Candy In The Media - Classic Coke, I Mean Really Classic

I've always wanted to try some of the original recipes for Coca-Cola, but I also realize how much work it would take to make it.

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Tom's Look At The Visual Side Of Snacks And Candy - Ross’s Edinburgh Castle Rock

If you are new to this feature on Candy Critic, let me say, even though this piece is about a candy package with a retro look (last time was Lucky Elephant) it’s completely by chance. Non-retro packaging will feature again!

This particular item was found at “Paisley’s, the Wee British Shop” in Bowmanville, Ontario (Canada, for any international Candy Critic enthusiasts). I was immediately struck by the simple, yet effective design with it’s tartan pattern. A cut-out window shows the candy’s muted, pastel colours. It made me think of sticks of chalk, which may not be the best mental association for food. The name of the treat, Edinburgh Castle Rock, also might suggest an extremely hard, dense candy. I was assured by the clerk that neither was it chalk nor was it hard.

The package features a classic script text for  the possessive of the company name: “Ross’s”. The script name is printed red on a yellow background that fades like a sky behind a silhouette of the titular castle. A solid, simple sans serif typeface in one uniform size spells out the product’s name against the blue cliffside castle. A sense of depth is created with a dark, silhouetted tree scape in the foreground. The tartan design is created with careful overlaps of three of the basic printing ink colours to create several secondary colours. The cutaway window cleverly ties the candies’ colour into the overall colour design.

While a look at the company didn’t reveal how long the company had used this package design, it did reveal that Ross’s has been making candy since 1880! The clerk at Paisley’s said she had a relative who would bring a box to gift the family when she (the clerk) was a child. The company is still a family run operation that uses classic recipes as well as explores new candy creations. The range of “rock” stick candy flavours is extensive and includes some intriguing ones such as haggis, marmite, pizza and rhubarb. It seems the three flavours featured in this box only scratch the surface!

Tom

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We Got A New Episode Of Junk Fud On The Road - Cambodia

This is a bit of a strange episode because we've been living in Cambodia now for two years. So I like to think that we've seen through a bit of the veneer, and we might even have some expertise on the subject of Cambodian food.

Make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with all our day to day fun.

You can also follow us on YouTube to be notified whenever we put out a new podcast or video.

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Amazing Candy/Junk Food Things That You Should Buy - Pantone Cookbook

This is the perfect gift for any friend that's an obsessive graphic designer with a love of cooking food. Having said that, if you know any obsessive graphic designers with a love of cooking food, you should probably stop being their friends, you're better than that.

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It's Time For Another Kit Kat Review-A-Thon, We'll Start With - Kit Kat "Popcorn Flavour"

This week's Kit Kat review-a-thon is an impromptu idea. I was wondering what to review today, and I noticed a backlog of Kit Kat bars in the wings. I think I was waiting for a rainy day to post yet another Kit Kat review-a-thon, and while the sky is clear right now, who knows how it'll be the rest of the week. So why not eat a bunch of Kit Kat bars this week.

I decided to start with a Kit Kat bar that I thought was both really weird,  and pretty tasty too. The concept was simple enough, but how they managed to pull it off is a little bit strange. Hopefully the rest of the reviews this week will come even a little bit close to the weirdness of this particular bar.

Click here to read about this strange Kit Kat bar.

Make sure  to follow us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter to keep up with the rest of the Kit Kat review-a-thon.

Also be sure to follow us on Patreon, if you were signed up to one of our candy tiers, you could have had one of these Kit Kats sent to your doorstep.

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Time For Another 10 Second Kitchen - Club Med Bali

I think I might  have actually eaten one of the dishes that they're preparing in this video.

Make sure to check out all of the 10 Second Kitchen videos on our Candy Map.

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Candy In the Media - Nature's Candy Turned Into Something Amazing... Or Horrible

This is either the greatest idea ever thought of, or the worst abomination ever conceived, either way I'd be happy to give it a try.

