We have just hired three excellent writers to keep the candy news, views, and reviews coming here on Candy Addict®! Here is a brief intro to them:

Eliza

Greetings, fellow sugar lovers. By day, I’m an intrepid journalist, eager to make the world a better place by educating, entertaining and even inspiring my readers. Once I liberate myself from the tractor beam emanating through my computer screen, however, I transform into a candy munching freak who tempers her indulgences with liberal amounts of veggies. I know… just go with it.

We’re kindred spirits, you and I. Some speak fondly about how meditating, petting a furry family member or even taking a walk in the woods helps to ground them, and while I appreciate at least two of those activities, I’ve got to admit – the simple act of tearing into a candy wrapper takes the cake, especially when the contents within have never before graced my taste buds.

My penchant for candy wanderlust has transported me to exotic edible locales that have elated, intrigued and certainly even horrified me at times, but the simple anticipation of what lies in wait always has me coming back for more. If you share my enthusiasm for unchartered candy coated territory, hop on board for an adventure that will stimulate your five senses as well as your funny bone.

HeatherR

Hi! I’m Heather: mild-mannered children’s librarian by day; voracious jellybean-snarfing, chocolate-smearing, Tootsie Pop-gnawing Candy Addict® by night (and, well, let’s face it, by morning and afternoon and midnight snack, too). Trying to name my favorite candy is just as impossible as eating conversation hearts without my tongue turning fluorescent pink. But I particularly love chocolate, especially when it also includes caramel or peanut butter; gummies of all varieties; and candies where I get to sort the colors into piles and savor the purples and reds last. And I’m elated to have the chance to share candy reviews, news, and musings with you!

Mary

Hello, fellow sugar enthusiasts! I’m Mary and I’ve been a candy fiend since as far back as I can recall. Though, as a tot, I once puked up red licorice at the movie theatre after having eaten an entire bag of it and stopped eating it for many years, candy and I have been best friends for life. I live and work as a professional writer, copy editor and proofreader in the New York City area where you can often find me roaming the streets, hunting for sweetmeat. (Did do you even know that was a word?!) I absolutely love chocolate. But I am not going to discriminate… candy is candy…and I welcome it in all flavors, colors, shapes and sizes.

Look for lots of great stuff from these three in the days/weeks ahead!

APPLICATIONS ARE NO LONGER BEING ACCEPTED

In case you hadn’t noticed, Candy Addict is looking a little dead lately and we need to change that. We’re looking to hire some new writers to get the site really going again. If you’ve ever wanted to get paid to write about candy (and get free candy to review), now’s your chance!

What are we looking for in the ideal Candy Addict writer?

• A love of candy, obviously
• Excellent writing skills
• A sense of humor that comes through in your writing
• Familiarity with HTML – you don’t have to be an HTML guru, just have some basic knowledge
• The ability and time to write a minimum of 5 articles a month for the site
• Knowledge of WordPress is a big plus, but not required. If two writers had equal skills but one had WordPress knowledge, I’d probably choose the writer with the WordPress skills if all other things were equal
• U.S. resident preferred but not required. If you want to be a writer that gets free candy samples to review, you must live in the U.S. If you are outside the U.S., you can still write for us and get paid (in U.S. dollars), but you would get no free candy from the U.S. (but we might be able to arrange free candy from candy companies in your country).

What will you get out of writing for Candy Addict?

• Money. Yes, you will be paid for your writing. It’s not enough money to quit your day job, but it’s some extra spending money.
• Free candy. We get lots of free candy to review – you will be put into the free candy queue and get some too (but you will have to write a review of it)
• A paid writing gig to put on your resume.
• No hard deadlines. Write when you can, as long as you can meet what you committed to.
• World-wide fame and notoriety. (Ok, I lied about the last one, but all the others are 100% true)

If interested, send me an email to DO NOT SEND EMAIL – APPLICATION PERIOD IS OVER

I’m pleased to announce that we have three new writers coming on board Candy Addict. Ali, Amy, and Jennifer will begin posting this week. Here is some info about each of them.

Ali:

Hi, Candy Addicts! I’m Ali. I’m mom to four kids and three doggies and wife to one hubby (not in any particular order of love or affection because that varies hour to hour). Candy is my ultimate BFF: she’s there when you need her, she’s a great listener, she doesn’t judge, and she doesn’t offer unsolicited advice.

