Rock Candy Crystals

Before we begin, I must warn you – today’s post is sort of a cop-out. Ya see, a box of free samples arrived from Munchies Sweets and Treats right in the midst of a gloomy patch of Rochester weather. I rely on direct sunlight to take my photos, so lack of sunlight means lack of new photos (if anyone wants to buy me a special lamp so that I can take nicely lit photos indoors – my birthday was two weeks ago, and you forgot it! – I certainly won’t stop you!).

Saturday was actually pretty sunny, but I’d brought the most interesting of the Munchies shipment to work (I get better access to direct sunlight there, especially since I’m at work during the bulk of the sunlit part of the day), leaving me with some less interesting stuff to shoot at home. Like these Rock Candy Crystals.

As the box says, they’re pure cane sugar. Thus, not that interesting to review. But I didn’t want to leave Munchies Sweets and Treats hanging for too long, so they get this half-review to make up for having to wait extra weeks for real reviews (they also sent some Zero, U-No, and Zagnut bars, none of which I’ve had before and all of which I’m itching to review).

The Rock Candy Crystals are just plain, crystallized cane sugar, like rock candy without any added color or flavor. They taste like, you guessed it, plain sugar. The pretty pebble-sized crystals have a light, cleanly-cleaving crunch and… well, that’s about all I can think of to say about these.

I’m not sure why these warrant being made as a candy, as you could get the same effect by eating straight white sugar or sugar cubes. My parents buy a larger-chunked version of these for cooking with (they go well in slow braising, as they slowly melt throughout the cooking period). But as a packaged candy?

I’m not sure what the target audience is – I can’t imagine any parent being willing to literally feed their kids straight sugar – or why these even exist as a candy. Maybe back in the Little House on the Prairie days, these were a special treat, but today, they just have the dubious distinction of being even more boring than rock candy. They get a baffled from me.