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It's Time For Another Chris (and Linda), Why Would You Eat That?!! - Deep Fried Spiders

This episode has been a long time in the making. I've been waiting to eat spiders for a while, and it's been waiting for two things to come together. The first was to find a place that sold deep fried spiders that wasn't too sketchy. I've seen spiders and other bugs for sale on the streets of many Asian countries, but I wanted to make sure that this exspirience was had in a place that was safe, and that would offer this delight in the best way possible. I discovered a restaurant called Romdeng in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and I knew it was perfect.

The second thing I wanted was someone to enjoy these spiders with, a partner in crime. This seemed like the perfect meal to enjoy with a friend, and I found the perfect person with my friend Linda. She had been traveling through South East Asia for about a month, and she was not only willing, but excited at the idea of tasting a spider.

Make sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to see what we have in store next for Chris, Why Would  You Eat That?!!

Also be sure to check out our YouTube channel for old episodes and to be notified when we post new ones.

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Amazing Candy/Junk Food Things That You Should Buy - Elephant Straws

Have you ever thought about using a snorkeling elephant as a filter for your water? If you want to get an idea about how that would feel, these cute drinking straws would be a great way to test that idea out.

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Today's Review Is Really A Classic Candy - Dairy Milk "Chocolate"

As you may or may not know, I've been working on an updated version of candycritic.org. The first of two main focuses of this update have been a new look, but I've also been looking at organizing and editing the hundreds of reviews that we have (as of writing this we have 1,343 reviews on the site). While organizing these reviews, I've noticed that there are many classic treats that I have not reviewed, and that I should. I've posted a blog in past highlighting a few of these, and I'll have another post going up soon with even more forgotten reviews.

The thing is, when I realized that I had not yet reviewed the classic Dairy Milk chocolate bar, I couldn't just let that one go. I've reviewed several other Dairy Milk bar variations, but I had yet to review the classic. This was so wrong, and I had to fix that immediately. So on my next candy run I set off to pick up a Dairy Milk bar, and here we are, I've righted that wrong.

Click here to read the review of one of the most classic chocolate bars in the world.

Make sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and let us know about other bars we may have forgotten.

Also be sure to check out our Patreon page for even more fun stuff.

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It's Another 10 Second Kitchen - China Town, Singapore

I could watch machines making food all day long.

If you want to see all of our 10 Second Kitchen videos, check out our Candy Map.

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Candy In The Media - Pretzel Machine

I could seriously watch this machine make pretzels all day long.

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We Invented Another Cookie, And It's Called "Theater Floor"

The concept for these cookies is fairly simple, they represent everything you find on a theatre floor. I know this means that this cookie is not very creatively named, but I figure that the concept is the main selling feature. The main reason one would want to make these cookies is if you had a movie night at your house and you had a lot of leftovers, most notably popcorn. This recipe works particularly well if you happen to have another event, say a games night, at your house the day after a movie night. This would mean that you have used the leftover snacks from the movie night to feed the people at your games night.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 Cups all purpose flour

Baking Soda 1 teaspoon

Salt 1 teaspoon

1 cup of salted butter (soft and warm)

Crystal Sugar 3/4 cup

Molasses 1/2 cup

Vanilla 1 teaspoon

2 Large Eggs

Chocolate Chips 1/2 cup

Peanuts 1/2 cup

Things you might find on a theatre floor including:

Popcorn

Peanut M&Ms

Regular M&Ms

Gummies

Skittles

You'll also need an average sized bowl, one mixing bowl, a mixer, a cookie sheet, several things to stir with, measuring cups, and tinfoil or a silicon baking mat. There may be a few other things you'll need, but I'll cover those below.

How to make them:

In one of the small bowl mix the flour with the salt and baking soda. This is simple enough and requires a quick stir and nothing else. Set that bowl aside.