I’m super-duper excited to join the Candy Addict team. I love to write and I’m addicted to the sweet stuff – both high qualifiers for the job as it involves writing and eating sweet stuff! As an added benefit, I’m looking forward to using my kids as guinea pigs on some yucky candy or even yuckier candy. Yep, easily amused. :)

Amy:

Hi! My name is Amy, and though I’m a writer and editor, I’m a first time candy reviewer. I have to admit, I didn’t realize they reviewed candy, but if they can review pig’s knuckles from Sweden on the Travel Channel — well, I’d much rather read about candy. I look forward to exploring new and old candy alike and sharing my discoveries with you.

Jennifer:

Hi! My name is Jen and I’ve been addicted to candy for 37 years (seriously can’t remember anything before age 2) and am still an active candy addict. In my house there are many, many candy stashes. I have my own which must be protected. There’s one for the kids and an extra stash with the kids stash so my husband can steal from their stash and not my stash!

Anyway, I’m happy to be an official “Candy Addict” and I look forward to sharing all my candy experiences with you!

With three new writers on-staff, you can expect more of the candy reviews and articles that you’ve come to love and expect from Candy Addict!

Today, February 1, 2011 marks a big day for Candy Addict. We can now reveal to you something we have been working on for a bit – our new candy search engine. We loaded up the contents of 14 different online candy stores (soon to be more) and made their stores all searchable in one place. We currently have 18,512 items in there but that will be growing all the time as we add more stores and candy. The database will be kept up to date so that if you find it in a search, it should be available to buy.

Some other cool features:

• See what candy others are searching for in near real-time on the recent candy searches pages
• See what new candy has been added to the site (not too useful right now since EVERY candy is new since they were all just added)
• browse by candy brands, candy flavors, chocolate candy, and holiday candy
• Save money with candy coupon codes (more coming soon)
• Candy merchant listings

Go check it out and run some searches! It’s fun to see what you can find. Some of my favorites:

• gummi candy
• sour candy
• cola candy
• root beer candy

Oh – you can also filter your searches by price and candy store too!

We plan on doing some integration of the blog with the search engine in the coming months, but in no way will the blog disappear (in fact, we plan on making it bigger and better). So stay tuned! The search engine isn’t quite perfect yet and we have a few tweaks left to do, but we wanted to go ahead and get it out there so you could start using it and playing with it.

• Buy candy online via the candy search engine

Did you know that every time you buy Hershey’s part of the proceeds go to support the Milton Hershey School? The school began 100 years ago as a dream and vision shared by Milton Hershey and his wife Kitty. Unable to have children of their own, they took their wealth and created a home and school for orphaned boys in 1909. After his wife died, Milton Hershey gave his entire fortune to the School. Mr. Hershey has been quoted as having said, “The School was Kitty’s idea. If we had helped a hundred children it would have all been worthwhile.” One hundred years later, Milton and Kitty Hershey’s legacy lives on and has educated thousands of students. You can read more about Milton and Kitty’s story and the school at www.thehersheylegacy.com.

THE GIVEAWAY
To celebrate 100 years of giving, Hershey’s wants to give two lucky Candy Addict readers a gift basket like you see above full of things like Kisses, Twizzlers, Whoppers, Reese’s, and much, much more. To enter, post a comment below sharing your own story of uncommon love in general, a story about favorite Hershey’s candies from childhood or adulthood, or a story about how a (your?) child loves Hershey’s candy. We will pick our favorite as one winner and the other we will choose randomly from all valid entries.

Be sure and use your REAL email address (it will not be shown on the site) when you post a comment and make sure you do not auto-mark na email from candyaddict.com as SPAM. You can’t win if you can’t receive the winning email!

Offer open to U.S. residents only and prize must be shipped to a U.S. address. Limit one entry per person. Entries accepted until midnight EST, May 14, 2010. Winners must be 18 years or older to win. Void where prohibited by law. If the winner does not reply by email within 48 hours when we send the winning email, the prize will be forfeit and another winner will be chosen.

• http://www.thehersheylegacy.com/

Candy Addict is still in transition, but that doesn’t mean we can’t bring you another fabulous giveaway, this time from 3 Musketeers! For the entire month of March you’ll have the chance to leave a comment telling us your favorite recipe including 3 Musketeers. We’ll pick two winners and they’ll receive a totally fab basket full of 3 Musketeers and 3 Musketeers Mint. I personally love 3 Musketeers, and coming up with recipes sounds like great fun.

As usual, some restrictions apply. You must be over 18 and be a US resident of the Lower 48 (sorry Alaska and Hawaii). Entries must include a recipe and you need to use your real email address when you enter; it won’t be displayed on the site, but we need it to contact you should you win. If you don’t respond within 48 hours of us contacting you, we’ll select another winner. Entries will be accepted until midnight, March 31.

