Chocolate Turkish Taffy

Yippee, novelty candy! Turkish Taffy is this airy, slightly porous, dense marshmallow-y light sugar candy that is advertised to be snappable. The idea is that you hit the bar against a hard surface, causing it to shatter. Then, you eat the pieces of the bar. I chewed the pieces because that's how I eat candy. The bar had a really clean break, which is interesting for a candy with the consistency of hard caramel and the flavor of cola.



Good candy bar for angry or violent people. And non-angry non-violent people.

It is definitely preferable to hit the candy while it is still wrapped, or else you get chunks all over the floor and table.

Harry Potter: Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans

My brother got these from Harry Potter World, and we split the package extremely evenly in half (in terms of the number of beans and the flavour of the beans). Although I find the packaging neat, I guess I've always imagined the beans in a small, maroon coloured draw-string sack.

 The main problem I have with these beans is that half of the flavours are "normal" jelly bean flavours, and they even taste like normal jelly bean flavours! Sure, that's not the majority, but 80% (maybe more) of the beans are composed of these 10 trite flavours! See below:

10 "Harry Potter" Flavours:

Bogies - 5

Black Pepper - ONLY 5 IN TOTAL.

Dirt - 4 total

Earthworm - 5

Earwax - 1

Grass - 4 total :(

Rotten Egg - 3

Sausage - 2 or 3

Soap - only TWO in total! Grr!

Vomit - 3

10 "Normal" Flavours (with Jelly Belly names in ()):
Banana ("Top Banana")
Blueberry ("Berry Blue") - At least 20 blueberries. :( So unfortunate.
Candyfloss ("Cotton Candy")
Cherry
Cinnamon
Marshmallow - only 5 :(
Green Apple
Sherbert Lemon ("Lemon")
Tutti-Fruitti
Watermelon

Could it just be chance that all the interesting the flavours from Harry Potter are so rare?

Sure, they didn't want to give us 24 rotten egg flavoured beans because (presuming that they taste disgusting) no one would eat all 24 of them, whereas everyone loves a kilo of lemon jelly beans! But, now I can't share with my friends. I can't watch my family's reactions, or my friends' reactions; I only have enough to try :(.

1. Black pepper (grey): Tastes like a sugary gummy dipped in a lot of pepper (but not enough to burn your mouth after swallowing the bean). Extremely realistic and replicable in the kitchen. Actually, this is a good combination; pepper and dried cranberries (or other sweet dried fruit) unexpectedly go extremely well together.

2. Bogies (off-green): Sweet, slightly tastes like ginseng, saltiness.

3. Rotten Egg (speckled white/yellow): A weird sweet twist of durian, onion, garlic, and sourness.

4. Vomit (speckled orange/red): Initially, it tastes like oranges, but then after chewing a bit, it tastes like mild slightly like chili sauce oil. I guess the oranges part was an attempt to recreate HCl (acid).

5. Earthworm (red with black spots): Sickly sweet, and tasted like traditional Chinese medicine and ginseng root.

6. Sausage (pink spotty): My brother hated this one, but I actually thought it tasted like a combination of sugar, pepper, bacon, barbecue sauce, and stale jerky. Again, I haven't eaten animals in a while, so I'm not calibrated to bacon or barbecued food.

7. (Earwax-to-be) Marshmallow (the other 2 white ones): We thought that they were earwax flavoured, but it turned out that they were BOTH marshmallow. Unfortunately, I did come across 1 earwax flavoured one, but it looked like a marshmallow one...
Earwax (white with sparse yellow streaks, not in picture): um. gross. Not sure how they got this flavour (did they taste earwax?). Not sure how to describe it either...

8. Soap: Sweet lemon detergent. It's funny because detergents are usually basic, and here we are, chewing an acidic, soapy, lemony bean.

9. Dirt: Smelled like dirt. Tasted a bit like dirt and ginseng, but it was way too gummy to have the texture of gritty dirt. I mean, smooth dirt? Not too real. If they threw in sugar grains or sprinkles to add to the texture of the dirt, this jelly bean would've been cooler.

10. Grass: Tasted like sweet, fresh, grass. Amazing! I want grass jelly! (but not actual Asian grass jelly) 

My favourite flavours were grass (for sure!), sausage, and black pepper. My least favourite were earwax, rotten egg, and bogies.

Honeydukes Sherbert Lemons

My brother went to Harry Potter World in Florida over the summer (lucky him!!) while I was growing cells in a lab. Fun. He didn't take any pictures of Honeydukes :(. In fact, he didn't take any pictures of Harry Potter World, which is not only a huge letdown, but also gives me more incentive to actually pay the exorbitant entrance/travel fees just to visit Honeydukes.

