This Week In Candy

The shelves are filled with Easter treats. Every year it seems as though more and more Easter treats seem to be appearing.  It wasn't so long ago that the only Easter treats you could find were chocolate eggs, chocolate bunnies, and for a few of us Cadbury Creme Eggs. But now there's so many new treats coming out every year.  Just last weekend I happened to be going to the USA, and I stopped at a Walmart to see what I could find.  I was very lucky to come across a bag of Peeps themed Oreos.

I have to be honest, I wasn't expecting much out of these cookies.  I figured it would simply be the standard vanilla Oreos with the center being dyed pink, but I was wrong.  While the flavour is definitely vanilla, the cream has an extra bonus.  In the cream are little crystals of crunchy sugar, giving these a pretty unique texture.  I can't say that these are my favourite Oreos, but I might like these more than regular marshmallow Peeps.

What else is happening this week at candycritic.org?  Well first of all my birthday is this week, I know this has nothing to do with Candy Critic directly, but maybe a little indirectly.  This is mostly with the fact that it might be a slow week here at Candy Critic.  I'm going to be writing a few things behind the scenes, like the future Canadian candy project I'm working on, but other than that I'm going to take it easy this week. I'll be posting about some of my birthday fun times on Twitter and Facebook.

Don't worry though, we'll still be adding new posts on the Doughnut Project and Snack Facts, our Instagram feed. We're also going to be working on writing a few reviews for later in the year.  Finally, we're working with a certain candy company right now, putting together a contest where we're giving away a whole lot of tasty candy.  You'll have to check back later to find out how you can win.

This week's new review is in celebration of National Strawberry Day, which is today.  It's a review I wrote a while ago, but I think it's appropriate for today.  Click here to read the review that might make you think about berries in the summer.

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Candy In the Media

Not only will this teach you the science of gum, but you can even learn to make some yourself.

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A New Episode Of Junk Fud On The Road Is Online!

In this latest episode of Junk Fud On The Road, Allison and I talk about the UK.  Normally with Junk Fud On The Road we talk about particular countries, but this time we've expanded to a group of countries.  It's likely because they're close to each other, both in geography and in food selection, but it's also because a few of the countries (Wales in particular) we've only visited for a short time, and we didn't want them to be left out.

Click here to check out old episodes of Junk Fud On The Road, and click here to follow us on SoundCloud to keep up with all of the new episodes of the Junk Fud podcast.

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This Week In Candy

I've decided to go on a bulk buying extravaganza.  I came across 20 dollars in our candycritic.org budget, and I've decided to spend it on bulk candy.  There's a chain of bulk food stores in Canada called Bulk Barn (I know it's a silly name, but it's really an amazing place), and I've decided that I'm going to spend the money there.  I love buying bulk candy because it allows me to buy a huge variety of treats without having to buy a huge quantity.  When you buy in bulk there's often no minimum, so you can go into a store, put one gummy bear in a bag, and pay for it. It reminds me of the old days of penny candy, which as far as I can tell no longer exists anywhere.  So I've got a few bucks to spend at a bulk store, what do you recommend I get? Let me know in the comments, on Twitter, or Facebook.

This week we're also posting some great new content, including a new episode of our podcast Junk Fud On The Road.  Junk Fud On The Road is all about the places and foods Allison and I have discovered all over the world.  This episode is about one of our favourite foodie places, the UK. I know it's not really a country, but a collection of countries attached to an island, we just couldn't help ourselves.

This week we'll also be posting a few new additions to the Doughnut Project, this is where I attempt to sample as many different Tim Horton's doughnuts as I can.  Since it's Rrrrroll Up The Rim To Win time, I find myself going to Tim Horton's fairly often no a days. For those that don't understand Rrrrrroll Up The Rim To Win, it's an annual contest at Tim Horton's where you have to roll the rim of your cup up to find out what you've won.  It's a contest that's so popular in Canada that it makes the news every year. As of this morning I've only one a free coffee, but I'm hoping my luck changes. Make sure to check out the Doughnut Project on our Instagram feed.

