This Week In Candy

It's a bit of a slow week here at Candy Critic, or at the very least on the surface.  I'm working on my book in full force this week, and I'm researching a few articles for the future as well.  I've also been asked to play food consultant over the next week, that basically means I've been asked to eat and criticize particular meals for someone, it's a good gig. So it's not like I'm not doing anything, just nothing that'll be showing up on the blog this week.  We will however have our regular posts coming up, Wednesday's "Candy Thing" and Friday's "Candy In The Media", so there's still lots to check out.

This week on Snack Facts, our Instagram feed, we're looking at one of the most popular thing to put on bread, peanut butter.  Make sure to follow along so you can learn a fun new peanut butter fact every day this week. If you don't use Instagram, that's OK too, you can follow Snack Facts on our Twitter feed and our Facebook page as well.

Our new review this week is a rather strange one.  It's the first time ever that I've tasted a cheese/chocolate candy, and it pretty much works out as well as you might imagine.  Click here to read the new review, and learn why some treats are just a bad idea.

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This Week In Candy

Things are really getting back to a routine here at Candy Critic.  Our Instagram feed called "Snack Facts" is once again posting regularly.  This week we'll be looking at fun facts about gummies.  We're still posting regularly on the blog, and even irregularly with some new long format posts dealing with projects, editorials, and all kinds of fun candy stuff (including last week's post about how we shoot candy on the go).  This week we hope to start a new project that will eventually lead to a post all about the trials and tribulations of trying to eat a giant jaw breaker.  We'll be posting regularly on Twitter and Facebook with our daily progress, and once it's all done we'll post the full blog article.

We're also considering re-working the way we use Facebook.  Right now we post a few articles and pictures there, but in the future we're thinking of posting even more articles, similar to our Twitter feed.  I'm not sure if 4 or 5 link posts a day to candy related news articles would be considered obtrusive on Faebook or not.  I'll think about it some more before I go ahead.

This week's review comes to us from a stopover flight in Germany.   I couldn't resist picking up a few bags of gummy treats, and this week's review is one of them.  Click here to read this week's review of Haribo gummy turtles.

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Candy News

Take the (mostly) snack mascot quiz, find out how well you know the characters that sell you food.

One day I'd like to travel across the USA and sample all of their "iconic soft drinks".

If you want to make ice cream just like Thomas Jefferson, here's a little help.  If you want to make ice cream just like the ice cream man, here's a little help with that too. Finally, if you just want to know where ice cream came from, we can help you there too.

Japanese company makes an iPhone case that looks like someone accidentally left a Popsicle on your iPhone.

As it turns out there are really only 10 companies that make almost all of the processed food you eat.

Cadbury has invented a machine that will tell you what kind of chocolate you like, based on your Facebook profile.

Annabel de Vetten made an awesome wedding cake that looks normal from one side, but the other side shows you the biology of this creepy cake.

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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This Week In Candy

Is Valentine's Day just a holiday made up by greeting card companies?  Sure, it's a possibility.  The question is, how bad can a made up holiday be if it's all about love?  While I agree that spending a bunch of money on things that you'll only want on Valentine's Day is kind of silly, and putting pressure on people to make it a "special" day is also pretty wrong.  But if you look at it as a basic idea, it's really nice to have a day that you can sit with that special someone and just remember why you like each other.  Or, you can sit with your friends and bitch about why relationships suck, either way it's healthy, I think.

To help celebrate Valentine's Day, all week on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr we're suggesting some great inexpensive snack related things you can do with that special someone.  It just goes to prove that you don't have to spend a fortune to make that special someone happy.

Speaking of social media, if you haven't checked out our new Instagram feed featuring daily candy facts, you're missing out.  How else could you learn how to say "donut" in seven different languages?

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This Week In Candy

Last week I attempted my first ever "I'll make it, if you suggest it".  It's a little project I'm doing on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.  It's very simple, every so often I ask my friends to suggest something that I should attempt to make, in many cases the recipe doesn't exist.  Then I pick the one that I think is the most insane, and try to make it.  This first attempt is an Oreo upside down lava cake with frosting.  Just in case it's not clear, I used an Oreo instead of a cherry in the middle of the pineapple.  This suggestion came from my friend Brent, who may be making a future appearance on the Junk Fud podcast.  I have a few more suggestions that I may try, but I'm always looking for more ideas as well.  So be sure to send them in and I may attempt your treat.  As a note, I should tell you that while this looks tasty (?), it's was kind of gross.

Don't forget, it's not too late to enter our contest with a prize provided by our good friends at candycrate.com.  First prize is an awesome box of nostalgic candies sent right to your front door.  All you have to do is tell me what candy treat has the best memories for you, and why.  Click here for more details, and information on where to enter.

The rest of this week, like last week, is going to be full of nostalgic candy.  We're looking back at some of our favorite candy things that gives us great memories.

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M&M's Facebook App

Just finished playing around with the M&M's Facebook app that let's you send special message and photos, through Facebook for free.  It was fairly simple to use and it looks OK.  Now I'd rather send out real candy, but this isn't bad for free.

Click here to check out the app.

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Go Like OREO

Oreo is trying to break a world record. In one day they want as many people as they can to like their Facebook page.  It's happening today so go sign in and be a part of history, or at the very least "like" a cookie.

Click here to read more.

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Another Facebook Candy Game

I just heard about this new game on Facebook called "Chocolatier".  For the most part it sounds like most of the other games available on Facebook, you design a product, sell it to virtual people, and get constantly asked if you have any friends that would like to play this game too.  I'm not 100% sure this last part applies in this case, I'm just guessing.  The other difference in this game is the amazing ability for you to not only create virtual chocolates, you can make some of you chocolates for real.  I'm sure there are some limitations to what you can make, but it sounds like a fun little addition to the game.  You can order your chocolates and eat them while you sell them to those crazy virtual people infesting your online chocolate shop.

Click here to read more about this game.

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New Candy Related Facebook Game

It's called "My Sweet Shop" and the idea is to make treats from scratch and sell them to (fake?) people. Now I'm fairly new to this Facebook game world (I've never played Farmville) but I've decided to give this game a try and see how it goes.

Click here to read about the game.

Click here to try it out yourself.

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Free Cookies

Why are you even reading this, click the link and find out how to get your free cookies from Nabisco on their Facebook page.

Click here, get cookies... maybe... see I'm not really sure about the details.

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Facebook Folks Like Skittles

According to some kind of math generating crazy web value people, skittles has one of the more valuable facebook pages on the internets (in particular dealing with food). Apparently the facebook page is worth 7.7 million dollars. Seriously?.. Anybody who wants to make a Candy Critics day a little nicer can maybe click here and "like".

Click here to read about the Skittles site.

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Make Your Own Jellybelly

The folks at Jellybelly have built a new app in facebook that allows you to customize your own Jellybelly design. I couldn't submit my own design because I wasn't sure how to graphically represent a Jellybelly that's larger than the universe. However I can tell you that it would be chocolate pudding flavoured.

Jelly Belly Debuts Facebook App - Candy & Snack TODAY

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Give a Buck to A Charity For Free

The folks at Surf Sweets will give a dollar to a charity simply by signing up to their Facebook fan page. Both of the charities are ones I’ve never heard of but sound like they do some pretty cool things. Join up and check it out, then get a bag of organic gummy bears and chow down.

Click here if you got the Facebook thing.

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