I emailed my brother and called him a bunch of times just to make sure that he bought some food from Honeydukes, because I really wanted to try something! He ended up getting Sherbert Lemons, Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, and a Chocolate Frog. I'll blog about the Sherbert Lemons today because I didn't get around to the other stuff yet; I will when I go home for October break

They're lemon-shaped, covered in sour-ish sugar, and taste just like lemon lollypops. The lemon itself isn't sour enough for my taste (or for the expense). Everyone buys it for the jar, I guess, which is pretty ugly. I'm really upset about the Honeydukes logo, because I've always imagined a wooden-style logo. Chocolate-coloured, at least!!

Candy Reviews

New candy samples to review! This begs the question of whether I should review candy that I've already tried in the past or not (because that brings up a ton (literally) of candy to review)...

Necco Mint Julep

This smelled like 100% toothpaste. It tasted nothing of the sort, though! It was very chewy and juicy (I know, strange diction, but it's the best adjective for it), and didn't have too strong a mint taste, so by the time I had finished consuming it, my mouth wasn't minty at all. I am most pleased with the juiciness.

Necco Banana Split

This one did not have any smells. It also only tasted mildly of banana, but at least it wasn't such an artificial banana flavour. Again, extremely juicy.

Goetze's Original Caramel Cream

Before I divulge into the ingredient/advertising aspect, I'd like to say that this tasted half amazing! The cream part tasted... cold (surprising), but wasn't so special. The caramel part, however, tasted like bread. It was textured nothing like bread, being super gooey and chewy, but it tasted just like bread! It was that not-sweet-blandy-breaddy-wholesome taste, so I enjoyed that very much. However, what gets to me is that Goetze's advertises itself as all original and using ingredients from way back when, and being healthyish for candy. Now, I'm pretty sure 60 or 70 years ago, HFCS and PHO were not used in candy! How is this "Original"? However, the ingredient "wheat flour" probably explains the delicious bready taste.

Goetze's Chocolate Caramel Cream

So, the chocolate flavour wasn't as great as the caramel one, since it was just a milder/maltier chocolate version of the bread-caramel flavoured one. I'm not sure whether I'm ever going to buy these again, because of the ingredients (a matter of principle, I guess), but I'm pretty sure I can emulate something like this in my kitchen...when I get home.

Brach's Jelly Nougat

The jelly was such a disappointment; you couldn't distinguish it from the nougat and it was basically hard chopped up jelly bean. The nougat was also sort of a disappointment because it tasted much too sweet, and not milky enough.

Brach's Neapolitan Coconut Sundae

Chewy, with a distinct not-really-coconut flavour. No chocolate/vanilla/straberry flavours, though :(

Sweet Tooth

For being in a really busy and popular neighbourhood, Sweet Tooth was remarkably empty. *sarcasm: Was it because it was a Saturday? At 1pm?* Isn't that the time when EVERYONE is swarming around stores? I passed by Jim's cheesesteaks, and the line literally went around the corner of the block.

So, why was Sweet Tooth empty?

I mean, look at all this candy, waiting to be bought!

However, the pricing threw me off a little. $2.54 (I think) for 0.25lb. That's about $10 for a pound of candy, compared to $4.99 at Sweet As Fudge Candy Shoppe, and I don't even want to compare the price of candy to the price of vegetables (much lower).

The bright side is that everything in the plastic containers is $2.54. This is great if you want to

1. Sample candy.

2. Buy candy that is priced at a higher value than $10/lb. For example, Jelly Belly beans definitely cost less than $10/lb, but mint malt balls may cost more.

Just this much candy amounted to about $3 (or more? I don't remember).

1. Orange cream coconut slice: very hard, a tad creamy and tangy, very sweet. Pretty good.

2. Neapolitan coconut slice: there was no difference in each flavour, which upset me :( because I expected a chocolate coconut part, a vanilla part, and a strawberry part. It tasted uniform, and was the same as the orange cream coconut slice, except not creamy. Not great.

3. Mango chili Jelly Belly bean: surprisingly spicy! Not much mango flavour, although a bit citrusy. Meh.

4. Weird bunny and carrot (pink and green): These tasted really really off. They had the texture of candy corn, but had the flavour of burnt or curdled caramel (?) or marshmallow. It was not delectable at all (in my opinion)!!

5. Mini pastel mints with the white 100s and 1000s ("100s and 1000s" is the name I've known: These aren't merely "sprinkles".)... they... were waxy and minty. Creamy and minty. I'm not really sure I'm acclimated to the taste.

