Lemon Wafer?

Fruit and wafers works, but you really have to chose the fruit wisely. Even if you pick a good fruit to match with a wafer bar, balancing the flavour is important as well. The problem I have with some fruit flavoured wafer bars is that the texture and flavour of the wafers seems to take away from the fruit flavour. If they work together it's a beautiful contrast, but it can be disastrous too. Fortunately the folk at Manner have been doing this kind of treat for decades, and they do a pretty good job at getting the balance just right.

Check out the full review of this lemon wafer bar right now.

The Super In Super Sour Means Business

 For the longest time I've believed that the Super Sour from Japan was the most sour candy I'd ever reviewed. I finally go my hand on another bag of them and after many years it's time to find out if the sour still holds up.

See what I'm up to right now on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.

You can also read my fun book about candy and animals right now by picking up Treats and Beasts.

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Christmas Is Coming

While I don't want to take away from our latest review, I just wanted to remind you guys that Christmas is coming, and we have a whole bunch of great new stuff at our Candy Critic store. We're adding new stuff featuring our new characters almost every day. We'll be sure to point out some of our favourites, but make sure to check out the store for even more. Also be sure to read today's review, since it explains why I think lemon might be the best flavour for gummies ever.

Click here to see if you agree that lemons are fantastic gummy flavours.

Also be sure to check out my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter feeds too.

Remember, the store... all the great stuff you can buy.

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Japanese Candy All Week - Charge Pop "Lemon"

We're kicking off this week's candy review-a-thon with something a little sour, a little sweet, and strangely a little salty. The theme for this week's review-a-thon is Japanese treats, a subject we've done a few review-a-thons about in the past. I have to say that Japan is one of the countries that seems to have a limitless supply of candies to write about, so it's pretty likely that this won't be our last Japanese candy review-a-thon either.

Check out the first entry in our review-a-thon here.

Make sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to keep up with all the entries in our review-a-thon this week.

You can also check out our Patreon page since we're previewing a new fun project we're just finishing up.

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An In-depth Look at Which Flavour in a Classic Package of Starburst is the Best Flavour

While there are several special editions varieties of Starburst taffy candies, the classic, or original flavours are lemon, strawberry, orange and cherry. The point of this article is not to review Starburst, you can go here to read my review of original Starbursts, the point of this article is to look at each flavour individually and pick out the best one. This is a debate that has been going on in the candy world for generations, and I don’t think that this article is going to solve anything, I’m hoping it’s just another footnote in the great debate.

I’m going to look at the original Starburst candies in several ways, then take this information to attempt to make a rating. Keep in mind that this is the workings of a man that is obsessed with candy, and not any kind of final decision. Most of the opinions expressed in this article are mine, except for the part with the informal pole, where I asked several other candy fanatics to list their favourite in order.

There are only two reasons that the information from the article will be of any use to anybody. It might be useful to a person if they’ve never tried Starburst before, and for some strange reason decided that they will only purchase a bulk package of the candy containing only one flavour. That, or it might be useful to someone who likes candy and is really bored, or wants to find something to disagree with on the internet. Let’s start by taking a look at the colour of the candy.

Colour

The idea of this category is to simply look at the candies colour and see how much it evokes the flavour, as well as how appetizing the candy looks. When I say how much the colour evokes the flavour, I don’t mean how much it looks like fruit (more on that later), but instead how much it reminds me of the fruit.

Lemon – Yellow and lemon are pretty easy to put together. This is a fairly bright yellow and it makes me feel like the flavour of this candy is going to be strong, and maybe a just a little sour. It’s bright and it’s fun.

Orange – The orange is well… orange. It’s kind of a no brainer to make this orange, but I feel like it could have been just a little bit deeper an orange colour. It doesn’t make me think of fruit explosion, just simple orange.

Cherry – My memories of cherry Starburst have them being much deeper in colour than these are. Sure, they seem red in colour, but similar to the orange, the red just doesn’t seem to jump out at me.

Strawberry – This pink seems like it’s kind of muted. It seems like this should be a strawberry and cream flavour, and not just strawberry. I think that there are deeper or brighter pinks available to use in candy colouring. I just feel like this colour of pink reminds me of an un-ripened strawberry, and not a juicy ripe one.



Flavour

Cherry – When I started the idea of writing this article, I kept telling myself to keep an open mind, and look at each flavour with fresh eyes. I kept remembering cherry as being my favourite flavour as a kid, but I wanted to give the other flavours a chance. I tried, I really did, but these cherry Starbursts are really the best of the best in the original Starburst lineup.

