Hello, I’m Sera. Welcome to my candy blog.

In case you haven’t guessed, I’m head-over-heels in love with confectionaries. It all started with my unusually large sweet-tooth, paired with an adventurous palate, and a need to document it all.

If you ever have any suggestions, ideas (or both!) I’m always open to them. You can reach me at: sera (at) thecandyenthusiast.com

NOTE: Please, please, please do not take any of the photos on this site. I spent a lot of time and energy taking the photos myself and I wish for them to remain original to the blog. Thank you.

My goal as The Candy Enthusiast is to try everything once so you don’t have to. I think that’s pretty sweet, don’t you?

One of the gifts I received over the holidays were some treats from a chocolatier who had just opened up shop where my parents live in Upstate New York. My Mom discovered them at a Christmas open house and chatted with the chocolatier. Of course the fact that her daughter writes a candy blog (you know how Moms are!) was brought up, and I was immediately called to see which of the chocolates I’d like to try. I was more excited by the idea of trying anything that was offered, as it’s not often I get to try the work of a new chocolate business, but eventually settles on two things to try. 

Cashew Honey Discs: Dark chocolate discs with a topping of caramelized honey cashews. The chocolate has bloomed a little, which I’m not surprised by, as didn’t get these samples fresh and they contain no preservatives. Thankfully bloom doesn’t affect flavor! The chocolate has a nice snap to it when bitten into, and the flavor is very fruity and rich. The texture of the chocolate is more gritty than smooth. The nuts are wonderfully fresh and have a great sweet/salty/roasted flavor combination going which I felt went well with the dark chocolate base.

Peppermint Bark: The base pf the bark is an even slab of a white and dark chocolate mix. The pieces are 1/2 inch think, with the white on top and the dark on the bottom. Nice, large chunks of Starbrights peppermint candy is crushed and sprinkled on top. It’s pretty to look at, for sure. The dark chocolate suffers from the same as the cashew honey slabs, there texture at the snap is very gritty and uneven, a sign it might have not been properly tempered. The flavor is balanced between the peppermint and the chocolate and one ingredient doesn’t overpower the other. This chocolate is creamier on the tongue and is a real delight to eat, as it just tastes of pure Christmas with the wonderful balance of flavors. Yummy!

Despite my nit-pickiness, these chocolates were tasty and a good start for a beginning business. The uneven texture is easily corrected with practice and experimentation, and I look forward to picking up some more of Glimmerglass Chocolates’ work when I next visit my parents.

Rating: Will Eat Again

These have always been a staple in my house growing up, as my parents love it so much. I was always confused because Lindt uses blue coloring for dark chocolate and red for milk, and it seems everyone else does it the other way around. Confusing. 

Jelly Belly is always coming up with creative and interesting flavors to add to their already impressive line of jelly beans. Back a few years ago I did the review for the new Dark Chocolate Jelly Beans and BeanBoozled for CandyAddict.com. After that I was then featured in the New York Times in a Jelly Belly article, so now I feel I’ve come full circle with my first official Jelly Belly review for The Candy Enthusiast.

The new flavor for Jelly Belly? Honey! This is the 92nd flavor (told you it was a big list!) of Jelly Belly bean for sale and is the idea of many consumers who’ve written and polled for it for some time now. It’s great to know Jelly Belly listens to it’s consumers.

These Honey beans are made with real wildflower honey and the flavor certainly reflects it. The beans are beautiful and they look like little hardened globs of honey. My photo makes the look more orange than they really are, as they’re more of a shade of amber. 

So how do they taste?

Really wonderful.

The first thing you get is a flowring sweetness that evolves swiftly into a full honey flavor. It’s as if you just liked the end of honey spoon, just not as intense. It’s amazing how well these beans capture the honey flavor, and they’re just delightful.

I found myself reaching for another and another, and I had to hide the rest of my samples so I was able to share them with my boyfriend, who is a big honey lover. Needless to say, he’s just as smitten with them as I am! These honey jelly beans I feel are really unique, so if you see them do give them a try. And if you’re one of the many who’ve written Jelly Belly requesting this flavor over the years, I can say you will not be disappointed. 

Rating: Hoard

Links Jelly Belly Website

Well, DOTS went and did it again! To follow up with their limited edition Halloween DOTS and their Christmas DOTS, they now have a box of flavors for Valentine’s Day. I’m really pleased to see this holiday edition, as I’m a big fan of DOTS, so it’s fun to give the new ones a try. I really love the packaging design here, as with all of them, as it really captures the feeling of the season.

