Valentine’s Day is inching closer and closer. And people always say the best gifts are ones given from the heart, but nothing says “I love you†better than something from the heart for the stomach.
So in honor of all those lovey-dovey cherubs hovering by, here is my February candy recipe of the month. I call it my Lots-a-Luv Cookies. These babies are sure to wow anyone you present them to because they aren’t the sort of things you would just hand over to anybody.
Today’s chocoholics are more demanding than ever before. There was a time, perhaps half a century ago, when “chocolate” meant “chocolate.” As our parents and/or grandparents skipped home from school, they contented themselves with plain Hershey or Snickers Bars. They didn’t give any thought to the quality of their chocolate, its regional origin, or its physical attractiveness. They didn’t care about cacao percentages or exotic flavorings. Unless they happened to be in the culinary field, neither did their parents. In that simpler era, all that most people considered was whether or not their chocolate tasted sweet, good, and at least slightly chocolaty.
It doesn’t take a cocoa connoisseur to see those days are far behind us. With dark chocolate now labeled a “health food,” it seems like new purveyors of handcrafted artisan chocolate materialize every day. In an effort to keep up with trends, retain old customers and attract new ones, old-standby chocolate makers such as Hershey have released lines of upmarket chocolates, often quite successfully.
On a recent trip to CVS, I noticed that old standby chocolatiers Whitman’s/Russell Stover, best known for their holiday chocolate collections, have gotten in on the act. While perusing the already center stage Valentine’s Day candies, I picked up Whitman’s “Soho” collection. I’d seen a similar collection the year before. I’d passed it by, less than eager to spend $5.00 on a 6-piece selection of drugstore chocolates, but my curiosity won out this time.
I was recently given the opportunity to try a box of Ococoa’s Butter Cup Collection. I thought I knew chocolate. I thought I knew what flavors go well with chocolate (peanut butter, mint, and Sunkist, to name a few). I thought I knew what to expect from a box of chocolates. Then came Ococoa.
I get a lot of mail and have been receiving two to three packages per week for the last few months. When a box arrived last week, I assumed it was a homeschooling product I was expecting and didn’t bother to look at the return address. I got a knife, sliced the tape on the box, opened the flaps, and said, “I smell chocolate….”
That is a very pleasant, very enticing way to open a package.
Hey everybody, Look! It’s the second candy bar in my four-bar round-up of some oddly named candy that includes Oh Henry!, 5th Avenue, and U-No.
Look! candy bars are made by the Annabelle Candy Company, a San Francisco bay-area concern founded in 1917 by Russian immigrant Sam Altshuler, and named after his daughter (the company, not the bar. His daughter’s name was not “Look!â€). (And yes, you’re right, there was a spot of bother that year in Russia.)
Annabelle candy bars are best-sellers in western states, and include the Rocky Road, Big Hunk, Abba-Zabba and U-No bars. Today’s item, Look!, was invented in the 1950’s by the Golden Nugget Candy Co., which Annabelle acquired in 1972. I doubt you’ve ever had a candy bar quite like this. And there may be a good reason.
Here’s how Annabelle describes these bars: “Thick chewy nougat sweetened with molasses,†with “roasted peanuts covered with mouth watering rich dark chocolate.â€
We’ll see.
A while back I attended the Fancy Food Show here in New York City. Like the All Candy Expo, the Fancy Food Show is only open to people in the food industry (or, in our case, members of the press who write about the food industry). Where the ACE is pretty darn big, the FFS is freaking ENORMOUS! From herbs and spices to olive oil to cheese to candy, pretty much every food group is represented to the extreme. I had the pleasure of meeting with the folks from Hillside Candy to try their GoNaturally Organic Hard Candies. Much to my chagrin, it’s taken me this long to finally find time to sit down and write a proper review of their tasty sweets.
I got six different varieties of hard candy to try, including Honey Lemon, Apple, Honey, Cherry, Pomegranate, and Ginger. So how do these hand-made gluten free candies measure up?
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