Unfortunately, Sugar Savvy is currently under reconstruction, so I’m bending my rules and publishing the review here after all. I promised them a review, and I won’t renege on that.

Let’s check out the bars’ press release, shall we?

“Each bar combines whole-grain oats and roasted peanuts, with a chocolate coating on the bottom and a stripe on top.”

Compare that with what’s on the box and the bars’ wrappers: “Chewy Peanut Sweet & Salty Granola Bars.”

Notice the difference? The latter never mentions the chocolate (though it does proclaim the bar to be “fudge dipped”). That’s because there are food labeling laws that require a product to contain cocoa butter (in other words, actual chocolate) in order for it to be called chocolate. A quick glance on the Sweet & Salty bars’ ingredients reveals a total lack of any cocoa product. The “chocolate” on the bar is actually made from palm and soybean oil.

Funny how the labeling law doesn’t seem to apply to press releases. Or to putting photos of chocolate on the box, if not the word “chocolate.”

The bar is on the thin side for a chewy granola bar (compared to Quaker or Nature Valley bars), at about 1 cm tall, but is otherwise normally sized at about 4 cm by 9 cm.

The granola part is mostly whole grain oats mixed with crisped rice and the occasional peanut. The texture of the bar is soft and squishy, and it has a soft bite that gives easily. It’s a bit slipperier (yes that’s the correct form; I looked it up) than I expected from a granola bar, but not exactly greasy.

It tastes mostly of salty peanuts against the oaty nuttiness of whole oats. The bar is a good amount of honeyed sweet – enough to be noticeable, but not so much that it’s cloying or feels like you’re eating a candy bar. The non-chocolate sort of comes through as a light chocolatey finish, but just barely, and it tastes too weak, with no cocoa notes to bolster it.

All in all, the bar tastes pretty decent for a granola bar. It’s not revelatory or anything, but I’ve yet to find a granola bar that blows my palate away. But the complete lack of real chocolate is a letdown, and the nutrition stats are pretty rough. Each bar is 190 calories, 9 grams of fat (14% of your recommended daily intake) and 4.5 grams of saturated fat (a whopping 23% of your recommended daily intake). With those numbers, you might as well have a candy bar.

Sorry, Sunbelt. If you’d used real chocolate instead of all that palm oil and soybean oil, the bar would’ve tasted better, and I daresay it may have been healthier as well. With your current formula, however, you get a null score of –.

I know y’all come from all over the country/world. Maybe y’all can help me out with a quandry?

I had been using Cheez-It Stix in my senior thesis research. They are of crucial size, shape, and composition for my research apparatus, and I really, really, really need them. Unfortunately, they are now nowhere to be found anywhere near New Haven, Boston, or New York City. I’ve called Kellogg (they assure me they’re still being made), I’ve looked online, and I’ve asked my local grocery stores to try to order them, all to no avail.

Do you have Cheez-It Stix in your area? And if so, would you be willing to buy several boxes and mail them to me, in exchange for full repayment, and then some, and candy, and my undying gratitude, and a thank you in my senior thesis, the thesis I need to write in order to graduate from college?

Leave me a comment or shoot me an email if you can help me out. And have a nice day!

Update: As I told my senior essay advisor, it looks like I’ll manage to get buy with the kindness of strangers. Thanks to everyone who offered help and to Chelsea for being the first to come through for me!

I am back in Austin enjoying time with my family, and I’m taking the rest of the week off. Have a happy holiday season, whatever you celebrate, and I’ll see you on Monday!

From the Chicago Tribune’s cookie contest, 2nd place (only 2nd?!) winner: Dorie’s Dark and Stormies. They are a chocolate revelation when they’re still warm and gooey out of the oven.

I’m lucky enough to go to a school that gives us a full week off for Thanksgiving. So I’m taking the week off to catch up on sleep and homework and life.

Have a great week, and I’ll see y’all back in December!

~Rosa

Back in February, I got to hear Obama speak at a rally in Hartford. I’m so glad I decided to put my schoolwork on hold to make that trip. Because now I get to tell my future kids that I got to hear and see President Obama speak, live, back when he was making his historic run for the White House.

They came out deliciously, if a bit loosely. I think I underbaked mine, as they didn’t quite set up as sturdily as they should have. But they were still addictive. With butter and sugar and oats as your core ingredients, how could you go wrong? I got permission to reprint the recipe, which is below the cut.

