This Week I Tried To Defeat My Old Nemesis... Licorce - Salta Katten

The general assumption on this site, and from people who find out that I review candy, is that I love every single kind of candy out there. This could not be further from the truth, there are plenty of candy types and flavours that I don't like, and licorice is one of them.The difference with licorice is that at one point in my life, a few years back, I tried to like it. I try to keep my mind open every time I eat licorice, and one time I even ate a piece of Dutch licorice every day for two months to try and gain a taste for it. Every so often I eat a licorice candy and it feels like this behavior modification is starting to work out.

Click here to find out why I didn't hate these, and might be going soft on the whole hating licorice thing.

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Candy In The Media - Watching Them Make Red Licorice and Gummies

I always thought gummy worms were just born... I'm very sad.

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I Made A Video About Putting Stuff In The Oven, And My House Didn't Burn Down

While my house didn't burn down, what I did was really stupid. Putting chocolate bars in the oven doesn't make much sense, and should ruin a perfectly good chocolate bar. The strange thing is that it didn't. It turns out putting strange flavours of Kit Kat bars in the oven actually turns them into a unique snack exspirience.

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This Candy Review Is Nothing To "Snicker" At - Snickers "Oats"

My opinion of bars that comes out with a huge variety of flavours often depends on the last one tried. While I didn't hate this bar, it did make me think that some candy companies don't give as much thought as they could to new varieties. Having said that, a few week's ago I would have been much more enthusiastic on the subject after trying a really clever Kit Kat bar.  So I don't seem to have a hard and fast opinion on this matter.

Click here to find out why this Snickers bar made me say "meh".

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This Death Star Popcorn Popper Is Amazing!

My favourite thing about this popcorn popper is the fact that it comes apart and the top is the bowl. This is most certainly going on my Christmas list next year.

For those of you who don't want to go with the dark side, this R2-D2 popper is pretty cool too.

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Candy In The Media - Watching Them Make AirHeads

I always felt that the banjo was underused when making videos involving candy factories.

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It's A New Episode of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! And Once Again I Suffer With Durian

I'm constantly reminded that there are people in the world that like the taste of durian. I've even met a few people who apparently love the stuff. I just can't wrap my head around this, but I'm trying.

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This Review Is Worth It For The Name Alone - Bon Bon Bum "JoJoJo"

I don't like to make a habit of picking out a candy for review on the name alone, but sometimes you just can't resist. I'm sure the name of this candy has some kind of meaning, but I certainly couldn't figure it out. I just remember walking into a grocery store, seeing a display with the word "bum" on it, and heading straight for it. I didn't really care what was being sold after that, I knew I had to try it.

Click here to read about this "bum" candy.

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We're On Patreon!

Hey gang, I just wanted to drop you a line and ask that you check out our Patreon page. We're looking to expand what we do here at Candy Critic as well as fix up a few things that need work. We're not looking to turn this into a huge money making venture, we're just looking to improve things a little. For as little as $1 you can join our Patreon group and get extra content as well as contribute ideas on how we can improve this site. Every level of contribution has some great bonus content and some even offer free candy.

Click here to check out our Patreon page.

Thanks

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I'm Surprised About This New Candy Review - Flake "Mint"

I'm surprised that the Flake bar isn't already available in a million different flavours. This is a classic British bar that's fairly simple, and the perfect candidate for multiple variations. If I was Cadbury I think about making a Flake bar that celebrates it's most common use, as a topping on a soft serve ice cream cone. You could also put other ingredients in a Flake, to make it even flakier, like crunchy toffee. There's really lots you could do with this bar, and yet this is the first time I've ever seen any variation.

Click here to read about this variation, and why it did and didn't work.

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Kit Kat Week Part 3 - Ideas For Kit Kat Flavours That Haven’t Been Made Yet

Having spent the last little while thinking about Kit Kat flavours, I thought it would be fun to brainstorm some ideas for different flavours of Kit Kat bars that haven't been made. I asked some friends to suggest a few flavours, and came up with a few of my own. So here's our list of Kit Kat flavours we'd like to see.  Let us know if there are any flavours you'd like to see, also let us know if we happened to mention a flavour that does exist already.

