Spices and Herbs

I want to suggest something that many of you have probably never given much thought to. I suggest that herbs and spices are greatly underappreciated in milk and dark chocolate. I think the reason you don't see very many herbs and spices in chocolate is that it's a really hard thing to balance flavour wise. Herbs and spices can be subtle or super strong flavour wise, and getting them to balance with the flavour of chocolate is super challenging. I am suggesting however that when it's done well it can be some of the most amazing flavour creations ever. It also opens the door for chocolate flavour wise to so many other possibilities. I'm not just suggesting people use common spices and herbs that you find in sweet baking, I'm also suggesting that candy companies start exploring more spices and herbs used for savoury dishes as well.

Check out my latest chocolate review featuring a very popular spice that could work really well.

Spice Gum Flavours

It's funny that there aren't many gums out there with spice flavours, with one very huge exception. Cinnamon seems like it's cornered the market on spice flavours when it comes to gum. That is unless you count mint as a spice (I say herb but I won't go to the grave on that). It's just weird how certain spice flavours are so common in gum, while there are so many others that almost never appear as a gum flavour. I'm not saying that all spices would work, I just wish there were more options out there.

Check out my latest review of a unique spiced gum.

Japanese Sugar

On a recent trip to a Japanese grocery store I came across a collection of flavoured sugars. While I can’t read the packages my assumption is that you’re supposed to sprinkle this sugar onto toast (likely with butter) to give plain toast a sweet boost. While I think this is a good idea, I feel like there’s more you can do with these sweet sprinkles, and toast is only the beginning. So I picked up 3 of the flavours and I’ve decided to do a taste test and not only see which is best, but which one works beyond toast.

To get started I figured I would taste test them with toast as intended.

The first flavour I picked up was Melon-Pan. Now I don’t have a history of enjoying melon flavoured... well.. anything, but the one exception is Melon-Pan (or melon buns) from Japan. I not only enjoy these melon flavoured buns, but I seek them out every time I visit Japan. The main reason I love them is that they really only have a hint of melon, and the rest is a wonderful buttery flavour.

This Melon-Pan Toast flavour on the other hand is very melon heavy. I’ll be honest, I was kind of expecting this, but I figured I’d give it a try anyways. I’m sure if you slathered your toast with even more butter the flavour would die down a bit, but at this point I find it to be a little too melon forward for my liking.

Next I decided to try the Vanilla Sugar flavour. This one seemed like the simplest of them all and also seemed to be the most versatile. It even feels like the kind of sugar sprinkle you could use for baking in a pinch. The real trick of this particular sugar is that the quality of the vanilla has to be fairly good for it to work. A cheap/fake vanilla flavour might be a little off putting.

On toast the vanilla seems pretty good. I’m not entirely confident that it’s pure vanilla extract, but I feel like it might be a blend of fake and real vanilla. There appears to be some black spots in it, which could be vanilla bean. The flavour works well on this toast, however I wonder if the flavour of the whole wheat bread is helping it out a bit.

Finally I went with the most ambitious of all of these sugar sprinkles, Caramel Cinnamon. This is either going to be the best of the bunch, or it might disappoint. The flavours are fairly common with this kind of treat, after all cinnamon and sugar is probably the oldest sweet toast powder out there. I’m just worried that they might over do it and it might just be overly sweet.

On the toast this one kind of disappoints. The problem isn’t the cinnamon, but the caramel. In hindsight I should have thought about that before getting it. Caramel is really just a form of sugar, and hardened caramel can sometimes just taste like brown sugar. If you don’t burn the caramel a little in this case, the flavour can be too subtle and lost. That’s pretty much what we have here, it really just tastes like cinnamon sugar. Not that it’s a bad thing, but there’s nothing really special about it.

Now it’s time to expand the tasting and see if these sugar sprinkles work on other foods. I decided to start with apples.

The Melon-Pan sugar just didn’t work at all. I thought maybe there would be a hope, since they’re both fruit, but the melon is just too fake a flavour and it really clashes with the real apple. I’ll be honest, I don’t have much hope for the Melon-Pan at this point, but I’ll keep trying.

The vanilla is fine, but with the real apple flavour it seems to highlight how strong or possibly fake the vanilla flavour is. Again, I’m fairly certain there’s real vanilla in these sugar sprinkles, but I’m not convinced it’s all real vanilla. There’s just something odd about the flavour of this apple and the vanilla.

Cinnamon, sugar and apples, it’s a match made in heaven, and works here as well. It’s a fine flavour combination that’s been around forever. Again, the caramel doesn’t really come through, but I really enjoyed this as it was anyways.

I’ve decided to stay with fruit, and I went for a banana next.

Melon-Pan didn’t really have a hope of working with a banana. I guess if you really like this fake melon flavour, and don’t really like bananas, then you might enjoy this. The melon flavour is just too strong and doesn’t work with the banana, but covers it up instead.

The Vanilla is surprisingly good. I’ve used banana and vanilla together in baking, but I’ve never thought of just putting vanilla on a banana before. It’s doing what vanilla often does in baking and making the banana taste a little better.

