Deep Fried Snacks Rule On Street Food

 Watching these expert street food artist make a crunchy deep fried peanut treat at a street market in Bangkok, Thailand is what makes me happy all the time.

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What Are The Most Common Ice Cream Toppings

I think the debate about what ice cream toppings are the best would run forever, with no winner ever announced. This is mostly because the best ice cream toppings are very subjective. The real question is what are the most common ice cream toppings, particularly when we're talking about store bought ice cream treats. While I haven't done any real research on this subject, my guess is chocolate and peanuts. Peanuts might be losing favour these days with so many people having allergies, but I still think chocolate and peanut with a vanilla ice cream is probably still very popular. The next question is why are these ingredients so popular. Is it because people really love them, or is it because it's simple and less expensive?

Check out my latest ice cream review featuring peanuts, chocolate and vanilla ice cream.

Making Peanuts, Literally

Peanuts are an ingredient in candy that's so important. It's great to see where they come from, and look at modern and old fashioned ways to harvest them.

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Our Latest Experiment Is All About Cracker Jacks

In our latest experiment we tried to make homemade Cracker Jacks. Strangely enough it worked, fairly well. Below is a quick version of our recipe along with a few changes we think might make it a little better:

-  Heat your oven to 250 degrees.

-  Mix 8 cups of popcorn with 1 cup of roasted peanuts (maybe make it half a cup of peanuts if you'd like).

-  Take 1/4 of a cup of salted butter and melt it in a pot. Then add 3/8 cups of brown sugar, 1/4 cup corn syrup, 1 tablespoon molasses, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Whisk them together and heat them up till they reach 250 degrees (use a candy thermometer).

-  Take the sugar mixture off the heat and add 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla and 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda and whisk them all together.

-  Poor the sugar mixture into a large bowl over the popcorn and peanut mix.

-  Mix everything up until the popcorn and peanuts are covered (careful it gets hot).

-  After it's all mixed up lay it out on a baking sheet with a silicon baking liner (or you can grease it).

-  Put it in the  oven for 10 minutes, then toss the mixture. repeat this until the mixture has been in the oven for 30 minutes (my original recipe suggested 50 but my oven is small and very hot so I went for 30 instead).

- Take the mixture out of the oven and let it cool for 20 minutes.

-  Break the popcorn and peanuts apart and consume.

-  Make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to check out some future experiments.

- Follow us on Patreon to help support us and get a bunch of extra content.

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The Soft Serve Trend

Ice cream is probably one of the most versatile specialty treats in the snacking market.  If you think about it, there are more varieties of ice cream, than just about anything else.  The zillions of flavours available go from the strange, like sweet potato, and charcoal, to the classics like vanilla and chocolate.  You can have flavours that are filled with a bunch of ingredients, or some that are only one.  But flavours are just the beginning when it comes to ice cream treats.

From Popsicle like ice cream treats, to classic hard ice cream, gelato, frozen yogurt, the list just goes on and on.  The great thing about these frozen treats is that the industry seems to be constantly looking out for the next big advancement.  Some of these advancements are amazing, and change the way we eat cold treats, while others are just gimmicks that are interesting at first, but don't really last very long.  When new ideas come out, it's hard to say what's going to stick around and what's going to leave us.

One interesting thing about cold treats is that you often find that the new trend/gimmick always seems to be expensive.  After all ice cream was originally a treat fit only for royalty, and took years to make it to the common market. In the last 15 years I seem to have notice that a new ice cream trend is working its way through the market every year.  One year it's making a sundae on a marble slab, the next year it's eating perfectly round spheres of ice cream, then after that it's ice cream sandwiches made with everything from cupcakes to doughuts.  The one trend that I've noticed lately that's interested me is high end soft serve ice cream.

Normally the low quality ice cream that was only available at buffets in restaurants and sold off of a truck, something new has come out lately.  Soft serve ice cream has been around since 1936 when it was invented by the Carvel company, later it became more popular by Dairy Queen. But in both of these cases it never became a gourmet dessert. For the longest time it sat in a bit of a limbo, not changing much at all.  Probably the most revolutionary addition to soft serve ice cream was the creation of the hard shell or chocolate dip. Sure some places got a little creative with flavours, both of the ice cream and the dip, but for the most part it stayed as hard ice creams ugly cousin, and never made it to the high end establishments.  That was until recently.

