded interior, the six chocolates are arranged, artist’s-palette-style, around a “Soho” logo. Struck by the gleam and the layout, I was impressed until I took a closer look at the chocolates. The only thing vaguely “artistic” about these were random splotches, swirls, and lines of color atop some of the candies.

I reasoned that was all right. I was dealing with chocolate, after all. Although appearance can enhance the experience, any self-respecting Candy Addict knows that in the world of chocolate, it’s flavor that really counts. The flavors in this collection sounded unique and tempting. No sea salt or bacon were included in the assortment, but there were pistachio nougat and a honey caramel! I withdrew my first chocolate “masterpiece” and began my tasting.

Chocolate Mousse
My first chocolate, which turned out to be chocolate mousse, featured a white chocolate coating adorned with streaks of milk chocolate. Biting in gave me an overwhelmingly positive first impression. The white chocolate had a nice snap followed by the creamy, cocoa butter-enhanced flavor of great white chocolate. Reaching the center left me underwhelmed. This is not mousse, the light-yet-indulgent European dessert staple! This is actually a fairly stiff creme. There’s barely any chocolate taste, the flavor is 90% bland sweetness. A shame, given that the white chocolate coating was my favorite of the bunch.

Pistachio Nougat
The second chocolate I sampled featured a dark chocolate shell with red, gold, and purple splotches. Biting in, the intensity of the dark chocolate surprised me. It’s more bitter than sweet. I detected notes of coffee. The interior is tough nougat which, for me, softened after several seconds on the tongue. I’d hoped for a strong pistachio flavor, as I love the nut, but the pieces of nut are too small to impart much flavor. The taste of alcohol is actually stronger in this piece. Overall, I liked this piece. It reminds me of Italian torrone.

Raspberry Creme
It’s no secret that Dark Chocolate + Raspberry = Deliciousness. Although it’s an unadorned dark piece, and this creme’s texture is identical to the “Chocolate Mousse” piece, the flavor is much nicer and more accurately named. There’s a real fruit taste to this chocolate’s center! The creme centers in this collection feel slightly “grocery bin” to me, but this is my favorite creme.

Vanilla Brulee
Upon first biting into this dark chocolate streaked with milk, I was sure I’d found the honey caramel. The center didn’t really seem like a caramel, but I supposed if a creme could be passed off as a mousse, anything was possible with this collection. The piece smells and tastes strongly of honey, and I didn’t taste anything like vanilla in its ultra syrupy, sugary goodness. Although it may have been misnamed, this is my favorite of the bunch.

Double Chocolate Truffle
This chocolate, boasting a white shell and colorful swirls, is another oddly-named Soho chocolate. In addition to lacking an actual chocolate exoskeleton, it’s not a truffle. This is a dark chocolate creme, and the flavor is well-executed.

Honey Caramel
The red-streaked final piece is the Soho collection’s lone milk chocolate. The milk chocolate does not impress me as much as Soho’s white or dark coatings, but the hard caramel within is rich, sweet and buttery. Oddly, I detect no honey in this piece. It’s all right, but not my favorite caramel by a long shot.

I have an incurable lust for chocolate, and love chocolates across the cacao socioeconomic spectrum. That being said, I find when more humble chocolate companies decide to go “upscale,” the results are hit and miss. For every box of M&M’s Premiums, there’s a Choxie debacle. I’d place Whitman’s Soho experiment at the low end of the spectrum’s center. Their white and dark chocolate coatings and one very tasty filling save them from complete disaster. I must also applaud Whitman’s packaging and arrangement efforts. However, I think in this case customers would be more satisfied if they knew exactly what they were getting – decent drugstore chocolate – from the start.

• Whitman’s Soho Chocolates Website

The holidays are made for candy indulgence – but does indulgence have to break the bank? We’ve attempted to discover just that in the first two parts of It Came from the Dollar Store: The Cheapo Holiday Candy Special. In Parts 1 and 2, we reviewed the tasty Whipped Creme Santa and the not-so-tasty Marshmallow Treats Santa. Now, I bring you the third and final Christmas candy from the fine folks at Dollarama: the Sugar House.

The concept behind the Sugar House is a simple one. It’s a house… made out of sugar. Lots and lots of sugar. It’s then given a gummy “occupant” – in this case, a strange little orange gumdrop man with a Santa hat and Popeye arms who seems to be radiating red icing “heat waves” – perhaps he’s an anthropomorphic flame? Is the Sucrose Shack meant to appear as if it’s in imminent danger of melting into a Caramel House? (In the company’s defense, they also do versions with a pretty decent-looking Santa and snowman.)

As if that weren’t already enough pure sugar to send anyone into diabetic shock, the house and occupant are then liberally decorated with icing. The icing detailing is actually surprisingly nice, with rainbow-colored Christmas lights and a brown chimney on the roof, blue icing “windows” on the sides, and even blue snowflakes (two shades of blue!) and white squiggles on the back of the house where they could easily have gotten away with skimping.

The house is housed (hah!) in a clear plastic cube, but it’s also shrink-wrapped, with a piece of gold string on the top so you can hang it on your Christmas tree. That was my first clue that the Diabetes Domicile is probably meant to be a decorative item first and a candy second. Like the Marshmallow Santa I reviewed in Part 2, it has no name brand, just “Imported by Dollarama.”

When I remove the Chateau d’ Cavities from its protective plastic, I’m surprised to find that it has a citrusy scent – I’d assumed that it was made from pure, unadulterated sugar. It’s a stale scent though, like old icing – it kind of smells like you’d expect those Styrofoam sample wedding cakes in bakery windows to smell. I begin by divesting the Sweet-za Hut of its gummy occupant. Not as easy a task as you’d expect given the copious amounts of icing cementing him to his sugary residence – I wind up having to tear the little guy in half in order to get him out. The gumdrop tastes like, well, an orange gumdrop, not as stale as I feared, with an interesting crunch from the icing. Removing the gummy also reveals a strange icing detail that had been hidden:

Yeah, I’m as confused as you.

Now for the moment of truth. I lift the Confectionery Condo to my mouth and attempt to gnaw off enough to sample. The crunchy royal icing tastes like you’d expect, but the sugar part of the house is surprisingly tooth-friendly. Rather than being grainy like a sugar cube, as I’d originally thought, it’s actually more like a very firm orange-flavored fondant. The thin bottom is hard, but the thicker sides are actually surprisingly soft, almost crumbly. Even the first nibble is enough to set my throat burning from sweetness.

In all, it’s not as bad as I’d feared, but I just can’t eat 100 g (480 calories’ worth) of pure orange-flavored sugar – and you and your loved ones probably shouldn’t either.

So what has our exploration of dollar-store holiday candy taught us? While there is decent candy at the dollar store, particularly if you’re lucky enough to find name-brand items, it’s wise to be picky when it comes to no-name candy. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to wash the taste of all this budget candy out of my mouth with some nice, expensive, good-quality dark chocolate.