ZOMG, Candy!

I recently spent several days visiting my boyfriend’s home in Boston. While I was there, his mother was kind enough to take me on an excursion to Nichols Candies, a homegrown chocolate store in Gloucester, Massachusetts. It reminded me a lot of See’s and Haven’s: solid and tasty, if not frou-frou fancy, treats made with care and at a reasonable price (around $18 a pound at Nichols, if I remember correctly).

The store is filled with tables covered in trays and trays of a huge variety of chocolate treats. It was hard to pick just a few to try! I especially appreciated the creativity of their tulips, Brazil nuts wrapped in petals of caramel and dipped in chocolate. I didn’t actually buy any because I don’t particularly like Brazil nuts, but I thought I’d share the photo anyway.

Instead, I picked out a dark chocolate-covered ginger, a dark chocolate molasses chip, a dark chocolate-covered pineapple jelly, and a walnut whip (much lauded on their Yelp page). The molasses chip turned out to be an iteration of the dark sponge that I love so much (I was expecting something like See’s chocolate-covered toffee version). That disappeared into my belly before I got a chance to photograph it (oops), but I do have proper reviews of the rest!

The dark ginger is a disk of crystallized ginger covered in dark chocolate. The flavor of the ginger was pretty mild, making it enjoyable for a ginger novice like myself. It’s got a tad more bite than ginger ale but falls far short of the pickled ginger that comes with sushi. The ginger’s texture is firm but toothy. The coating was on the sweet side for dark chocolate. It had a cocoa-y tinge with a nice snap and a thin melt. An OM for the fine balance of ginger bite and chocolate melt.

I was excited to try the pineapple jelly. I guessed that it would be pineapple fruit pate covered in dark chocolate, and it was, but only sort of, thus falling short of my expectations. The jelly was smooth with just enough gelatin to give it some texture, which was nice, but it lacked the graininess of true fruit pate. The flavor was lacking as well. Good fruit pate is vibrant and bursting with flavor. In this, I got no pineapple flavor, just a generic sweetness, so it gets an O.

And finally, the much lauded walnut whip. It looked like a square of chocolate fudge with walnuts, but the texture was different. Instead of thick and grainy fudge, it was smooth, rich, creamy, fatty chocolate that melted thickly in the mouth. The chocolate had buttery caramel notes, and while the walnuts, being a mild nut, didn’t add much in terms of flavor, they did provide a bit of a textural contrast. I give it an OM, with the caveat that it’s too rich for frequent consumption. But that richness is what makes it so good!

Overall, Nichols is worth a visit if you’re passing by, and I’d happily stop there again to try more of their wide selection of chocolate goodies. And to stock up on their molasses chips (which get a biased ZOMG! because they’re one of my favorite candies).

We used to have a Cold Stone creamery by campus, but it recently went out of business. Fortunately, Jelly Belly has a new-ish line of Cold Stone creamery flavored jelly beans, dubbed their ice cream parlor mix. Unfortunately, the bag came with a coupon for ice cream that I can’t use because there’s no longer a Cold Stone within walking distance.

These come in five flavors named after Cold Stone ice creams:

Chocolate Devotion - chocolate ice cream, chocolate chips, brownie and fudge. This bean has a dark cocoa edge to it that’s quite reminiscent of brownies. It’s super chocolate-y, which I appreciate, but I’m not a big fan of the chocolate with the jelly bean texture.

Our Strawberry Blonde: strawberry ice cream, graham cracker pie crust, strawberries, caramel and whipped topping. The strawberry flavor is quite bright. You can almost taste the seeds. In fact, the seedy finish makes me think more raspberry than strawberry. I don’t get the caramel and graham cracker, though.

Birthday Cake Remix - cake batter ice cream, rainbow sprinkles, brownie and fudge. The bean is festive looking - pale cream with rainbow speckles. It tastes like vanilla cake, like the kind that comes out of a box of mix, with a slight hint of chocolate to the finish. That hint is so slight that I wonder if I’m imagining it because of the flavor description.

Mint Mint Chocolate Chocolate Chip - mint ice cream, chocolate chips, brownie and fudge. It tastes like mint chocolate chip ice cream with a refreshing finish. Like the chocolate, however, it’s just not a flavor I enjoy in jelly bean form.

Apple Pie A La Cold Stone - French vanilla ice cream, cinnamon, graham cracker pie crust, apple pie filling and caramel. Strong caramel and canned apple pie filling flavors make this thing too sweet. I’m not a fan.

Overall, the flavors are interesting, but they’re not for me. And they don’t mix well. I chased a mint with a chocolate and got a wave of bitter. Blech! An O from me, but an A for effort.