Over the last few years I've noticed a trend in high end soft serve ice cream places (or some might call them really expensive soft serve places).  It's almost become the cupcake of the ice cream world, with some soft serve ice cream parlors forming huge lines outside just to get a cone.  The thing that I couldn't understand is why. Why were people going nuts, and spending a great deal of money, on a treat you could buy up the street at Dairy Queen for so much less. What was the factor that made  these particular ice cream treats so amazing.

I decided recently to give them a try. I was in Quebec City and a new soft serve place was making waves on the town of Levi, just across the river from Quebec City.  A person at the tourist information office in Quebec City even suggested that this ice cream place was worth the trip across the river alone.  So after a quick ferry ride, and a wonderful dinner (by the way Levi, Quebec has some amazing restaurant choices), I decided to give this new trend a try.

The first thing I noticed is that the real selling point of this trend is not the ice cream as much as it's the toppings.  I felt this way because it appeared that only one flavour of ice cream was available (vanilla), and no one was ordering it plain. I'll be honest, this sent up a red flag for me right off the bat.  One trend I generally don't like in the dessert world is where you take a classic dessert and just fill it up with way too many toppings (I'm looking at you current milkshake trend). There has to be more to it than simply dumping a bunch of stuff on it for me to really get into a new trend.

I'm not sure if the ordering system at this place is the same as at other trendy soft serve places, but for me it was very confusing.  You pretty much go to the cash register and decide the size of cone you want, and how many ingredients you want. Dip is the one thing you don't really get a choice about either. Then there's a million other things you can have attached to your dip, everything from nuts to cotton candy are available. This again was raising some red flags for me. Since this was my first time ordering this kind of treat, I was fairly confused.  I wasn't sure what I wanted as far as ingredients, and more importantly there are about a dozen flavour of dip to choose from, and I wasn't sure what flavour I wanted.

As it turns out at this point in the ordering process, you don't have to know what flavour you want, you just have to know how many ingredients you want.  Honestly I was very overwhelmed, so I decided to take the easy way out.  There were several examples of "perfect combinations" available, one was a salted caramel chocolate dip cone special with caramel corn and nuts stuck to it. This seemed like something I'd like, and would get me out of this hellish ordering process. I imagine that after a few tries at ordering you might get the hang of it, which is a good technique to get return customers for these places.

The two other things that turned me off about this trend, is the crowds and the waiting.  I'm sure that the ice cream places love the crowds, and can't do much about the waiting because of the crowds, but I didn't really like it at all. I think the entire buying process took about 20 minutes, and the waiting wasn't comfortable at all. Who would have thought that kids would be the main customers, and that having them wait for long periods of time for ice cream would make them go crazy.

You may have noticed that I've been pretty negative about this experience so far, and you're likely thinking that I'm going to write a really scathing review of the treat itself. That or maybe I'm going to trick you, and in the end I'll tell you that it was all worth it in the end.  Well prepare to be disappointed.

The cone  itself was OK, not amazing, but not the worst thing ever either. The good thing about this cone was the dip.  The chocolate was so smooth and creamy, I could have just eaten a bar of it on its own.  The salted caramel flavour was perfectly balanced with the smooth chocolate. The toppings (caramel corn and peanuts) although a little silly at first, actually really added to the fun of eating this cone. It was fun to bite them off as I was working my way down the cone. It also added some great texture to an ice cream that's not really known for its texture.

The bad, was the ice cream.  First of all, it melted very fast.  I assume this is because the kind of chocolate dip they used did not contain as much coconut oil as other soft serve dips (thus improving the flavour). The problem is that the dip without so much coconut oil would then have to be kept at a higher temperature to keep it liquid. So when the cone is dipped, the ice cream is melting immediately. It was one of the messiest cones I've eaten in my life.  The other problem with the ice cream was that it wasn't that special at all.  It pretty much tasted exactly like every other soft serve ice cream I've eaten in my life.

