Junk Fud and You - What Is Candy?

 One of the most common questions I get is to define what is a candy, and the number of answers I give is bigger than the question.

Candy In The Media - Let The Argument Begin!

Probably the most heated debate in the candy world is weather or not white chocolate is chocolate, and PBS decided to take it on with science.

CC

This Week In Candy

Does anybody know what kind of seeds these are?  I just got about a pound of them, and the're pretty tasty.  They're similar to pumpkin seeds only much narrower and the shells seem a lot thinner than most pumpkin seeds.  The label at the place where I got them just called them "white seeds", so it wasn't very much help.  If you've got any theories, either researched or made up, let me know.  I most want to know so I can get them again, that is unless they're origin is extremely disgusting.

As I mentioned last week, we're in Thailand, still. If you've been following our exploits on our various social media sites than you have a better idea of how our trip is going since I'm writing this way in advance.  I sure hope we're having fun, because this trip was really not as much about working as it was relaxing.  Having said that I never really take time off, and I'm pretty much constantly either writing or taking pictures of things.  This annoyed Allison to no end, and will probably lead to me losing my sanity at any moment.

As I mentioned last week as well, Snack Facts is going to be based on the various treats I find in Thailand and be very erratic (as we find things to write about and good internet connections).  We'll go back to our regular format when we're back home.  Being away also means that we won't be posting any new reviews either.  The good news is our regular posting of a Cool Candy Thing and Candy in The Media will still be around.  Also, when we get back home we'll have a ton to talk about I'm sure.

CC

This Week In Candy

I'm feeling pretty ill today. Last week we had to live in "temporary" accommodations as our house was being work on.  Then we get home for about 2 days, and I get food poisoning.  It's one of those instances where there is no doubt in my mind that it's food poisoning.  The good news about having food poisoning is that it makes you think about what you eat.  I've been thinking about my diet, the world's diet, just food in general over the last few days.  For the most part it's been random thinking with little real substance, however I did come up with one question that I can't figure out.  Why don't we eat more acorns?

This week at candycritic.org we're continuing all kinds of projects.  My plans to put together podcasts has been more planning than executing, and I've found it difficult to organize.  So I've decided to try to record a few solo shows this week to see how it goes.  I've got two ideas I want to work on, so if all goes well I should have a show or two to post in the next week.  We're also still working out the bugs of our Periscope show called "VS".  Link up with us on Periscope by looking for "candycritic" to help us compare some classic treats.

This week on Snack Facts, our Instagram feed, we're looking at cereal. Some of you may argue that cereal is not really a snack, but I'm not feeling well and it seems to be the only thing I can eat right now.  So check out our feed and learn something new about the crunchy breakfast treat every day.  If you're not on Instagram, don't worry, you can also follow Snack Facts on our Twitter feed and Facebook page as well.

This week's review is proof positive that good candy companies can't always work well together.  Click here to read the review that disapointed me.

CC

Classic/Creative Candy Advertising

I think of all of the candy companies in the world, Chupa Chups has probably used the idea of celebrity to sell their candy more than anyone else in the candy business.  That got me thinking, is there a celebrity that if I saw them eating a particular food, I too would eat it because of their fame?  I'd probably sample a treat if a celebrity chef that I knew and respected endorsed a particular treat.  However, I can't think of any actor or singer that I would blindly follow their opinion when it comes to candy.  Is there any celebrity you would trust?

I found this ad here.

CC

8 Days Of UK Treats - Day 5

I don't know what today's UK candy is actually called.  I have a vague recollection of there being a label on the shelf where I bought it, but I can't remember what it said.  I'm also not really sure where this candy originates.  I'm pretty much posting this review in the hopes that somebody might recognize it and fill in some of the blanks.  It's not that I particularly liked it, I just want to know.

Click here to read the review, and let me know if you know what they're called.

Update:  I have been informed of the name Lucky Tatties, many thanks to Catherine a former resident of Scotland and a fine candy aficionado.

CC

Classic/Creative Candy Advertising

I love a good pun, I also don't mind strawberry ice cream.  On another note, I was watching an episode of Mad Men (season 3) and one of the characters was putting salt on his ice cream.  Does anybody do this?  Why would you do it?

I found this ad here.