Next, take out your mixer, and on a low setting and add the soft butter, start whipping it a little and slowly add the crystal sugar. You want to keep mixing until the butter is whipped and the sugar is fairly well dispersed throughout, it won't ever blend in perfectly and it should leave your butter feeling a little gritty. Keep in mind that when you bake these cookies, that grit does not go away, the point is that, much like a theatre floor, these cookies are oddly gritty. Then add the molasses, keep mixing with your mixer until the molasses is mixed in, then add your vanilla. I like to use molasses because it makes the cookies dark brown, and a little sticky, just like a theatre floor.

Once this is nicely combined add one egg at a time, keeping the mixer at a fairly low speed. Once it has become one mass as opposed to being made up of ingredients, start adding the flour mixture slowly. Keep mixing until all of the flour has been added and is mixed in well. You'll probably need a spatula to work the sides of the bowl, unless you have a better mixer than I own (hint, hint for my birthday).

Once it's all one glob of cookie greatness we'll no longer need the mixer. Remove the mixer from the equation and slowly stir in the peanuts and chocolate chips. Simply stir in these the additional ingredients using the spatula you used to clean the sides of the bowl while you were mixing. If you have a really awesome mixer you'll have to dirty a spatula. After the peanuts and chocolate chips are mixed in, starting adding your other ingredients. Many of these ingredients can be very delicate, like the gummies and the popcorn, so you'll want to mix in the hardier ingredients first, then add the more delicate ingredients.

As far as what to add to your cookies, it really depends on what you have left over from movie night, and what you like to eat at the movies. Popcorn is the one ingredient I highly recommend, it sells the idea that these are theatre floor cookies. With fruit flavoured ingredients, like Skittles or gummies, I like to add fewer of these. I like the idea that every so often you might randomly bite into a a chewy fruity candy in cookies that are mainly chocolate and nut based, it's a "nice surprise".

Once all of your movie themed treats are mixed with your dough, you'll need a really small spoon. I recommend something smaller than a teaspoon, but bigger than one of those coffee spoons they used to give you at McDonald's in the 80's. For my cookies I use an egg spoon, and it works perfectly.

Now spoon the mixture onto your tinfoil or silicon baking mat while it's on your baking sheet. Keep the cookies small, because lots of little cookies are awesome. Bake each batch of cookies at 375 degrees for about 7 minutes.

Once the cookies are done, let them cool on the rack for a few minutes, and if possible serve immediately. They will last a few days, but they'll taste best right out of the oven.

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Tom's Look At The Visual Side Of Snacks And Candy - Lucky Elephant Popcorn

Hey everyone! This time around, the item up for scrutiny has a strong attachment to my childhood. As a family, we used to head to the arena (now defunct but replaced in a different location with a bigger facility) for ice skating. I recall a big part of the outing came after the skating. When learning to skate a lot of time  is spent falling on the ice and trying to stay warm in the cold arena. The reward was a box of Lucky Elephant popcorn! I don’t recall if freshly popped popcorn was an option. In hindsight, a warm box of fresh popcorn would have been amazing!

But I digress...

As the Pop Art (pun intended) lettering below states, it was indeed a box containing pink popcorn. Essentially, it was caramel corn but coloured pink instead of the regular caramel colour.

As a kid, the popcorn was almost secondary to the excitement of the promised “FREE PRIZE INSIDE”.

At this point, it should be stated that these photos are not images pulled from a nostalgic, vintage candy website. The Lucky Elephant Pink Popcorn is still available in a package that is largely unchanged from how it appeared forty-plus years ago!

As a concession to modern times, the popcorn is now in a plastic bag inside the package instead of simply filling the cardboard box. Also, there is the  mandatory “Nutritional Information” chart, required on food products sold in Canada. Otherwise, the imagery looks much as I remember it from long ago.

I’m pretty sure I never looked at the ingredients back then but here’s what goes into making “Pink Candy Popcorn”.

As for the prize, instead of a cheesy, plastic doodad, there was a sheet of Spider-Man stickers. I think the young “me” would have been pleased!

Not only was it amazing to see Lucky Elephant popcorn still on the market, it turns out that the company is Canadian! I don’t know for certain if that explains the sticker sheet, but Sandy Lion is a major Canadian company that makes a range of stickers, many depicting licensed characters.

