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.

• Apple Crumb Pie - made with real Granny Smith apples and cinnamon
• Strawberry Pie - features fresh strawberries, sugar and butter, like the summer pie filling
• Key Lime - condensed milk, vanilla and lime juice inside a white chocolate shell
• Lemon Meringue - white chocolate with a meringue-textured lemon filling
• Banana Cream Pie - a mix of banana and vanilla in a white chocolate ganache
• Chocolate Peanut Butter Pie - combines natural-style peanut butter and chocolate cream
• Chocolate Cream Pie - a 72% chocolate truffle center in dark chocolate
• Pecan Pie - pecans mixed into a molasses flavored milk caramel and mixed with milk and dark chocolate

It looks like the good people at Reese's have been inspired by the King - Elvis Presley. The new limited edition Reese's have a two-layered filling of peanut butter and banana creme, in a candy rendition of Elvis's favorite peanut butter sandwich. Even if you don't really think too much of Elvis, any combination of peanut butter, bananas and chocolate is bound to be a good one because the elements work well individually, as well as when put together. Junk Food Blog says that they are now available in the US, but gives no indication of where they might have been sold before. The Reese's website doesn't mention them at all. I have yet to see any in my local stores. Were they first released near Graceland? If anyone has had the chance to taste this creation, let us know how they turned out in the comments.

By and large, commercial coffee pods do not produce the best brews, not by a long shot. At their best they taste flat and one-dimensional, while at their worst they taste, sour, stale, bitter and just generally bad. The pods seem like a good idea because they are so convenient, but it really just isn't worth it if you actually want something drinkable. Your best bet for a quality brew is to stick with freshly ground coffee, but even pre-ground and packed coffee (e.g. Folgers) will turn out a better end result in most cases.

If you are set on using a pod for the convenience factor, however, there are some options besides the pre-made, pre-packed disasters. For example, you can attempt to make some by hand, but why expend all that effort when you could get a Perfect Pod to do it for you. The gadget uses pre-cut pod papers and heat-seals them once you have filled them up with just the right amount of your favorite (fresh!) coffee to brew the perfect cup. The pods work with most pod-using machines and paper refills are sold separately. The Perfect Pod retails for about $40.

[via popgadget]

How can you tell when a celebrity is doing something just for the money? It is easy when they don't even attempt to conceal the fact that they dislike the product that bears their name. Gordon Ramsay, for example, doesn't seem to think that his new line of chocolates, called Just Desserts, are anything special. He said "I don't think you are going to be blown away at £3.99-odd for a box."

While it is true that price can be an indicator of quality, shouldn't Ramsey have tried to get the product to be a really superior one for its price range? A random chocolate from a relatively inexpensive box obviously wouldn't stand up to a single, carefully-crafted truffle that costs as much as that whole box, but with an endorsement from Ramsay, consumers are at least expecting to get something worth what they paid.

The chocolates, if you are interested, are available in the UK at various major retailers, including Sainsbury's.

We love coffee - a sentiment that most bloggers probably share - but you cannot subsist on coffee alone and the pastries at coffee shops often leave much to be desired when it comes to flavor, as well as a little extra that we don't desire around our waists. With coffee and better-for-you options already on our minds, the new granola bars from Caribou Coffee caught our attention right away. The bars come in two coffee flavors - Vanilla Latte and Chocolate Mocha - but have only as much caffeine as decaf coffee, despite their taste. Each bar has about 140 calories and 3 grams of fat. Caribou says that they're a good source of calcium and whole grains, too.

Both flavors of bar are available online, so you can pick them up without trying to hunt down a store that carries them.

Somewhere around 25% of coffee drinkers in the US now prefer their coffee with a flavor, such as hazelnut or vanilla, and at least that many use calorie-free sweeteners in place of sugar on a regular basis. Splenda's new Flavor Blends for Coffee combine those concepts. They are packets of sweetener flavored to taste like French Vanilla, Hazelnut and Mocha, allowing consumers to "customize hot beverages at home or on the go with no calories."