Orange – Orange is never my favourite flavour, but it’s also the flavour that I never hate either. I always think of it as middle of the road. It's a fine flavour, but it's not impressive, or that much different than any other orange flavoured candy out there. I’m enjoying this Starburst, but it’s not wowing me.

Strawberry – It’s in my nature to like red candies more than the others, with the exception of watermelon and red apple flavoured candies. This one on the other hand doesn’t really stand up to some of the others. I feel like they’re really watering the flavour down with some kind of creamy flavour. If they called it a strawberry and cream Starburst, I’d probably like it more, but then it wouldn’t fit into this collection of flavours.

Lemon – I’m kind of surprised but I don’t really like the lemon flavoured Starburst. I feel like there’s something missing, something like a zing of flavour. I think if the lemon was just a little more tart it would taste a little bit better. For now, it just tastes like it’s trying to be flavourful, but it just stops short.

How the Flavour Compares to the Real Fruit

Orange – The problem with orange candies, and that includes these Starbursts, is that there’s a reference as old as time that we can relate to the flavour, Tang. Orange has been one of the fruit flavours that they’ve been manufacturing the longest, and rather than improve it, there seems to be an acceptance of this fairly fake flavour as being orange. If you think about it, there is something kind of orange about it, but I don’t think I could call it one hundred percent orange.

Lemon – This lemon Starburst tastes almost nothing like a lemon. This is probably a good thing since lemons are so sour that it’s hard for most people to enjoy the flavour. This tastes more like a candy with a slight essence of fake lemon flavour.

Cherry – These fall into a very unique category, they don’t really taste like any kind of real cherry, but I associate the flavour that they are with cherries. It’s a strong fruity flavour that for some reason I would call cherry, but compared to real cherries, it’s not that close. It’s more like a fruit punch than anything else.

Strawberry – This taste nothing like strawberries at all. It tastes like some kind of creamy, but slightly sour fruit punch. I would have a hard time picking this flavour out as Strawberry unless I’m given the context that I’m eating Starbursts (because this flavour is so connected to strawberry Starburst).

Other People’s Opinions

In order to find out which Starburst people liked the most, I informally asked people on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Reddit, which one they liked most. I eliminated all those who just picked one or two flavours, as that would skew the results. I will say that most people who only voted on one flavour voted for Cherry, so I guess that says something about people who like Cherry Starbursts the most. Had they actually answered the question in full, it might have changed the results of this as well. Either way, here’s the list of favourite Starburst flavours as voted by you… or at the very least people.

Strawberry – 56 points – Only one person voted strawberry as their least favourite.

Cherry – 51 points

Lemon – 39 points

Orange – 34 points - No one voted orange as their favourite.

Conclusion

I think I’m most surprised by how much I didn’t like the strawberry Starbursts, I really thought they would rank second for me in most cases. This is truly a case where they don’t taste like what I remember. I find this even more amazing considering how much people in my pole liked the strawberry Starburst. I really thought cherry was going to win that pole, but it turns out people have very different tastes than I thought.

I think the one thing we can all agree on is that Starburst do not taste like any kind of real fruit, however they do taste like something special. Even the worst flavour of Starburst still tastes great, even if it doesn’t taste like lemons at all.

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We've Got A New Episode of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! - Lemon Pepper Tang

Over the last few years I've started to collect flavours of Tang, this one was one of the weirder ones and well worth mentioning.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to see what other videos we're working on.

Also, if you follow us on Patreon you get a preview of every video before we post it to the public.

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When Great Ideas Fail - Inafcn "Salt & Sour"

If you're a regular reader of this blog (than you're not my my mother, seriously mom, you could check it out now and again), then you'll know that I love innovation. If you ask me what my favourite candy or snack is my answer is almost always "something new and creative that I haven't had before". There is however a second part to that answer, "it's also important to pull off your new idea". This is an example of what should have been an amazing idea, but they failed so badly at pulling off the goal that disappointment was all I had.

Click here to find out how these chips failed me.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to find out about our upcoming review-a-thon.

You can also follow us on Tumblr to keep up with all our new reviews before we post them here.

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Do You Like PEZ? How About PEZ Reviews? - Lemon PEZ

I have to be honest, I wrote this review a few months back. I tell you this because I wanted to write a brand spanking new candy review for you guys, but I can't. I hurt my tongue. I hurt my tongue eating crab, and it sucks. I bit my tongue and it left a small scratch, well that scratch didn't do so well (most likely because I've been eating a lot of acidic foods lately) and it got worse.  It's nothing that won't go away, but frankly the idea of eating anything that isn't totally bland (no acids or salt) sounds awful right now. Fortunately I have a pretty big list of reviews ready to go for just such an occasion, so you guys don't miss out.

