People in Vancouver are lucky; they can drive down to Butter Baked Goods and pick up their handmade marshmallows. While the store does not have online sales, we had the pleasure of tasting the marshmallows at a trade show earlier this year, and recently came across the marshmallows at Dean and DeLuca.

Of course we bought them, and they were just as good as we remembered—airy, delicate and beautifully flavored. You can send them as a Thanksgiving or holiday gift via DeanandDeluca.com: three gift-boxed bags in Pumpkin Spice, Toasted Coconut and Vanilla are $28.00. (When you get to the site, search for “marshmallows.”)

Gourmet marshmallows are one of our favorite sweet treats: made from egg whites, sugar, gelatin and flavoring, there’s no fat or cholesterol,* and one large marshmallow is very satisfying. You can put them in hot chocolate, craft gourmet s’mores and use them as accents with other desserts.

Toasted Coconut Marshmallows from Butter
Baked Goods. Photo by Hannah Kaminsky | THE NIBBLE.

*You may get a bit of fat from added toppings, like chocolate morsels or coconut.

Tell every bacon addict with a sweet tooth about the Pig Out! package from Roni~Sue Chocolates: an assortment of bacon candy for $30.00 that includes:

Our favorite is the caramel corn—it’s light and crunchy and difficult to put down. But all three bacony treats will make a bacon lover squeal.

Bacon Toffee has the usual elements—plus
small pieces of smoky bacon mixed in with
the nuts. Photo by Evan Dempsey | THE NIBBLE.

Chocolate Bellboy Skull from Woodhouse
Chocolate.

Here’s what we want in our trick-or-treat bag:

The Browniepops Halloween collection, chocolate-dipped sea salt caramel apples from Cocoa Dolce, pumpkin marshmallows from Pete’s Gourmet, burnt caramel Halloween bonbons from Recchiuti Confections, monster cookies from Rolling Pin Productions, the chocolate skeleton bride and groom from Sahagùn Chocolates, the chocolate-covered Halloween strawberries from Secret Spoon, Woodhouse Chocolate’s “bellboy” chocolate skulls and John & Kira’s fig pumpkins (see the post below).

Are we gluttonous? No, just obsessed with the best—and we share generously!

Dried fruit and nut mixes have probably been popular since the dawn of man. It wouldn’t have taken much for a hunter-gatherer to combine some raisins from wild grapevines with crunchy nuts and deem the combination better than either food alone.

But it’s taken until recent times for fruit and nut mixes to be seasoned so deftly that the snack is better than ever. One practitioner of the art is Lambie Stout, a mom and cancer survivor from Toledo who gives 5% of the proceeds of Comfort Crunch to cancer research.

Comfort Crunch is available in four varieties including one vegan recipe (the Original). The mixes of fresh, crunchy nuts and moist dried fruits are enhanced with crystallized ginger and pepitas, chocolate-covered ginger or chocolate-covered toffee.

A healthy, indulgent snack, the chic minimalist packaging makes a yummy stocking stuffer. There’s also lovely holiday packaging that hold two bags (see the website, ComfortCrunch.com, for gift options). If you’re looking for corporate gifts, you can’t go wrong with this feel-good option.

Comfort Crunch brings tidings of comfort and joy.
Stock up for the holidays! Photo by Hannah
Kaminsky | THE NIBBLE.

Yearning for a lollipop, but saddled with a sophisticated palate? Katie Das understands. Maker of Das Caramelini fabulously flavored salt caramels (a NIBBLE Top Pick Of The Week), Katie has put her flavor skills to work on suckers. Now appearing at the end of a stick are:

The bacon lollipop, “Man Bait,” has real bits
of bacon and is sweetened with real maple syrup.

And what better time to order a batch than today, National Lollipop Day? The lollys are available in single flavors or an assortment at DasFoods.com.

The lollipops are all natural, made with fruit, herb and spice extracts, no corn syrup. Each .3-ounce lollipop is 30 calories and 50 cents.

We’re not saying that Mr. and Mrs. Raisinet take their time, but 80 years after the birth of original chocolate-covered raisins, there’s finally a little sister: new Cranberry Raisinets. The bouncing addition to the family of 100% chocolate-covered whole dried fruits is a superfruit, a natural food source that is highly concentrated with a complex supply of quality nutrients, including antioxidants. Ocean Spray Cranberries, the surrogate mother, is the nation’s number one cranberry supplier. With “½ serving of real fruit in every ¼ cup,” Cranberry Raisinets are available nationwide in a resealable 5.5-ounce bag (MSRP $3.29) and single-serve .81-ounce 100 Calorie Packs (shown in photo—MSRP $0.89 each).

The Pilgrims first encountered cranberries when they settled in what is now Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Cranberries have two powerful antioxidants, flavanoids and Vitamin C, which have been shown to help the body fight free radicals. Cranberries have long been used medicinally for prevention and treatment of urinary tract infection, gum disease, stomach ulcers, heart disease and cancer. For health purposes, though, consult with your healthcare practitioner—don’t count on Cranberry Raisinets.

New Cranberry Raisinets in 100 Calorie Packs. Photo by Emily Chang | THE NIBBLE.

Amella’s Black Forest Caramel: chocolate
caramel with cherries, creamy white icing
and shaved chocolate—just like a Black
Forest cake.

Amella Cocoa Butter Caramels are lip-smackingly good, made with butter, cream and real fruits and vegetables. Vegetables? Yes, in the Carrot Cake caramel. Aside from carrots, the twist that makes these different from other gourmet caramels is the addition of cocoa butter, which adds the silkiness to chocolate. Each caramel is hand-cut and individually hand-dipped, so no two are exactly identical (just like snowflakes!). They’re also certified kosher, all-natural, preservative-free and made in alluring flavors: Black Forest Cake, Passion Fruit and the aforementioned Carrot Cake.