The Flavor Blends only launched this week, so they might not be in stores in your area yet, but for fans of Splenda, they sound very promising. They will be ideal for using at the office, rather than going out to Starbucks for a high-calorie (and relatively high-cost) mocha. Their small size also allows them be tucked into a purse or coat pocket when traveling, but they will work well for regular home use, too.

There are some coffee shops that have a wide variety of teas, usually loose-leaf, in addition to their selection of coffee and espresso drinks. On more than one occasion, I have seen customers become irate when trying to order tea, insisting that they "just want tea" as the girl behind the register gently tries to explain that there are, in fact, many kinds of tea. The shops should just keep a stash of Lipton teabags in the back for these types of customers because that is the generic tea that they are most often referring to. It is a tea that they have grown up with, though they often know little about it.

The mindset that there is but one type of tea is changing and the tea-drinking population is developing a newfound appreciation for different types of teas. As a result, even Lipton is coming out with some variety.

Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet, which is known for their grills and outdoor kitchens, has just introduced a new product that will have pizza lovers pining: an artisan pizza oven. The oven has a 30,000 BTU burner (gas or propane) to get the heat level just right, and a wood-chip drawer so you can add in some of the smoky flavor a wood-burning oven would naturally provide. Under the low, domed roof, the floor of the oven is a professional composite baking stone that will turn out perfect crusts on pizzas (and breads) every time it is used. Unlike smaller stones that are used for baking in regular ovens, according to the manufacturer, this one will not become brittle or crack even after repeated or extended use.

It is made of stainless steel with a double-wall insulated design, so one of the best features of the oven is not just that it will produce pizza that is much better than you could make with a standard kitchen oven, but that it is very safe, despite the high heat that it operates at.

The ovens will be available for purchase next month, with a price tag of $3,900 each. They certainly aren't cheap, but if you really love your pizza, it might just be worth it.

[via Trendir]

Hendrix Electric Vodka is named after - you guessed it - Jimi Hendrix. The super-premium grain vodka that is handmade in Idaho using a blend of corn and rye, then filtered through carbon and crystal to create a clean, pure flavor. All are packaged in elegant, angular bottles and it has been spotted at many star-studded events, impressive for a drink that was released only this year. Pomegranate and Habenero Pepper flavored vodkas will be making their debut this fall.

In addition to the flavored vodkas, the company released a limited edition run of 5,000 purple bottles, signed by drummer Buddy Miles, which is sure to become a collectors' item among Hendrix fans.

Hendrix Electric Tequila and Rum are next in the product line, though there is no release date for either as yet.

Anna, from Cookie Madness, made a great find the other day at her local supermarket in Austin: Dulce de Leche Oreos. These limited edition cookies aim to pair a slightly milky caramel-flavored cream filling with the classic chocolate wafer cookies of Oreos, though Anna said that the filling tasted mostly buttery with only notes of caramel.

For some reason, the limited edition cookies are not listed on the main Oreo website, though they do get a brief mention on the wiki entry for Oreos and I finally found them listed on the Comida Kraft site, Kraft's spanish-language counterpart, which may be an indication that the cookies are not going to be mass marketed in quite the same way that the peanut butter and mint chocolate Oreos were when those flavors were first released. And buttery or not, the chocolate/caramel combination still sound like a promising one for Oreos, so keep an eye out for them.

The idea of a flavored wrap isn't too unusual. Spinach and sun-dried tomato wraps, both of which are little more than colorful flour tortillas, have been popular for quite some time, perhaps even gaining in popularity as people seem to opt for soft tacos over the crunchy variety. But Old El Paso is launching some flavored hard taco shells in an attempt to capture some new interest in the crunchy shells. The shells come in Salsa and Nacho flavors and are designed with a slightly flat bottom that allows them to stand upright on their own, so they're easier to fill and serve.

Plain corn and flour tortillas will still be my favorites, but if you really like crunchy shells, this could be a nice chage from tradition.