Happy New Year!

 

Chinese New Year Thoughts

 

As you may or may not know, I have a separate list of treats that are themed to various holidays. It includes Christmas, Valentine's Day, Halloween and a few others. The one holiday that I've always thought about adding, but really couldn't think of treats that are themed to it is New Years. While posting my latest review I realized that I could actually make a category for Chinese New Year. While the western New Year doesn't really have that many treats available, Chinese New Year has so many, including the treat I tasted this week.

Check out this Chinese New Year Kit Kat bar.

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Happy New Year!

 Here's a look at all the fun things I shoved in my face for 2021. May there be many more fun things to shove in my face for 2022.

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It's A New Year!!!

I feel like every new year I re-think candycritic.org a little bit. I think it's healthy to do this because frankly if I'm not having fun doing this site, it's not worth doing. Most of the time, around this time of year, I think about what I'm posting, and if I'm enjoying creating the content. I'll be 100% honest with you, the only thing I constantly enjoy posting on candycritic.org all of the time are the reviews. Everything else falls in and out of favour for me at one point or another. There have been blog posts that I really didn't have fun writing, videos that became more of a pain to make than anything else, but I always like finding new candies to review. This is all to say that you might find a few changes on the site over the next few weeks. I can tell you for certain that the reviews, like today's fun new review, will keep coming, but other things are going to change a little.

Click here to check out the first review of 2021.

Also be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (we haven't given up on that yet either).

Be sure to also pick up the latest issue of Snack Facts.

And be sure to check out some of our new swag at our store.

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Candy & Snack Trends For 2020

The world of candy and snacks is always changing. Popular flavours change, and new ideas are around every corner. While I’m not clairvoyant about what the future has to hold for us snack lovers out there, I do have some ideas about what I think will be trendy over the next year or two.

More Vegan Foods/Candy

I think we're going to see more and more foods that are vegetable based, and I don't think this is going to stop with meat products. There are many candies and snacks that still use animal based ingredients, and I think this is going to go on the decline even more than it is already. I think it's going to be become the norm to use only vegetable based ingredients in candy and snacks in the future and I think this is going to be a big selling feature this year. There are so many vegetable based substitutes for the ingredients used today in candy and snacks already, so it only makes sense for those who haven’t switched yet to switch over in order to keep a growing number of people happy with their snacks.

Fewer Super Spicy Treats

I've never been a huge fan of super spicy foods. For the last few years I've been trying to improve my tolerance of spicy foods, but it's still something I'm not in love with. I'm even less in love with the idea of having spicy foods that are so spicy that it causes people to be sick. I know that some people enjoy challenging themselves, but I'm starting to think that most people are getting tired of pushing the limits.

More Crazy Flavoured Chips

The crazy chip trend is not new. It's been going strong for a few years now, and I think it's going to keep going strong. While I like to see almost any new and fun flavour of chips, I'm really enjoying the trend of taking flavours from other parts of the world and introducing them via chips. Not everyone can travel to Thailand to try some authentic Tom Yum soup, but now anybody can eat the chips.

More Limited Edition Treats

I think this year, much like last year, is going to be filled with limited edition versions of classic snacks and treats. I worry that many of these treat companies are running out of ideas, and the flavours are just weird for weird sake, but I don't think that's going to stop them from continuing to make these treats. I predict that not only are we going to see more strange flavours, but I think that this year we might see an increase in the new colours and looks of classic treats (so they can get the Instagram clicks).

Even More CBD Candy

It could be the circles of people I hang out with, or the fact that I’m Canadian, but I keep coming across articles about CBD products, and more relevantly CBD edibles. The reason there’s a boom in these products is legalization of marijuana in many parts of the world. Edible CBD products are not something that can always be made in someone’s basement, so with more places around the world legalizing marijuana, there are more markets to sell legally, and more places that high quality snack and candy companies can build legal factories to manufacture CBD infused candies. Right now, there are several small newer companies producing edibles, but I think in the next year or two we’re going to see larger companies like Hershey’s, Frito-Lays, or even Nestle getting into the CBD market.

Here are a few things I hope (but I'm not sure) will trend this year:

Black Licorice in Odd Places

Over the last few years I've come to discover that Northern Europe has been using black licorice is some odd ways. It's common (and delicious) to find black licorice with chocolate, and I've even tried black licorice potato chips. While I'm not a huge fan of black licorice most of the time, I've found that as a subtle flavour addition it sometimes works really well.

