ZOMG, Candy!

Via Neil, here’s a tricky puzzler with a chocolate bar theme. From Cheezburger.com:

If you’re curious how this works, the solution can be found here.

The NY Times recently ran what I thought was an unnecessarily snarky but pretty funny takedown of Williamsburg’s hipster culture. At one point, he visits the hipster chocolate haven that is the Mast Brother’s Chocolate showroom:

“Great food wants a great dessert, so I hied myself to the showroom of Mast Brothers Chocolate, a lodestar of the artisanal foods movement. This company makes it a point to wind-sail its cocoa beans from the Dominican Republic to Brooklyn, then to hand-sort these beans, then to let its chocolate ‘rest’ 30 days before sale. Only Leona Helmsley’s dogs have ever been so cosseted.

“The store smells like heaven; I would happily die there. For $10 you can buy a burlap sack used to haul the beans in, perhaps for use as a satchel. I told a freckled young employee in a peasant blouse: ‘I bet those sacks are very popular with single men. If all your stuff smelled like chocolate? Bingo.’ The girl nodded and enthused: ‘I got one for my birthday. Most of the people who work here have them.’ “

I recently reviewed and loved Askinosie’s single-origin dark chocolates. Serious Eats just reviewed one of their flavored bars, which makes me want to go out and buy their entire line.

Serious Eats recently ran a delectable slide show about caramels in Chicago. I’ll have to find time to hunt some of those down while I’m in town for Sweets and Snacks.

Photo above is Le Caramel’s caramel cream.

Emma talked me into taking on Sweets and Snacks again this year. We’re Chicago bound in a few weeks!

If you don’t know, Sweets and Snacks is the big annual candy (and now salty snacks) convention. Last year, I took away about 20 lbs of free samples. Candy companies are very generous with their freebies, so there’s no need to pull a Homer Simpson:

Here’s this year’s exhibitor list. Let me know if y’all have any requests!

Okay, I know this is out of date since it’s so long after Easter, but it was too creative to not share. Apparently last Easter you could get a single giant marshmallow Peep! Serious Eats found one and had some fun…

Apparently this past Monday was National Jelly Bean day (oops! How did I let that slip by?). To honor the occasion, Jelly Belly made a jelly bean infographic. It’s mostly Jelly Belly-centric, but the tidbit about Christmas being the second-biggest jelly bean season was pretty surprising. I definitely don’t associate jelly beans and winter holidays.

Also, who knew that the most popular Jelly Belly flavors were so different by country? I wonder what makes Asia love Lemon Lime and Australia love Bubble Gum?

Serious Eats’ Robyn Lee wrote up a verrrry thorough blind tasting of Pocky and its various chocolate-covered biscuit stick imitators. To give away her punchline, Pocky came out on top!

Robyn, I am in awe of your Pocky photography skillz, as the above was the best that I could do. Also, I hope someday someone tastes all the Pocky varieties all at once, because there are a bazillion of them. I have only covered a few.

I was at a conference last week, so I didn’t have time to get a full review up today. Sorry guys! Instead, check out the chocolate porn from Serious Eats’ tour of Charles Chocolates in San Francisco.

Also, you can see my past reviews of their products here and here and here and here and here and here. Phew! Also my interview with the eponymous founder here.

Via AdFreak, Australia celebrated its limited edition white chocolate Kit Kat by having an illustrator melt them down and paint them into posters. The effect was quite stunning, as you can see in the below video.

The full set of all 50 posters can be found in this Facebook album from Kit Kat Australia.