While digging through the list I came across this review for lemon PEZ, and it seemed appropriate that this review should go up ASAP. I also have a review for grape PEZ waiting to go up, and if my mouth doesn't heal by Monday, I think I'll post it then.  I should at some point make sure that I have every flavour of PEZ represented on candycritic.org, since it's truly one of the classic candies.

Click here to read all about Lemon PEZ.

Let us know you're favourite flavour of PEZ on Facebook or Twitter.

Also, make sure to please follow us  on Tumblr, because we'd follow you if you asked us nicely.

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This Week In Candy

It's a new day, a new month, and a new year, so there's lot to talk about.  First of all, this month we're celebrating two great things, cookies and retro cereal.  Every Wednesday this month we're posting a new cookie themed thing, because cookies are awesome, and there are so many cool cookie making tools out there to see.  Every Friday this month we're posting some classic retro cereal commercials.  While old cereal is stale and gross, looking back at old cereal and remembering how cool it was is not gross.

With the new year comes the first episode of the new and improved Junk Fud podcast.  Later this week we'll be posting the first episode, part one of our series called Junk Fud on the Road.  Next week we'll be posting our second episode, but first part in our series about junk food history.  In three week's we'll be posting the first episode of Junk Fud and You, our interview segment.  Finally, at the end of January we'll be posting the first in our end of the month candy round up podcasts called Junk Fud News.  Make sure to check back (or follow us on social media) to find out when the new episodes are released.

January is always a bit of a depression month for me, candy wise.  There's no holidays that celebrate sweet treats at all.  We have to wait till Valentine's Day before we can justifiably eat an entire box of chocolates.  Worse still, the store shelves are just full of rejected Christmas candy.  The selection of rejected Christmas candy just gets sadder and sadder as the days go by.  I know that New Years is technically in January, but I think another holiday is required.  Maybe some kind of escape from the cold winter days, or if you live in Australia an escape from the heat.

Snack Facts is back!  With the new year comes the return of Snack Facts, our Instagram feed.  Every day this week we'll be posting a fun fact about a particular snack, this week it's marshmallows.  We were inspired by a marshmallow roast we had recently.  Make sure to follow us on Instagram to get a daily Snack Fact (this week on the subject of marshmallows), if you don't use Instagram, you can also follow Snack Facts on our Twitter feed and Facebook page as well.

Today we post part 1 of our gummy review-a-thon.  It's been a while since we've done a review-a-thon, so we thought that gummies would be the perfect candy to focus on.  Today's gummy review is a little bit out of the box, or bag as would be more appropriate.  Make sure to check out our Facebook page, Twitter feed, Tumblr page, or any of our social media sites to keep up with this week's gummy review-a-thon.  You can also click here daily to read our latest review.

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This Week In Candy

This week at Candy Critic we've got two main goals, writing and taking pictures.  We just finished a fun shoot on the subject of OREO cookies, I'll explain more about why we did that later.  We also have a shoot planned on the subject of dates (the fruit not the social interaction) and sprinkles.  We were hoping to get an article up this week to go with the sprinkle photos, unfortunately it looks like that's going to take a little more time, but it should be up next week instead.  Writing wise it's all about keeping up with this blog, and our social media sites, writing a few travel pieces, and most certainly working on the book.

Last week we also started a new project on our social media pages (Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr) on the topic of licorice.  As you know I was greatly inspired on my recent trip to Holland, and I decided to try and get myself to like licorice (I normally hate the stuff).  I figured the best way to do this was through repetition.  So until July 4th, I'll be eating one piece of Dutch licorice every day.  I've got a bag with various different salt levels and strengths, and I'll just randomly pick one out and eat it every night.  Every time I do this, I'll post a picture and let you know how I feel, maybe I'll even use emoticons (this is a jump for me).

The OREO cookie shoot today was all for this week's posts on our Intagram feed called Snack Facts.  This week we'll look at the classic cookie with the cream in the middle.  If you're interested in having fun Snack Facts sent to you every day, make sure to follow us on Instagram.  If you don't use Instagram, you can also follow Snack facts on our Twitter feed and Facebook page as well.

This week's new review on candycritic.org is a Japanese candy that lived up to every expectation.  If you like your lemon candies to live up to their sour reputation, you might want to check out this review.  Click here to read the latest super sour Japanese review.