Here's some basic ideas I think would work:

Fruit salad - It would be awesome if each finger was the flavour of a different fruit.
Fruitcake - The perfect, or worst, Christmas Kit Kat idea.
Honey 'n' Oat - I love this idea (contributed by my friend Willy), I think it would work particularly well if you used whole rolled oats.
Buttered Popcorn - I stole this idea from Jelly Belly, it worked for them so it could work for Kit Kat.
Jelly Bean - This could similar to the fruit salad idea with each finger having a different flavour. You could also try and add a soft texture in somewhere.

I think it's also important  to think about flavours from other countries,  so here are a few ideas of foods I love from foreign lands that I think would make excellent Kit Kat flavours.

Mango Sticky Rice - This is a staple food in many countries like Thailand and Cambodia. They already make all kinds of treats using the flavours of mango sticky rice, so why not make a Kit Kat as well.
Jalebi - This is my favorite Indian/Pakistani sweet treat. If you made this in Kit Kat form you'd have to somehow get the crispy texture right as well as the flavour.
Sticky Toffee Pudding - This is one variety that I wouldn't be surprised if it already existed. It's such a unique flavour, and the perfect Kit Kat flavour
Turkish Delight - This is another Kit Kat variety that could go further than simply making a Kit Kat that tastes like Turkish delight. You could actually put Turkish delight into the Kit Kat bar, similar to what they already do with peanut butter and caramel.
Speculoos - I think this is a food trend that seems to be continuing to grow, so it would be perfect for a Kit Kat. Some people know this as cookie butter as well. It would blend perfectly with the crisp wafers and milk chocolate.

There are also a few Canadian flavours that I think would work.
Beavertail - In particular the Kilalo Sunrise variety with cinnamon, sugar and lemon.
Pancakes with Syrup - You could give the wafers a pancake flavour, and  put a thin layer of real Canadian maple syrup on the top.

Two people (Allison and Brent) thought of two meat flavours. You might think it’s just a joke, but I don't think it's a totally silly idea.
Roast Beef - Something about creamy gravy that I think might work in the context of a chocolate bar.
Fried Chicken - This might sound weird, but the spices would certainly be an interesting flavour combination with a Kit Kat bar, after all fried chicken does work with waffles.

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Candy In The Media - How They Make Kit Kat... Or At Least Where They Get The Ingredients

It's pretty amazing to see what goes into making one of the best chocolate bars ever.

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Our Second Kit Kat Review This Week Is Unique, And We Have Video To Prove It - Kit Kat "Vanilla Ice Cream"

This is really one of the most unique ideas I've ever seen for a candy bar, ever. There are a few bars, like the Charleston Chew which improves depending on the temperature you eat it. This however, might be the first bar that improves after you bake it. The downfall is you have to wait for  it to bake before eating it, the advantage is that it really works well afterwards. You just might want  to be careful about eating a chocolate bar right out of the oven, they're really hot.

Click here to read about this crazy Kit Kat bar.

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Kit Kat Week Part 2 - How Many Variety Of Kit Kat Already Exist

It's not really clear how many different  flavours of Kit Kats actually exist. Since Japan started this trend, a few other countries have joined in creating a handful of fun flavours. None of these fun flavours have come close to matching the variety and strangeness of Japan. Today it's fairly common to find Kit Kat bars with coffee flavours, caramel, peanut butter and many other fairly safe flavours. Kit Kat Japan has opened a few doors, but the floodgates have never opened completely outside of Japan.

It's estimated that there are anywhere from two to three hundred variety of Kit Kat in Japan alone. You might be able to add fifty or so variety that have been released in the rest of the world. No one seems to have an official list, and some flavours are similar, but not exactly the same as well (for example there's a special variety of strawberry Kit Kat that's made in Japan which is completely different than the Western strawberry Kit Kat).

One of the things many western Kit Kat varieties miss outside of Japan, is a tie to the local culture. We're missing many flavours that really represent particular cultures or regions of different countries. This is what has allowed Japan to go out  further with this idea, they are feverishly proud of Japanese culture and the products that come out of Japan. Japanese people tend to love the idea that something represents something in their culture, no matter how specific or detailed. They're also seems to be this idea that the product doesn't have to taste good to be a success. It's more about how well it represents the Japanese event or area than how great it actually tastes.