My delight was dimmed a little when I saw that the cherry vanilla made a return in this box. After tasting it in the Christmas box, it’s a flavor that I can go without. The pairing flavor is Passion fruit Vanilla, which is something I haven’t had in a candy before, so that certainly made up for any anticipation lost on the cherry flavor’s return. 

Cherry Vanilla: Just like the cherry DOT from the Christmas variety. Red with a white bottom. The flavor is the same as before: a bright, fruity, punchy cherry with a medicinal edge, matched with a creamy vanilla flavor. Second time around I liked it a bit better, but I still yearn for a strawberry or raspberry instead.

Passion Fruit Vanilla: Pink with a white bottom, the flavor is more raspberry and floral, with notes of perfume. Tasty! I don’t notice the vanilla as much here, which is fine with me since the flavor on it’s own is so nice.

I thought this mix of flavors was much more successful in terms of flavor, than the Christmas variety. I can see these as some adorable toppers for some Valentine’s Day cupcakes, or just arranged in a pretty bowl for your sweetheart.

Rating: Will Buy Again

Links DOTS Website

More candy from Finland: Mommin Lollipops! And they’re on skiis! Cute!

With Valentine’s Day only a few weeks away, I often get asked for chocolate and candy recommendations for gifts by friends and family. Being a candy enthusiast and all will lead to that, and over time I’ve acquired a few good ideas I’d like to share with you. So just in time for shopping, here’s a list of five sweet things to give to your sweetheart.

Please note that I have not received anything in payment from the companies mentioned here, I just think they’re great ideas.

1. Edible Chocolate Box from Charles Chocolates. Nothing says “I love You” like the traditional box of chocolates. Charles Chocolates takes it a step further by making the box edible as well. There’s many flavors and designs to choose from, so it’s easy to choose which the recipient will enjoy most. 

2. Good Quality Foreign Chocolate from Chocoshpere.com. Chocosphere carries all that great imported yet hard to find bars of chocolate. It’s easy to buy a few to make a gift set on your own. I highly recommend Amedai, Amano, El Rey, Michel Cluizel, Valrhona and Dolfin as personal favorites of mine.

3. Chocolate Silk Spa Gift Set from The Merry Chocoholic. ($34.50) A chocolate scented gift set that comes with body scrub, body butter and hand/body lotion. A good option for those who might not want to eat chocolate (gasp!) but still wants to indulge.

4. A Chocolatetelegram. For those out you in Europe, it’s a love letter and chocolate combined! Your sweetie will get a box with chocolates spelling out a message inside. A really cute idea.

5. Licorice Allsorts Earrings from ErikaPrice at Etsy.com. These cute earrings are a perfect option for the non chocolate eating lover in your life. The colorful licorice are nicely sculpted and a lot of fun.

The candy aisles for Valentine’s Day are always fun to explore. On one hand you get the traditional favorites: boxes of chocolates, NECCO’s Sweethearts candies, Russel Stover’s Cream Hearts, Cinnamon Hearts, and Gumm Lips just to name a few. Then there’s the seasonal limited editions that appear, some old favorites from last year and others the new kid on the block. These SweetTart Heart Gummies are one of those new kids, although I can’t say exactly if they’re rehash from last Valentine’s Day swag because I do not remember them. Sometimes candy just gets overlooked.

The hearts come in a bag whose design still reads “Wonka” to me still instead of “Valentine’s Day”. I blame it on the purple and blue being the dominant colors. There’s a little see through window so you can see the colorful hearts inside the bag.

Smell tart and artificially fruity like Jolly Ranchers The hearts are a little larger than a quarter, and have a dusting of sugar on them. The come in three colors: pink, purple, and a mix of both.

The bite is very soft and chewy, but thankfully not sticky. The flavor is tart and I’m reminded of the sour bunnies I had a few years ago at Easter. The pink is a cherry flavor with lots of artificial tartness, and the purple is grape. Both remind me of cough syrup. They leave a sourness in the mouth long after you’ve eaten them.

If you’re a SweetTarts lover, I think you’d really enjoy these. The flavor of the candy is on par with the originals, and the texture and the size of these gummies are really fun. A sweet way to enjoy a candy you’d love. But for me, they’re really not my thing. 

Rating: Might Eat Again

Links Wonka Website

Tirol Choco is a type of penny candy in Japan. They comes in these little bite size cubes in a veriety of different flavors. You can visit their website to see what they’re currently offering here. 

This Ritter Sport bar has been on shelves in Germany for some time now. I actually believe it won an award for best Ritter bar a few years ago, but I can’t find any documentation to support that, I just remember reading it somewhere as that’s how I first heard of this flavor. I waited around for a good year before I actually got to try this. I received this as a sample at this years Fancy Food Show back in late June. I was so excited to finally have found this bar that it was one of the first things I tried out of everything I saw that day. Let’s just say I wasn’t disappointed. 