Only once in my life have I had soft serve ice cream where the ice cream was actually better than the rest.  That's in a small town called The Mumbles in Whales. There's a place there called Joe's which is legendary for their soft serve.  The thing is, they're legendary because they make their own soft serve ice cream, and it's suggested that you just get the plain vanilla with no dip to experience it.  I would say that if I got the plain vanilla with no dip at this place, I would have been very disappointed for the price.

In the end I'll say that I'm not likely going to try this again.  Unless someone can point to a place that does something more than high quality dip and sticking lots of things to the outside, I just don't think it's worth it. I would rather spend the same amount of money on a sundae, or save my money and go to Dairy Queen.

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Candy News

According to the latest information the cocoa crops on the Ivory Coast are looking good, that means we might see some cheaper chocolate next year.

Later this summer I'm heading home to Toronto for a little while, fortunately my friend Peter found this awesome list of places to get ice cream there.

This video of Hostess snacks being made makes my mouth water.

If you thought that banning peanuts from schools and workplaces was a silly idea, you'd be wrong.

Here's 20 interesting facts about chocolate, for example, did you know that Napoleon loved chocolate?

If you lick the spoon when you're making a cake, can you get salmonella poisoning?

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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Candy News

What's your favorite marshmallow in Lucky Charms?  How about Rudolph heads?

Candy is starting to make a scene in high class restaurants, what treat would you like to see in a 5 star eatery?

I don't really like spicy food, but now I understand it a little better.

Did you know that they first started selling Girl Scout cookies in 1917?  Here's some more facts about these awesome cookies.

According to a recent study, peanuts are really a good thing to eat, even if they're covered in candy.

OREO cookies and 3D print technology equals the future of cookies, and it looks fantastic.

The Huffington Post claims that there are "16 Reasons Chocolate Is Obviously Superior To Vanilla", I disagree.

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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Friday Candy Video

A long time ago I did an experiment where I tested the strength of M&Ms.  I microwaved them, burnt them, set them on a hot CPU, and lots of other destructive fun things.  The problem is I didn't have access to a super high speed camera.  After watching the video above, I'm thinking I may want to revisit this idea of destroying M&Ms, and all I need is a friend with a high speed camera.

I discovered this video here.

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Today I Post My 861st Review

One of the things that I always mean to keep track of, but almost never do, is how many reviews I've posted.  I've been doing this site for some time now, and when it started I had no kind of regular schedule for posting reviews.  I also occasionally do review-a-thons, and other special review days, so unfortunately it's almost impossible to figure out how long the site has been up based on the number of reviews, or vise-versa.  But just knowing that I've tasted more than 800 different candies, and written about them, is a pretty big deal to me.  It got me thinking, I wonder what my 1000th review will be, and I wonder if I'll even know that it's happening.

Click here to read my 861st review.

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Bamba Review

If you read the review of Bamba, a peanut flavoured puffed treat, I have no mention at all about the disturbing little baby on the front of the package.  I avoided mentioning it because I'm not sure if this is a reoccurring character, or if it's just a particular promotion.  If it's a promotion, exactly what is it promoting? If it's a reoccurring character, then that only leaves me with more questions.

Click here to read the review, and let me know if you understand the baby.

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It's National Peanut Cluster Day!!!

I decided that before I posted anything about peanut clusters I would try and clear something up in my head. What I needed to know was, what exactly is a peanut cluster.  By definition a peanut cluster should be a bunch of peanuts bound together by some kind of product, chocolate or taffy.  After looking around the internets I discovered that the most common way to bind these nuts would be chocolate.  The thing is, according to many of the examples I found, you can also have additional, ingredients in a peanut cluster.  Caramel, marshmallows, other nuts, can all be found in peanut clusters.  So that means that just about any chocolate that you eat that contains more than one peanut, could by definition, be a peanut cluster.  I'm not sure I agree with that, I think a peanut cluster should only contain peanuts, and a binding agent.  I guess that makes me a peanut cluster snob.

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It's Peppermint Patty Day!!!

When I first heard that today was Peppermint Patty day I wasn't sure if they meant the yummy chocolate covered mint disk, or the slightly annoying friend of Charlie Brown.  Then I wondered, is she named after the treat?  After a little research it appears that there may be a connection.  As it turns out Charles Schulz named the character after a bowl of "mint candies" he had on his desk.  I'm guessing he changed the last word from "Pattie" to "Patty" because her first name is Patricia.  It might have also helped with any legal issues at the time.