This week's new candy review comes from our latest episode of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! The candy was a gift from some friends that went on vacation in Cambodia, and they picked me up some rather strange treats. This one had the most unique packaging ever, but I'm not sure how it affected the candy itself.  Click here to check out the latest review.

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Candy In The Media

Old potato chips are not a problem anymore, thanks to science!

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It's A New Episode Of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!!

This month on Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! I eat sugar, strange sugar that's wrapped in some kind of leaf.

If you want to check out more episodes of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! click here to check out our older episodes.

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This Week In Candy

Happy Valentine's everybody!  Well it's the Valentine's Day week at the very least.  I like to celebrate Valentine's Day all week, but that's mostly because I'm cheap and don't deal well with pressure.  Trying to get all that romantic fun stuff smashed into one day is too difficult. Also, restaurants and other places one would likely take a date on this day are way over priced. So I like to treat Allison special all week long.

This week on candycritic.org we're not leaving you out in the cold this Valentine's Day either.  We did post a new review today, as we always do, but we're going to have a second special Valentine's Day review posted on Valentine's Day as well. Make sure to keep up with our Twitter and Facebook feeds to check it out (you can also follow us on Tumblr, Pinterest and Google+). We're also giving you the best gift of all, you get to watch me eat something very questionable.  On Thursday we'll be posting a new episode of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!!

We've also been posting regular Valentine's Snack Facts on our Instagram feed, as well as adding to our collection in the Doughnut Project. So we've been keeping really busy over the last few weeks.  All of this and we're working on a few new projects, as well as planning for a really big announcement this summer.  It's pretty crazy here, but for the love of candy, it's worth it.

This week's new review (along with the one we're posting on Valentine's Day) is just a little Kiss. I've never been a huge fan of Hershey's Kisses, however it seems they've managed to improve things a bit with these Kisses Delluxe.  After posting this review, I've realized that I still haven't even reviewed the regular Kisses too, I'll have to fix that.  Click here to read all about these special Kisses.

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Candy In The Media

Watching Pringles (or a Pringle like chip) getting made isn't as disturbing as i thought it would be. It's also not as magical as I thought it would be either.

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Winter Candies

There's a huge gap in the winter candy market.  In the wintertime there are plenty of Christmas and Valentine's Day candies, but there are very few, maybe no candies that celebrate winter itself.  Being Canadian, and understanding how great winter can be, I've decided to design a few winter candies on my own.  I've had some help from a few of you guys, as well as friends and family (many of whom don't actually read this blog... disappointment).

As always when I come up with candy ideas, these ideas are free for the taking for any candy company that wants to make them.  All I ask in return is a sample of the treat after they're made. If you do make them, and send me some, I can guarantee a review on candycritic.org and likely guarantee a perfect score when it come to novelty.  Now it's time to warm up with some cool winter candies and snacks.

Mulled Wine Gums

I'd like to take credit for coming up with Mulled Wine Gums, but I can't.  I was working with my new friend Jess, and I asked her for ideas for this article.  She instantly blurted out, "Mulled Wine Gums" and I knew that it was a perfect idea.  I'm not that familiar with regular mulled wine, but I know it's huge in Germany, the place where gummies were invented. I'm not saying that it's a coincidence, but I'm also not saying it isn't either.  I think the variety of flavours you could make of these gummies would be limitless, and you could also ad a touch of various citrus flavours as well.

Potato Snowshoes

This is probably the silliest of all of these ideas, but I think it would be really fun too.  I wanted to make sure to include a salty snack with this list, and potato strips in the shape of snowshoes seems perfect.  It could be like those Hickory Stick snacks, only larger, and the shape of snowshoes. You could make all kinds of flavours that remind you of winter, like cool ranch, or BBQ... OK those flavours aren't really winter themed, can you think of a winter themed flavour that would work with a salty snack?

Keep Me Warm Candies

Of all the winter themed treats on this list, this is the one that I think would be the greatest of all. I call them Keep Me Warm Candies, but you can change that if you want.  The premise is really simple, make a candy that warms you up.  The important thing is that the candy isn't "hot", it's just warm.  Also, get away from using normal hot flavours like cinnamon, and use fruit or spice flavours instead. The point is that you could eat these candies, and on a cold day they would warm up your mouth just a little bit, not enough to burn, just a little bit warm.  It's like the anti mint gum.

