I’ve had some good peanut brittle in my time with Candy Addict, but I’ve never seen these nifty flavor twists: Coco Nutty and Yippee Cayenne. I wonder how they’ll work with the brittle.

Jer’s Handmade Chocolates is a relatively new company in San Diego. I was not happy with their Toffee Break Gourmet Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars, but I’m still ready to like these Brittle Bites – especially given the quality ingredients.

Let’s try the Coco Nutty bites first. These come in a small 1.6 oz box, with four individual, small bite-sized pieces. I pop one in my mouth. The coconut flavor hits first, and strongly. Then the crispy brittle, which is hard to discern because of the strong coconut flakes. Lastly I notice the dark chocolate, quite far in the flavor background. I can see how some people would like these, but to me the coconut flavor’s too strong, masking the brittle and chocolate elements. Oh, and these are peanut brittle, but I couldn’t even taste the peanuts. Let’s try the Yippee Cayenne.

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Jer’s all natural Toffee Break Gourmet Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars have very promising ingredients: organic peanut butter (unhomogenized, using Valencia peanuts), dark chocolate, sugar, sweet cream, salt and butter. (Notice: no trans fat or hydrogenated oils, and no artificial ingredients.) Sounds good, right? Well, you haven’t read his PR.

In the Jer’s Handmade Chocolates press release FAQ that accompanied my sample, founder Jerry Swain asks himself, “Now that you own your own chocolate business, why do you think people enjoy your story?” I won’t bore you with the answer – it’s as banal and self-congratulatory as the rest of the document’s fatuous verbiage. But hey, even hot air balloons sometimes carry good candy, right? So let’s check these out.

The Toffee Break package contains two small-to-average-sized, individually wrapped candy bars (50g, 1.75 oz each). Unless you live in San Diego, you’d have to buy these online. On Amazon, when you include shipping, they cost $35 for 4 packages (for a total of 8 bars). That works out to $8.75 per 3.5 oz package of two bars. Geez, these better be good.

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Last month I told you about Red Rocker Candy Cashew Toffee Candy. Did you try it yet? What are you waiting for?! It’s extremely tasty. Okay, fine, you’re busy, whatever. Just tell me when you’ve tried it.

So, given my super positive experience last time, I’m eager to try today’s treat: Red Rocker Candy Peanut Brittle. It’s got the same striped, conveniently resealable package, and (on the odd side) an unattributed quotation on the front: “It’s really, really good!” Hmmmm. Says who? The Red Rocker Candy owner? Jacques Cousteau’s daughter? The anosmic lumberjack from next door?

Well, regardless of who said it on the package, let’s see if it holds up.

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Florida-based Sugar Sugar is a candy shop straight out of Willy Wonka’s imagination! They specialize in small hard candies in a crazy assortment of flavors. Sugar Sugar sent a little sampler pack to review, and I was really excited to try all the goodies–the Rock Mix of hard candies (they call them lollies), which includes 21 different flavors, Peanut Brittle, and a strawberry lollipop.

See how pretty the little lollies are? Sugar Sugar was kind enough to send along a flavor list, but you don’t really need it, since it’s pretty clear what flavor you’re eating by looking at the design on the candy. The candies were pleasant enough, but I tend to favor strong, sour flavors in hard candies, and the only flavor that came close was cherry. It had a nice, tart cherry flavor. I thought maybe the citrus flavors would be potent, but they were rather mild. The same goes for blueberry, green apple, raspberry, and watermelon.

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The first thing that struck me about the peanut brittle is how buttery the flavor was. I was enjoying this buttery sensation, and then I bit down on it, and, well, my teeth got stuck in it. My friends, this peanut brittle is not for the weak teethed or the filling enhanced! It’s really, really sticky. I seriously thought it was going to pull out my fillings, and they don’t come cheap, so I had to stop eating it. If you like buttery, sticky peanut brittle, then this is for you!

