Snack Facts combines both in a fun, illustrated adventure! Join Barbara and Sir Francis Sweetums as they explore the stories behind your favourite snacks and treats.
Available now at candycritic.org/snackfacts/ or on Amazon.
Check out my latest tropical fruit covered in chocolate review.
Ever wonder why I give a particular score to some candies? How does texture affect my reviews? I decided to break down my criteria for texture when I review treats.
That’s exactly what you’ll find in Treats and Beasts, a fun A–Z adventure full of animals, sweets, and silly surprises.
A perfect book for young readers, animal lovers, candy fans, and anyone who enjoys a creative twist on the alphabet.
Get your copy here:bewarethecheese.com/treatsnbeasts/
Or on Amazon.
The reason I bring all of this up is this “cookie” I recently discovered in a store in France. It’s called the Petit Ecolier and it really balances the line perfectly between being a cookie and being a candy bar. It’s not even subtle about it either. A Twix and a Kit Kat bar hide the fact that there’s a lot of cookie in them by covering everything in chocolate. This bar on the other hand keeps the cookie and the chocolate entirely visible. There are a few cookies out there that are stuffed with all kinds of things you might find in a candy bar too. This treat does not do that, the chocolate bar is totally visible on top of the cookie.
I can’t tell if the makers of this treat are lazy, or are trying to troll people. They really just took a cookie and smushed it together with a chocolate bar. There’s nothing really creative, but the fact that no one has done this before kind of makes it creative. The ratio of chocolate to cookie is almost perfectly split as well. I’ve never been so perplexed with a treat in my life. People often get mad at me if I review cookies or cakes on this site (claiming they’re not “candy”), but I’m tempted to give this a try just to see if anyone would react.
The only thing that gives this treat a category for me is the fact that I bought it in the cookie section of a grocery store. This brand also makes other cookie treat, but I’ve never seen any candy from them. It’s truly the treat that balances the line, it’s both a cookie and a candy bar.
P.S. I just wanted to note that these Petit Ecolier taste great too.
In today's episode of Chris Why Would You Eat That?!! I taste one of the most popular candies in France, Têtes Brûlées. I thought it might extreme, but...
Blue Orchid is a fun adventure about a teenage South East Asian girl who battles incredible monsters and faces the challenges of a world unlike anything she has ever known.
You can pick up every issue now at bewarethecheese.com/blueorchid/ or Amazon.
A little interruption as I watch them make a tasty deep fried treat.
That's exactly what Snack Facts is all about.
Join Barbara and Sir Francis Sweetums as they travel through the history of some of the world's most popular snacks, uncovering surprising facts, unexpected origins, and plenty of sweet discoveries along the way. Presented as a fun and easy-to-read comic, Snack Facts is perfect for curious readers of all ages—whether you're a lifelong candy lover or just enjoy learning something new.
If you've ever wanted to know how your favourite treats became household names, this book is a fun way to satisfy your curiosity.
You can pick up your copy of Snack Facts today by visiting candycritic.org/snackfacts/ or on Amazon.
Check out my latest strawberry, chocolate and vanilla treat review.
Have you ever had a boxed dessert that seemed to easy to be true? This can really happen for two reasons, either there is truly very few steps to follow in order to make your dessert, or it’s such a complicated dessert (often requiring specific machinery) that you can’t believe that it can be made out of a box. This chocolate ice cream is the rare occasion where it’s both of those. This ice cream requires no ice cream machine at all, and the only other ingredient needed is milk.
It’s also not that complicated to make, just mix in the powder with the milk for a few minutes. Honestly it’s so simple that it had me worried about what was going to come out.
After my few minutes of mixing I was ready to let my freezer do the rest of the work. The liquid in my container looked and felt a lot like some of the ice cream starters I’ve seen in the past, so that was positive. The thing that made me nervous was the fact that it wasn’t going to be stirred while, before or after freezing. The instructions did suggest letting your ice cream sit for a few minutes before serving, so maybe that’ll help?