Update: Our winners were Gwen and Tessa. Here are their winning recipes:

Tessa:
First, my love affair with 3 Musketeers began in highschool when our sex ed class consisted of a woman standing up and saying if we had the urge to merge, eat a snickers bar. I raised my hand and said (innocently I swear) “what if prefer 3 musketeers?”and promptly got detention. From that day on, I ate a 3M bar every morning where the principal could see me.

My fave in college was to make 3M hot cocoa. You have to freeze the mini 3 Musketeers first. Once frozen break up into small bits (putting them in a plastic bag helps) and put at a bottom of a mug (enough to cover the bottom third). Pour milk in for the other third and a pinch more. Put in the microwave for about a minute, stir and continue in 30 second intervals until all the chocolate is melted.

Out of college, I’ve been making my own concoction again. Yes, I do go for premade stuff,but hey, once I get a craving it’s easier. 3 Musketeer Cookie Pops. Buy premade sugar cookie doll and roll out. Take a biscuit cutter (or use an empty soup can) and cut out as many circles as you can. You can reroll all the scraps to make more. Cut mini 3 musketeer bars in half. Place one half of a cut mini 3M bar in the center of one of the circles and mold the dough around. Place all molded balls on a greased cookie sheet and cook per the directions of the premade cookie dough. While the dough is cooking, chop up any remaining mini 3M bars and place them on a double boiler and melt. Once the cookies come out of the oven and are still soft, stick popsicle sticks in the center of the balls (you can also cut chopsticks for this but be careful of splinters!). Dip the cookie pops in the melted chocolate and roll in any remaining 3M dust you may have. Place on wax paper then put in the fridge to cool for 30 minutes. Enjoy! There probably is a real recipe for it out there, but this is my “original” version.

Gwen:
Three Musketeers Fried Pies

1 (10-count) can refrigerated biscuits

1 large Three Musketeers bar

Confectioners’ sugar

Roll each biscuit out flat. Cut candy bar into 10 wedges; lay one wedge in middle of each biscuit and fold over.

Crimp edges together and deep fry until golden brown.

Let cool, and roll in confectioners’ sugar.

So, we’re not gone, just having some growing pains. We’ll be back in full soon. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: I (Brian) have had a minor medical emergency and it has incapacitated me for a few days – once I’m recovered I will get the site back up.

Those lovely folks over at M&M’s have generously offered to provide two Candy Addict readers with a nice little Valentine care package containing four packages of those seasonal favorites, All-Green M&M’s. How can you get in on the goodness? Simple! Just leave a comment that creatively uses the word “green” in some way. Two entries will be chosen at random (but only if your comment is creative – just leaving the word “green” won’t cut it!).

You have until midnight on Friday, February 6 to get those entries in, so get cracking!

Also, be sure to check out M&M’s The Color of Love Valentine’s Day contest. You could win a trip to Paris!

Update:
Our winners were Lauracat and Bob. Congratulations!

It’s a new year, and that can mean only one thing! Headaches and hangovers? No! New writers for Candy Addict!

Actually, some of you may know them from our sister site, Snackerrific. Our fabulous writers Jim, Diana, Linda, Allissa, and Rachel have joined us here at Candy Addict. At the same time, you may find articles by some of your favorite Candy Addicts over at Snackerrific.

Here’s hoping your New Year is safe, happy, and sugar-laden, and a big welcome to our new(ish) writers!

Cookies are still as popular as ever, and you know that by the number of reviews our sister site Snackerrific has compiled on them. These last few weeks feature reviews from all over the cookie globe, including a Japanese cookie, a Philadelphia classic of spiced wafers, and West Coast gourmet at an affordable price in Trader Joe’s Mexican hot chocolate cookies.

The Ying to the cookie Yang in the snack world has to be chips. And believe it, there are no shortage of reviews on those either. Another flavor of Michael Season’s multigrain chips gets its spot in the limelight, while Food Should Taste Good chips gets an exclusive critique on their six awesome and unexpected flavor varieties ranging from sweet potato to chocolate.

Also highlighted in these recent articles is Linda’s continuing venture into the world of yogurt, where she bravely samples the Greek yogurt Fage. But probably the biggest and best news of all is the return of Viennetta! This classic ice cream and chocolate dessert cake is making a limited debut in the supermarkets, so head on over to get the latest scoop!

• Snackerrific Website

Check Out These Recent Snackerrific Articles

• Ghana Cookie Review
• Sweetzels Spiced Wafers Review
• Food Should Taste Good Chips Review
• Fage Yogurt Review
• Trader Joe’s Mexican Hot Cocoa Cookies Review
• Michael Season’s Honey-Chipotle Baked Multigrain Chips Review
• Viennetta Returns!