In charming little boxes that hold three precious caramels, these are gifts for someone special, party favors, or pesonal treats because you deserve it. Read our full review.

This past Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, we tripped the light fantastic* (actually, lumbered around on a very hard concrete floor) of the Jacob Javits Center in New York City, along with some 24,000 other attendees in search of the newest specialty foods—140,000 were on display.

Usually we do a Best of Show list—and we’ll get to it over the weekend—but there was one standout as Strangest Of Show. That award goes to the new jelly bean Superfruit Mix from Jelly Belly, “sure to be a best super seller. Order today and take advantage of the hottest trend in today’s market.”

*The phrase, “trip the light fantastick,” was first published by John Milton in his 1645 poem, “L’Allegro.” Unlike its meaning in the acid culture of the 1960s, in the 1600s, “tripping” meant to dance. Light meant you were dancing nimbly, and fantastick was a compliment to the skill of the dancer.

The açaí-flavored Jelly Belly. Earth to consumers: There is no antioxidant health benefit in “superfruit” jelly beans.

In fact, Jelly Belly took out a full page ad on the back page of the show directory, reminding retailers that forecasts peg the superfoods category as a $10 billion global industry by 2011, and Jelly Belly is poised to help them “capitalize on this fast-growing trend with their Superfruit Mix. Several thousand new superfruit products entered the marketplace in 2007-2008….Superfruits like the new, trendy Acai [sic] berry is at the center of this trend….as consumers increasingly turned to its juice for a delicious gulp of nutrients and antioxidants. On top of the trends as always, Jelly Belly has included Acai in their new Superfruit Mix.”

Ahem—is there a disconnect here? Consumers drink açaí juice for its antioxidants, but nobody except the truly delusional would eat jelly beans for the implied, although never stated, “nutrients and antioxidants.” This is the equivalent of a taffy company saying that, “Green tea is at the height of consumer interest, and our green tea-flavored taffy is poised to help you capitalize on consumers’ focus on green tea.” Are we that much of a self-deluding group of consumers?

The ad goes on to report that the açaĂ­ berry—the proper spelling and capitalization; for the record, the pronunciation is ah-sigh-YEE—was the overwhelming winner of last year’s Jelly Belly Dream Bean contest. Yes, 18,000 consumers voted to make it the new Jelly Belly flavor. It’s the headliner of the new Superfruit Mix, which “features real fruit juices and purĂ©es from Acai Berries, Barbados Cherries, Blueberries, Cranberries and Pomegranates….”

A little grounding in reality: You need to eat the pure fruit or its juice in order to get your dose of antioxidants; you won’t find them to any efficacious degree in a fruit-flavored ice cream, salad dressing, soda or jelly bean. While fruit and fruit juice are high in natural sugars, the refined sugars in the flavored, processed foods that tout “superfruits” (or green tea or anything else that has healthy coat tails) smack of P.T. Barnum marketing (“There’s a sucker born every minute”). The refined sugars in jelly beans will more than offset any superfruit value a consumer might hope would be there. (A 1.2-ounce serving of Jelly Belly has 140 calories, 0g fat, 0g protein, 37g carbohydrate of which 28g are sugars, and 10mg sodium. How much antioxidant power do you think is in the superfruit juice/purée flavoring? Not enough for any claims of efficacy, that’s for sure!

Of course, Jelly Belly has not made any claims of efficacy. But by co-opting the name “superfruit” for their product, they imply more than just the flavor of superfruits. Otherwise, call it Açaí-Cranberry-Pomegranate Mix. This way, you’re pulling the wool over the eyes of the sheep.

Each candy bar delivers the caffeine content
of two cups of coffee! Photography by Corey
Lugg | THE NIBBLE. Styling by Lauren LaPenna.

Many people love a good cup of coffee. And they love a good chocolate bar. So now, how about a coffee bar—not an eating establishment where you get a cup of coffee, but a coffee candy bar that’s cousin to the chocolate bar? After much experimentation, the founders of Caffe Acapella have created coffee candy bars that have the creamy texture of milk chocolate, without any chocolate ingredients. They’re made from roasted coffee beans instead of roasted cacao bean (the basis of chocolate). Coffee lovers are going to love them.

But a creamy candy bar that melts on the tongue isn’t the only focus. The star of the show is the genuine coffee flavor of the Arabica coffee beans used to make the bars. With each new batch of beans, sample bars are produced for experts to taste test; with approval, the beans move ahead to production. The resulting bars not only encapsulate the coffee flavor of fine beans, but also the caffeine content. Each 2.25-ounce bar contains the caffeine equivalent of about two cups of coffee! (And boy, does it ever taste better than Red Bull.)

Read the full review to see why these coffee candy bars had us singing with happiness after the first bite.

Read more reviews of our favorite candy & confections.

Learn more about the history of coffee.

How do you describe the kind of coffee you like? See THE NIBBLE’S glossary of coffee descriptors.

Dad will light up with happiness when you hand him a box of See’s Candies chocolate “Seegars” (how long were the See’s folks waiting to be able to make that pun!). In fact, at the economical price of $6.30 for a box of three, you can afford to hand out Seegars to all of your favorite dads.

Seegars are made from milk chocolate that’s been rolled and packaged in brown foil to resemble actual cigars. Of course, Dad will have to enjoy these in private—we don’t want him influencing the kids! Seegars are available at See’s Candies stores and online at Sees.com. Certified kosher by KSA.

Dad can relax with a Cognac and a good [chocolate] cigar. Photo by Emily Chang | THE NIBBLE.