I'm in one of my favorite stores, World Market, and they have quite an extensive selection of international candies and confections - so I pick up a couple I haven't seen before to review for CandySnob.com. The first one I picked up was Fry's Turkish Delight. Fry's was launched in 1914, and is now owned by Cadbury. The bar also seems to be popular in the UK, Ireland and Australia. So when the wrapper states "As Good as Ever" - they mean it.
Turkish Delight is a small bar (1.8 oz.) in a purple foil wrapper. The wrapper says boldly, "Full of Eastern Promise" - which apparently has been the slogan since the 1950s, even on TV ads. "Turkish Delight," I have learned, is more than the candy bar's name, it is actually another name for lokum (or loukoum), which is a confection made from starch and sugar, often flavored with rosewater and/or lemon.
I thought I was buying a chocolate bar, maybe with truffle. That's what it was shaped like and felt like. While I was paying attention to the taglines, I did not see the "Milk Chocolate with Jelly Center" on the side of the package. Had I seen that, my buying decision might have been different. Maybe not though, the Candy Snob is nothing if not adventurous.
The milk chocolate was fine, good even, typical Cadbury milk chocolate. The jelly filling was Turkish Delight of the rose-flavored variety, which gives it a pale pink color. The jelly is soft but firm, and a little bit sticky. First off, because I wasn't expecting it, the texture/flavor combo of the jelly and chocolate really threw me off. After the first bite, what was surprise turned to revulsion. The texture is just wrong, the jelly has the consistency and firmness of dried out aspic. But even dried out aspic would seem more natural than this plastic-like jelly. And granted, rose flavoring isn't my favorite in general. But its downright unpalatable with milk chocolate.
In my three decades of eating candy, and over 6-months writing a candy blog, I have never thrown out an unfinished piece of candy...until now.
I think that instead of "Turkish Delight," they should call the bar "Turkish Disgust."
The good news? It is widely marketed as being 92% fat-free. Its especially good for your waistline if you only eat two bites...
If my review hasn't scared you off, you can get Fry's Turkish Delight, and other types of Turkish Delight, here.
Background info and photo via wikipedia, because I threw this away before I had a chance to take pictures.
Candy companies hoping "functional" health benefits help business
Candy companies are betting that the trend toward healthy foods will extend to their confections - Cadbury, Wrigley and Mars are all launching new gums and candies this summer designed to provide health benefits. The "functional" candy category has grown in 2006, up nearly 2% to $1.5 billion.
For Cadbury - a new gum line called Trident Xtra Care. Its made with recaldent, a form of calcium derived from milk that has been shown to strengthen tooth enamel by filling in crevices where cavities can form. FYI - recaldent is already being used in Trident White (also from Cadbury), but Xtra Care will 2x as much.
For Wrigley - a new line of its Eclipse gum and mints formulated with magnolia bark extract (MBE), a substance that is supposed to help bad breath.
For Mars - two new lines of vitamin-enriched Dove chocolates earlier this year - Dove Vitalize (with vitamin B and plant sterols) and Dove Beautiful (with vitamins C and E, biotin and zinc).
If you hadn't already realized, as we hadn't, Cadbury Creme Eggs appear to have been shrinking. Click here to read more on Consumerist. Or click here to see BJ Novak from The Office talk about it on Conan O'Brien.
People familiar with the matter said the two companies are not in talks now. But Hershey executives Monday were examining potential next steps, and the two could resume talks after Cadbury makes a previously planned move of separating its drinks business from its candy business on Friday, according to one of these people.
Remember when we covered the funny Cadbury ad featuring the drumming gorilla (Cadbury gets a gorilla for its spokesperson)? If not check it out, but there is a new installment as well, this time, no gorilla, and no candy actually, but airport vehicles racing. Doesn't that scream "CANDY!" to you???
Cadbury has arguably the best milk chocolate around, we know this. How much milk is actually in a Cadbury Milk Chocolate bar? Well, you'll just have to watch this funny ad.
Cocoa Farmers To Benefit From New Partnership With Chocolate Giant Cadbury
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is setting up a partnership with the confectionery conglomerate Cadbury to support cocoa-farming communities in Ghana, India, Indonesia and the Caribbean by helping them to boost their crop yields, find new sources of income and improve local infrastructure.
More on those poor Cadbury Creme Eggs, BrandRepublic reports that Cadbury is promoting the Creme Egg with a major digital marketing campaign - moving towards the big Easter selling season. The campain is based on the 'Here today, goo tomorrow' concept used in its latest ad campaign, and covered on CandySnob.
I could go on about my opinion of the actual site, from a marketing and web design standpoint, but that's not the purpose of this blog. Instead, I will say with conviction that it is a fun, jovial site - with things such as Creme Egg personality tests and the "Goo-ometer." Enjoy!
Its blasphemy, really. Chocolate is meant to have cocoa butter in it. If you don't want to gain weight, don't eat as much. If global economic and political issues are causing prices to rise, we as consumers will have to suck it up and pay more. But we SHOULD NOT allow a main ingredient to chocolate to be replaced.
From "Chocolate Wars" in Conde' Nast Portfolio:
"There is a regulatory dustup over whether the traditional standards for making chocolate in the United States ought to be changed. It revolves around the question of whether a simple and elegant ingredient known as cocoa butter, which gives chocolate its creamy smoothness and texture, can be replaced, at least in part, by cheaper ingredients.
The disagreement involves the Food and Drug Administration, the federal arbiter of food standards, and has pitted mass candy manufacturers such as Hershey and Nestlé against smaller, higher-end chocolate makers such as 139-year-old Guittard Chocolateand See’s Candies...
Here’s the issue: For as long as chocolate has been made, it’s been smoothed out with the elixir called cocoa butter, an emulsified form of cacao that gives the finished product its silky texture. In the United States, the F.D.A. mandates that a product can’t legally be labeled as chocolate unless cocoa butter is part of the formula. But because of a drought and political violence in Ivory Coast, a major source for cacao beans, the price of cocoa butter has skyrocketed. This has prompted some of the major chocolate makers, Hershey among them, to lobby the F.D.A. by way of a trade-group petition for a change that would let them substitute such cheaper ingredients as vegetable oil and dried milk for cocoa butter and still call their products chocolate..."
Warren Buffet (owner of See's) said it best, "“If you’ve got recipes that people like, you don’t change them.”
Amen brother!
This is just more bullying by the big candy makers. We loveHershey's,Nestle,M&M/Marsand Cadbury...but they already dominate the grocery and convenience stores. They should not further squeeze the already tight margins of the higher end chocolate makers.
Review: Fry's Turkish Delight
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