Finally a personal note - I’m playing in my last Yale Concert Band concert tonight, April 3, 7:30, in Woolsey Hall. We’re playing the Rite of Spring and the Artie Shaw Clarinet Concerto (with an amazing Yale School of Music professor of clarineting soloist), so it should be a good one - a great way to finish off my YCB career. Come listen if you happen to live near New Haven/Yale!

I can’t recall ever having worked with Jelly Belly before, so I was quite surprised to find a free sample tin of their new Sunkist Citrus Mix in my PO Box. I’m not exactly sure how they found me (probably via a PR company that I’ve worked with on another candy), or my address, but there are more frightening invasions of privacy than Jelly Belly knowing my PO Box address, especially if it means surprise deliveries of free Jelly Bellies.

I was immediately taken in by the beautiful tin that these beans came in. I’m used to eating my Jelly Bellies out of plastic branded bags since I buy them from bulk bins. The tin is slightly smaller than that of Altoid’s Sours. Its made of burnished metal, and its clear plastic lid is adorned with a Japanese-y drawing of a blossoming branch. It’s absolutely lovely and a total keeper. My only issue is that the script and font are a significant departure from the Jelly Belly logo and font, which confuses their brand image.

The flavors are Sunkist Lime, Sunkist Pink Grapefruit, Sunkist Orange, Sunkist Lemon, and Sunkist Tangerine. I wish I had easy access to a candy store that sells Jelly Bellies (being a carless out of state college student, I don’t) so that I could compare these to Jelly Belly’s usual Lime, Pink Grapefruit, Orange, Lemon, and Tangerine flavors. Even though the press release claims that they’re new, my guess is that they’re the same; Jelly Belly is just using the Sunkist name to push these beans, which are “made with real juices, purees, and citrus oils.”

The press release claims that the flavors are “so authentic that even the aroma of citrus peel comes through each bite.” As expected from Jelly Belly, the flavors are indeed authentic. Lime has that zesty astringency that makes caparinhas so tasty, while lemon has a sweeter, brighter tartness. Like Cybele did in her review, I didn’t realize that the mix contained both tangerine and orange. They look the same to me, so only one made it into the shot. While I can tell the tangerine and the orange apart by taste, I don’t know which is which. One is sweet and round while the other has more of an orange zest kick to it.

The pink grapefruit was my favorite, not because grapefruit is such a wondrous citrus flavor, though it is, but because Jelly Belly did such a great job of capturing the unique taste of grapefruit. The bean not only tasted like grapefruit but also tasted like grapefruit smells, if that makes any sense at all.

I thought this was a great mix. Then again, I expected to love it, as citrus flavors are my favorite fruit flavors. I polished off most of the tin in one go as I typed this review, and now my tongue has taken on a light tingle, from all the acidity, I guess. An OMG.

Considering how many different flavor blends that they make, I was surprised to realize that I’d never reviewed any Mike and Ike candies on this site. Today, I shall rectify that oversight by covering their Lemonde Blends.

I’m already annoyed at the name. Shouldn’t it be a lemonade blend, as in a blend of different types of lemonade flavored Mike and Ikes? I understand what they were going for, that the candies themselves are flavored like lemonade blends, but it still bothers me. I can’t be too annoyed though, since JustBorn (same people who make Peeps, by the way) does donate a portion of proceeds to Alex’s Lemonade Stand, a charity that fights childhood cancer. Plus they’re all citrusy, and I love citrus candies.

According to the JustBorn website, these come in five flavors (thanks, Cybele, for pointing me to the website in your review; the flavors aren’t actually listed on the packaging). Clockwise from the top in the below picture, they are lemonade, tangerine lemonade, strawberry lemonade, lime lemonade (back in Texas, we call that a limeade), and raspberry lemonade. Like all Mike and Ikes, these are basically bullet-shaped jelly beans, with a sugar shell and a chewy interior.

Straight lemonade is bright, tart, and lemony while avoiding any reminiscence of floor cleaner. Tangerine lemonade has a lemony finish and is similarly citrusy, but it tastes a bit more round than the plain lemonade. Strawberry lemonade has a mellow strawberry flavor that’s more genuine than most strawberry flavored candies. Lime lemonade has a great zesty lime tang to it, and raspberry lemonade has a seedy finish that I usually find unpleasant in raspberry candies but can tolerate better in this, thanks to the lemonade finish.

I’m convinced that I could tell these guys apart in a blind taste test. However, I’m not sure I would know to recognize them as lemonade blends, though they do all finish on a sweetly sour note, making me think that these all taste like Snapple-fied versions of Mike and Ikes. Despite their lemonade finishes (or perhaps because of them), these never felt heavy or overly sweet. I enjoyed them so much that I may buy them again next time I see them, despite my ever-growing queue of candies waiting to be reviewed. An OMG.