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The strawberry lollipop reminded me of those oversized, swirly ones I always pined for in my childhood. Like the little lollies, the lollipop had a subtle strawberry flavor. It was kind of hard to eat, too–it was just a hair too big for my mouth, so if I stuck the whole thing in there and just sucked on it, it would make me kind of drool, which isn’t too attractive. I also didn’t have the patience or the time (I was multitasking) to just hold it in one hand and lick it. I ended up cramming it into my mouth and trying to suck it down quickly so that it would shrink enough to fit comfortably in my mouth. By then, though, I was kind of tired of eating it.

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Sugar Sugar also makes personalized lollies. You can get your company logo on there, your name, whatever you want. They also have lollies to celebrate births, and hey, wouldn’t you rather have a little sack of “It’s a Boy” candies than a nasty old cigar? I think Sugar Sugar is a fun company with fun candies, but if I were to purchase any candies from them, it would be for the novelty factor rather than taste.

• Sugar Sugar

candy, sweets, lollies, peanut brittle, lollipop, lollipops

You wouldn’t think a company called Split Bean Coffee would make candy, but they do. They sent me a package of all kinds of stuff to review – mostly candy and marshmallows, but some other things too:

Southern Peanut Brittle (seen above): I’ve never really cared much for peanut brittle, so I’m probably not the best person to review this. I tried it and thought it was OK, but I took the package with me to visit family and my mother-in-law LOVED it. Loved it so much she finished the whole batch. Good thing I tried it before the visit.

Almond Toffee: I love Heath Toffee Bars so I was hoping this would be really good. Unfortunately, I wasn’t thrilled with it, not sure why. It didn’t have chocolate on it, it was toffee with sliced almonds. Maybe the lack of chocolate threw me, or maybe this was real toffee and I was used to inferior Heath toffee. Idunno….but my father-in-law loved it. He finished off the whole batch and said he would rate this toffee as a 9.5/10. So maybe it’s just me.

Gourmet Marshmallows: Much like the Plush Puffs I reviewed previously, these marshmallows were dense. They sent me a real variety of flavors: coconut, rose, banana, and cherry:

• Coconut: the coconut was coated in real coconut and had a nice coconut flavor throughout – not too overwhelming – very nice.
• Rose: this was their featured flavor but like I said in my review of Turkish Delight, I’m just not ready to taste rose. I didn’t like these at all. Rose must be an acquired taste.
• Banana: this had a serious banana kick to it. It’s weird to taste banana flavor in a marshmallow.
• Cherry: these too had some serious cherry flavor to them.

Marshmallows, to me, aren’t something I sit down and munch on. Most of the time they are an ingredient in other candies or in recipes. I could see these being used in some really creative recipes. You could make some really interesting s’mores out of them. I was thinking melting them down and using them as ice cream topping would be great too.

Along with the candy, they sent a few other non-candy items so I figured I’d review them too (even though they don’t quite fit into the site).

Coffee: As I said before, I don’t drink coffee, but my wife does, and she said the coffee is fabulous. The coffee they sent was the Nicaraguan Shade-Grown Single-Origin coffee that was 100% Arabica Beans.

Dulce de Leche Alfajores: Split Bean Coffee specializes in their alfajores (a South American shortbread cookie, traditionally filled with Dulce de Leche aka Milk Caramel). These were fantastic. We brewed a pot of the coffee and drank it while eating the cookies and it was wonderful. The ingredients are 100% natural – the shortbread cookie itself contains only flour, margarine, and sugar. The caramel filling contains only milk, sugar, and spices. The cookies are barely sweet and the caramel inside is also barely sweet but very tasty.

So, to summarize…..I wasn’t thrilled with the Almond Toffee and Peanut Brittle, but my in-laws loved them. The Gourmet Marshmallows would be great for recipes. The coffee and alfajores were phenomenal. If I were going to buy one thing from Split Bean Coffee, I’d get the alfajores, definitely.

• Split Bean Coffee website

candy, sweets, coffee, alfajore, alfajores, cookie, cookies, brittle, toffee