(image from Alana Elliott at Flickr)
Last week, we invited some friends over for an evening campfire and s’mores. Everyone knows s’mores: graham crackers (blech), marshmallows (okay, getting better), and Hershey’s chocolate bars (yes! give me some). I bought the biggest, thickest Hershey’s bar I could find. I think it weighed 4.2 pounds (1.91kg).

Hershey’s is a smart company, and they know that anyone who has one of their smooth, delicious chocolate bars will be forced (by arm twisting and occasional use of The Rack) to share. For this reason, they mold their chocolate bars into an interesting collection of “mini bars” joined together by “connective chocolate.” The connective chocolate is an ambiguous gray zone that can never be divided equally. By the strictest rules of chocolate etiquette, the person entrusted with breaking the bar into its mini bar pieces must place uniform pressure on each mini bar and attempt to break them into pieces that differ by no more than .001mm in size. Most people cheat.

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Have you ever taken a bite out of a candy bar and thought “This is so wrong!” Do you feel that your love for all things candy is not adequately represented in any product on the market? Is there just a brilliant candy bar buried in your mind that your just waiting to see materialize one day?

If you, like me, answered yes to those questions, then you will understand why I am undergoing a process of creating my own candy bar. All too many times I have been disappointed by hollow promises of candy wrappers beguiling me into purchasing bad candy. No more excuses! I have decided to make my own bar so that way I control the quality of ingredients and make sure there is nothing in it that I don’t want.

Seeking inspiration for this bar, I turned to the month. August. Well… here in Austin, TX, it’s incredibly hot and humid, but that’s summer for you. And what says summer like going out into the woods and camping? And can you really camp anywhere without making s’mores? So in honor of all things woodsy and s’mores-related, I have concocted an inverted s’mores black forest bar that I call Lost in the Woods.

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(image from Threadless.com)

I’m not really a big fan of numbers. Or science. Or instruction manuals, for that matter. So I don’t really know if all the specs work out. But I do enjoy t-shirts. And I love s’mores. And since my affinity for the latter outweighs my disdain for the former at a ratio of exactly 7652:1 (did I do that right? Like I said, I’m really more for the candy than the math) I feel that puts me in the clear to adore this S’mores how-to shirt from Threadless.

My only concern? I have always – always – constructed my s’mores with the marshmallow on top of the chocolate square. Have they changed the rules since I took S’more 101? ‘Cause I gotta tell ya, I don’t know that I’m willing to change. It’s pretty perfect that way. Despite this flaw, however, I am looking forward to the “more detailed instructions” promised to follow in S’more 201. Do you think that includes the introduction of additional ingredients? Because a thin layer of peanut butter spread beneath Graham Cracker Sheet #1 makes for an awesome advanced s’more.

• S’more 101 T-Shirt at Threadless T-Shirts

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There is a special place in my heart (and digestive system) for marshmallows. I have always loved marshmallows and was the one kid out of 100 who actually liked Marshmallow Peeps. I even like to make my own marshmallows on occasion. So, I was thrilled to receive some gourmet, handmade marshmallows from Plush Puffs to review. Even better, Plush Puffs was kind enough to send me their newest flavor: Simply S’mores.

Plush Puffs come beautifully packaged, as you can see, and the individual marshmallows are in perfect bite-sized cubes. The Simply S’mores marshmallows start with Plush Puffs’ basic vanilla bean marshmallow, then are coated in cocoa powder and topped with some little chocolate nibs. Oh, and there are little bits of graham cracker inside the marshmallows! I have to say that while these don’t really taste like actual s’mores, they are a delicious standalone puff.

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I thought I’d try something different with this review… consider it a kind of “stream of consciousness” review. I’m going to write what comes to mind as I try the Snickers Rockin’ Nut Road.

The new Rockin’ Nut Road Snickers wrapper promises “almonds, caramel and marshmallow-flavored nougat wrapped in dark chocolate” - sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Opening it, there really is no real aroma at all. Biting into it, I see that the nougat is snow white so not only does it taste like marshmallow, it looks like marshmallow too. The one thing that hits me, besides the marshmallow taste, is that it’s not overly sweet like a regular Snickers can be.

The Rockin’ Nut Road Snickers is very s’mores-ish tasting and the almond gives it a similar consistency that graham crackers would. The almond flavor isn’t very strong though - the most prevalent flavor is the marshmallow nougat. I don’t really taste the caramel at all, which is a shame because I really love caramel. The choice to go with dark chocolate was a wise move - Snickers milk chocolate would have made it too sweet.

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Generation Max is a new line of products by Mars just released this year to provide a healthier candy alternative to kids. “How healthy can candy be?” you wonder. It all comes down to portion control, fat/sugar percentages and added vitamins/minerals. For example, each Generation Max item has less than 150 calories and no trans fat. They also sport less than 35% of total calories from fat, 10% from saturated fat and 35% from sugar. These treats, which feature Mars candy names and items like M&Ms, Snickers and 3 Musketeers, are meant to be sold in vending machines in schools.