Winter is here, and we need candy to hold us over until the spring/summer, when there appears to be limitless numbers of treats.  All you candy makers out there have officially been challenged, but if you already have a winter candy let us know. We'd be happy to review it on candycritic.org.

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Superbowl Candy Commercials

I have to be honest with you, I generally don't watch the Superbowl. I don't watch the halftime show, I don't watch the commercials, and I most certainly don't watch the game.  It's not that I don't like sports, in fact I really enjoy watching basketball and baseball, I just don't like the idea that one game can determine the outcome for an entire year.  I also don't like the commercials because I live in Canada and they don't play those amazing American commercials here, we get low budget Canadian ones.  I don't watch the halftime show because then I'd have to watch the game and the low budget Canadian commercials to know when that happens.

Having said all of that, every year, the day after the game, I go through YouTube and watch some of the commercials.  I have three categories of Superbowl commercials that I watch. I watch any trailers for upcoming TV shows or movies that I'm interested in (as a side note, really excited about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2). I also watch the commercials that everybody is talking about, not that many this year to be honest.  Finally I watch all of the candy related commercials, which I'm going to share with you right now.

This year there weren't that many candy commercials, or at least not many that I could find.  Worst of all it seemed to be the same brands that have commercials every year.  Just once I'd like to see a Hershey Bar or Gummy Bear commercial.  Better yet, if they ever bring back Runts Candy, they should introduce it with a Superbowl spot.  This year there were two candy commercials, and an interesting cola commercial that I feel suit being posted on this blog.

Surprisingly, or not at all, the folks at Skittles decided to do a weird commercial.  This seems to be a trend with them, and I'm not sure why.  It's become so common place for Skittles commercials to be weird, that it's not weird anymore.  I think to surprise us, one year they should just do a normal commercial, with nothing weird at all, now that would be shocking.


I imagine that this Snickers commercial might have been more entertaining if you were watching it while the game was on, because it has details about the game live.  That would have made this kind of funny.  Watching after the game, having not watched it at all, it just seems a little weird, but not weird like the Skittle commercial.

As a Canadian I can't say that this commercial made me feel any kind of patriotism, but I'm guessing it's not supposed to.  This is in fact a jab at Trump, and the current American governments stance on immigration. Unfortunately it appears that Trump was actually at the game, so he likely didn't see it, unless he reads this blog, which is very doubtful. So it's a pretty commercial, with a message for people other than myself.

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This Week In Candy

Winter is in full force, and here in Ottawa (where I'm living right now) Winterlude is on.  Winterlude is a celebration of snow and ice, or as I like to call it a desperate attempt to make the cold weather fun.  The good thing is that Ottawa does a great job at making it fun, and after a day of walking around town bundled up, I almost forgot about the fact that I couldn't feel my fingers. One thing that I came across on our Winterlude adventure was a treat that truly represents the cold days of winter, and has no relation to Christmas or Valentine's Day, and that's tire d'érable. Tire d'érable is boiled maple syrup pored on snow and frozen into a tasty treat. I'm not sure if this is a thing anywhere else in the world (Vermont maybe?), but to me it represents winter in Canada perfectly.

Speaking of winter treats, this week we'll be releasing our three winter themed candies we'd like to see.  Check back later this week for our ideas on treats with a winter theme, one of them might even help you out on these cold days.  Today we're going to go through all of those Superbowl commercials, and tomorrow we'll post our favorite candy/snack themed ones.  So far it looks like it's all the regular Superbowl advertisers, and frankly I haven't seen anything that's blown me away, but I have a few more to go through still.

This week's new review is from our friends at Weaver Nut, Sweets, and Snacks. They sent us a box full of interesting treats, but we thought these Pure Milk Chocolate Buttercrunch With Almonds squares looked the most interesting. Check out our review here.

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Candy In The Media

Watching ants eat a Rice Krispy Treat is both mesmerizing and kind of gross, but I could likely say the same thing for myself.

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