6. Sour candy bacon: Okay, these aren't the real name for the sour candy strip, but I loved it. That is all.

Since I had to eat all my chocolate before it melted in the sun, I only bought two malt balls and some "moose" chocolate clusters, which tasted like a much more unrefined version of Nestle's Crunch candy. The malt balls were merely okay; the mint and latte flavours were not pronounced at all. I still miss Maltesers very much.

You can see the half-melted moose chocolate clusters in the bottom left corner of the above image.

I also got some Jordan Almonds because they were 1/2 off. Jordan Almonds are just almonds that are covered in a hard (yes, hard) candy shell that tastes like 100% sugar... no flavourings. It's super crunchy, and I guess I'm indifferent to them.

Since I've sampled all I want, I don't think I'm going back here. The price is a deterrence, it's kinda far, and although the selection is phenomenal, I don't really see why I would come here to buy my favourite candies that are available at any grocery store.

Sweet Tooth, 630 S 4th St.

Sweet As Fudge Candy Shoppe

Ah. Sugar.

$4.99/lb for the self-serve, and varying prices for other types. There was Turkish delight, fried egg gummies, peach Sour Patch candy (that I was extremely tempted to buy), and shelves of liquorice (ew...).

I was determined to try new candy, so I ended up putting a few novel pieces into paper bag from the self-serve place. I know that everything in the self-serve place can be bought from literally any grocery store/gas station, but I like this because I can buy one piece of candy instead of a pack of candy, which is great for sampling and blogging.

The Squirrel Nut Zipper has the most interesting name ever! It also tastes very interesting: burnt, barbecued, peanutty, and not too caramelly. It's very dense and chewy. There's PHO in it though, so I don't think I'm trying it again.

I also bought jelly mints and "cigarette" candy.

Okay, let me explain. I have one really strong memory about cigarette candy, which I will from now on refer to as "candy sticks". I was 5 or 6, in Australia, and my dad was driving our family to the Plaza, I think. Sitting in the backseats of the car, my brother and I were both sucking on these really chalky, not-super-great tasting candy sticks. We ate them slowly, pretending to smoke, holding them delicately in our hands.

That's my only vivid memory of them; I'm sure my parents probably bought them for us a few times (another childhood candy memory of mine is my brother and I eating a large pack - yes, a whole pack - of wine gums in one afternoon).

Evidently, the marketing of candy sticks in a box to resemble cigarettes didn't influence me or my brother to smoke. We despise it when people smoke, and cigarettes just rile us (I could go on...)

Anyway, I had to buy these Stallion ones (65c) because I feel really nostalgic about them, and I want to share that nostalgia with my brother (when I get home in - wow - 5.5 weeks!).

Unfortunately, they taste NOTHING like the candy sticks I had as a kid; those were pretty much icing sugar on a stick with some sort of solidifier. These taste like exceedingly bland and dry toothpaste. I am not kidding.

I bought the smallest packet of Jelly Mints, because I really wasn't sure whether I'd like them or not. It's very nice that they package the candy by weight.

I am extremely glad I bought the smallest pack! What I imagined was some kind of hard mint coating, with a gummy/jelly center (the consistency of gummy bears). I was so wrong! The coating is chalky, powdery, and not really minty. The inside "jelly" is hard and the consistency of candied fruit. The lemon and orange flavours are very pronounced, which is pretty nice. All is well, or so it seems.

There are two downsides to this packet of candy, and I can't figure out which is worse.

1. >60% of the bag is filled with LIQUORICE-flavoured jelly. I. Despise. Liquorice.

2. There were 5 green mints in total. Green was peppermint flavoured. The best one! Only five! In the whole bag! In all 0.6 lbs!

So, I'm never getting these again.

In all, Sweet As Fudge Candy Shoppe has pretty great pricing, especially if you're buying the bulk prepackaged stuff (not the self-serve stuff).

Epic Run Times

Run around town...Actually, once I got to 9th St., I started walking, and I walked four a few hours. Hehe. At least four hours.

I saw a bunch of giant cakes in a storefront, but the store looked like it was closed and there wasn't a door or anything. The cake looks pretty sumptuous.

I went to The Space Corner again and got dried roses (to make rose tea, rose water, and Turkish delight later when I get home) for $1, mango black tea ($1) and cream of tartar.

Then I walked around the "Little Italy" area of Philadelphia and checked out the market on the pavement...and I noted that Italians aren't the ones who sell the vegetables, which is kind of ironic I guess. I bought some red peppers and walked over to a candy store, Sweet Tooth, on the corner of South and 4th. I'll update about that later.

Then, I went to Reading Terminal Market and saw this at one of the chocolate stores...which I like. Haha. Screw the diet.

At Reading Terminal Market, I dropped by the Sweet as Fudge Candy Shoppe to buy some pretty delicious morsels of sugar. That'll be another blog post.

