(photo from davidlebovitz.com)
Even if you are not Jewish, you must RUN to your nearest place-where-there-are-Jews and buy a box of matzah. You must then RUN home and make a giant batch of this stuff. Seriously. Trust me - it’s THAT good.

When pastry chef David Lebovitz posted this recipe several months ago, I bookmarked it out of loyalty to a fellow Jew-slash-chef. Anyone brave enough to claim that this was the stuff of legend, AND be baking it a full four months early, had to be on to something, right? The recipe then got lost in a sea of bookmarks, until such time as another food blogger posted her version of this and reminded me of its existence. I will freely admit that I cut and pasted the recipe that very second and abandoned my computer to go and make some.

By the end of the day, I had endured several burnt fingertips and was surrounded by a sea of chocolate-smeared napkins. Not because I am a particularly messy pastry chef, but because I am an impatient so-and-so whose nose and eyes could no longer handle the absolutely heavenly caramel smell and the shiny molten chocolate layer on top. I ate rather more of it than I originally intended, AND I ate it before it was technically ready to eat, hence the scorched skin. Luckily for me and my Seder guests, the recipe yields enough that I had some to serve on both nights and even a few scraps to give the kids in the days after.

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(Image courtesy of The Imaginary World)

Here is a guest review by Julie…

When I was about 8, our family moved to a remote part of Connecticut that was easily five miles from any main commercial shopping areas. The only place we could get candy was the neighborhood gas station, complete with a grungy, grumpy old mechanic guy who, though a bit scary, stocked some awesome candy in his little 2-bay garage; I have since wondered if he was a Candy Addict himself. Of all the candies that he had on display (and though I bought others, too), it was the Seven Up bar that got a sizable chunk of my allowance money every time.

Discontinued sometime in the 70’s, the Seven Up bar began its seven-sectioned life in the 1930s, before the 7-Up Bottling Company began making its soft drink. Eventually the 7-Up company bought the bar and retired it, so they had the exclusive use of the name whichever way it was spelled: Seven Up or 7-Up. None of that mattered a whit to me, as I was only interested in one thing: those seven sections of chocolate-covered different candy centers, meaning I was getting seven big pieces of candy in one regular-sized bar. Quite a bargain to me back then for my hard-saved pennies and nickels (shoot, I’d pay just about anything for one today)!

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Although I don’t consider myself to be a picky eater, I’ve been told that I tend to dissect my food. This is particularly true when said food was once alive and has the ability to surprise me with an unexpected texture or color. I hate to admit that this attention to food detail has in the past extended to candy. I am referring to my hesitance to try Cow Tales.

My early experiences with this candy involved seeing it displayed alongside bouquets of Slim Jims at convenience stores. This frightened me to my very core as a child. And as a teenager. And to this day. Does the close proximity to mechanically separated chicken parts mean that there could possibly be an actual cow’s tale in this unassuming white wrapper? What exactly is a Cow Tale? And is the spelling just a clever ruse to distract me from the fact that I may be about to consume an actual appendage?

Let’s just say I overreacted a little bit.

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Although Snickers has satisfied the world for over 75 years now, it has been some years since I’ve actually bought and eaten one. I had pretty much overdosed on them during my pregnancy, when I craved Snickers every day for several months (or just used the cravings excuse as a way to justify daily chocolate eating)!

These days there are so many interesting candy bars available, the tried-and-true don’t often get chosen when I’m in the mood for a sugar fix. After eating one for the purposes of this review, I remembered why those cravings were so nice to have. Snickers is really the granddaddy of all candy bars and it’s not difficult to taste why.

Upon eating it, I was reminded why Snickers is such a popular choice – there is just something very appealing about the different textures it offers. The smooth, slightly squishy nougat, the stretchy caramel, and the crunchy peanuts, all wrapped up in a soft chocolate coating makes this bar almost irresistible.

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Sucre is the kind of shop that I wish I had nearby. It’s a cute shop located in New Orleans that specializes in sweets, mostly of the chocolate variety. Sucre makes a large variety of bonbons, each one looking more tantalizing than the next. They kindly sent me a small sampling, and after opening the box, I didn’t know if I should eat them or just admire them: they’re so pretty!

Sucre’s bonbons are also tiny, so much so that I was reminded of toys and after taking my photos of them, I had an urge to play with them. That would have been a bad idea for several reasons, with the more obvious being that these are carefully crafted and are quite delicate. I had chipped one of the painted decorative tiles in just moving a bonbon from the box. Tucking my playful urges aside, I read the included flavor pamphlet and tried to identify my assortment. I had nine bonbons to decipher from a list of twenty four different types. On with the tasting!

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Recently, I’ve gotten the relatively rare opportunity to taste and review a number of American products (thanks Sera!) and I’ve realized a few things. For instance, eating pretzels as candy is a very US-based food phenomenon. Products like the Pretzel Pete Chocolate Peanut Butter Gems, large pretzel sticks dipped in chocolate and rolled in toppings, pretzels added to desserts and so on are really only something you find on American shores.

Needless to say I was super excited to try Hershey’s Take 5 bar and ripped it open immediately (as evidenced by photo above). The Take 5 bar is made with a long list of my favorite things: chocolate, pretzels, caramel, peanuts and peanut butter. Based on this list alone, what’s not to like? The bar itself is actually two bars - two vaguely oval-shaped lumps, each about 2.5 inches long.

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Good lord this candy bar is good. Seriously. I think of all the Limited Edition candy I have tried, this is by far the best. The wrapper says “Coffee Caramel & Chocolate Cookie Covered in Milk Chocolate” and the coffee flavor is just right - not too strong and not too weak. The chocolate cookie goes perfectly with the coffee flavor and the milk chocolate. Looking on the ingredient list, I see “espresso ground coffee” as the last ingredient, so it looks like it gets its coffee taste honestly.

Just to make sure I wasn’t the only one who thought this Twix Java was good, I shared and gave one stick to my wife. She agreed it’s great. It’s definitely good enough to earn our coveted CandyAddict.com Awesomely Addictive Candy Award. It’s that good.

According to the press CD I got from Mars, “TWIX® Java will be available in retail stores nationwide in December 2007.” Most candies actually hit stores before their scheduled release date, so if you are hankering for some Twix Java goodness, I’d start looking for it in stores right about… NOW. No word on how long the limited edition will last, so get it while you can.

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