Asian Candy From More Diverse Places

I think we're going to see even more Asian candies, but not just from Japan. I'm hoping that this year we start to see candies from all over Asia, including places like India, Thailand, and Malaysia. While Japan and China seem to have a pretty strong hold on the international candy market, it'll be great to get a bit more variety from this part of the world.

Lesser Known European Chocolate Brands Going Global

There are a lot of European chocolate bars that are really popular in some European countries, but for some reason they just haven't gone global yet. I hope that this is the year that these brands expand, and we start to see Fazer all over the world.

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Happy Chinese New Year

I was wandering through my local market when I came across this really strange thing. The sign in the store had the words “mochi” on it. Mochi is a popular Asian treat made from pounded glutinous rice. Since this was a grocery store and it said “mochi”, I assumed it was some kind of treat in a really creative package. I took it home and filmed this video.

The packaging was really unique and I had an interesting time opening it up for this movie. You’ll also notice that each mochi were individually packaged. What I didn’t expect was the texture of the mochi. Normally mochi is very soft and sticky, this on the other hand was hard and plastic like. You’ll see that I cut one in half for the video, it was no easy task. After shooting the video I took a bite of one, and I couldn’t sink my teeth through it at all. I’m not convinced these are eatable.

I think they might be fake mochi, in a really ornate package, to give as an offering for a shrine. Unless someone can convince me otherwise, I don’t think I’ll attempt to eat them again.

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It's The Last Review of 2018, And We Have A Bonus To Go With It - Strawberry Milk Candy

It's been a pretty strange year in the junk food and candy world. Straws became public enemy number 1, and food became more political than ever. We got to travel a whole lot, and exspirience treats from places like Finland, Kenya, and Japan (just to name a few). We also started to build up our YouTube channel, something we hope to continue to do in the coming years. It's been a fun road in 2018 and we thought we'd end it with a candy we picked up in Japan that might seem simple, but has a really great package.

Click here to read our last review of 2018.



The package is so great that we made a little video showing off how cool it was.

Make sure to follow us on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to keep up with our adventures in 2019.

Thanks for following us and reading our reviews all throughout the year. We're going to keep going into 2019 and hopefully for many years to come.

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Most Notable Candy We Ate In 2017 - Jellies Mirch Masala

All this week and next, we're going to be re-posting some of the most memorable reviews that we came across in 2017. These reviews aren't necessarily the best, in fact this first notable review is the worst. It was so bad that it falls into the category of candies I would suggest for no one. I can't think of one person that would want to eat these gummies at all.

Fortunately we also happened to include these in an episode of Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!!. Unfortunately it was a treat that I decided to share with my young nephew. I actually lost a little sleep the night after recording this in fear that I might have poisoned him.



Click here to read how horrible this "treat" really was.

And make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to read about our current adventure in Africa.

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It's The Last Candy Review For 2017!!! - Kit Kat Rubies

We decided to save the best for last, and these Kit Kat Rubies are truly amazing. They're so good that we had trouble scoring this bar because it surpassed many of our other favourites. Speaking of favorites, we're spending this week going through the archives of 2017 to find the most notable reviews of the year. We're going to post them in January, but we want your input too. What did you taste this year that was truly amazing, horrible, or just really unique? Let us know in the comments below, or on Facebook or Twitter.

Click here to read this amazing send off to 2017.

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to find out  what we have planned for 2018.

You can also follow our Instagram feed Snack Facts to learn about all kinds of fun snacking foods.

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Most Memorable Candies Reviewed In 2016

2016 has been a pretty big year of change for us at candycritic.org.  Actually it's been a return to lack of change, if you look at it technically.  This is the year we returned home after 6 years away.  The goal, to get back in touch with my Canadian roots, with a few stops in the US to make sure I haven't missed any other North American things.  Because of this change, our reviews have been pretty eclectic as well.  We've had candies from all over the world, but over the last few months, a focus on North America.

I feel like my palette has evolved with living abroad and I look at North American candy a little differently. Sometimes I think I see it as more nostalgic (particularly during the holidays) and sometimes I see it as so advanced and confusing.  It really depends on my mood, and the candy.