This looks like every other Ritter Bar out of package, a neat square of very high relief squares of chocolate. Beautiful to look at and just invited you to dig in.

Inside the chocolate coating there’s two larger wafers/waffles with a hazelnut creme sandwiched in between. It’s very crispy and the wafers come in blocks, which makes breaking off the squares a tad difficult. The hazelnut is prominent and adds a wonderful nutty sweetness to the chocolate. The texture is this wonderful creamy and crisp combination, and it’s very easy to eat. Almost too easy, as I’m more inclined to chomp away at it than savor it slowly. The chocolate and hazelnut combo is a match made in heaven and it’s just a chocolate masterpiece.

Awesome, awesome, awesome. It’s like a chocolate covered Manner biscuit, and I’m in love.

Rating: Hoard

Links Ritter Sport English Website

Sakuma Drops are a famous Japanese hard candy that’s considered a classic piece of culture. It’s been around before World War II, and has a very iconic tin that holds the fruity candies. If you’re ever seen the anime movie “Graveyard of the Fireflies”, these candies are featured throughout the film and has contributed to their continued popularity. Japan loved making limited edition candies, as shown by the constant stream of strangely flavored Kitkats that come out with each season. Well, now it’s Sakuma Drop’s turn! 

These Sakuma Drops are based on flavors you find in specific regions of Japan. Each place is noted for a special type of food product, and here the Sakuma Drops highlights them. I was given these free samples graciously from Jlist.com, who was eager to see what I thought of this special Japanese candy. Onto the tasting!

Buta Don: The drop itself is honey-tea colored, the flavor is subtle and sweet at first. There’s notes of soy sauce and smoke. The flavor doesn’t escalate much from there, I get a hint of ginger flavor (maybe trying to mimic the subtle starchy sweetness of rice?), so it tastes like “candy” to me more than “pork”. I also haven’t eaten buta don in some time, but this is a delightful sweet/savory flavor like a good pork glaze. I admit, it’s pretty good.

Sasebo Burger:. This at first just tastes sweet, but then a smokey, beefy flavor kicks in that really tastes like a hamburger. You get a taste of sweetness, like there’s ketchup in there, but man....the flavor is authentic and it’s very strange. It’s hard to wrap my head around the fact I’m eating a hard candy that tastes so accurately of hamburgers. I can’t decide if I like it or not, cause it was fun and tasty to eat, but my head just keeps thinking “this isn’t right....”. Definitely worth a try if you’re a big hamburger lover.

Kisune Udon: The drop smells smokey. It’s immediately sweet/salty of soy sauce. It has flavors of udon noodle soup, hints of smoke and seaweed of the hondashi broth. I don’t really get any flavors inari packets, which are fried tofu bits which are the distinguishable characteristic of the kitsune udon soup. Again, it’s tasty, but not something I crave. Part of my head is not able to wrap itself around the ideas of a savroy candy drop.

Roasted Corn: Smells buttery and is a more yellow color than the other which were a light creamy beige. The flavor is lightly sweet, very smoky with a hint of butter and an authentic flavor of corn. It’s spot on and pretty yummy. I actually kept eating these.

Tokyo Noodle: Starts off sweet, flavors of light notes of miso and soy sauce. It has the starchy sweetness of noodles and broth, a hint of meat. It’s very authentic with no hints of seaweed. I don’t recall what regional Tokyo ramen has in it (a quick google search tells me it’s soy-flavored chicken broth). But its very authentic and works well as a candy drop.

Gyouza: These are immediately savory and has notes of toasted sesame. it’s has a very distinguished grilled flavor to it, and it reminds me pumpkin seeds. It’s totally savory, but somehow in this flavor, it works. I liked it.

Sapporo Beer: It’s sweet, mild in flavor, and has a nice malty flavor to it. A hint of lemon maybe, which much be the alcoholic flavor trying to peek through. It’s the most traditional candy-like one in the bunch, and I enjoyed it very much.

Oh man these were fun to taste and a I’m so glad I got the opportunity to try them. I liked the ones I thought wouldn’t work, and I disliked the ones I thought would, and overall they were a pleasant surprise. I love candies like this that open up my candy experiences to new unique places. Pork flavored or not, I really recommend trying Sakuma Drops if you ever get the chance.

Rating: Buta Don, Roasted Corn, Tokyo Noodle, Sapporo Beer, Gyouza

Will Eat Again

Kitsune Udon, Sasebo Burger

Not Worth It

Links Sakuma hard Candy Website (Japanese)

This was given to me by one of my good friends from college. He comes from Finland, and he gave me a care package of Finnish candy. He knows I love the Moomins, so he gave me these little boxes of licorice. So cute! 