I thought the Caramel Cinnamon would work, but I’m wrong. I can taste the banana, and I can taste the cinnamon (still no real caramel flavour) but at no point do they really merge into their own flavour combination. It’s as if they’re each fighting to be the dominant flavour, rather than working together.

Popcorn seems to make sense... right?

I’ll be honest, I don’t hold much hope for the Melon Pan sugar. It’s not surprising that melon flavoured popcorn isn’t that great. As I’ve said before, if you like fake melon flavour maybe you’ll like this, but I do not. I didn’t have much hope of this tasting good and I was rewarded as expected.

While the Melon may not be great, the Vanilla keeps surprising me. As it turns out, vanilla popcorn kind of works. Like the banana, the vanilla doesn’t just add a flavour, but it seems to bring up the original flavour of the popcorn. I’ve said it before, but I believe vanilla is the most important flavour in all of snacks and candy. This latest experiment is only proving it more true.

The Caramel Cinnamon was fine. I would not be disappointed if I was given a bowl of this popcorn, but I’m not sure I’d ever order it myself. The biggest problem is one that’s been happening this entire time, and that’s the lack of caramel. My popcorn was a little sweeter with a hint of cinnamon. Tasty enough, but nothing worth shouting about.

Melon is the last hope.

I’m pretty sure that you can guess that I decided to try using a melon in hopes that it might merge or even improve the real melon. Unfortunately it does not. It also disproves a theory I had about why I don’t like most fake melon flavoured treats. I used to believe that the key to a melon flavour working the refreshing texture you get with a real melon. However after tasting this I don’t believe that to be true anymore. The fake melon flavour is not improved with a real melon texture.

Vanilla is continuing to be the super hero of this taste test. I thought that it might be fine, but it’s actually blowing away the competition. I’m starting to think that I might start keeping a jar of vanilla flavoured sugar on hand, just to improve all kinds of snacks. While the melon wasn’t my favourite treat, it was improved with a little vanilla.

Cinnamon just doesn’t really work with melon. I don’t think I was expecting it to, but I might have been hoping to be pleasantly surprised. While it wasn’t gross, it also wasn’t great.

For The Love of Cinnamon

I'm not sure if my tastes have changed, or if I'm just finally brave enough in my older age to admit this, but I really like cinnamon. I might even go so far as to say that there are times where I crave cinnamon over chocolate. This is particularly true when someone's talking about baked treats. Don't get me wrong, there has to be some sugar mixed with that cinnamon, and it shouldn't be very spicy either. I've never really understood the full appeal of spicy cinnamon treats to be honest.

Check out my latest cinnamon filled review.

Simple Hard Candy

Probably the second biggest complaint I get about some of the treats featured on candycritic.org is the idea that some may not actually be candy. Defining candy is kind of tricky, but I feel like this new review would be hard to argue. I can agree that potato chips, cookies and maybe even chocolate may not technically be candy, but I would be happy to debate anyone who felt these weren't. As for the treats that might be a little harder to argue that they're candy, my answer is simple, if you strongly disagree that something I've reviewed is not candy, you're welcome to make your own website and exclude them.

Check out my latest (truly) candy review.

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The Best Spice Is Tree Bark

 Interesting where cinnamon comes from, and even interesting to watch them harvest it.

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Dusting Off Breakfast - Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cinnadust

 

Enjoy that sweet breakfast feeling any time you like.

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A Special Video For All My Candy Valentine's

I had a bowl of cinnamon hearts, and I wondered how many I could stuff in my mouth before I either exploded or burned my taste buds. In general these kinds of videos are a bad idea.

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The Top 5 Valentine's Day Themed Candies Reviewed On Candy Critic

1 - Chocolate Hearts

Nothing says "I love you" like high quality chocolate, it guarantees that you won't step into the cheap/cheesy side of Valentine's Day treats.

Click here to read our full review.

2 - Lindt Frog Prince

The concept of this treat is kind of creative, but the chocolate beneath the foil is great, so your true love should be happy... unless they used to be a frog.

Click here to read our full review.

3 - Cherry Lovers

This is a great choice if the one you love doesn't like chocolate. Having said that, if the one you love doesn't like chocolate, you might want to reconsider.

Click here to read our full review.

4 - Cinnamon Hearts

I don't totally understand why you'd want to burn off the taste buds of your true love, but these are pretty popular, so what do I know.

Click here to read our full review.

5 - Jelly Belly "Conversation Beans"

If they want something like Conversation Hearts, but want to avoid the chalky texture.

Click here to read our full review.

Make sure to check out all the Valentine's Day themed treats we've reviewed right here.

If you love us, then you'll follow us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

If you really love us, you'll check out our Patreon page too.

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Unusual Candy For Your Tree - Krampus Candy Canes

Of all the candy canes we're featuring this month, this is the one I'm most afraid of. It says that it's cinnamon, however I assume that it's blazing hot cinnamon. If it's not super spicy then I don't really get the theme of this treat at all. The best way to eat this candy cane is with some cold milk.

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Candy In The Media - Hypnotic Candy Making

I could seriously watch candy getting made all day long.

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Candy In The Media

Do you like Cinnamon Toast Crunch? Probably not as much as this guy.

