It’s not often I find a candy maker in my neck of the woods. North Carolina isn’t exactly exactly the candy-making capital of the world. One of my wife’s co-workers found out about Candy Addict and convinced his friend, who has a business making chocolate truffles, to get a batch to me to review. This friend runs Azurelise.

The story of Azurelise is an interesting one and well worth a read at the Azurelise website. Basically, a tenured associate professor in Philosophy abandons teaching and decides to make chocolates (there’s more to it than that, but that’s the basics). What I have before me now are Azurelise chocolate truffles, made by this former Philosopy professor.

The truffles aren’t your ordinary fancy, embellished truffles. These look, in fact… ordinary. They are approximately 1.25″ x 1.25″ x 0.5″ - they have no fancy flowers on them or swirly-q or anything else. Just a simple plaid pattern and the word AZURELISE diagonally across them. I received five dark chocolate truffles and four milk chocolate truffles.

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Like a true Candy Addict, when I hear the word “Rocky Road” my mind doesn’t jump to ice cream, but instead lands on the candy bar of the same name. Rocky Road is a classic candy made by Annabelle Candy Company, who are the same makers of my beloved Big Hunk and also Abba Zaba. Rocky Road was Annabelle Candy’s first original candy bar, which debuted around 1950. It’s a big seller in its home state of California, where it remains one of the top 40 best selling candy bars.

What makes the Rocky Road so special? Well, it’s a unique combination of flavors to start. Take fresh marshmallow, then layer on some bits of roasted cashews before covering the whole thing in milk chocolate. A classic no matter how you look at it: original, simple and tasty. Over the years Rocky Road has tried on new flavors. Today you can find a Dark Chocolate and Mint variety. This newest version is called “Double Dipped Bits” and they are basically smaller sized Rocky Road bars in movie theater sized boxes.

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(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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Any way you break it (ha!), Passover is a Candy Addict’s worst nightmare. A vast majority of candy these days is simply not kosher for Passover, largely because it is sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. Most Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jews do not allow the consumption of corn or legumes during the holiday, so corn syrup sweetened stuff is a no-go zone. Most Sephardic (North African/Middle Eastern/Spanish) Jews do allow legumes and corn, but even those who don’t mind the corn syrup have to bid adieu to their favorite classic treats - anything with crisp wafers (see ya, Kit Kat), malt (buh-bye Whoppers), crispy rice bits (No Crunch bar for you!)

Traditional Passover candies tend to be those that will not offend anyone in either the legumes or no-legumes camp. They’re mainly a collection of Joyva Ring Jells, those hideous pink jelly rings covered in dark mockolate or those completely horrible cherries floating in cough syrup coated with mockolate. Not all kosher candy is bad, it’s just that Passover candy in particular is mostly a disaster. Over these eight days, my sugar highs tend to be the result of a few too many (handfuls of) home made meringues.
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I like to think that I’m not the only person who has a long list of embarrassing moments. We’re all human, after all, and I know at least some of you have accidentally walked into a wall or two or ripped the seat of your pants at an inopportune moment. These things happen–possibly to me more than most. As a result of my undeniable knack of humiliating myself and my likewise undeniable love of all things candy, I’d like to share with you my Top Five Most Embarrassing Candy Moments.

5. The Chocolate in my Pocket. After an intense conversation about my future with The Boss at work one day, I made an emphatic gesture with my hand and then shoved it into the pocket of my pants. I immediately felt the undeniable squelch of a forgotten and completely melted piece of a formerly wrapped Dove milk chocolate. Apparently, I made a face. The Boss asked what was wrong and I was forced to admit what had happened.

4. The Sweatshirt of Shame. On my sixteenth birthday, my mother had the bright idea to take an oversized teal sweatshirt and safety pin wrapped pieces of candy all over it. My mother claimed this was the thing to do for a “sweet sixteen” and insisted that I wear the atrocity to school.

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(image from danzimmermann.com)

Honeycomb (also known as Cinder Toffee) is one of those quintessential British candies which has made its mark everywhere but the U.S. Here in Australia, people tend to either love them or hate them, and those in the “love it” camp have their favourite brand. Violet Crumble is perhaps the most well-known of the commercial honeycombs available.

Every time I’ve offered to bring someone a sweet treat from from Down Under, it’s either the Violet Crumble or the Crunchie they beg for. Honeycomb is essentially basic toffee which has baking soda added to it. The baking soda and molten sugar react, creating a volcanic eruption of sugary golden edible styrofoam. You can eat it as is, but dipping the irregular chunks into chocolate is delicious. You can also smash it up and mix it into cookies, top cupcakes with it, stir it through ice cream and sprinkle it on top of a chocolate cake for a whole new eating experience.

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Thanks to a brilliant merging of the minds at Hershey’s and The Styles Check Company, you can now broadcast your love of confections to any and everyone with whom you dare to share your wealth. Your landlord? Check. The phone company? Check. Your impossible-to-shop-for nephew whose birthday is just around the corner? Check! Forget online bill pay – writing checks is back and better than ever! (And you’ll be doubly excited to drop those babies in the mail when you see the matching address labels.)

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How do you find your bliss? Hershey’s hopes we’ll all find it in their Bliss Chocolates, and they’re banking on three flavors to satiate our palates. I recently sampled all three - Milk Chocolate, Milk Chocolate Meltaway, and Dark Chocolate. I found that only one of the candies left me feeling blissful.

Each variety comes as individually wrapped foil squares in flavor-specific bags. They all have a nice, chocolaty smell, and the color choices for the foil are appealing. I can imagine a cute display of Bliss squares in a candy dish. Cute or not, I’m most interested in taste.

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They’re finally here! The long awaited Mint Crisp M&Ms that we heard were coming out in time for the new Indiana Jones movie are finally on shelves. And not a moment too soon! Between my eagerness to see Indy in his new geriatric adventure glory and tasting the new M&Ms adventure that Mars has planned for us, I could hardly contain my excitement when I found these in the store. It was like finding Indy’s candy holy grail in a way.

The M&Ms are not the only new candy with the Indiana Jones tie-in. There’s also the Snickers Adventure Bar that I reviewed back in January. The plain Milk Chocolate, Peanut and the new Mint Crisp M&Ms are outfitted in new themed packages and they are quite attractive I admit (more so than the Shrek and the Pirates of the Caribbean ones M&Ms). Of course the Mint Crisp ones are a special limited edition flavor tied to the movie like the White Chocolate Pirate Pearls were.

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One of my favorite things besides candy is coffee, so I couldn’t believe my luck when I received a huge, beautifully packaged box of Starbucks Chocolate to review! Yes, folks, Starbucks Coffee Company is now in the chocolate business. Starbucks has partnered with Hershey’s, whose subsidiary Artisan Confections Company, itself comprised of Joseph Schmidt Confections, Scharffen Berger, and Dagoba Chocolate, manufactures the Starbucks Chocolate. Did you get all that? Basically, Starbucks Chocolate is being made by people who know their chocolate.

I have to confess that while I was wowed by the attractive packaging, I was prepared to be underwhelmed by the chocolate. Starbucks coffee is not quite full-bodied or flavorful enough for my taste, so I figured the chocolate would be geared toward a similar palate. I am happy to say that I was wrong. Starbucks chocolate, with just a few exceptions, is rich, full flavored, and thoroughly enjoyable.

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