It's also safe to say that the Japanese pallet is a little different than the Western pallet, so maybe a soya sauce chocolate bar works for them.  To be honest, I'm not entirely sure why Japanese people love these Kit Kat variety, but they obviously do because they keep making them. I know for western countries we look at these flavours as being strange and exotic, but I think we need to fix this. What we need to do is look into our own culture and find the flavours that might be exotic to others,  and we need to make them in Kit Kat bar form.

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Kit Kat Week Part 1 - A Quick Look At The History Of Kit Kat Flavours

Over the last decade or so Kit Kat has gone through a renaissance of sorts. Kit Kat has been a staple in the candy bar world since its creation in the 1930s in the city of York. Created by the Rowntree company the brand has since changed hands several times and is now manufactured by two different companies, Hershey’s in the USA and Nestle everywhere else in the world. Some would argue that Nestle has the superior product, and that the bar improves depending on where you buy it.

For most of the life of this bar, the Kit Kat has remained unchanged. 4 fingers featuring wafers, milk chocolate and a subtle filling between the wafers. The format can differ depending on where you get it, and a few places have offered variations in the number of fingers, however the basics of the bar never really changed much at all.

It wasn't until 1996 when the first variety of Kit Kat was introduced, orange. It was first released in the UK, and then spread around the world fairly quickly. Other flavours followed including dark chocolate and mint. These early flavours are considered to be fairly safe. Early on the Kit Kat bar varieties used flavours that are well known to work with chocolate.

It wasn't until around the  turn of the millennium that things started to go a little extreme. In the 1990s Kit Kat Japan started to introduce special flavours of Kit Kats to represent certain regions  of Japan. This is a common tradition in Japanese foods, each region has great pride in locally made products, and will often sell these products in local shops dedicated  to the region. Kit Kat Japan wanted to sell their bars to people that had pride in their local products and decided to cross over this Japanese tradition with their bar.

As time  went on, more and more flavours started to come out of these local areas, and soon Kit Kat was producing a new flavour to celebrate particular traditions or areas of Japan every month. With strange flavours like wasabi and soya sauce, it didn't take long for the internet to catch up to this trend, and Japanese Kit Kat bars became things of legend in Western Countries.

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We're Starting Our Special Kit Kat Celebration Week With A Very Obvious Review - Kit Kat "Wa-Ichigo"

All this week we're celebrating the joy that is Kit Kat, more to the point we're looking at some of the crazy varieties that Kit Kat has come up with over the years. What better way to start that than with a crazy Kit Kat variety... Well actually it's not too crazy, but it has a back story that makes it kind of interesting. Later in the week we're going to be doing a live review featuring a very interesting variety of Kit Kat, and we're also posting a three part article about Kit Kat varieties. We're basically going Kit Kat nuts... strange, they've never made a Kit Kat with nuts.

Click here to read about this particular variety of Kit Kat.

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Candy In The Media - Watching Them Make M&M's In 360

It's one of the classic candy processes, and it's so fun to watch.

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It's A New Episode Of Junk Fud On The Road - Turkey

This episode brought back some great memories of a country that has a really great food culture, Turkey. This is one place that has the potential for a follow up episode in the future.

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This Week's Candy Review Tries To Sweep The Competition Away - Original Marshmallow Brooms

I'm not really sure how well known this candy is. In Canada, and in particular Ontario, we've had Marshmallow Brooms around for as long as I can remember. It's a little strange because I look at this as a mainstay on my candy shelf, however I imagine that if you've never seen these before, they might come off as really strange. I mean who would want to eat a broom?

Click here to read our review of this possible old school classic candy.

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As a bonus, we just did a piece with the fine folks at The Sports Hangover giving the final call on their candy bracket.


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Our New Candy Review Is Tasty... But The Review Is A Little Late - Ritter Sport "Nugat"

Whatever you do, don't judge this candy due to are tardiness. Easter Monday got the best of us and we went to a movie (Ready Player One), then things happened, and here I am rushing to get this review posted. Fortunately it's the kind of review one can be proud to post, and because it's so good, it's well worth this breakneck, sweaty stress I'm under to get this up ASAP.

Click  here to find out why we're so happy to eat this chocolate bar.

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