Unlikeliest Of Flavour Combinations

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that strawberry, chocolate and vanilla together is the most common flavour trio in the world. I can't think of many cultures that don't have at least one or two treats with this flavour combination. Oddly, I don't actually know where this flavour came from, other than possibly Italy (based on the name). I'm not sure if ice cream was the first time it was used. It's objectively an odd flavour combination, unless you break the flavours into pairs. Then you realize that in pairs these flavours are pretty common, but all together it just seems a little weird. The thing is, it works.

Check out my latest strawberry, chocolate and vanilla treat review.

I Like Sour Candy... But...

 Probably my favourite extreme candy theme is sour. I love a good sour candy, I like subtle tart and a love knock your socks off sour. The thing is, I don't believe that sour works with every single flavour. I feel like there are some flavours that work well with sour, and some that don't work so well. You might say that fruit is always a safe place to have a sour treat, but I disagree. Sour watermelon, strawberry and raspberry never sit well with me. It's often a problem when sour is added to a fruit that either never comes sour in real life, or when it's not supposed to be eaten sour. Berries are a great example of this, particularly strawberries.

Check my latest sour strawberry review.

Simple Flavours

When was the last time a simple, common flavour was trendy. I'm probably to blame for this as much as anyone else, but it seems like the only trending flavours for treats and candy are flavours that are unique and very often weird. No one is singing the praises of strawberry, vanilla, orange, grape or many of the other basic flavours anymore. I'm not saying it's a bad thing necessarily, it's just interesting. I guess I'm wondering if "boring" flavours will ever be trendy again.

Check out my latest simple/common flavoured lollipop review.

Strawberry Kit Kat Bars Are Popular

While writing this review I made the realization that there are a lot of strawberry flavoured Kit Kat bars out there. I've reviewed about 6 of them so far. Strawberry is actually the second most popular flavour theme that Nestle makes for Kit Kat bars. Number 1 is green tea or matcha, but that's not surprising since most of the "creative" flavours of Kit Kat are made in Japan. Strawberry on the other hand is pretty shocking, I would have expected white chocolate or dark chocolate to be second, but not strawberry.

Check out my latest strawberry Kit Kat review.

The Weirdest Reason To Buy A Candy?

I mention this in the review, but I think it's worth saying again. The reason I bought this candy is because of the package, one particular detail in fact. The small dinosaur on the package is wearing a t-shirt, and on this t-shirt is the word "Kris". My name is Chris, and even though it's spelt differently I don't think I've ever seen a character on a package of candy with the same name as me (sort of). I got so excited that I didn't care what this candy was about, I had to include it in my reviews. For all those wondering how to get me to review a treat, just give your mascot the same name as me.

Check out the candy that stroked my ego perfectly.

Strawberry Borders

On a recent trip to the Nordics I came across one of the greatest examples of how much many countries in Europe hate each other. This may seem like an odd topic for a blog about snacks and candy, but this feud was demonstrated to me via food, more specifically strawberries. Our Nordic adventure took us through Finland, Sweden, and Denmark.

After just having enjoyed our stop in Helsinki Finland, Allison and I were planning on what to do for our long ferry trip to Stockholm. We had an overnight ferry booked with breakfast, but we didn't have any dinner plans. We were thinking of just eating on the boat, but the price of dinner was astronomical, and with all the amazing markets and restaurants near the waterfront we thought we would make a picnic dinner and eat it on the boat. We found some wonderfully fresh salads at a local store, and decided that a box of fresh strawberries from the market would be the perfect way to finish our meal.

We wandered through the market until we came across a stall filled with every kind of berry you could imagine. Each berry looked amazing, but a friend had suggested that it was strawberry season, and that would be the way to go. The nice lady at the stand helped us pick a nice box of strawberries that would be ready to eat tonight. We had a bit of a debate about how many strawberries to get, so we thought we would ask the lady what she thought. We told her we were taking these strawberries on the ferry to Stockholm and she instantly changed her tune.

Once we mentioned we were taking these strawberries to Sweden, she congratulated us on our choice to bring Finish strawberries to Sweden, as the Swedish strawberries were awful. She went on for a few minutes about how great the Finish strawberries are and how horrible Swedish strawberries were. It was a weird tonal change in the conversation, and we decided not to tell her that the only reason we were buying these strawberries was because we wanted to eat them on the boat, and we weren't building a stockpile of strawberries to keep us going for the rest of our trip.

