Bakers Bring It for Halloween

I hope everyone had a great Halloween!  I wound up spending it at a friend's house, so I still have tons of candy I didn't give out.  Dear God.  What about you all?  Any good stories??  Share, share!!!

Okay - this is the last Halloween post.  (If there was election candy, I'd be all over that, but alas, no such luck.) 

Most of the candy makers just repackaged their candy in Halloween wrappers - something you all know bugs the heck out of me and seems like a cop out.  I found these in TJ Maxx:

Halloween packaging and colors, but no real flavor - just sugar coated almonds.  I love their butter pecan and toasted coconut flavored Jordan Almonds, but these were just boring.  Not worth the calories.

Chips Ahoy brought out some new Halloween cookies!  Yay!

I like the new wrapper and the festive orange chips, but they pretty much are the same old cheap chocolate chip cookies.  Big points if you love Chips Ahoy, but nothing to go crazy about.

These, however, are delish:

See all that great orange filling?  These are double stuff thickness - love them!!  And look at the cute designs:

Clockwise from upper left - witch on her broomstick, black cat, ghost, jack-o-lanterns, bats.  I like the creativity, love the color of the filling (and the quantity - yay!), the packaging and the designs.  Woohoo - thank you Oreo!

Even Pop-Tarts came up with a Halloween design:

Although Choc-o-Lantern is a pretty lame name  (Palmer would have called these Bloody Pop Hearts and filled them with cherry.)  These look great on the package, but pretty grim in reality (pretty ugly and terrible actually):

But the flavor isn't bad - like chocolate cookie dough.  So appearance is bad, but taste is great!

I'm not sure if these are special for Halloween or not, but I've never seen them before and there is a mention of a Halloween promotion in the right hand corner:

Now look at them on the box - pretty cool.  Look at them in real life - ewww!

At least they are cream filled, right?  Um - no.  Not good.  Weird taste.  Boo.  (And not in a ghostly way.)

Harry and David comes through with these adorable mini iced cookies:

Aren't they the cutest?  And they taste great too.  Although they are the most expensive of the lot at $9.95 for a bag.

And is that the Salvador Dali pumpkin?  Must be a mustache.

These are in Target - witches' hats, pumpkins, and ghosts:

They are shortbread covered in white icing with orange and black sprinkles.  And they, too, are delicious.  And addictive.  I think they are laced with crack.

I found these in TJ Maxx too.  TJ Maxx has some cool treats, but you have to dig through the chaos.  These are Too Good Gourmet's Candy Shortbread Cookies:

Love the adorable witch and the pumpkin cut out window on the box.  And the cookies?

OMG!  They are GREAT!  Delicious shortbread cookies with loads of candy coated chocolate bits.

So, not only did I eat too much candy this Halloween season, I ate way too many cookies and Pop Tarts.  But what a great adventure!  I am proud of the bakers and candy companies who went to the trouble of bringing us something new - woohoo!  I am saddened by the apparent demise of the mini (70 calorie) Reese's Pumpkin.  But loved the new Hershey's caramel apples Kisses.  When one door closes, another opens.  ; )

Have a great week!! And don't forget to vote!

Candy Corn Gone Wild

Halloween is fast approaching!!  And I have to say that, compared to last year, this year's Halloween candy is lame.  Thank God Just Born offered something new with their chocolate covered Peeps pumpkins.  The rest of the crew just served up the same old boring stuff.  I couldn't even find the mini Reese's peanut butter pumpkins this year.  Hershey, hast thou forsaken me?

Target, however, has a line of candy corn in flavors including green apple, strawberry and loads of others.  I picked a couple to try.  Pumpkin Pie:

These taste just like candy corn with a hint of pumpkin.  Not enough pumpkin as far as I'm concerned.  If you like candy corn, I think you'll like these.  If you're looking for pumpkin pie, look somewhere else.

Now this is a good idea - chocolate covered candy corn:

I like the way it looks better than the way it tastes.  Although chocolate covered candy corn is better than naked candy corn, it's too sweet for me.  But a great idea!

I thought I'd also try chocolate covered toffee candy corn:

YIKES!  This was just terrible.  I like toffee, but definitely not toffee candy corn.  Remember our old adage - just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you SHOULD do it.  This was really terrible.  Yipes!

Whoa - look at this crazy marshmallow candy corn from Whitman's:

I have to admit - it's festive as hell. 

And, shockingly - it's pretty good!  Now - you have to consider that it's just marshmallow covered in a sugary candy shell, but the marshmallow was really creamy.  I am now diabetic.

These are some weird things I found in World Market - they are made in Ireland:

This might be one of the weirdest candies ever.  They have a really strange "tutti frutti" smell - so I was kind of scared of them.  But they were oddly good.  Weird green candy eyeballs from Ireland - what more could you want for Halloween?
Yahoo!!!!  The holidays are beginning!  Are you having fun?

Easter Jordan Almonds

I like Jordan Almonds. Mostly because I love almonds. And hey, a candy coating can only make things better in my book! I didn't realize they were a big Easter/springtime treat until this year. Not that I've been laying awake at night contemplating this. But anyway.....