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Tuesday's Candy Links

Bad news for chocolate lovers, it appears some of the cocoa harvests might be lousy this year.

Three trends in chocolate bars from Mars, little bars, gigantic bars, and seasonally themed bars.

There's a new study that says if you leave the skins on your peanuts when you make peanut butter, it's better for you.

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Stuff I Want To Try

Goldenberg’s Peanut Chews Vanilla Molasses Ice Cream  - GOLDENBERG’S and Little Baby's Ice Cream - I love it when candy companies get together with ice cream makers. - Click here to learn more about this treat.

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Thursday's Candy Links

Quick recall notice from the folks at Red Vines, if you've recently bought a one pound bag of black licorice recently, you'll want to read this.

So you're all familiar with the drough happening right now in the US, right?  Well here's how candy came to the rescue.

Have you been keeping up with all of the Mars Curiosity stuff lately.  Have you noticed the peanuts?

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90's Candy Video Week Part 3 - A Tear Over PB Crisps

I have a sad story about PB Crisps.  I was visiting my girlfriend's (at the time) family in Florida when I first discovered PB Crisps.  I went on a giant Florida Walmart shop (the giant is for the size of the Walmart), when I came across these fun Planters crunchy snacks.  I only picked up a couple of bags of these peanut buttery cookies, because I wasn't really sure if I'd like them.  I got back to the house we were staying at and I cracked a bag open.  I took one bite and I loved them to death.

Being a nice guy, I decided to share my joy with the rest of the household.  Everyone in the house was hooked on them in no time.  I decided that I would keep one of the two bags I bought for later, when I got back home to Canada.  I wasn't sure we'd have time to visit Walmart again, and I didn't want to be rude and ask to go back, just to get more PB Crisps.  On our last day in Florida, we're packing up (to leave that afternoon) and I came across my last remaining bag of PB Crisps, only it's almost empty.  In fact there's only two PB Crisps left in the bag.

Apparently my girlfriends grandfather loved them so much that he couldn't keep his hands off of them.  We certainly didn't have more time to get more, and I tried to explain that they didn't have them in Canada, but he didn't understand.  He figured I'd be back to the US soon, and I could get them when I come back.  As it turns out I didn't make it back in time, and they were discontinued.  I never got a last satisfying taste of this awesome treat.

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Election Time!!!

As you guys may or may not know, right now I'm in Athens Greece.  If you're fairly connected to the news world, you'll also know that Greece is having a very important and very newsworthy election right now.  Every time I'm in a city, and there's an election, I always make a batch of something I call "Election Mix".  While its not very complicated 50% peanuts and 50% chocolate chips, it's really tasty.

So Greece, get out there and vote.  Since I'm not a Greek citizen, I'm going to stay home and eat more election mix instead.

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Our Last In This Weeks Asian Review-A-Thon

I will be posting another review tomorrow (as I usually do), but it won't be an Asian treat.  I know that this won't be my last review from Asia, but I have to play nice and make sure other areas are well represented as well.  I have a few ideas for future review-a-thons, but please let me know if you have a particular type of snack, or a region where snacks come from, that you think would make a good review-a-thon.

Click here to read today's addition to the Asian review-a-thon.

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Thursday's Candy Links

In what I can only describe as bizzare, "Skittles sales up after Trayvon Martin shooting".

When you crack open a peanut and it's salty, doesn't that amaze you?

The makers of Hot Tamales are looking for "Hotties", seriously they are.

I don't normally like to post recipes on this site, but how to make your own Lucky Charms marshmallows is too good to pass up.

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Tuesday's Candy Links

It turns out Popcorn is actually really good for you, it's chock full of antioxidants!

You don't look a day over 99 years old.  That's too bad because Whitman's is giving away free chocolates to people over 100 years old.

Did you want to know more about why chocolate and almonds are actually healthy for you?  There's a seminar for that.

Boing Boing's Rob Beschizza has a complaint about his peanuts, and it's not a rip off of a Jerry Seinfeld joke.

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