I don’t quite know what to call these. I mean really, who puts “Vitamin” in the name of a candy? Oh, you silly Japanese! Maybe they don’t quite understand the word to being with, and as a native English speaker, I don’t quite get the name “Vitamin Kitchen”. But it’s Engrish so anything goes I guess.

Opening the bag it immediately smells like berry yogurt. Sweet, tangy and berry with a whiff of plastic.

They’re little balls, about the size of hazelnuts. Perfectly round and some a flat-ish on some sides from the way they’re packaged. They’re hard to touch, as they don’t squish in my hand and they’re very smooth and shiny. Despite the image on the package, these are more dull looking and aren’t terribly attractive.

These are very, very chewy. The center has the texture of Starbursts, very thick and dense chew. The flavor is exactly of berries, mainly strawberry and blueberry. It has tart, tangy notes to it. So it’s a nice play of the sweet/sour notes in real berries. Color me impressed! The serving in this bag isn’t terribly big, so these disappeared quickly.

A good example of how an oddly named, and odd-looking candy can still taste awesome. Don’t judge a book by its cover. 

Rating: Will Eat Again

Wow, a Kitkat review for the correct season, imagine that! These are some of the many season Kitkat flavors that are available in Japan for the winter of 2009-2010. I am able to review them in such a timely manner because Jlist.com was so kind to give me these free samples. There were so many to choose from, it was hard to narrow it down to a handful so I didn’t come across as too greedy. I finally decided on these three flavors: Ohagi, Ginger Ale and Sweet Potato.

I chose these three flavors as they’re ones I’ve never had before, and I’m continually surprised how Nestle keeps finding new flavors to try out in the Kitkat form. January is “strawberry season” for candy in Japan, something I can’t explain really. So I decided to steer clear of one of the many new Strawberry Kitkats out there, as I’ve tried them for a few years and I have a hard time telling the difference.

Ohagi: So what is ohagi exactly? It’s a type of Japanese traditional confection, or wagashi, that is a piece of rice gluten filled with red bean pasted then covered in soy bean powder. Sounds off, I know, but I’ve had them and they’re extremely tasty. The Kitkat is milk chocolate based and it smells nutty, probably from the soybean powder. It has a nice milk chocolate flavor that’s really accented with a strong nuttiness and has a nice subtle note of coffee. It reminds me of gianduja and it’s surprisingly delicious. I want more of these, stat!

Ginger Ale: Opening up the bars I’m surprised to find that it really smells like ginger ale. The base is white chocolate, and the bars have a yellowish tinge to them. I sniff again and am impressed with how accurately it smells of spicy ginger and carbonation. It tastes of spicy lemon cola in a way. It’s not fake tasting at all, but you feel it’s “different”. The texture of the white chocolate makes it very creamy, and it comes across as a ginger ale float. This Kitkat is interesting and delicious but no something I would specifically crave.

Sweet Potato: Sweet Potatoes are an iconic winter food in Japan. They are traditionally sold by a big car that’s like an iron over, that has a piercing whistle on it that blows when the sweet potatoes are roasted and ready to eat. This Kitkat is white chocolate based too and has a sweet, earthy, white chocolate and potato smell. The flavor is a creamier, earthier white chocolate with a hint of potato in the aftertaste. I actually find it refreshing. It tastes ‘cleaner’ than I would have expected and the flavor of potato matches well. Yum!

Oh, I can’t beign to say how much fun these limited edition flavor Kitkats are. I always have a ball trying them, even if they aren’t something I like once I taste them. The problem is that they often make a really delicious flavor that will disappear shortly, so you have to go stock up on them or remember them fondly. I really recommend trying them for yourselves.

Rating: Ohagi: Hoard

Others: Will Eat Again

Links KitKat Breaktown

Welcome all to The Candy Enthusiast‘s first Candy Photo Friday! This is something I’ve been meaning to try out for awhile now, so let me explain exactly what exactly this is. There’s many steps that go into each and every review that I do for the site here, some parts that I enjoy more than others. One of my favorite parts is taking the photos of the candy, as it really it an outlet for my creativity. It love positioning the product in my little light box, and playing with angles and then taking it for re touching in Photoshop.

Problem is, I have many photos for candies I’ve tried over the years, but no tasting notes to go with them. So rather having all those photos go to waste, I’d like to post them here to say: “Hey! I ate that! Isn’t the package pretty?” I’d intend to add any commentary that I have for the photo, so these pots won’t be devoid of writing.

So there you have it, Candy Photo Friday is here to show you that I really do eat more candy than just the reviews I post.