Finally, I thought it would be fun to share the French translation as it gives a classier air to this humble treat. In the days before I took French in high school, looking at cereal boxes was a fascinating glimpse at a different language. Such is life in the officially bilingual country that is Canada!

Tom

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Amazing Candy/Junk Food Things That You Should Buy - Robot Pops

The only fun way to learn about the cold calculating hearts of a robot is with these silicon robot Popsicle molds. The other way to learn about the cold hearts of a robot is to fight a robot to the death, and when it's almost defeated you,beg for mercy. Both ways will show you how cold a robot can be, but these molds are much safer.

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I Can't Believe We Have A Candy Update Today - Kinako Mochi Choco

I'll start off with the update itself, it's a Japanese candy that's not great. It's pretty cheap, and it consists of flavours that are very common in Japan, mochi and chocolate. This candy could work, but it doesn't, because it's cheaply made. I could tell you more about today's review, but frankly I have a bigger story to tell Now onto the reason that I'm amazed that I'm even writing this.

Last week the main computer we use to run this site died. It died and many of the programs we use to make this site stopped working. I was pretty sure that this was going to lead to at least a week's worth of silence on our end. Then gradually, I started to rebuild. I had to make a few updates to our system, but in no time things started to come together. We have backups here, and I'm totally stunned that they all worked. I was able to get everything back up and running in two days. While there still might be a few speed bumps ahead, it appears that all is working well enough to not only keep the updates coming this week, but also continue working on the new version of Candy Critic (coming soon).

I freaked out last week about this, but as I sit here now, I'm kind of  happy it all happened. Things seem to actually be running smoother, and we even updated a few things.

Click here if you want to learn more about today's new candy review.

Also be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, we might need some tech support if things do go south while we recoup.

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We've Got A 10 Second Kitchen For You - China Town Point, Singapore

It's amazing to watch people work as a team to make food.

Want to check out all of the 10 Second Kitchen's? Check out our Candy Map.

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Candy In The Media - Do You Love Nutella?

How much do you love Nutella, could you eat a whole jar of the stuff?

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It's Time For Our Monthly Thoughts

In this episode of Chris' Monthly Morning Breakfast Thoughts, I talk about some of the news that came up in the snack and candy world for the month of July. I also talk about some of the new blog posts that will be appearing right here in the near future.

Make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with all the candy and Candy Critic news every day.

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Amazing Candy/Junk Food Things That You Should Buy - Robot Tea Infuser

The perfect accompaniment to any snack or candy is a nice cup of tea. The best way to make this tea is with a robot. Seeing as I can't afford a robot to make me my tea, this robot themed tea infuser is as close as I'm going to get.

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It's Another Snack Review - IWAB "Sweet" (Sweet Hearts?)

One of the biggest problems about reviewing candies and snacks from all over the world, is figuring out exactly what I'm eating.  This can be a problem because I won't know what to expect (although this can be an advantage sometimes too), or it can be that I don't really know how to eat it (see this video for the best example), or as is the case with today's new review, I don't really know what it's called. While not knowing the name of a treat might seem like a small problem, it becomes a big problem when I'm trying to post the reviews on our candycritic.org. I take my best guess, and sometimes just make up the name based on what the foreign writing kind of looks like (as is this case).

If you happen to speak and read Thai, I would greatly appreciate a translation of this package. Until I get one it's going to keep the name IWAB.

Click here to find out how these IWAB snacks did.

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You should also check out our Patreon page too.

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Candy In The Media - This Gum's Got Attitude

I don't think I've ever seen a gum threaten me before.

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It's Time For A New Episode Of Junk Fud On The Road - Club Med Bali

In this episode of Junk Fud On The Road, Allison and Chris are on the road in Bali. They talk about food and life at a resort, as well as a few other interesting finds that they discovered roaming around Bali.

If you want to keep up with all of our adventures, make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

You can check out our old episodes of Junk Fud On The Road Here.

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