This post is all about looking back at old reviews.  I've picked 5 that are not the best or worst, but some of the most memorable reviews of 2016. They're each memorable for different reasons, some good, and some bad but all made me happy that I was a Candy Critic.

Worst Candy - Remember in that paragraph above where I said that this list does not contain the "best or worst" candies, well I kind of lied. This durian candy might be the worst tasting candy I'd eaten all year.  It was so bad that it was memorable, and that's why it's on this list.  If you're not familiar with durian, it's a fruit found in Asia.  This fruit smells so bad, that many airlines will not let you bring them aboard.  I can only describe the smell as being similar to sweaty gym socks, rotten onions, and burning tires.  The connoisseur of this fruit claims that although it smells really bad, the flavour is smooth and creamy. The problem is that the smell is so pungent that it's really hard to taste anything but the gross smell.  Needless to say, these candies while being very gross, pretty much match the fruit perfectly.

Click here to read the Durian Cream Filled Chocolate review.

Craziest Chip That Worked -There seems to be a trend these days of making sweet flavoured potato chips.  Sweet and savory in the potato chip world is nothing new.  When I was a kid I remember tasting my first chocolate covered potato chip, and although it was a delicacy, it was around.  Today we see chocolate covered pretzels and sweet flavoured potato chips at our local corner store.  The chocolate covered snacks work most of the time, the sweet flavoured chips aren't always as successful. These chips not only worked, but they worked in a very unique way.  They combined two flavours that worked together, butter and honey, then mixed them with potato chips.  The butter works with potatoes as well, but this is the first time I've seen it matched with chips, and it works. These chips not only tasted great, but they made me think about new possibilities in potato chip flavours.

Click here to read the Lay's "Honey Butter" review.

Strange And Memorable Candy - I don't know how much I liked, or disliked this candy, but I seem to remember about the adventure of trying to find it.  This candy was bought as a result of me trying to find candy in India.  It was one of our last adventures when we were living abroad, and I wanted to find something that represented our trip to India.  These stick out to me because they remind me of our secondary mission in India, to eat as many different varieties of mango as possible.  That mission was a great success, even thought this candy wasn't.

Click here to read the Mango Papdams review.

Candy Most Likely To Make Me Enjoy Licorice - This candy represents two things for me.  First of all it's a step towards me trying to gain a taste for licorice.  In the last few years, living abroad, I decided to try and change my palette in two ways, one to gain a taste for licorice, and secondly to try and tolerate hotter foods.  Both of these have been fairly successful so far, and I felt that the fact that I kind of liked these chocolate covered licorice candies was proof.  The second thing these candies represented to me was those chance meetings where things go really well.  Allison was in New York at some meetings (I tagged along), and there was a small reception.  I talked to a few people at this reception, often about candy.  I met one man who was from Iceland, and I mentioned to him that I'd never eaten candy from Iceland before.  He mentioned that he happened to have a giant bag of Icelandic candy with him to share with anybody who might be interested.  I ended up leaving with a big bag of puffin eggs and a great story.

Click here to read the Freyju Djupur Sukkuladihjupadur Lakkris (Also known as Puffin Eggs) review.

Most Surprising Variety - It's very rare that a "normal" candy makes my list of most memorable, but these Skittles really worked well.  First of all I first tried them in the fall, actually I first tried them while walking through Gatineau park in Quebec while walking a trail during the fall.  Gatineau park is world famous for the beautiful fall colours, and this day did not fail.  I was walking along eating these Skittles and the flavour just worked so perfectly.  Even though a few of them aren't orchard fruit from where I live. The fruit choice was perfect, and the timing was perfect.  This doesn't always happen when I'm eating candy, but when it does it's truly magical.

Click here to read the Skittles "Orchards" review.

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This Week In Candy

Well it's the new year and that means there's going to be a few changes here at candycritic.org. The first change has already started and that's with our Instagram feed, formerly known as Snack Facts. From now on our Instagram feed will feature both Snack Facts (but on a reduced schedule) and the Doughnut Project. The Doughnut Project is an attempt by me to taste as many different Tim Horton's doughnuts as I can. At this point there is no end date to this project, and I'm not likely going to actually get through all of them as Tim Horton's keep coming up with new flavours all the time. The Doughnut Project is also featured on our Candy Map where we mark each location where I bought the doughnuts.