Today brings the anxiously awaited conclusion to my review of Surf Sweets‘ product line that I began on Wednesday. First up (or is it fourth up?), their Gummy Swirls.

The Gummy Swirls were little gumdrop shaped gummis about the size of the first joint of my pinky finger. They came in two versions, pink/white swirled and orange/white swirled. Pink/white was strawberry, I believe, and its flavor was of lightly muted “red” candy. I’m not sure if the muting came from the white swirl or from the all-natural ingredients. A bit of each, perhaps? My guess is that orange/white was orange-flavored, except I didn’t find it to taste very orangey. Instead, I got more of a pear profile. The gummy itself was fairly firm and sproingy, while the sugar coating added a bit of textural grain.

Surf Sweets’ Gummy Worms were absolutely gorgeous, proving that one doesn’t need artificial colorings to make something look tasty. They came in red and yellow and red and lighter yellow/clear. Cherry and pineapple, maybe? The flavors weren’t terribly distinct, but they were nice and fruity. Appearances aside, however, there wasn’t much to separate these gummy worms from their artificially-flavored (and much cheaper) counterparts.

While the Gummy Worms were fairly run of the mill, I found the Super Sour Worms to be truly exceptional. Like Wednesday’s Fruity Bears, these were more like a fruit pate or a fruit gem, which may be why their moniker leaves out the word “gummy”. The sour sugar coating on these is mostly sweet and only lightly tart, but it’s just right.

The red and yellow one tastes of cherry - as I’ve written many times, I have difficulty differentiating red-flavored candies, but this one had a bit of a bite to it, so I’m going with cherry - with a sour finish of lemon. The orange and white one tasted like a lovely sweet yet tart orange. Either the white part was also orange flavored, or it was too lightly flavored to compete against the brightness of the orange.

The Super Sour Worms were my favorite of the Surf Sweets bunch. I couldn’t stop eating them, so they get a ZOMG! The Gummy Swirls and Gummy Worms, while good, weren’t exceptional, and, as I said on Wednesday, I’m too poor to shell out extra for all natural and organic when artificial and full-of-pesticides tastes pretty much exactly the same, so they get Os. If you’re not poor like me and care about what you put into your body, or your kids’ bodies, then the whole Surf Sweet lineup is probably perfect for ya - they taste all-natural, but in a good way, and you or your kids won’t miss unnatural flavorings/colorings one whit.

One of the biggest perks of my candy blogging hobby is getting free samples from candy retailers. When Surf Sweets offered to send me samples of their all-natural and organic candies, I eagerly agreed. They sent me a generous box of their complete line-up. We’ll cover half today, and the other half on Friday.

First up, a classic: Gummy Bears. Surf Sweets’ gummy bears are extra sproingy and firm. They come in pineapple, lemon, orange, and cherry, I think. Why only I think? Because Surf Sweets are made with all-natural ingredients, their flavors aren’t as artificially strong as other gummis. They’re more mild, so they’re harder to differentiate. The gummy bears were good and seemed quite genuinely fruity, but tastewise, there’s really nothing to distinguish them from normal gummy bears.

Their Fruity Bears were more distinctive and more fun. On the surface, they look like the gummy bears, just covered in sugar, but they’re quite different. They’re not even a gummy, which surprised me when I bit into my first one. Instead, the bears are more of a fruit pate, with a soft give to them. These come in five flavors: pineapple, lemon, orange, strawberry, and cherry. I’m more sure of these flavors because they were stronger. The strawberry and cherry barely differed in color, but their flavors were distinctive, with more of a bite to the cherry.

And last but not least for today, their Jelly Beans. These also come in the same color and flavor palate of the Fruity Bears: pineapple, lemon, orange, strawberry, and cherry. Texturally, these are different from most jelly beans. They have a softer (but still crunchy) shell with softly sproingy insides. Pineapple was my favorite flavor of the bunch - it really captures the essence of pineapple flavor with it’s core-y taste. The other four flavors are pretty standard and unexceptional.

Paradoxically, I found Surf Sweets to be at once muted and bright. They’re muted because they don’t use artificial flavors or colors, yet they’re bright because they taste so genuinely fruity. Think about the difference between a can of orange soda, a carton of orange juice, and a glass of fresh-squeezed orange juice. Orange soda will be super bright but artificial, orange juice would be the most muted, and fresh-squeezed orange juice falls in between. Surf Sweets are the candy equivalent of fresh-squeezed juice.

The Gummy Bears get an O (because I’m too poor to really care about eating only organic and natural), the Fruity Bears get an OMG (I adore fruit pate), and the Jelly Beans get an OM. Tune in on Friday for the rest of their line-up!

