Wednesday Japanese Candy Review... Is Back!

It's been a few weeks, but I've decided that the Wednesday Japanese Candy Review is well worth bringing back.  It's not easy to get my hands on Japanese treats, but I'm going to work tirelessly to keep this going for as long as I possibly can.  For now I'm OK, I had a few friends from Japan visit me recently and they dropped off a whole lot of cool, and scary treats.  So stay tuned every Wednesday for a new review from one of the strangest candy producing countries in the world.

Click here to read today's Japanese Candy Review.

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Can You Bear This Review...

I wonder what the first ever animal shaped treat was.  I'm guessing it might be animal crackers, but I could be wrong.  I'm sure that people had been making desserts that look like animals for many years before that, but as a mass produced treat, animal crackers have been around for a long time.  It's a strange thing to want to eat the likeness of an animal, but for some reason it seems to entertain us.

Click here to read our latest bear review.

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Chris Stuffing His Face - Fries

Remember last week I stuffed my face with a burger?  Well here's the fries that went on the side.

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French Desserts At 20 Thousand Feet

Flying  back from Canada we chose to fly air France, instead of Alitalia, it was a price thing.  As soon as we were in the air we got offered two sweet treats.  A bag of cookies and a chocolate.  The cookies were nice little short bread type cookies in fun flower shapes.  The chocolate on the other hand...

Was really strange.  It was made by Valrhona, a french chocolate company.  The chocolate was OK, the quality wasn't spectacular, but the nice dark chocolate taste was yummy.  The strange thing about this chocolate was its shape.  It was just over one inch long, triangular at one end, and flat on the other.  The best way I could describe this shape was to say that it was like eating a little door stop.  I'm not sure why they shaped their chocolate like this, and I can't see how it might have improved the chocolates texture or flavour.  If anybody knows the science of this chocolate shape, let me know.

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Treats From Thessaloniki - Blé

Last week I got back from a fun adventure to the city of Thessaloniki.  It's the second largest city in Greece, many consider it to be the cultural hub of Greece, but I would also consider it the baking capital of Greece.  It's not hard to argue that this city has some of the best food in the whole country, yet it's very surprising that more tourists don't come and visit. All this week I've decided that I'm going to highlight some of the food adventures I had on my epic adventure.  Most of the treats featured will be sweet, but not all of them.  What I can guarantee is by the time you read all of these adventures, you might consider a stop in Thessaloniki on your Greek vacation.

Yesterday I wrote about the best smelling bakery in all of Thessaloniki, the Cookie Man.  Today I'm going to tell you all about the bakery with the best looking treats in all of Thessaloniki, Blé.  This place turns every single baked good into a piece of art.  Even their breads look absolutly stunning.  Best of all the store itself is stylishly decorated and it shows off the visual beauty of their food very well.

While Blé does sell traditional Greek sweets and foods, it's not really their specialty.  Most of their sweets have a French influence.  This is actually a very good demonstration of the difference between French and Greek baking.  Greek baking tastes great and has a very rustic home baked look to it.  French baking on the other hand is much more refined in its appearance, and I often find the flavours are a little more subdued.

As you can see Blé really does pull off the "French" look very well.  Each dessert is a treat to the eyes as much as a treat to the mouth.  Each fold of chocolate, clump of berries, and squirt of icing is perfectly placed.  It almost makes you want to preserve your dessert for posterity instead of eating it.

Blé also had the best looking profiteroles I've ever seen in my entire life.

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It's National Chocolate Eclair Day

So get out and taste some cream filled, chocolate covered, puffy pastry.

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Barba-Papa Squared

For those of you not familiar with the television show Barba Papa, it was created in the 70s and featured a series of characters that could transform into many shapes and sizes.  The main two character were Baraba Mama and Barba Papa.  Barba Papa was pink, like candy floss, and there's a reason.  You see Barabapapa is also the French word for candy floss.  So you can only imagine how excited I was when I saw this tub of pink candy floss with Barba-Papa on it.

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Pillsbury Chocolate Souffle

They say that the souffle is one of the hardest deserts to make in all of cooking.  It requires perfect timing and must be served with most care in order for it to stay all puffy.  So it was really surprising to see that Pillsbury decided to give souffles a try, and even more amazing to see that it only takes one minute... in a microwave.

Now I'm sure fine pastry chefs all over the world might see this snack and either dismiss it or dis it as an impossible idea.  I even thought so myself.  I didn't doubt that it would taste good (as it does), I just doubted that it would be a nice souffle.

After it's required one minute in the microwave it did rise a little.  The thing is I would probably want to call this a lava cake over a souffle.  The center was good and gooey but it didn't really have the cake texture of a real souffle.  Don't get me wrong, I love this treat, I just wouldn't call it fine dinning.

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Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate Croissant

On one of our adventures in Athens, Allison and I decided to pick up a little chocolaty snack.  We found what can only be described as the perfect way to decorate a croissant.  Sure I've seen chocolate filled croissants, and I've even seen chocolate covered croissants.  I'll even go so far as to say that I've seen chocolate covered croissants with chocolate filling.  So what could be an improvement on this idea?

How about adding another layer of chocolate on the outside.

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Don't Drop Those Chocolates

This advertisement makes me a little sad. I hate wasted candy.

Ad from Vintage Ad Browser

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FRENCH VANILLA!!!!

What in the world is Baskin Robbins Thinking! As it turns out Baskin Robbins is discontinuing 5 flavours, which is no big deal. The news is the fact that one of these flavours is French Vanilla. I'm of the belief that if you want to know the quality of an ice cream place, order the vanilla. Some think it's a plain flavour, but I think a good vanilla is an art.

Click here to read about it, and cry a little.

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Bad Translation

I saw this bus ad here in Ottawa on the side of a bus from Quebec. I don't think it really works because of the translation. You spell Mango "Mangue" in French, so using the extended "Mangooo" doesn't really work if you ask me.

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Chocolate Body Parts

I just got a look at these absolutely stunning chocolate creations from Bouchees Doubles. They've re-created sections of body parts out of chocolate. The re-creations look as though they've been cast out of real body parts and they look spectacular. It might be a little strange however to eat someone else's belly button for a treat.

Click here to check out these chocolates (some are a little NSFW)

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Macaroons Are Making It To My Neck Of The Woods

Last summer while I was in Japan I noticed how popular macaroons where there. I thought it was some kind of French cross over thing in Japan. However I'm starting to learn that it's not just Japan that's going nuts over these little sandwich cookies. Even here in Ottawa (according to this article) people are loving these treats.

Click here to read more.

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What is the Ultimate Japanese Treat (French Pastries)

The French really know how to make pastries. Sure you may think this is a strange way to start a piece about the Ultimate Japanese Treat, but it’s true. It’s also true that the Japanese people (at least here in Tokyo) really seem to have a thing for French pastries.

In every store, bakery, and department store, you’re sure to see many great French styled treats, and the Japanese people seem to eat it up. So just because a culture enjoys and produces treats from another culture does that make French pastries Japanese? The thing is many cultures mix and match they’re styles with foreign foods to make them their own, and Japan is no different. I’ve seen many interesting French treats with Japanese twists, often green tea or red bean is the added.
Even if I was to accept the idea that French treats made here are Japanese, and in many cases they may twist a few ingredients to make them their own. The problem with saying that French pastries are the "Ultimate Japanese Treat" for me is that it’s too broad a category. What I want to know about is which French treats are popular or which have been around the longest before I can even consider one to be the “Ultimate Japanese Treat”

What do you think is the "Ultimate Japanese Treat", is it French?

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