The other project that is going to change is our podcast Junk Fud. At this point we are retiring Junk Fud News. It was a project that took a lot of time and frankly everything on it is available on our Twitter and Facebook feeds. We still plan on continuing Junk Fud On The Road monthly, as well as our not so regular Junk Fud And You podcasts. Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!!, our video show will also continue.

There has been some thought of discontinuing our weekly Candy Thing blog post, and instead featuring Candy Things during some holidays and special events. We had hoped that people would find these things interesting, but it doesn't look like anybody cares.

Our goal in doing this is to focus on  other things, mainly reviews and original articles on this blog. Some of the fun was lost on this blog for us, and we want it back.

This all leads us to this week. Having shrunk down some of the content here on candycritic.org, we had time to put together a fun little article collecting our most memorable reviews of 2016. We should have that ready to go online tomorrow for you to check out.


As usual, we have a new candy review online, in fact we're going to start the new year off with a bang and we have a review-a-thon going up all this week. We figured why not start the year right with a Kat Kat review-a-thon. Our first entry is from Japan, one of the best places to get Kit Kats in the world.  You can read that review right here. But make sure to keep up with the whole review-a-thon this week by following us on Facebook, Twitter, or check here daily.

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This Week In Candy

With the holidays behind us, I can safely tell you that I managed to eat more cookies in one week than I have in my entire life.  I'm not sure why, but cookies were truly the theme for the holidays this year.  I can't complain about that though.  Cookies allow you to have a lot more variety than cake or pies.  You can pile many varieties of cookies on one plate and no one looks at you as if you were some kind of dessert hording glutton. You can also go back for seconds on cookies on the grounds that you didn't get to taste a particular type of cookie.  For some reason if you do that with cake people seem to frown upon it.

This week at Candy Critic we're preparing for the new year, and what a year it's going to be.  We're already gearing up for some new adventures this year, travel wise.  We're preparing for a trip to Thailand in the near future, and have other trips planned later in the year.  The new year is also going to bring the return of Junk Fud, the official Candy Critic podcast.  With a new format the show will go live in January, and we hope to have 3 or 4 episodes going online every month. We'll also be continuing some of our other new segments in the new year, including the monthly Candy Critic Dessert Club, that's posted on this blog each month.  We're also going to see an increase in candy review-a-thons since we have a huge backlog of reviews to post.  This is were we post 5 or 7 new candy reviews in a week instead of just one.  All this and we'll still be continuing our regular weekly segments like our Candy Thing, Candy in the Media, and in January Snack Facts (our Instagram feed) returns.

This year we're also going to be focusing on more writing projects outside of the website.  We've got three projects waiting to go out, and we hope to have several of them out by the end of the year.  So it's going to be a busy year, and we hope you'll be along for the ride.

Speaking of busy years, 2015 was a pretty crazy year for us as well.  Later this week we'll be posting our top 5 most memorable candy reviews, and today we're posting a new candy review from our most memorable trip.  Our trip to Southern Africa was pretty intense, and a whole lot of fun.  We tried all kinds of amazing foods from wild game to not so wild candy bars.  Today's new review is a snack we found in South Africa that really made us excited, that was until we ate it.  Click here to check out the new review.

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2014 A Year In Reviews

2014 was an interesting year here at Candy Critic.  There's been a lot of travel, a lot of experimentation, and a lot of fun new treats.  The biggest travel experience came about this summer when we moved from Athens Greece to somewhere else.  I don't want to mention the somewhere else yet because frankly I'm home so little that it's fairly irrelevant where I "live".  Needless to say the move was fun, and it meant spending a few weeks at home catching up on Canadian snacks and treats.  Experimentation wise, 2014 has really been the year that I discovered my love of baking and making desserts.  From making my own phyllo dough from scratch, to my recent attempt at making a dessert out of ration packs, I've really found a love of making my own sweet treats.

This however doesn't compare to the kinds of amazing treats I've been lucky to taste test over the last year.  Some was great and some not so great, but all fun to taste test.  Below I've decided to highlight our highest ranking new reviews of 2014, the lowest ranking new reviews, and a few honorable mentions as well.

Best Candy Reviewed in 2014


For our top candy treats this year actually have a tie, and for the first time ever, one of them is a special holiday treat.  We all know and love the Cadbury Creme Eggs, but who would have thought that I'd like the special Halloween edition Cadbury Screme Eggs so much as well.