CC

This Week In Candy

After last week's experiment of making chocolate from the base ingredients, as well as checking out the grand opening of a new chocolate shop here in Athens, I started to wonder a bit about chocolate.  First of all, how many varieties of chocolate are there?  I can think of dark, milk, and white (I know white is not purely chocolate but it's close enough), but are there others?  I also started to think a bit about dark and milk chocolate.  Today there are so many levels of dark chocolate available, so at what point does a chocolate go from being milk to being dark?  I'm sure that someone out there has the answers to my chocolate questions, but frankly I'd rather spend years of my life exploring the world of chocolate to discover them myself.

I guess Easter is coming up for a part of the world on Sunday as well.  This week I'm going to take a look back at some of my past Easter reviews and see what they have in common, and if there's a great deal of variety among them.  Frankly it's been a while since I've discovered a new revolutionary treat for this holiday, but I can't complain, since it's the best holiday to get some good quality milk chocolate. It's also the only opportunity you'll have all year to bite the head off a cute animal and not feel guilty.

CC

Classic/Creative Candy Advertising

Have you ever noticed that Haribo doesn't really "advertise" gummy bears?  I thought I'd do a search online for gummy bear advertisements  and I came up with virtually nothing.  I found the one above, but I'm not really sure if it's official or not.  Does anybody know if Haribo has ever done a large advertising campaign, outside of social media or the internet?  Have you ever seen a gummy bear commercial?

I found this ad here.

CC

Chips Or Crisps

I love to travel, I love to explore every corner of the earth and see what's around the next bend.  I also love to snack, and my snack of choice while traveling is often banana chips. The great thing about banana chips is that they're available almost everywhere.  Sure in some places they're a little harder to find, and often more expensive, they make such a great snack and are often worth it.  There is one very strange thing I find all over the world about these yummy little chips.

The strange thing is their name "chips".  In many places all of the the world a potato, deep fried, and put into a bag is known as a bag of crisps.  Chips, in their crispy, bagged potato form are pretty much only available in North America. For more of the world "chips" are the fried potatoes you get on the side of a hamburger.  I have no problem with this at all, it's a cultural difference, most people that call them crisps still understand you when you call them chips.  It's a fun difference between cultures.  In the case of banana chips, I think it's strange because not one of these "crisps" using countries calls their banana chips, banana crisps.

To me a banana chip is pretty much the sweet brother of a potato chip.  A banana chip is thinly sliced, cooked (fried or dried), and put into a bag. A potato chip is also thinly sliced, cooked (in this case almost always fried), and put into a bag.  I think for the sake of this argument you can pretty much say that both of these products are produced the same way.  So why do so many places that sell "crisps" call their banana chips, "chips"?  Why not call them banana crisps, they are after all crispy versions of bananas.

It's fairly difficult to figure out the exact origins of the banana chip, some say South America, others might point to Africa, and in many countries they go by a completely different name.  But every English, and a few non-English countries I've ever visited calls these snacks banana chips. Even if I don't get them as a side dish to my hamburger.

CC

Chocolate Cake Experiments - The Microwave Cake

So far this week I've answered the question, can you make a cake too small, as well as can you fry a cake like a pancake.  Today I'm looking into a baking method that I've seen and heard of a few times, but I've always had my doubts about how well it would work.  Today I'm examining the microwaved cake.

When I researched this idea, I found many recipes involve mixing the batter in your mug.  I, to be more neutral, decided that I would just take my classic and simple chocolate cake recipe (courtesy of my mother in law) pour it into a mug, and microwave it.  My biggest worry was that these recipes might have some kind of quick leavening agent or liquid that would make my cake a total failure in the microwave.  I was also worried because I didn't really know how much batter to put into the mug.

I decided to follow the cooking time of most of the recipes, about 4 minutes at 750 watts.  It seemed like a really long time in a microwave, but it also seemed like too short a time to bake a cake.  Many of the recipes that I found said not to worry if you see your cake popping out of your mug, like the photo above, but I was worried because I wasn't really following the recipe exactly and I only guest the quantity.  It did drip over the sides a bit, but as it turns out it wasn't too hard to clean up afterwards.

When all was said and done, the cake did settle down to the bottom of the mug.  I thought that the best first test I could perform would be the toothpick test.  It's the same thing I would do if I was baking a cake regularly, and it seemed like a good way to check to see if my cake would be a gooey mess when I tried to take it out of the mug.  The toothpick came out clean, so I decided that it would probably be OK to flip out of the mug.