Here are all the ones I could find and unlike the malted milk balls, every assortment has slightly different colors:

Harry and David had the weirdest colors, but all these were slightly different. And here is what I think of all the different offerings:

These are by CVS:

I think they have them all the time as part of their candy collection. They were hard as rocks. No good.

These are by Target:

These tasted more like sugar than almonds and were the smallest of the bunch. I guess there are some almonds in there. Maybe.

These were from The Chocolate Bear:

These had delicious, big almonds with a great, light coating. Much softer than the CVS rocks. YUM!

These are by Jelly Belly:

And they were the only ones that seemed to have some kind of flavor in the candy coating. I didn't care for that - it was like a weird aftertaste. Yuck!

These are Harry and David's:

and they have a great almond taste. These are enhanced by the candy coating, not overwhelmed by it. But they are not quite as soft and good as those from The Chocolate Bear.

These Medicis are truly in a league of their own:

I bought them at Williams-Sonoma and they are amazing. The sugar coating is very thin and they have GIANT almonds. The back of the box reads: "When Catherine de Medicis married the future King Henry II of France in 1533, her chefs dazzled wedding guests with these sweet, crunchy confections. They are slender Lerida almonds from Spain enclosed in a very thin sugar shell. The classic assortment in pastel colors (made at Easter - every other time I've gotten them, they have been white) is made at the family-owned Confiserie de Medicis, a French confectionery named for the legendary queen."

How cool is that?

This was really interesting to me - I had no idea there would be that much difference among the different offerings:

And you know what? Once you have the Medicis the others really pale in comparison. (Hell, they've been working on those things for 477 years - they outta be good!) The ones from The Chocolate Bear were second best and were MUCH better than all the others, but the Medicis are truly amazing. If you love Jordan Almonds, you owe it to yourself to try these. Wow!!!

March Cookie Madness

Some of you may remember when I reviewed the new Goldfish Grahams. Chocolate was good, honey was good, and S'mores (honey and chocolate together with a marshmallow Goldfish thrown in) was good. Newly released is vanilla:

Eh. These were not so good - not when compared to the other flavors. I'm also not sure the ones I got weren't a little overdone. Regardless, they are bland as bland can be. Boo!!

I didn't know these existed:

I like Chips Ahoy. Haven't had one in years, but I have fond memories of eating them soaked in milk as a kid. YUM! So when I saw these chunky ones with PEANUT BUTTER I was soooo excited! The result?

Eh again. I like regular Chips Ahoy better. I like plain peanut butter cookies better. I like my peanut butter cookies to be a little chewy. These are not. Disappointing. I like peanut butter Oreos WAY better.

Speaking of Oreos, look at the Spring Oreos:

Woohoo!!! Look at all that filling! Yay - looks like DoubleStuff to me!!!

Tastes exactly like the regular Oreo, so nothing exciting there. They also have five spring designs. You know how I like it when companies make a product design effort and not just a seasonal package change.

Going clockwise and starting in the upper left corner, we've got a leap frog, a buzz bee, a share the warmth message with a cool sun, a happy spring message with a butterfly and a flower, and the lamest one is a flower like design with the Oreo logo. But I like the designs and the bright yellow filling - yay for Oreo!

Target (one of my favorite places to shop for candy and treats) has some fun cookies. Look at these little chocolate coated cuties:

Leaping rabbits, chicks and eggs with sprinkles - very festive, very cute.

Shortbread cookie on the inside. These were okay - a little too sweet for me. These were way more my style:

Great designs - very well done - you can actually see the design unlike with some other cookies we've seen - the sprinkles aren't covering it up. I like the pink and purple sprinkle combo too.

The best part? A layer of chocolate on the back:

I LOVED these - I prefer the lower chocolate to cookie ratio. I like more cookie and a little less chocolate. And the designs are great. Yummy and festive.

Godiva has a cookie! Wow! I didn't know they made cookies!

I like the rabbit design and these surprised me! I thought it was just a shortbread cookie with a chocolate backing, but no - there's actually a thin layer of chocolate creme in the middle. Very nicely done.

And very delicious! I have to give Godiva big bonus points for these - they were the perfect mix of chocolate and cookie - a real delight.

I got these in Williams-Sonoma - they are paper thin Moravian cookies made right here in North Carolina by the Salem Baking Co. (http://www.salembaking.com/). They are Easter Egg sugar cookies:

And the back is coated in Guittard semisweet chocolate. Holy smokes!! This is amazing chocolate and these are great little cookies. These are cookies for the chocolate lover - the cookies are really just a chocolate delivery system. I have to say I liked the Godiva cookies better - a little more cookie. But these are great too.

I am a sucker for cookies, but what I like about cookies is their cookiness. So my favorite was the pink and purple sprinkled Target cookie - lots of shortbread cookie and a little chocolate. The Godiva was a close second - only because it's closer to being chocolate than cookie - it's richer. Those who love chocolate more than cookie will prefer the others. But they are all worth trying in my book!!! Yay for cookies! Yay for Spring and yay for fun!!!! Go team cookie!