I will say that Finish strawberries are tasty. We did enjoy our box of strawberries on the ship, and low and behold a few did make it onto Swedish soil. This isn't the only incident of aggression that we had between these neighbouring countries on our trip. We were talking to a man working at a grocery store about our trip, and he asked us what we thought about Sweden. We told him we liked it, but we also liked Finland too. His entire demeanor changed, and he suggested that he hated Finland.

As a follow up, while we were driving through the southern part of Sweden near a town called Ystad, we discovered a road side stand selling strawberries. The minute we saw the stand we knew that we had to sample Swedish strawberries. Had that lady in Finland not been so aggressive, we might have passed this stand by, but knowing that there was a rivalry, we had to see if the Finish strawberries were actually better than the Swedish. We did buy a box at the stand, and I will say that these berries were different, but just to keep relations equal, I'm not going to talk about which were better.

We tried to find a fruit stand or farmers market in Denmark selling strawberries, but we had no luck. That's probably a good thing since I'm all about keeping the peace, and we don't need any more global conflicts right now.

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Japan Knows Milk and Cream

 

I don't really know the history of dairy in Japan, or the rest of Asia for that matter. All I know is there's a niche market in many Asian countries for high quality dairy products. While I don't think milk is hugely consumed in many Asian households, there is a special place for desserts that are creamy. Fujiya is one of the brands that seems to have been doing this kind of treat for a while, the good thing is that they also do it very well.

Check out my review of this creamy Asian treat.

Flavours Of Gummies

I feel like there's a bias when it comes to flavours of gummies. The first bias is fruit, and while it seems normal because fruit gummies have been around so long, it's a little strange when you think about a gummy textured candy being fruit flavoured. The second bias within fruit is that many gummies seem to be certain flavours. For example, a cherry flavoured gummy is extremely common, but a mango, or lychee flavoured gummy is very rare. There's most definitely a spectrum of popular and unpopular flavours for fruit gummies. This week I tasted a fine strawberry gummy, I'd place that in the middle to middle rare for being a common flavour amongst fruit flavoured gummies.

See my full review of this slightly uncommon gummy flavour.

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Crunky All Week Long

Many people outside of Asia have no any idea what Crunky is, but those who have visited or lived there are very familiar with this chocolate treat. I'm not too sure what was the first Crunky treat since there are so many different ones available right now. It was likely the milk chocolate bar with the rice crisps, but I could be wrong. All I know is that today there are so many different treats made in the Crunky style, and this week I'm going to review 3 of them.

Check out the first of many Crunky reviews.

Be sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram to keep up with all the other ones.

Also be sure to check out my book called Treats and Beasts.

That Candy Is Twisted... On Purpose

 

I've never really looked into the history of Twizzlers, but I have a lot of questions about the shape. Was Twizzlers the first candy to be this shape? What does a floppy, twisted candy have to do with licorice? While we're on the subject, what's the deal with red licorice, it's not really licorice, but it kind of is now. There are a lot of questions that I feel like someone at Twizzlers could answer, but I'm kind of convinced they never will.

Find out what I thought about this twisted treat.

Also make sure to check out Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to see any of my twisted posts.

You can also pick up my book that isn't that twisted, but it's a little weird.

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A Quick Experiment With Mini PopTarts.

Have you ever eaten Mini PopTarts? According to the instructions you are not supposed to toast them. So the first thing that went through my mind was, what happens when you toast them?

Make sure to subscribe to my YouTube to get all my videos.

Also be sure to follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for all kinds of fun stuff.

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Simple Bars Can Be Original

I feel like the candy industry is obsessed with making super crazy fancy bars. I feel like this is their attempt to make original candy, but they do it by using too many ingredients or by using ingredients that are weird for the sake of being weird. I argue that you can use only a few ingredients, each of which being something you commonly find matched with each other, and still create an original bar. I feel like the people at E.Wedel understand this, particularly with this bar.

Click here to find out why E.Wedel pulled off this magic.

You can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to see some other interesting snacks

Don't forget to follow me on Patreon as well.