When I flipped it out of the mug I was shocked... it worked.  I had a mug of cake, or one might even say I had a cup cake.  It seemed pretty solid all the way down, and when I broke it in half it was solid all the way through.  I could tell, when I broke it in half, that it was a little more rubbery than my other cakes I've made with this recipe, but considering it was out of a microwave, it was pretty good.  When I tasted it, I found it to be fairly dry, much dryer than this recipe normally is in the oven.

Most of the websites suggest mixing things like chocolate chips into the cake mix before you microwave it.  That would probably go really far towards making the batter much moister.  A layer or two of icing might also help out with that as well.  While I wouldn't make this cake for anybody for a special event, it is a really fun parlour trick, and it's really impressive to watch it pulsate in the microwave.

CC

Chocolate Cake Experiments - Can You Make a Pancake?

Yesterday I started this series where I answer some cake questions that I have.  Today I'm continuing with a questions I've had for a really long time, but I've never had the means to answer.  Today I'm going to find out if you can make pancakes out of cake batter.  The reason I've never had the means to try this before is because whenever I've had cake batter in the past, I'm pretty focused on making cakes.  I generally find it in bad taste to waste cake batter, except today, in the name of science.

I figure that the word pan "cake" implies to me that at one time people decided to make cakes, in their pans.  It seems logical enough, but does it work?

The moment I poured the batter into my hot pan I knew that this wasn't going to work.  In fact, the minute my batter was made I was pretty sure that this wasn't going to work.  The batter is just too runny to make a fluffy pancake.  Pancakes, when being fried, have to be fluffy before you put them into the pan.  Cakes, because they take a lot longer to cook, can gain their fluffiness in the oven.  So the leavening agent in cakes works slower than the leavening agent in pancakes.  The minute my batter hit the pan I put my syrup away because I knew I wasn't having pancakes for lunch today.

While I didn't end up with a traditional  looking pancake, what I got wasn't that bad. It was still kind of fluffy, under a harder crunchy crust.  It seemed like the crust came from the large amount of sugar in the batter.  I'm guessing that pancakes don't use as much sugar as regular cakes.  The chocolate flavour was still there, but I had to be careful not to burn it because that would have ruined the taste completely. I had to keep a watchful eye on the pan, and it only took a few minutes to cook.

The pan cake doesn't look very appetizing, but it tasted fine. The dry texture of the pan cake could have been improved with a topping, like icing or maple syrup, but that probably wouldn't have worked flavour wise because the cake was too sweet on its own.  I don't think I'd ever try this again, but I'm glad I could finally answer that question that was stuck in my head.

CC

Chocolate Cake Experiments - Smallest Cake Possible

Over the next three days, I want to learn something about cake.  In fact I have some specific questions about cake that I want answered.  Sure it's easy enough to search online and read about the answers, but I've always liked to experiment for myself as well.  So over these three days I'm going to answer 3 questions that I've had about cake.  I won't be looking at icings, fillings, or any other cake additions, these questions will focus on the cake itself.  I've decided to use chocolate cake for these experiments because it's my favorite, and I have a great recipe for chocolate cake (from my Mother in law) that's almost fool proof.  

 My first cake question is about size.  I've seen some pretty big cakes in my day, in fact I was witness to the making of the worlds largest Chinese Moon Cake a few years back.  What I want to know is, how small can one make a cake, while still keeping it's cake like consistency and taste.  For this experiment I decided to start with a standard ramekin (about the same size and a muffin or cup cake) and work my way down.  Since I didn't have any kind of baking trays smaller, I made my own out of tin foil.

Making the baking trays was actually very easy.  For the middle size I used a small container and placed it on a square of tin foil.  I wrapped the tin foil around the container leaver the top uncovered.  I pulled out the container and it seemed to hold up.  For the smallest baking tray I used the same technique only instead of a container I used a 1 euro (about 2 cm across) coin.  This seem like a good sample of a small cake range.  I figured that the ramekin had a very good shot of working, but anything smaller was a bit of a guess.

I was very careful about keeping an eye on these cakes, because over cooking them would certainly make them hard.  The smallest cake took only 5 minutes to bake, I made sure it was baked by using the age old toothpick test.  After another 5 minutes the middle cake's toothpick came clean, and about 5 minutes after that the ramekin cake's toothpick came clean.  I had buttered and floured the containers so the cakes came out effortlessly.  I let them cool for a few minutes, but I wasn't too worried about them cooling completely, since I had no plans of icing them.