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Candy Themed Valentine's Day Cards

One Cinnamon Heart Greeting Card by bewarethecheese
Create unique personalized photo note cards from zazzle.com.

We're posting some new candy themed Valentine's cards for that special someone in your life made by our sister site bewarethecheese.com.  Pick up a card, make that special someone in your life a little happier.

For more greeting card options click here.

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Candy Themed Valentine's Day Cards

Reflections of Love Greeting Card by bewarethecheese
Look at Cinnamon Cards online at Zazzle.com

We're posting some new candy themed Valentine's cards for that special someone in your life made by our sister site bewarethecheese.com.  Pick up a card, make that special someone in your life a little happier.

For more greeting card options click here.

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Wish They Still Made It - Part 5 - Lay's Cinnamon Bun

This was a treat that was pretty much guaranteed to be discontinued.  Last year when I saw the variety of flavours on offer from Lay's annual chip flavour competition, I was pretty sure that Cinnamon Bun wouldn't win.  It's just too strange a flavour for the market, and that's a little sad.  I think these chips deserve a second chance.  I loved them, and I'd easily make them a regular flavour in my chip rotation.  I think if more people actually tried them, they too may have been surprised.

Most of all I like the idea of these chips.  It's about time that chip companies started thinking savory and sweet as well.  Many candy companies use salty flavours to tremendous success, so why can't chip companies use sweet flavours?

Here's my poem on the subject:

Sweet and savory is a great combination,
For a salty snack, a new transition.
Please Lays, oh please, bring these chips back,
I'm really craving, this sort of snack.
Sweet flavoured chips are the future, a hunch,
I want banana bread chips to munch, munch and, munch.

Click here to read the Candy Critic review.

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This Week In Candy

Well we're back, and things are starting to settle down a bit in our new location (which for now we'll just call Candy Land).  I've got lots to cover on changes and upcoming Candy Critic blog things.  First of all there's a secret message in the photo above, figure it out and... well there's no prize but you can feel really good about yourself.  It will however let you know the subject of many upcoming blog posts.

Secondly, we're going to be changing a few things here on the blog.  We're going to cut down on the number of entries and focus a few things exclusively to our social media.  The "Candy News" section that we used to post on Friday is going away.  Instead we're just going to focus on posting all our news on Twitter.  We may also decide to post our news on our Facebook site as well, but we're not too sure about that yet (let us know if you have an opinion on the subject).  We're also going to combine our "Friday Candy Video" and "Classic/Creative Candy Advertising" into one post.  I'm not sure what to call it yet, but we'll post weekly about an ad/campaign/candy reference that we've come across.  This will be posted every Friday starting this week.

We're also going to announce our weekly Candy Critic review update on This Week In Candy (the very post you're reading right now), instead of giving it a solo post.

Speaking of which, this week's new review is Lay's Cinnamon Bun potato chips. Click here to read our latest review.

Finally we're going to start writing more original content and longer articles on this blog, this also includes candy related experiments as well.  The idea of these changes is to minimize the number of posts and maximize the quality of posts.  This will be an ever evolving thing, and we welcome any comments.

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Candy News

I had no idea that Americans, Brits, and most of the world, has no idea what Freezies are.

Looking to make some s'mores in your bathroom?  Well as it turns out the best tool to make them might be your hair dryer.

Did you know that Costco sold some high end products at super high prices, this includes the Jingle Bell Holiday Tower Pallet which sells for $2,799.99.

Worried about high blood pressure?  A cinnamon bun might be the best way to go.

If you want to keep up with all of the daily candy news that we come across as it happens, follow us on Twitter.

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A Little Late With Today's New Review

Normally I try to have these reviews up first thing on Monday morning, but this Monday morning didn't go exactly as planned.  It wasn't bad or anything, it just didn't go as planned.  Today's review is a little interesting, and I expect to get a few comments about the fact that many probably don't consider it a candy, I made my argument and you're welcome to disagree.

I should mention that today's controversial review was brought to you by our good friends at candycrate.com.  The same people who are providing us with the awesome prize that we're giving away right now.  You can click here to learn how you could walk away with a box of cool retro treats, including a pack of cinnamon toothpicks.

Click here to read today's controversial review.

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8 Days Of UK Treats - Day 5

I don't know what today's UK candy is actually called.  I have a vague recollection of there being a label on the shelf where I bought it, but I can't remember what it said.  I'm also not really sure where this candy originates.  I'm pretty much posting this review in the hopes that somebody might recognize it and fill in some of the blanks.  It's not that I particularly liked it, I just want to know.

Click here to read the review, and let me know if you know what they're called.

Update:  I have been informed of the name Lucky Tatties, many thanks to Catherine a former resident of Scotland and a fine candy aficionado.

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Fruit and Spice Review

I'm no expert in the area of organic fruit or vegetables, so whenever I get a treat that's organic I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be looking for.  Are organic products better for you, health wise?  Do they taste different than non-organic products?  I just hope that organic is some kind of marketing ploy, and I hope that someone can give me some hard facts on the subject.

Click here to read the latest organic candy review.

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