More Sweets and Snacks Expo 2010

I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day holiday!  It was hot as Hades in South Carolina - I bought some chocolate (shocker!) and keeping it from melting was a struggle.  But always worth it, my friends, always worth it!

I spoke with the Chicago Transit Authority today about my run in with their bus.  I'll let you know what happens.  They had an accident specialist call and interview me.  A claims specialist will call me next.  My arm still has a weird lump and some very festive bruises.  I told the accident specialist about my macaroons.  She was unmoved.

Back to Candy Expo!!!  I hunted down and tried the Chocolate Pop Rocks.  This was their booth display:

And here are the Pop Rocks:

Now the first thing I have to tell you - is that they were WAY better than I thought they would be.  They are actually covered in a pretty decent chocolate.  I thought they would just be "chocolate flavored."  But they truth is, I don't really want things popping in my mouth.  Yes, it's festive, yes it's interactive.  But I don't want my food to interact with me. 

This was another offering I simply had to try - Elmer's Tabasco Chocolate Truffles:

No picture because they only gave me one to try at the show.  And again, all I can say is - it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  Not exactly a rousing endorsement.  Only a hint of Tabasco.  This is a great novelty item - Elmer Chocolate is based in Louisiana - but I don't need to eat another one.  But creative!  And less interactive than the Pop Rocks!

I didn't get to sample these, but check out the new Tootsie Pop flavors!

Wild Mango Berry?  Didn't know the mango was a berry, but Rock on!  I'd like to try it!  I'd like to try all these flavors.  I did get a sample of this one:

Hmmmm........the green apple is strong as heck and I guess the center was caramel.  It looked lighter than the standard Tootsie Roll center, but didn't taste really caramelly.  But my taste buds were pretty overwhelmed by green apple.  I wonder if this would have been better with a red apple Tootsie Pop?

No samples of these, but I really want to try them - Andes toffee crunch and cherries jubilee (also by the makers of Tootsie Roll):

I'd never seen these before (also by Tootsie Roll) and I wheedled my way into a whole box of them on the last day:

See the bloom?  I'm telling you - it was HOT!  I like the JM monogram on the top:

Wow - look at all that creamy Junior Mint mint!

These are WAYYYY  too minty for me - I'd like more chocolate.  But mint is not my fav, so you mint lovers will probably adore these.  Well worth trying if you're a mint fan.

Ritter Sport was showing a Limited Edition Dark Chocolate with peppermint bar:

This one also has a strong mint flavor (too much for me) but the dark chocolate here is absolutely fabulous.  Mint and dark chocolate lovers - look for these around Christmas time:

This was a giant display for their new milk chocolate with strawberry creme bar:

A portion of the profits (Ritter is donating $100,000) go to help fight breast cancer and the sample was amazing!!  I can't wait till this one comes out.  Look for it in the fall.  And let me know when you find it!!  Delish!

Speaking of strawberry - look at this from Guylian!  Strawberry filled seashells!  Didn't get to sample any - but want to!

The bad next to the strawberry box is their new Temptation - an assortment of individually wrapped seashells.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Guylians seashells.  They were also debuting dark chocolate ones!

Here's my whopping sample from Guylian (cheapskates!):

I am so crazy about he standard seashell - this one is filled with original praline - so creamy, so sweet and delicious - if you haven't had these - you have to - they are sooooo good!  The Extra Dark was pretty damn amazing as well - you dark chocolate fans are in for a serious treat.  They are a little too dark for me at 74% cocoa, but they are very, very good.

Whoohoo!  What a great assortment of new and exciting candy and more to come!  It was so worth getting hit by that bus!  ; )

Easter Caramel

I love caramel!!! And there is plenty of it at Easter! Yahoo!!

I love the colors of these Sugar Babies:

How festive are these?

And the taste?

Well, they are pretty hard, not as soft and chewy as I would like. The taste is okay, but there are soooo many better options as you are going to see. But I do love those festive colors!!

These turned out to be one of my favorite of all the Easter candies:

They are by Harry and David and come in festive colors and are shaped like eggs. I actually thought they were almonds when I first saw the package:

But no - they are caramel, wrapped in a layer of dark chocolate and coated in a candy shell:

And they are completely delicious and addictive. I wish I had 12 more packages. They are one of my top Easter candies. At least so far.

These assorted eggs by Neuhaus were expensive as hell - over a dollar per egg!

Gorgeous colors in a wide variety of flavors - as you will see:

This is caramel (there was only one):

This is a rich, chocolately caramel. It was delicious - a smooth, creamy caramel. It's a chocolate lovers caramel, not a caramel lovers chocolate. And I'm all about the caramel.

Here are the cheaper competitors -all clothed:

One of each clothed and naked:

From our friends at Palmer - look at that - $1.oo for the whole bag!

Not the flowing caramel we see elsewhere, but a good size. And I hate to say it, but sometimes you get what you pay for. These are not so good. Too sweet chocolate, and compared to the others, not so great caramel.

From Williams-Sonoma:

This was the smallest of the little eggs:

And I have to tell you, these were really, really delicious. A+++ A little more chocolate than the Cadbury Mini's, but the caramel is just as good. These are fantastic. I mean, just look at them! Yay!! (And there are 50 of them in the bag! Wheee!!!!)

From Nestle, slightly larger than Williams-Sonoma:

See all the chocolate? Not so much caramel:

These were in the same category as Palmer, maybe a tiny bit better. Both have that waxy chocolate and only average caramel. Why bother with them when you can have the Williams-Sonoma eggs or (drum roll please) these:

This one was the second largest, slightly smaller than Palmer:

And look at all that delicious, gorgeous caramel. Cadbury has it going on when it comes to caramel eggs. They are so very, very, very good!!

And the gold standard:

Isn't that a beautiful, beautiful thing? Cadbury is a winner because both the chocolate and the caramel are great. It is the most oooey, gooey amazing stuff on the planet!!

Another lame egg by Lammes:

Just like their crappy peanut butter egg, this one was hard to cut. Hello - hard caramel? BOO!!!

This was a dog. I hate Lammes now.

This is another treat from The Chocolate Bear. Doesn't that bunny look familiar?

Look at the little green bow on her ear and her eyelashes! Cute!

See the caramel and nuts? WOW!! This was terrific!! Nuts, chocolate and caramel is one of my favorite combos. And this was really good because there are soooo many nuts!!! YUM!

I loved this - The Chocolate Bear is making a good comeback!!

You know if we're going to talk nuts and caramel, we gotta talk Snickers. I love all the different colors of the eggs:

I'm a Snickers fan, BUT this wasn't as good as The Chocolate Bear's rabbit "lollipop." Don't get me wrong, it's good, but compared to that there are too few nuts and too sweet nougat.

But, of course, the Snickers was better than this:

As usual, Russell Stover sucks. I mean - can you even see a nut? Oh wait - there's one. And does that caramel look even a little gooey?

If you're going to play in the big leagues, you gottta step up. Sorry, RS - you just don't cut it. Again.

This is weird - it says it's a dark chocolate covered pecan melt-a-way:

I see the dark chocolate and some pecans, but I thought caramel would be involved. I dunno - maybe that's why they call it a brick egg. By Elmer Candy Corp. Unique in that it has dark chocolate, but overall - crappy.

The lesson? The find the best caramel you gotta break a lot of eggs.