I have my last final exam of the semester today. A week ago, my friend Rita, already done with all her finals and term papers, packed up and went to England and Scotland. I’m quite jealous of her, both for being done so early and for getting to go to the UK, which I love. And not just because it has candies we don’t get in the U.S., like Chewits Fruities.

If you can’t make out the blurry writing, Chewits Fruities are “assorted fruit flavour jelly bean sweets”. Is calling something a jelly bean sweet redundant? Not in this case, as the Chewits Fruities aren’t exactly jelly beans. Instead, their candy shell is quite hard and cracks upon biting, much like the shell of a Skittle. The inside is sort of like that of a jelly bean, but it’s much springier. Basically, there’s a much bigger textural contrast between the inner and outer layers of the Chewits Fruities than there is in regular jelly beans.

They came in six flavors. Orange was orange, I think, but it did seem to have light peach notes. Light orange had more tang, so I’d call it tangerine. Yellow was flavorless, green tasted faintly of lime, pink was strawberry, I think, and red was a bright cherry.

Overall, texturally fun, but flavor-ly blah. I give them an O, though they may be worth picking up just to try their mix of textures. After all, even with the exchange rate, they’re a cheap check-out line impulse buy.

I give Rowntree’s Jelly Tots major props for cute packaging with built-in portion control. I only ever saw them in the UK in tiny bags, each including 146 calories, according to the little lower right nutrition corner. The “now with 25% fruit juice” is a bit worrying - what did they use to be made with? - but I’ll take it.

Jelly Tots are little button shaped springy jelly candies covered in sugar, and they come in five flavors. Or flavours. Blackcurrant tasted of dark berry with an almost bitter finish that may be too much for palates not used to blackcurrant flavored things. Lemon was rather bland, with only a slight citrus twinge. Lime was a bit more tangy than the lemon, but too sweet to be truly limey and exciting. Orange had a mild citrus finish but doesn’t warrant much more attention.

Strawberry was my favorite of the bunch. It had a strong mellow berry flavor with a strawberrilicious finish. Overall, Jelly Tots were cute and nicely portioned, but nothing worth stocking up on to fly back to the States. An O.

I stole an assortment of Boston Fruit Slices from my friend John, who got them in a giant food gift basket from some I-banking or consulting firm that was trying to recruit him. I wish being a psych major came with perks like that. The best I’ve gotten is Dunkin Donuts at our neuroscience lab meetings.

Boston Fruit Slices are pretty easy to find on Amazon.com, yet I don’t recall ever seeing them in stores. They’re a soft, sugar coated fruit pate/jelly type candy. I think they fall in that category of candy that people are inured to (Boston Fruit Slices have been around for a while) and will eat if they happen upon it but won’t go out of their way to buy. They’re okay but not exceptional.

I managed to find five flavors in John’s gift basket. Lemon was bright, sweet, and tangy. Orange tasted like a less tangy version of lemon, so much so that it didn’t really taste like orange anymore. What I thought was grape (the purplish red) may actually be raspberry because it carried a slight bitterness, though I could be wrong. Red was cherry, with a strong candied cherry finish. And last and least was watermelon (pink with a green rind), which was so artificially sweetly watermelon flavored that I couldn’t finish it.

I’d eat the lemon and the raspberry again, so they get OMs. The others get Os. If you’re looking for a cheap fruit jelly/pate fix, I suggest Sunkist Fruit Gems (now made by Jelly Belly) instead.

I received my box of Poifull from my friend Michael who bought them for me in Japan in a set of assorted mini boxes. I’ve never seen these guys in my local Asian supermarkets, but I’m definitely going to start looking for them now.

As you can see from the photo, they’re look like jelly beans or Mike and Ikes. And they sort of are, as they have a hard sugar shell with a jelly innard. But the insides of the Poifull were much bouncier than those of jelly beans. I wouldn’t be surprised if they squeaked between my teeth. The nexture was almost rubbery, which you may think would be unpleasant, but that wasn’t the case.

Poifull come in four colors and flavors. Purple was grape and tasted like a red grape. Pink was apple, in the sweet Fuji way as opposed to the sour Granny Smith way. Yellow was pineapple, which carried a wonderful acidic tang, and green was muscat, which is a kind of grape. Its flavor was noticeably different from the purple grape. The concept of Poifull was simple yet well executed, with vibrant fruit flavors that carried a wonderfully bright tang, earning them an OMG from me. My tiny box quickly disappeared, and while fruity/sour Jelly Bellies may make a good substitute until I can find more Poifulls, they just don’t bounce against your teeth like the Poifull do.