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I Don't Think I Like Menthol

Fairly often I find that I've discovered a new candy or kind of candy that I love, rarely do I find one that I don't like. While I don't hate all menthol candies, I'm finding that recently more and more candies using this cool ingredient seem to be using it wrong. It has got to a point where if I find a candy that has the word "cool" or "menthol" on it and it's not mint, then I'm a little nervous about trying it. I understand what Hershey's is doing here with the menthol flavour, but I just don't think it works. It's almost as if they saw the design of this bar on paper, then didn't bother to actually taste it when it was done.

Click here to find out why this menthol bar didn't work.

You can also follow me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and find out how cool I am already.

If you want to be extra cool, join me on Patreon too.

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Hi Chews Are Really Popular

I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say that they love Hi-Chews. I can't really figure out why, other than the amazing texture, they're just little taffy cubes. Maybe it's because it's an Asian candy that's not very intimidating, or maybe it's the occasionally strange flavour they offer. It's not to say that I don't like Hi-Chews, I just don't know if they'll ever make my list of top candy brands. They're just taffy, with a slightly rubbery texture (that I like a lot) and often a fairly fake flavour.

Find out what I thought about these Strawberry Hi-Chews here.

Let me know on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter why you love Hi-Chews (or why you don't).

Also make sure to check out my Patreon page for all kinds of extra fun!

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It's Quality Street All Week!!!

I haven't done a review-a-thon lately, and I also haven't reviewed every single Quality Street chocolate. So it seemed like the perfect fit would be to review each and every Quality Street (that I could find) in one week. Keep in mind that I know there are some other Quality Street chocolates out there, these are just the more common ones, or at the very least the ones available at the bulk store where I shop. It's a little embarrassing sorting through a bin of Quality Street chocolates looking for two of each, but I did it for the love of being a completionist. 

I've apparently started out with what I might call a really average chocolate, so I'm hoping things get better.

P.S. I'm not going to review the Purple One, because I already have, twice.

Click here to find out why the Quality Street "Strawberry Delight" is not that impressive.

Make sure to follow me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to keep up with every new Quality Street chocolate I review this week.

If you follow me on Patreon, I might even give you one.

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It's A Day Late, But It's A New Review - Sugus "Strawberry"

I'm running a little bit late this week because of the holidays. It's been a very strange holiday season for me, but I feel like this week is going to be okay. Even though I'm in lockdown, and even though things aren't going exactly as I had planned them, I still feel like these next few days are going to be fine. Best of all, I have some treats to review, and a few videos to make. That sort of thing always distracts me from the real world. While I do write about the real world occasionally, hopefully you can dig around Candy Critic a bit and find yourself a distraction.

Click here to be distracted by my latest review.

Make sure to follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter to see what's distracting me.

Also be sure to pick up the latest issue of Snack Facts, my comic all about Snacks and Treats.

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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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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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Candy In The Media - For The Love Of Old Fashioned Candy Making

This video is not only a look at the restoration and use of an old candy machine, it's a love letter to the very idea  of restoring old candy machines and using them to make candy once again.

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My Favourite Pocky - Part 5 - The Different Stick

All this week we've been posting short blog posts celebrating our favourite Pockys that we've reviewed over the years. Today we're posting our last installment with a variation that we've only seen once with Pocky. Normally the thing that changes about Pocky are the flavour of the chocolate, the ingredients added to the chocolate, or the flavour of the cookie stick. This variant however changed the shape of the stick instead.

The flavour of this Pocky is a standard strawberry flavour, I think this is a flavour they've done a few times with a few subtle differences. This time however they changed the stick, and not in a way you might think. Instead of bending the stick, or turning it into a pretzel or something, they changed the stick from a round stick to a heart shape in the circumference. While I can't say that the idea worked well, it was pretty cool to see them go out on a limb and try something totally different.

I'm a really big fan of Pocky, and it's one of those treats that's become well known for the crazy varieties that are available. It's good to see that this company is willing to play with their classic treat, but it's also great to know that whenever you want, you can always go back to the original.

Click here to read about this fun strawberry Pocky.

As you know we're in Japan, so why not check out our Facebook and Twitter feeds to see what we're up to.

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