The end product kind of resembled ice cream. It did have ice crystals throughout and also seemed to be darker on the bottom and lighter on the top. Other than that the everything seemed okay... ish. Honestly those two problems do make for unimpressive ice cream. The end result was a little softer than I expected, and tasted pretty good too. The ice crystals were the most annoying thing about this ice cream, but it wasn’t the worst. The two different layers tasted the same as far as I can tell, but the texture of the darker parts was a little gooier than the light stuff.
All in all it wasn’t the best ice cream I’ve ever had, but it was remarkable considering how little work I had to do to make it. I’m not sure I would suggest this as an all the time ice cream substitute, but as a science experiment it was kind of fun.
A quick list of the worst candies and treats in each and ever continent. Maybe some day I'll do each country, but that also seems a little complicated.
Treats and Beasts is a fun A–Z alphabet adventure where wild animals meet tasty treats in a world full of imagination, silly surprises, and colourful illustrations. Each letter introduces a new combination of creature and confection, creating an alphabet book that’s a little different from the usual ABC adventure.
While it’s perfect for little readers who are learning their letters, it’s also a book for anyone who enjoys playful artwork, animals, and a good dose of creativity. Even if you already know your ABCs, there’s still plenty of fun to discover!
From amazing animals to delicious treats, Treats and Beasts brings together two things that everyone loves — imagination and a little bit of sweetness.
Whether you’re looking for a fun bedtime read, a gift for a young reader, or simply a colourful book to enjoy together, Treats and Beasts is ready to take you on a tasty A–Z adventure.
Get Your Copy of Treats and Beasts
You can grab your copy here:
https://bewarethecheese.com/treatsnbeasts/
You can also find it on Amazon.
Ever wonder why I give a particular score to some candies? How does taste affect my reviews? I decided to break down my criteria for taste when I review treats.
You can pick each and every issue of Blue Orchid right now at bewarethecheese.com/blueorchid/ or on Amazon.
I think the two dishes I found most in my time in Prague was deep fried meats and stews. While both of these dishes are fairly common in this part of Europe, the Czech people do them really well. They also on occasion mixed things up a bit and give these classic European dishes their own twist. There’s a popular dish called svíčková which is beef with dumplings, cream sauce and uniquely cranberry jam. What I’m saying is that the food is both very European, but also Czech as well.
Dessert wise I feel like they have the same beautiful combination. I would probably say that when it comes to the sweets I found, they had a more traditionally European feel to them. While I did visit near the Christmas holidays, I found several places that offered gingerbread all year long, including one store that sold gingerbread exclusively all year long. When I went into bakeries it felt comfortable and safe. While I rarely saw anything that was totally new to me, I felt safe with just about everything. The quality of the sweet treats and desserts was also really high. It was rare to bite into something disappointing.
Probably the most popular Czech dessert is větrník, and it’s well worth giving a try. It may seem like a simple puff pastry with cream in the middle, but it’s so much more. More often than not the creamy centre just has some kind of rich flavour that I can’t explain. However, the crowning achievement is the caramel coating that you often find on these clouds of delight. While I’m all for eating healthy, I love it when a dessert doesn’t lie about being unhealthy, and větrník does just that. When you bite into this rich dessert you know that it’s only there to please you, and not make you skinny.
I also can’t talk about Czechia without mentioning Kofola. Kofola was first described to me as the cola for Czechs from before they had Coke or Pepsi. This is their classic carbonated drink, and it’s as unique as it comes. One might describe it as cola created by people who had only heard a description of cola but never tasted it. I would describe it as almost a cola, but with a more spice/tea flavour. While I’m not sure it’s for everybody, I feel like it’s something everyone should at least try once.
Fast food wise there’s a lot going on in Czechia. The standards are there, and for the most part they’re fairly similar to what you might find in most countries, however there’s always a little twist. A great example is that McDonald’s offers deep fried brie cheese that you can pair with cranberry sauce. It’s way too classy for McDonald’s if you ask me, but it was fun to try. As an additional note, their special pie was a blueberry cream pie, and it was fantastic.
On this trip, I can’t say that I had one bad meal. From fancy dining to fast food it was all great. On the surface it all looked fairly simple, old fashioned European, but dig a little deeper and you could really find some true Czech originality.
