What was your first candy bar? Butterfinger or Snickers maybe? Did you ever wonder where the first candy bar came from. Yes, there is that story about Joseph Fry in the 1800s, but there could a candy bar that arrived much much earlier than that. And now it’s back!

In San Francisco recently, the 37th annual Fancy Food Show featured three modern versions of what could be called the first candy bars ever. It’s called panforte and it originated in Italy during the time of the Crusades as early as the 11th Century.

It’s not a candy bar like you’d find today, it’s more of a very dense fruit and honey cake. In fact the word, panforte, literally means “strong bread”. But all the key ingredients are there: sugar, nuts, cinnamon, honey and more. And it’s made in a really similar fashion to many other candies we know and love, by heating sugar and honey to a high enough temperature to change their consistency to a hardened state.

Now they’re coming back as a high-end dessert item. Several companies in California have begun making this medieval treat again and say that using local ingredients have made panforte more palatable to the modern candy lover. From dates to dried papaya, the ingredients vary slightly depending on the batch. Recent versions are reportedly softer and not as rock hard as their ancestor versions.

Most of the current panforte connoisseurs laud the flexibility they have to be eaten as appetizers or desserts or even with a cheese platter. A candy bar for appetizer and dessert!? Sign me up.

If you’re interested in finding out more about Panforte, check out these resources:

Panforte Company
From Napa (image source)
Huffington Post

We’re suckers for a great story about kids and candy. Maybe that’s why I had to write up this story about an English girl who won herself 443 jelly beans.

That’s a lot of jelly beans for a young lady of 5 years. She earned them in a local contest held this past holiday season where participants were asked to guess how many jelly beans were in the prize jar. Ms. Ella Walsh stepped right up and said “444”!

That was, of course, not technically the correct answer, but since she and one other contestant were only off by one measly jelly bean, they were declared the finalists in the contest. So what does one do to determine the winner of a contest when the finalists already know they’re very close to the real number? Make them guess again and see who gets closer the second time?

Nope. Just a simple name drawn out of a hat. But judging from her adorable picture, we all know that it was not chance that won her those jelly beans, it was truly destiny.

She is pretty cute, huh?

Congratulations, Ella!

Wexford People

Supporting our troops is an important role for all civilians in this country. No one knows what our boys (and young women) need more than a Fort Benning, Ga. Organization that encourages donations of items, like candy in bulk, that come highly recommended from our troops abroad.

Goodies For Our Troops is led by founder and co-director Dawn Pletcher who organizes the collection and packaging of the goodies. Their stated mission is actually to help not only those military families that are living overses, but also those who themselves live at Fort Benning. Everything form boxer shorts and deodorant to canned fruits and, of course, candy.

When asked to list some of the top needs for the troops, candy items frequently came up. Most likely they cannot find abroad the candy they are used to in America. Items like Tootsie Roll midgees, Fun Size M&Ms, and Reese’s Pieces were mentioned along with good old milk chocolate candy bars and hard candy lollipops. Bulk candy and other comforts from home can help boost morale and help remind them that the people back home are thinking of them and support them.

Other food items that cracked the most popular list are beef jerky, Oreo cookies, chicken and tuna salad. Those go along with health products like hand sanitizer, travel sized body wash, disposable razors and foot aids as highly requested. Entertainment products like DVDs and video games are also in high demand, but fall a little further down the list than these other, more essential items.

Goodies For Our Troops does a great job and could always use your support in donations or other ways. If you are in the Fort Benning area and would like to contribute or would like to have someone you know added to the military recipients list, contact Dawn Pletcher at Goodies@ptd.net.

Keep up the good work, Dawn!

Also check out their page on Facebook
image credit: from their Facebook page.
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The cost of food has gone up a lot in recent years. Basic ingredients, like sugar, are more expensive than ever and candy makers all over America are feeling the pinch. So when the state of Colorado decided to raise taxes on candy, Rick Enstrom knew what he had to do. Get elected to State Congress.

What better way to overturn these candy taxes than to join the ranks of the legislators and de-legislate the tax. Of course, that’s not Mr. Enstrom’s entire campaign platform (though we would still support him if it were!), but his family connection to a toffee company in Colorado cannot be overlooked among the circumstances of this election.

A few years back, when the new tax was first introduced, Mr. Enstrom spoke up for small candy businesses across Colorado not only as a small businessman himself but as a member of the Nation Confectioners Association. His derision of the law brought him a lot of attention at the time.

The opportunity to run for office presented itself when the legislative maps in his county were re-drawn according to a law passed by the opposition party. Since the district has been changed, the former representative decided to run for the Senate, leaving a vacancy that Mr. Enstrom no doubt saw as his opportunity to change the candy oppressors’ laws of the land!

Though we like to play up his savvy candy business experience, Mr. Enstrom has been an elected official in the past. At the age of 24, he became the youngest person ever to be elected a County Commissioner in Colorado. He followed that up with a stint as the State Wildlife Commissioner. So he has been in politics before. And his position on education reads like a passionate one.

We salute you, Rick Enstrom. May candy men and women all over be elected to office and promote a love for candy from sea to shining sea!

Colorado Statesman

Who doesn’t want a refrigerator filled with Jelly Beans? When LG presented their latest refrigerator at the recent CES (“Consumer Electronics Show”?), they must have known my family was on the market for a new fridge. They filled it with a billion jelly beans!

Ok, not quite a billion, but 264,863 is a very large number of jelly beans. Colorful, sweet and delicious, these candies are not normally kept in the ol’ ice box, but if you were to want to do just that, this LG appliance can hold an awfully lot of them. …as this photo from Gizmodo illustrates.

The 31 cubic feet refrigerator is the largest capacity fridge in the LG lineup and also holds other foods like milk, lettuce and frozen tacos. Not that my kids care much about those things. Now that they’ve seen this fridge, I think we’re pretty sure they’re pulling jelly beans off the warehouse shelf right now with a forklift…

If you would like to buy this fridge, check it out at LG’s website, and check out our bulk jelly beans page to fill it up.

Image and story from Gizmodo

Who knows more about the taste of jelly beans than kids, right? Why listen to some adult who is probably trying to sell you something, when you can get your data directly from the source. These two girls break it down like the pros they are.

The girl on the right got a box of assorted Jelly Belly jelly beans for her birthday and is putting them to good use here by sharing her candy ratings and reviews with the world (and her friend).

Starting with very Cherry (they loved it) and going all the way down to black licorice (disgusting!), these girls go one by one through the top 20 flavors of Jelly Belly’s and tell you what you should think about each one. Their brutal honesty can only be truly appreciated by watching the full video.

And once you do, you’ll know that these girls pull no punches and give it to you as straight up as possible. When they love it, they are professional and approving, and when it is not their cup of tea, they frown and fake puke and look personally offended by the taste of the candy in their mouth.

A brief excerpt from their review of the Toast Marshmallow flavor jelly bellys illustrates the genius of their descriptions:

“it kinda looks like poop, like, mixed with pee”

You can’t buy that kind of honesty.

Check out their video on YouTube, and get all your favorite Jelly Belly flavors from ACandyStore.com