Click here to read the Screme Egg review.

And tied for first is a new treat from some old friends.  A true Canadian treat made by the gang that invented Clodhoppers, this is a great step forward in the candy world.  They also make these in dark chocolate and with peanuts, and you can bet that I'm going to review those too.

Click here to red the OMG's review.






In third place for the best candies reviewed this year is a classic chocolate bar that really needs no introduction... Well unless you live in the US where I don't think you can really find these anywhere.  In fact not a single one of the top 3 candies this year are available in the US... yet.

Click here to read the Caramilk Bar review.

Lowest Rated Candy Reviews in 2014

Our number 1 lowest rated candy this year is a bit of a shock.  You wouldn't expect a Snickers bar to rank as the lowest rated candy on Candy Critic this year, but here we are.  Fortunately the original Snickers bar is still just as good and this was just an experiment gone wrong.

Click here to read the Snickers Max Caramel review.

At number 2 on the list of lowest candy reviewed in 2014 is another candy made by a big name brand, Haribo.  I'm sure my bias against marshmallows had something to do with this.  I'm OK if Haribo makes an occasional bad treat though, just as long as they keep making the best gummy bears on the market.

Click here to read about this horrible Smurf Marshmallows.

For the third spot on this list, we have a tie.  I'm not really sure what the deal is with this candy, but I can tell you that it was pretty bad.  This is one of those occasions where I dare to sample a candy that I can't read a word on the package, and then I suffer because of it.

Click here to read about these strange chocolate star treats.

There's something very wrong with this package.  First of all the unlicensed Mickey Mouse is a sure sign that this might go horribly wrong.

Click here to read more about Sweet Peanuts.






Highest and Lowest Greek Candy Reviewed in 2014

As an added bonus this year, since this was the year I left Greece, I decided to highlight my favorite and least favorite Greek treat that I sampled this year as well.

The lowest ranked Greek treat this year was a bit of a disappointment to me.  This treat is based on a traditional Greek sweet, but it's just done so horribly.  The other sad fact about this treat is how common it is around Greece.

Click here to read about the Xalbadopita.

The best Greek candy I tasted this year might be the best Greek chocolate bar ever.  Although it's a fairly simple bar, it's done well.  Allison would probably go on record saying it's the best sweet thing she ate during our entire stay.

Click here to read about this awesome ION bar.

Special Mention 2014

While this treat didn't make the top or bottom of my list of reviews this year I wanted to mention it anyways.  If you didn't sample the Cinnamon Bun potato chips made by Lay's Canada this year, then you missed out on a really interesting experience.  I wouldn't say I loved them, but I would say that this is a treat that should have survived (even though it lost the best new chip flavor contest).  I'd like to see chip companies exploring the sweet side of potato chips, and I hope to see more flavors like this in the future.

Click here to find out why I liked these Cinnamon Bun chips.

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This Week In Candy

What does the candy counter look like in your country?  My good friend Brent sent me a photo of what I believe to be a Kurdish candy stand.  It got me thinking, I travel around a lot, and I never really think to take pictures of candy stands wherever I visit.  So from now on I'm going to try and take pictures of candy stands from places I visit all over the world.  I also invite you to do the same. If you're on a trip, or even in your home town, it would be great if you could take a picture of your local candy stand or candy shop and send it my way.  I'll post them on Facebook and Twitter as I get them, and I'll ad them to the new and improved candy map (so make sure to let me know where it is).

Now that we're in the New Year, I've started to think about what kind of candies I've sampled over the last year.  Later this week I'm going to post a list of my favorite, least favorite, and most memorable treats I've reviewed this year.

This week on Snack Facts we're featuring one of the oldest snack foods ever, popcorn.  Every day on our Instagram feed we'll be featuring a new fact about our favorite salty (and sometimes sweet) treat that goes pop.  If you're not on Instagram, you can also see the latest Snack Facts on our Facebook page and Twitter feed as well.

This week's review is a classic chocolate that I'm really surprised I haven't reviewed before.  I can honestly say that I've eaten at least a dozen of these in the last year or so, but I've never thought about writing a review.  So click here to see what I thought of the classic Ferrero Rocher.