I know flapjacks aren’t candy, though Snickers and Cadbury sells chocolate-covered versions of them in the U.K., but logistics prevented me from trying any of the candy recipes from the Sweet! book before deadline. I’m limited to what can be bought at the only grocery store within walking distance of my apartment, and it doesn’t carry some of the fancier sweeteners (like Sucanat) or ingredients (like cardamom pods) mentioned in the book. Nor do they carry candy thermometers.

When I go home for the holidays, however, I’ll take this book with me and use our better stocked and outfitted home kitchen to try my hand at some of the candies and other recipes from the book. Because at home, Mom and Dad will drive me to fancy food stores and pay for fancy food ingredients. Hooray!

As for the book itself, what did I think? I wish it had more pictures. In my opinion, pictures are the best part of any cookbook, and this one only has 8-pages of color photos in the middle (which are gorgeous, by the way). The recipes themselves are well described, each with its own little personal introduction from the author, list of ingredients, and bulleted steps, but seeing the finished product would make me more want to try to bake it myself.

I like the list of recipes in the front and the organization of the book into chapters based on desert types (breakfast treats, cakes, candy, savory and sweet main courses, etc.). The index in the back was great. I found the apple flapjack recipe when I looked up “apple” after I’d gone apple picking and was on a hunt for ways to bake my apples into delicious treats. And I like how the first chapter details and describes the many different sugars and sweeteners there are in the world while the second chapter gives a helpful guide to common baking ingredients. Did you know that you can make your own cake flour by sifting a tablespoon of cornstarch into 1 cup minus 1 tablespoon of unbleached all-purpose flour?

At $18.95, Sweet! is a good deal as far as cookbooks go. Then again, that lowered price is probably a direct result of it not having many photos. It’s a good buy or gift for the experimental cook who wants to try out and learn about a variety of sweetener or anyone who loves baking.

•  2 large cooking apples, such as Granny Smith, peeled, cored, and diced
• 2 tablespoons peeled and grated fresh ginger
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, plus more for the pan - Rosa tip: butter the pan with the stick before you throw it in the recipe if you don’t want to unwrap a second stick just for buttering the pan
•  1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 3 tablespoons golden syrup or honey
• 2 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1/2 cup sliced natural almonds
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

1. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 375F. Butter a 9-inch round cake pan. Rosa note: I used a square one. Doesn’t really matter.
2. Combine the apples, ginger, lemon juice, and 3 tablespoons of water in a small saucepan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Lower the heat to low and simmer, stirring occasionally, adding a little more water if the mixture seems dry, until the apples are very tender, about 10 minutes, or until soft. Mash the apples and set aside. Rosa note: I added a little brown sugar and extra water to my apples and cooked them down a bit longer to sweeten and concentrate the flavors.
3. Warm the butter, brown sugar, and golden syrup in a medium-size saucepan over low heat, just until the butter is melted. Do not let the mixture come to a boil. Add the oats, almonds, cinnamon, and salt, and stir well. Press half the oat mixture in the oat pan. Spread the apple puree evently over the top and cover with the remaining oat mixture. Rosa note: I omitted the almonds because I don’t really like nuts. And I think the recipeshould note to take the mixture off heat once the butter melts, before you stir in the oats and things.
   
4. Bake until the top is golden brown, about 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and mark into wedges while still warm (This will make it easier to cut and serve later.). Transfer to a wire cake rack and cool completely. Slice through the marks to cut the flapjacks into wedges and serve directly from the pan (The flapjacks can be stored at room temperature, covered for up to 3 days). Rosa note: It will be tempted to sneak a taste right out of the oven. Resist the temptation, lest you want to burn your tongue. They’re wonderful warm. I brought mine to a YPMB rehearsal, and they didn’t even last 3 hours, much less 3 days.

From the book Sweet! by Mani Niall.  Excerpted by arrangement with Da Capo Lifelong (www.dacapopress.com), a member of the Perseus Books Group.  Copyright © 2008.

My computer, after three and a half years of plodding along, finally died on Tuesday. I stuck into my roommate’s room to use her computer to write this (Hi, Catherine!).

I’m in the process of choosing/getting a new one. In the meantime, zomgcandy.com will be taking a mini-break, hopefully of no longer than one week. If all goes well, I’ll see y’all on the 22nd, at the latest.

Have a great week!
~Rosa