"candy bar" news and stories

A Blue- and-White-Themed Candy Bar. Photo: Sarah De Heer.

With 23 days to go until Jon and I say "I do," we're still debating our favors. While we have narrowed it down, I've decided to offer an array of items instead of just one. In the meantime, Jon and I have attended two very special weddings (Jon's good friends from high school and college), and both offered candy bars on top of handing out favors.

Both sweet tables were decked out with some of the best and most color-coordinated treats. The first wedding focused on a blue-and-white theme (colors of the wedding) with sweets such as malt balls, chocolate-covered pretzels, nonpareils and shark gummies.

The second wedding offered more nostalgic options such as Dots (my favorite), gummies, rock candy and what seemed to be a total hit with the crowd -- Ring Pops! Sitting back on a couch during the afterparty, I was tickled to see our friends walking around in their Sunday best with Ring Pops on their hands.

Sometimes you feel like a candy bar nut. Sometimes you don't. Can you ID these popular (and some not so popular) candy bars by looking at a cross section?

See all our fun food quizzes and share your score in the comments below.

I think that Cybele, who writes Candy Blog, gets a lot of her candy samples from convenience stores, which are more likely to stock the limited edition varieties of bars than the average grocery store. It just so happened that, while on a little bit of a road trip, I spotted this Limited Edition Triple Chocolate Twix in such a store.

The bar had the same milky, sweet chocolate covering that most Twix bars do, but also had a layer of chocolate caramel on top of a chocolate cookie. The cookie went wonderfully in the bar. It had a good chocolate flavor and was very light and tender, especially when compared to the much firmer cookie that is usually included in the candy bar. The caramel did not seem all that chocolaty when eaten alone, but it really tied the chocolate coating in to the chocolate cookie. When taken as a whole, the bar was excellent. It was lighter and more addictive than the standard Twix, with a good balance of chocolate and sweetness. It's hard to say how long a limited edition bar will stick around once it has been released, but this flavor is clearly a winner, so let's hope it is available for more than a couple of weeks.

Joe, at Culinary in the Desert Country, usually does a great job with plating and photographing the recipes that he blogs, in addition to choosing ones that sound promising in the first place. His Snickers Fudge takes the cake, though. Not only does it look perfectly made and far better than a "real" Snickers bar could hope to, but it sounds even more decadent than the popular candy bar. The one significant twist that his recipe offers is that it has peanut butter in several of the layers, adding a distinctive richness to the chocolate layers and the nougat. (Snickers - are you listening?) Normally, making the nougat would be a challenging endeavor for even experienced cooks, but this version is made in part with marshmallow creme - hence the designation of the recipe as fudge - and has a fluffy texture. Salted peanuts are folded into the layer before it is topped of with a thick layer of chewy caramel. Joe points out that the only thing difficult about making these is that you have to wait for each layer to set up before moving on. The actual work is very simple and primarily involves melting and spreading, so this might be a fun thing to make with your kids over the holidays

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This Tuesday, as the sun sets and parents sit in an annoyingly sluggish commute because everyone leaves work at the same time that night, children across the country will don costumes and 93% of them will head out to trick-or-treat. We already know that their primary goal is to collect as much candy as possible, but what kind of candy will they end up getting? The most often handed-out candy is of the bite-sized (or snack/fun/treat sized) chocolate variety, mostly miniature versions of popular candy bars. For those that are lucky enough to live in generous neighborhoods, 26% of candy-givers pass out full-sized candies, not the minis. A rare few will get king-sized bars, the most coveted of all Halloween candy. Half of all kids say that chocolates are their favorite candies to receive, followed by non-chocolate (24%) and gum (10%).

Let's not forget the parents, though. They are the other group of big Halloween candy eaters. The parents get the leftover candies that were not passed out by the end of the night, and 90% of parents "admit to sneaking goodies from their kids' Halloween trick-or-treat bags." Like the children, the adults go for the chocolates and nearly 70% of them reach for the mini candy bars, too.

So kids, let this be a lesson to you to hide or count your candy to keep track of it. And parents, buy yourself and extra bag when you're at the store so you don't have to take it from your kids.

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