After getting to Chinatown, I walked past a dingy little store with a zillion boxes in the store front. Then, I realised that it was a fortune cookie factory, which is pretty amusing in my opinion.

I dropped by the Mayflower bakery to get some bubble tea.

I was shocked. They had kiwi bubble tea. They had avocado bubble tea. I couldn't believe it; AVOCADO BUBBLE TEA! This is when I'm glad I'm bilingual; I asked if they used real avocado, and the lady picked up an actual avocado and said, yes, we use real avocado. It's kind of funny because on the shelf above the sinks, there were tons of boxes of powder, labelled "taro" or "coconut" or whatever.

She cut up half an avocado, used half-and-half milk, (and sugar?) and added crushed ice at some point. In all honesty, it was more of a smoothie than a "tea" or drink.

The smoothie was very thick, and tasted mildly of fresh avocado. I was surprised that avocado tastes good when it's sweet, although I prefer it in avocado sushi with soy sauce. I suppose avocado's sort of like peanut butter; both incorporated in sweet and savoury dishes.

I was really thirsty, so I ended up drinking all the slushie (oh so thick and my favourite colour and nicely textured!), and there were lots of bubbles left. The bubbles were really chewy, and not overcooked. I would really recommend Mayflower Bakery. 1008 Race St.

After a bit, I went to KC's Pastries and got a sweet yam tart, which I've never had before. Egg tart, sure, and coconut tart, but not a sweet yam tart!

Unlike other bakeries, KC's Pastries doesn't have seating, so I went to eat at Reading Terminal Market.

The yam tart was surprisingly gelatinous. It was like a super-thick pudding.

The pastry was just normal and bland.

I dropped by some grocery stores to get some vegetables and Chinese snacks.

Then I went to Cube Cafe, intending to get some eggettes ($1.95), but I was so thirsty as opposed to hungry. I contemplated bringing some eggettes home. Instead, after chatting to the shopkeepers (who were very helpful with explaining dishes and drinks), I got the Icy Poppy Drink.

I've been abstaining from soda for the past half-a-decade (I think?), partly because of the high-fructose corn syrup thing, and partly because I've just been indifferent to it (e.g. the way I'm indifferent to baklava). This drink is basically some sort of clear soda with mango bubbles.

Now, the bubbles are the strange exotic things. Once popped, the bubbles reveal a thick mango goo. I'm not sure what the covering of the goo is; it seems to be some cellulose fibre. It's an interesting concept, but I don't think that I'm going to get it again. It's an ephemeral toy.

On the way back, I got samples of hummus and chips. "Why are you guys giving out free hummus?"

"Oh, it's cuz a lot of us still don't know what hummus is, so we're giving it out to people"

Cool.

I also saw Wizard Con, like Comic Con, but I didn't get in because I needed tickets.

At Rittenhouse, I got a free can of coffee.

Nice day for food.

Sweet Tooth, 630 S 4th St.

Sweet As Fudge Candy Shoppe, 12th and Arch St.

Mayflower Bakery, 1008 Race St.

KC's Pastries, 109 N 10th St.

Cube Cafe, 145 N 11th St.

Graham Cracker Houses Studded with Sugar

Is it bird or a plane?! It's... both. It's in the bird's eye [or plane] point of view! So, the question is, is it a tree or a house? It looks like a Christmas tree, sure, but it's actually...

GRAHAM CRACKER HOUSE! Whoot! I don't really eat graham crackers [ever since I found out there's PHO in them... I don't like trans fat], and I don't eat premade icing either [PHO], but it was sure fun creating houses! I decided to make a triangular one because... well, everyone elses' houses' angles added up to 360 degrees. Or two pi [aw, I can't make a pie joke here!], so I decided I just wanted one pi.

It looks like a monster... note the eyes, the wrapper nose, and the tongue/path thingy. "Why the long face?" Haha...

AK had a graham cracker house party, so that's why there are all these houses [and one igloo!]. AK's house looks like a summer outhouse! :D

The ingredients included: graham crackers, brown or white icing, M&Ms, York peppermint pieces, gummy worms [well. Those got eaten...], gummy bears, marshmallows, yucky gumdrops, dots, fat jelly beans, Skittles and Rolos.

I need to make some gingerbread... Well, that'll be something I'll do on the 26th.

None of this food is healthy. Maybe there are vegetable/fruit/whole grain houses, out there, for Christmas, but the kids would overwhelmingly prefer sugar-sprinkled houses, right? It's the activity to do, even for people who don't actually believe in Christmas. It's become a holiday that's commercialized, and I'm not sure why I'm partaking in this commercialism. And this weight gain...