Candy cycles these days are ridiculous. Halloween candy coming out in August, Christmas candy showing up in early October, and now a Easter-related peeps announcement that actually came out in early October as well… it’s like fashion where they show you the next season’s line when the current season is just getting underway.
This has the same thick brittle base as the pecan nut crunch. Cashews, however, are a much lighter flavored nut than pecans, and the cashews here are chopped up into tiny bits, so their flavor winds up totally overwhelmed by the brittle base. Still, the base is goooood. An O, mostly because the pecan incarnation is better.
Macadamia and Coconut Crunch
The brittle base here is sweeter and more toffee-like in texture. That is, it still cleaves but doesn’t quite dissolve into the same pseudo-caramel chew. As you can see, it’s got shredded coconut and whole macadamia nuts.
The flavors here are amazing. It’s just a hint of genuine, not at all artificial coconut flavor that pairs wonderfully with the rich and buttery essence of the macadamia nuts. And the brittle-ness negates the usually stringy texture of shredded coconut that is sometimes off-putting. An OMG.
Almond Nut Crunch
Almonds are a strong nut, and I think this is the nuttiest of the brittles. Again, the lovely brittle is fairly thick and cleaves like toffee, but this somehow avoids the turns-to-caramel-in-your-mouth thing. The almonds make the brittle duskier and darker, which is nice, but they also add a lightly bitter aftertaste. An OM.
Mama’s Goodies makes all-natural nut butter brittles inspired by Iranian recipes. I was fortunate enough to receive free samples of each of their five brittle flavors.
Today, we’ll cover sesame seed and pecan, and we’ll hit up the other three on Wednesday.
All of the brittles came sealed inside a shiny silver pouch, which was then inside paperboard pouch-boxes. I appreciated the inner pouches for keeping out excess moisture, but they were super hard to open and could’ve used little notches to help with tearing the bags open.
Sesame Seed Nut Crunch:
From the website: “Sesame seeds, revered in the Middle East for their flavor and health benefits, blended with pure honey, 100% maple syrup and real butter into a crunch [sic], culinary creation.”
This was a sweet, crunchy, and uber-buttery brittle that’s jam-packed with sesame seeds. The brittle is quite thin, just enough to encapsulate all the sesame seeds, so it snaps easily. It’s so buttery/greasy that it leaves a glossy sheen on everything that it touches. The seeds add a bitter finish that’s just a little bit too much bite for me. An O.
Pecan Nut Crunch
According to their website, this one’s rich buttery pecan nuts, plus the same spiel with the honey, syrup, butter, and typo.
The pecan brittle was significantly thicker than the sesame seed, giving it a more satisfying crunch. It crunches and cleaves like toffee on the first bite. Then, as you continue eating it, it turns into an almost caramel-like chew in the mouth. A scrumptious, super-buttery decadent caramel!
The pecans are good quality. They’re chopped into little bits, so they provide an initial burst of pecan flavor before the brittle/caramel takes over.
It’s delicious, though I would’ve preferred whole pecans. And it’s even greasier to the touch than its sesame seed counterpart. Still, that’s some super tasty-amazing-delicious caramel. An OM.
I covered Yummy Earth’s organic gummy worms on Wednesday. Today, I’m reviewing their organic gummy bears.
Since the gummy bears share 2 out of 3 flavors with the worms, I expected them to be pretty much the same. Nope!
First of all, the bears have a much, much stiffer chew. It’s almost unpleasantly stiff. They’re softer than Jujubes and are still definitely gummies, but they are reminiscent of Jujube-ness and sort of get stuck in my teeth.
On the plus side, they taste AMAZING! The flavors are uber-concentrated, making Yummy Earth’s bears taste even better than Yummy Earth’s worms.
Sour Apple Tart is still clear and still tastes like a granny smith, but it’s darker, with more complexity than its worm counterpart. There’s a nearly imperceptibly slight bitterness that’s reminiscent of apple peels.
Strawberry Smash is lightly orange/pink. It tastes sweet and fruity, like a usual strawberry flavored gummi but with a slightly more concentrated flavor.
Pomegranate Pucker (red) is by far my favorite. It’s much more tart in bear form and tastes more deeply red, with a little astringency on the finish. A lovely sweet fruitiness lingers on the tongue after the bear is gone. This one definitely tastes authentically of pomegranate, and it’s wonderful.
I had trouble deciding which I liked more. The worms are texturally more pleasant with great flavors. The bears’ texture is just a bit too firm for me, but their concentrated flavor profile blows the worms out of the dirt. In the end, the bears win out and get an OMG.
Yummy Earth, can you mix up a batch of gummy something elses (llamas?) that combines the best of both worlds?
I’d been meaning to tryYummy Earth’s line of all natural, organic candy for ages, but I never got around to buying them. Fortunately, they eventually made their way back onto my candy radar and into my stash when Yummy Earth contacted me and offered to send me some free samples of their gummies and lollipops.
Today, we’ll chat about the gummy worms and hit up the gummy bears on Friday.
First up, the gummy worms. They look different from most gummy worms. Instead of a long worm made of multiple colors and sometimes flavors, they’re single unit entities and look more like little snakes (worms don’t have eyeballs!).
Texturewise, the gummies have a soft, sproingy chew that’s slightly softer than that of Haribo gummies. The opened bag smells intensely fruity, almost winey, in a good way.
They come in exotic flavors. Pomegrante Pucker (red) doesn’t taste noticebly of pomegrante, but it’s still yummy - deeply red, sweet, and fruity.
The clear worms are Sour Apple Tart. It’s mellow with a slightly sour green apple flavor. Finally, Tangy Tangerine is orange and tastes authentically of orange citrus. I even get notes of orange pith! It’s tart, tangy, tangerine-y deliciousness.
They’re uber fruity and thus super addictive. I’d take these over artificially-flavored gummies anyday. An OM.
As I’m still emerging from my post-Halloween candy coma (candy corn fudge = sugar bomb wallop), today’s post will be a Halloween round-up of cute things that I found too late to share with y’all before the holiday:
Are y’all handing out anything good for your trick-or-treaters?
I live downtown and haven’t really seen kids around the neighborhood, so I don’t think we’ll buy any kid-specific stuff. We’re throwing a Halloween party for grad student-aged people that night. There will probably be some extra candy from that that we can hand out. And if all else fails, what kid doesn’t love a nice, tasty, sugar-free chocolate calcium chew? (I have plenty of those!)
Have a wonderful and happy Halloween! As always, stay safe, but be especially careful this year since it falls on a Saturday. If you’re liquor treating instead of trick-or-treating, have a designated driver, mmkay?
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