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This Week In Candy

2014 is coming to an end, and what a fun year it's been.  I've traveled to some amazing places, and sampled some pretty amazing candy.  This week I'm going to be looking over this year's candy reviews and I'm going to pick out some of the highlights.  What was my favorite candy that I sampled this year?  What candy stood out for me?  Were there any candies that I feel will be the trendy candy of 2015?  I have a lot of re-reading of my own reviews to do this week, but if you have a favorite treat that you tried this year, let me know.

This week I'm also going to be posting a blog to follow up an earlier post I did on the subject of military ration packs.  I've decided to expand my knowledge of military ration packs and try out a few experiments.  This week I'm going to attempt the impossible, make ration pack food into something spectacular.  Some say it can't be done, I hope to prove them wrong.

This week on Snack Facts (our Instagram feed), we're going to look at cereal.  Classic cereals, cereal history, and cereal origins are all the subject of our daily facts this week.  If you want to keep up with snack facts you can follow us on Instagram, if you're not on Instagram you can also follow Snack Facts on our Facebook page, as well as our Twitter feed.  You can also follow our Facebook page and Twitter feed for daily news and fun links about the candy and snack food world.

This week's review comes from my recent visit to Dubai.  I found it pretty difficult to find many United Emirates traditional candies, but I searched out a little and I found today's new review.  It's pretty much what you'd expect from a place like the UAE, and it doesn't disappoint at all.  Click here to check out this new review.

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Remembering 2013 in Treats

Best chocolate bar that should be an international classic.

It doesn't happen often, but once in a while I sample a bar that seems like it should be an instant classic.  Sometimes this bar is something brand new, and sometimes it's only new to me.  In this case, the Catch bar is only new to me.  Apparently these have been a classic treat in Ireland for a while, they just haven't caught on in the rest of the world.  But that may change, the company that makes these informs me that they're trying to spread them all over the world.  If you're lucky enough to find one now, make sure to give it a try.

Click here to read the Catch bar review.

Best new chocolate bar idea.

As candy fans, we are generally inundated with variations on chocolate bars.  I've complained countless times about the poor choices candy companies make with these variations, most of which are uninspired and lazy.  This variation on the other hand is not uninspired at all, although it could have been executed a little bit better.  This is an idea that is very strange, yet it makes perfect sense at the same time.  Next year when I post this list again, you may not find the category of "best bar idea" because it happens so rarely in the candy industry.

Click here to read the Lacta Sandwich review.

Most creative homemade/small candy company treat.

One of the joys of running this site is those occasional e-mails I recieve from small candy companies looking to promote their treats.  These independent candy companies often create some inspiring treats that taste great and/or can be super creative.  This lollipop is a great example of a small company treat that excels in both taste and creativity.  It's strange, it's tasty, and it works very well.

Click here to read the salted caramel lollipop review.

Favorite foreign treat.

As you may know, I travel a lot.  While all my travel isn't officially for Candy Critic, I never travel anywhere without tasting the local treats.  2013 started in Australia for me, and I also managed to visit Scotland, Northern England, Berlin, the Greek Islands, and Turkey.  Of all those places that I visited, the most memorable treat I sampled was Turkish Delight.  I've sampled many Turkish Delights in the past, but this pistachio filled, pomegranate flavoured, covered in rose (pedals and leaves), was truly one of the most creative flavour's I'd ever sampled.

Click here to read the pomegranate and rose Turkish delight review.

Worst idea that could have been good.

It's really fun to be creative with flavours.  Today the popular trend is to blend savory and sweet flavours together.  One of the best ways to do this is by using chocolate as your sweet flavour.  Chocolate is so popular that people are willing to try just about anything covered in chocolate.  Chocolate is also so versatile that it almost always works, no matter what kind of salty snack you mix it with.  Notice I used the word "almost" in the last sentence, that's because of the Tayto bar.  While potato chips and chocolate are a pretty sure thing, when you ad cheese and onion flavours into the mix, things don't work as well at all.  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I tried this bar, I'm just glad that I won't ever have to try one again.

Click here to read the Tayto review.

Best classic treat that I had not tried before.

