The chocolate bar has been around since 1847. In one form or another, cake has been around since long before then. But in recent years we’ve seen a surge of interest in cupcakes, designer cakes and cake pops. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if someone somehow combined both the candy bar and the cake worlds to prove to all of the naysayers out there that this whole cake fascination is more than a fad? Well, that’s exactly what Ryan Taylor did.

Along with little sister Krystal as baker, cake-loving Ryan began experimenting with recipes that married cake and candy. The result? Cakedy (pronounced cake-uh-dee, for all you word nerds).

Read More »

Gilliam Candy Company has been around since 1927 but it’s only been under the Quality Candy banner since 2003. Lucky for me Gilliam joined the Quality family because I got to try their Stick Candy.

I remember these hard candy sticks from when I was a kid. The tantalizing colors and stripes would glisten from the shelves and they all looked so luscious it was really hard to pick just one.

I’m afraid you may have the same problem with these sticks. I sat ogling my stick candy in gluttonous glee before I finally chose a few to sample. For those of you who don’t like trying to guess what flavor the stick will be, they’ve got the names of the flavors printed on the ends of the sticks. But if you want to go for the mystery and choose by color, just don’t read the wrapper!

Read More »

As I’ve said before, I can’t resist an animal-shaped candy. And when I saw these Jelly Rats in Ikea, I figured that even if these weren’t good to eat, they would be a good joke for my reptile-keeper friends. After all, why should the animals be the only ones who get to eat rats?

But after my recent surprising positive experience with the Trader Joe’s Gummy Tummy Penguin, I was more open-minded to the possibility that these might actually be good to eat. So I tried them myself.

There seem to be four flavors, of the yellow, light-green, orange and red varieties. They are fruit flavors, in a vague way. I found the red kind of nasty and the orange dull, when orange is usually my favorite fake-fruit flavor. The other two are innocuous.

The texture is pretty soft, only a little chew to it. And they’re only vague rat-shaped. Basically these are tolerable, but they’re no gummy tummy penguins.

I was also intrigued by Godis Gula Snören because, well, they are called Godis Gula Snören. I guess this is real Swedish, you couldn’t make this stuff up, right? Also, toffee flavor laces seemed exotic, if not necessarily a good idea. But I was willing to give it a try.

Read More »

Hard butterscotch candies may be almost as ubiquitous as fruit-flavored hard candies, but there’s always been something different about Werther’s Originals. Perhaps it’s their delicate balance of sweet and salt, or perhaps it’s the fact that they’re made with real cream and butter, but in a candy market filled with generic butterscotch candies, there’s only one Werther’s.

Until recently, that is. Like many other classic candies, Werther’s are now available in an array of different forms – from caramel-coffee to sugar-free to caramel-mint, and now, these Werther’s Originals Caramel Chocolates.

Werther’s was making a big deal out of these at the All Candy Expo – when you went through the main entrance, the first thing you saw was a white-hatted “chef” armed with a tray of these glittering, foil-wrapped chocolate discs. Of course, I allowed him to provide me with a few samples, in both Milk and Dark. (I realized later that I’d been scooped – we’d already posted a review of the dark chocolate Werther’s Originals all the way back in November. D’oh!)

I was initially very curious about what “caramel chocolates” would involve – these seemed a little thin to have any kind of a liquid center, so my guess was that they contained crushed Werther’s hard candy bits. It turned out I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Read More »

Like most kids, I used to like searching for buried treasure. I’d still do it today, but my friends would refuse to be seen with me if I were to buy a metal detector and go searching for pieces of eight around the suburbs.

Still, the opportunity to strike gold arises every time I open my ridiculously cluttered bag, for somewhere below the sea of papers, pennies, and movie tickets from 8 years ago lie little golden treasures known as Werther’s Originals. Gustav Nebel created these wonderful little treats in the village of Werther over 100 years ago, and they have been a staple of purses, pockets, and candy dishes ever since.

Read More »