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Stuff I Want To Try

Limeade Oreos - Mr Christie's - I'll try a limeade flavoured Oreo, but I can't promise that I'll like it. - Click here to learn more about this treat.

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Lemon Creation

The Lemon and the Gummy Bears Print by bewarethecheese
Check out Prints & Posters online at Zazzle.com

They're scattering all over the place!!! Imagine you cut open a lemon and out spilled dozens of gummy bears.  Then imagine that all of these gummy bears made a run for it.  That would be the best, and worst day of my life.

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More Candy Art Is Coming

The Lemon and the Gummy Bears Print by bewarethecheese
Check out other Gummy Posters at zazzle.com

Our sister site bewarethecheese.com has just gone through a bit of an update.  They've reworked the way posters and greeting cards are being sold.  Right now things are just warming up over there, but soon they'll be full of all kinds of cool new images for sale.  Make sure to drop by their site, and maybe pick up a cool looking poster or greeting card.

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Retro Mike and Ikes

I just got 4 boxes of Retro Mike and Ikes in the mail today.  Two of the packages have watermelon and lemon, and the other two have cherry and bubble gum.  My favorite thing about these packages has to be the characters.  In particularly I love the fact that the artwork isn't 3D or overly rendered.  To me, a simple cheesy drawing is the perfect thing to adorn your candy package.  My favorite character has to be the drunk looking bubble gum guy.

Now before I taste test these, I want to pick which flavour I'm going to review this weekend.  Should I make my choice based on the coolest characters, the flavour I think I'll most like, or should I just let the first person who sends me a message on Twitter or Facebook decide.
  

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Classic/Creative Candy Advertising - Jack-o-Lemon

I would have never thought of Fisherman's Friend as a Halloween treat, but it makes sense. You're walking around on a cold night wearing just a thin costume, a cold is a very real possibility.

I found this ad here.

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Spreads - Lemon Curd

I just finished an art piece for bewarethecheese.com's fine art gallery "Senses". For this piece I had to photograph, and eventually eat more than 40 different spreads.  I've decided to post a little something about each spread that I sampled.

What exactly is a lemon curd?  I know what cheese curd is, but how does one get a curd out of a lemon?  If you've never tasted lemon curd before, it's pretty much the same stuff you put into a lemon meringue pie.  If you've never tried a lemon meringue pie before, then I can't really help you.

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Stuff I Want To Try

Ginger-Lemon gummies  - Haribo - Because there aren't enough ginger flavoured gummies in the world. - Click here to learn more about this treat.

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Her Royal Highness's Choice of Soda

Did you know that many royal families officially endorse products.  There's great debate on this subject, because many people assume that the royal family involved actually produces most products they endorse and profit from it.  So that's basically these families using the status that the state gives them as a promotional tool to make them money.  I frankly don't really care that much about that.  What I always wonder is how these particular royals actually feel about the product.  Does the Queen of Finland actually eat the chocolates she endorses, does the princess in Sweden actually eat the cakes named for her?  Most importantly, does the Queen of England actually drink this soda pop?

While shopping at our local grocery store the other day (in Greece strangely enough), Allison and I came across Britvic soda.  According to the can this drink is made "by appointment to H M Queen Elizabeth II".  So if I ever pay a visit to Buckingham Palace (like that's ever going to happen), is this the soda I get to drink?

It's a good thing I sampled a few of these because the flavour is fairly surprising.  The Bitter Lemon, is actually fairly bitter.  I enjoyed this a lot, even though it only offered a small 150 ml taste.  It's nice to occasionally drink something that isn't super sweet and sticky.

The Ginger Ale on the other hand is, as it says, spicy, not hot but spicy.  I'm not a big fan of spicy drinks, so I didn't really care for it as much as the lemon.  I'm not sure if Ginger Ale was originally spicy when it was invented, so I'm not sure if this is more authentic or not.  If any member of the British royal family is reading this, please let me know if you actually drink this stuff.

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Candy Art - Tooting My Own Horn

 I thought this week I'd toot my own horn a little.

 I'm going to be adding some new candy prints onto bewarethecheese.com soon, and I figured I'd give you a quick sampling.

I'm also looking for inspiration on my next candy shoot, if you're willing to give me a little.

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Twinkie Flavours

Apparently there was a poll done recently on the Twinkie's website.  The poll asked people to vote on a new flavour of Twinkie that they'd like to try.  The winner, Lemon Meringue, so in 2012 look out for it.

Click here to read more.

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