As I mentioned before, I love getting free candy from small candy companies, but I also love getting treats from big companies as well.  While I've tried many of the worlds most popular treats, occasionally one gets past me.  Every now and then someone sends me an e-mail, asking why I haven't sampled a particular treat, because it's a classic.  Walnettos was just such a situation.  I got an e-mail from a candy company asking me if I'd like to try a few treats, they also asked if I'd like a bag of Walnettos just to enjoy on my own.  I had no idea what a Walnetto was, and they were astonished.  I was promptly sent a bag of these wonderful little cubes, and devoured them immediately.

Click here to read the Walnettos review.

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This Week In Candy

I hope everybody had a great holiday, or maybe you're still enjoying a great holiday.  This week I've got a few things going up on Candy Critic.  First of all, for the first time ever, I've decided to post a list of highlight reviews from this year.  I went through my archive of reviews and picked out some treats of note. They're not necessarily the "best" treats, but they are treats that are worth tasting.  If I can, and I remember, I think I might make this an annual event.

I'm also getting a few of the projects that I've promised ready for the new year.  New t-shirts, YouTube videos, and more podcasts should be on their way.  To start things off, I'm releasing a series of t-shirts this week, with a new one coming out every day. I also have a few review-a-thons planned for the new year as well.  I was debating weather I should have review-a-thons or an extra Wednesday review with a theme, and I think review-a-thons are a much better idea.  I may bring back the Wednesday themed review later, but for now review-a-thons are the thing for me.

Finally, it's looking like Candy Critic is going to go through some pretty big changes this year.  Some will be super secret, others are listed above.  Either way I thank everybody who's taken the time to keep up with my snacking fanaticism, and I hope this new year brings on more snacks for all of us.

CC

This Week In Candy

From what I can tell, much of the Eastern Seaboard of US and Canada are going to have a white Christmas this year.  I'm sad that I'm not there to enjoy it, and I'm envious of all the photos people have been posting of backyards filled with snow.  I have not really seen a good snowfall in 4 years, but not for a lack of trying.  Two years ago I went to Vienna in hopes of having an awesome Christmas adventure.  I did have a really good time, and I saw lots of great Christmas markets, but no snow.  But for those of you that are covered in snow, my friend Michelle sent me this super simple recipe to make your own soft serve ice cream out of snow.  It's very simple, take 12 cups of snow, and pour on one can of condensed milk, stir and enjoy.  I can assure you that this is exactly what I'm going to be doing the next time I see a massive snowfall... Well I might make a snow angel first.

As for the blog this week, I think it's going to be a little slow.  I think a nice quite holiday season is just what I need to recharge myself and get back into gear.  I will still post many of the regular blog entries this week, but I don't think there will be too much more happening.

I should tell you that in the new year we have a lot ready to go.  I'm hoping to roll out some new T-shirts, a podcast or two, and possibly a new YouTube series.  Also our sister site, bewarethecheese.com, is going to be having a candy themed release of photos in the new year.  We'll let you know when the photos are up.

CC

This Week In Candy

I'm not sure if it's just the circles I'm in, but it appears that gingerbread houses are really the big thing this holiday season, even my nephew (pictured above) is getting into the spirit.  It's not that gingerbread wasn't a big thing before, but this year it seems like everybody in the world is doing something creative with gingerbread.  I've been posting links to cool gingerbread projects on our Twitter feed as well as our weekly news link roundup.  Also, this years Christmas candy review, yup, gingerbread themed.

As for the Christmas season in our house, it looks like it's going to be a nice quite one. It seems over the last few years I've been away during the Christmas season, but not this year.  That should leave me lots of time to write up a few blog ideas, work on my book projects, and just generally enjoy all the festivities around the house.

Finally, I've been inspired to start a new YouTube series of videos.  I'm hoping that over the Christmas holidays I'll have the chance to work on them and figure out exactly how I want them to work out.  If everything goes as planned, I want to have the first few videos posted in January.  I'm also looking to record a few podcasts over the holidays and I'm hoping that in the new year they'll happen more regularly.

CC

Happy New Years!!!

This year I've decided to make a New Year's resolution.  I'm going to try to eat more candy.  That may seem like an empty promise from a guy that runs a site called Candy Critic, but it's not.  I'm going to go out of my way to try and sample a wider range of treats this year.  I'm also going to attempt to eat more treats that I might have been unwilling to eat in the past.  More coconut, licorice and fake watermelon flavoured treats are on the agenda.  I'm also going to eat more hand made sweets, and try to experience even more variety from around the world.

CC