I’ve seen many candy bars in my day and the Generation Max 3 Musketeers S’mores Brownie Bar (try saying that three times fast) has the busiest packaging design I’ve seen yet. It’s a bright healthy yellow color with colored silhouettes of people running, jumping… being active and having fun. The 3 Musketeers logo takes second billing to the new “Generation MAX” logo that is the largest image on the whole bar. The catchphrase “Keeps you going!” is clearly written underneath, giving us the impression that this isn’t just good tasting candy, but fuel for our body and fun activities.

I’m first interested by the image of the bar on the front, showing a cross section of the bar, which looks like a 3 Musketeers in the top part, but with a layer of brownie and marshmallow underneath. Or perhaps they replaced the fluffy nougat with marshmallow? The illustration isn’t clear on which it is, but that’s what tasting is for, isn’t it?

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One of the many new products that were being displayed at the All Candy Expo was this new addition to the MARS family: Skittles Chocolate Mix. They were kind enough to give me a few samples and as I walked away from the booth I looked at the package with a strange sense of curiosity and confusion. I’m wondering how this all fits into “Tasting the Rainbow.” Is the new rainbow shades of brown?

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So nice they named it twice. That’s not the official word from Sweet Sweet Confections, but it should be! I was really eager to see what this company had to offer because they’re located in San Jose, California, just a stone’s throw (well, maybe a stone’s throw plus another stone’s trebuchet pull) from my home. It’s great to see a local company featured on Candy Addict, so I was hoping that Sweet Sweet Confections wouldn’t disappoint.

The Smores Bars are billed on the website as “Our signature graham crackers topped with a delicious marshmallow and hand dipped in luscious milk chocolate.” They don’t spare any expense in creating this treat. All the components are handmade, and it definitely tastes that way.

The graham cracker had this great, fresh-baked quality that I found wonderfully surprising. It’s not crisp like the store-bought ones; it’s fairly chewy, almost cookie-like in consistency. I found this strange at first, but then I realized how well this chewiness melded with the marshmallow. The milk chocolate coating had a nice snap when I bit into it which really complemented the softness of the cracker and the marshmallow.

What really impressed me, however, was the ingredients list on the back of the package. For example, here’s what their marshmallows are made of:

Sugar, water, gelatin, vanilla extract, salt.

That’s it. How can something so simple turn out so wonderful? I guess it goes back to the simple pleasure of a S’more itself: chocolate, graham cracker, marshmallow. Easy to pack, easy to make, extremely easy to eat. Maybe the simple things are the best after all. And I didn’t even miss the melted gooeyness that’s usually one of the highlights of eating S’mores fresh from an open fire.

Smores Bars are a neat gourmet take on a campfire classic, and if you’re a fan of the real thing, you really should give these offerings a try. My only qualm with these is the packaging. Alas, they only come three to a bag, and those three left me wanting so much s’more.

Editor’s note: I received some of these too and they are indeed delicious. My favorite part is that they aren’t too sweet. The chocolate doesn’t overpower the marshmallow or graham cracker and the resulting combination is close to perfect.

• S’mores Bars at Sweet Sweet Confections

More candy articles about: chocolate, gourmet, marshmallow, smores

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Kennedy Gourmet is a Texas candy company with a wide range of products: from candy-covered spoons and pretzels to various mints and brittles. The packaging on this S’more has just the right degree of cuteness – it’s fun in a retro sort of way. The description reads, “Jumbo Marshmallows and Honey Graham Crackers Drenched in a Creamy Rich Chocolate Coating,” and it’s the ‘coating’ part which initially worries me. Reading the ingredients list on the back doesn’t really make me any happier, as the ‘chocolate coating’ seems to contain very little actual chocolate but a whole lot of additives.

Upon closer inspection, the chocolate coating looks just a little bit too shiny, almost plastic in appearance. Not wanting to judge a S’more by its cover, I was still eagerly looking forward to eating it, as I love all things chocolate and marshmallow. Add to this my desperate need for a childhood reminder (graham crackers are not available here in Australia) and this was going to be one serious trip back to when McDonald’s birthday parties and giant shoulder pads were cool.

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Over at Worth1000.com they recently had a photoshop contest called Food For Thought:

The rules of this game are thus: You may use any picture you can think of, but there must be an organic food somewhere in the photo and it must be in lieu of an item that one would normally expect to see.

Despite candy not being exactly organic, there are a surprising number of candy entries. Here are all the candy entries I found:

• S’more Technology (seen above)
• Licorice Laces
• Mint Condition
• Chocolate Chips
• Candy Remote
• Gummified
• Sweet Trip
• Capitol Kiss
• Stop Lolly

[via BoingBoing]

More candy articles about: candy, food, chocolate, photo, photos, photoshop, contest

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