What I discovered shocked me a little.  Each one of these cakes were pretty similar.  All of them were moist, light, and tasty.  The only difference had to do with the ratio of crunchy top, that cakes often have, to soft interior.  As you would expect the small cake had slightly less soft interior, but about the same depth of crunchy top as the other two.  It made for a slightly crunchy cake, but for the most part it was soft and light.  I'm guessing that there would be a finite size of cake one could bake while still keeping it's soft texture, but I'm thinking you could still go much smaller than a 1 Euro coin before you achieve it.  I couldn't imagine why anyone would ever need a cake any smaller in the real world anyways.

Tomorrow I'll answer another cake question that's been burning up in my mind for a while, can you make pancakes out of cake batter?

CC

It's National Pie Day!!!

I'm not really sure what defines a pie.  Does it have to be round, does it have to be sweet, does it have to have a crust on the top?  I'm pretty sure that all pies need a filling, and some kind of crust, but after that I'm just not sure.  McDonald's pipes are not round, they don't really have a top, and in Japan they offer a savory one, yet I would not argue that it is not a pie.  Does that mean that a quiche is a pie, or a flan?  Any advice on the topic is greatly appreciated.

CC

Gourd Question

Does anybody know what kind of gourd this is?  Is it tasty?  Is it worth risking my life to climb a tree and pick it?  Do you know how I can prepare it?

CC

Baking Today - Banana Bread Mysteries

I have two questions about banana bread.  My first question is how does a very disgusting looking mush, like the one pictured above, turn into such a fine looking baked good?

It's not appetizing at all, in fact I can tell you that banana bread is the grossest batter there is.

My second question is why do they call it banana "bread"?  It doesn't have the same texture as bread, when you bake it you use a batter and not a dough, and it's really sweet.  It's really a banana cake and not a bread.  If we continue to do this, then I'm going to start calling chocolate cake, chocolate bread.  That way if people complain that I eat too much junk food, I'll tell them that I'll skip dessert and just have a slice of bread.

CC

This Week In Candy

I was asked last week how I could eat all of this candy and still be kind of skinny.  This is not a rare question for me at all, every time I do an interview for a magazine or newspaper or even just meet someone new, they always ask this question.  The answer is simple, portion control.  I eat the amount of sweet treats that my body can handle at that given time.  If I'm out and about a lot I find that I can eat more treats.  If I'm at home writing or working on my computer I find I can't eat as much.  Even when I do eat sweet treats, I don't tend to eat that many, or as many as you might think.

I also pay attention to what I'm eating habits.  My belief is that the biggest problem with obesity in the world comes from foods that are dishonest.  Sure candy can sometimes be dishonest, I've seen gummies that are full of sugar claim to be fat free, like that makes a difference.  I also know that some foods that we think are healthy can be just as bad for you as foods we know aren't.  Yogurts that are full of sugar, granola bars that are filled with carbs, and restaurant sauces that are laden with sugar, just to name a few.  While I may eat a chocolate bar now and then, I tend to eat my salad with oil and vinegar and not a store bough dressing.

Well now that I've cleared that up, this week I have a few things going on.  The spreads project is still going strong, and I'm glad a few of you seem to like it.  I've also decided that I'm going to start blogging about my baking experiences as well, let me know what you think of that.  Finally, I'm thinking of starting a podcast, I have a few ideas and I think it might make for good listening fun.  If you have any ideas of what might make a good podcast about junk food, sweets, or candy, let me know.  I'm also trying to come up with a good title for the podcast as well.

CC

It's National Lollipop Day!!!

I have many questions about the lollipop, and here they are:

Is this an acceptable spelling of lollypop?

Is there a difference between a sucker and a lollipop?

If you put cake, marshmallow, or chocolate on a stick, is that a form of lollipop?

Is bigger better, or is small better?

What's your favorite flavour of lollipop (mine's probably chupa chups vanilla.)?

Is it gross to eat a candy that you take out of your mouth ever few seconds.

Did Telly Savalas make the lollipop cool?

That's all the questions I have now.

CC

What Do You With a Frozen Banana

The other day I notice that, in the heat, my bananas started to go overly ripe very quickly.  I didn't want to eat them imediately, but I also didn't want to wast them.  I decided that I would throw them in the freezer and figure it out later.  Well, later has come, and I'm not really sure what one can do with a couple of frozen bananas with their peels on them.  Any ideas?

CC

Stuff I Want To Try

Jelly Belly Mystery Flavor - Jelly Belly - I love a good mystery. - Click here to learn more about this treat.

CC