Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Ain’t She Sweet
We’re sure it will come as no surprise that all of us wonderful women at The Candy Store have a pretty decadent sweet tooth. People are always asking us if we ever tire of sweets (answer: not at all – there’s always something different to try when a favourite isn’t hitting the spot). And then there are the skeptics who give us a look and question whether we even eat these fantastic treats (answer: YES! Trust us, these figures aren’t from lack of trying! We’re always munching away – anyone who has come in to find us with a malt ball in our mouth can attest to that!).
This weekend, however, we may finally meet our match: Catherine Burke of
Village Buns will be joining us on Saturday for an in-store tasting of her deliciously decadent cinnamon buns.
Catherine is just as sweet as the buns she makes and we're so happy to be able to share her treats with Westboro. In fact, we're not the only ones excited about this - check out
this write-up in the Ottawa Citizen and then try them for yourself!
As if all of this sweetness wasn't enough, we've got more sugary good news:
The Cupcake Lounge is offering their special Holiday Flavours boxes for pick up at The Candy Store on December 24th! You can choose between Peace On Earth, Joy or Noel combinations (all orders are one dozen - please call to reserve yours as there will be no walk-in cupcakes that day):
The "Peace on Earth" Box:
Southern Red Velvet – Light chocolate cake with sweet cream cheese frosting;
Chocolate Marshmallow Ganache – Belgian dark chocolate cake and marshmallow cream dipped in chocolate ganache, and;
Chocolate-Chocolate – Belgian dark chocolate cake with bittersweet dark chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles on top.
The "Joy" Box:
Southern Red Velvet – Light chocolate cake with sweet cream cheese frosting;
Chocolate Peppermint – Belgian dark chocolate cake with chocolate-peppermint icing and crushed candy cane;
Orange-Cranberry – Pure orange-cranberry cake with sweet cream cheese frosting with cranberry on top, and;
Chocolate-Chocolate – Belgian dark chocolate cake with bittersweet dark chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles on top.
The "Noel" Box:
Southern Red Velvet – Light chocolate cake with sweet cream cheese frosting;
Orange-Cranberry – Pure orange-cranberry cake with sweet cream cheese frosting with cranberry on top, and;
Chocolate-Chocolate – Belgian dark chocolate cake with bittersweet dark chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles on top.
Between Village Buns Cinnamon buns for Christmas morning breakfast and Cupcake Lounge cupcakes for dessert after your turkey, you're guaranteed to have a sweet Christmas indeed!
Labels: cinnamon buns, cupcakes
Monday, November 30, 2009
December Cupcake Menu
Fresh from the oven...(sort of)...here is the December Cupcake Menu!
As always, preorders are welcome for any flavour you'd hate to miss. Just give us a call or send us an
email and we'll have your order ready and waiting for pick up!
December 5thChocolate Coconut: Belgian dark chocolate cake with coconut and cream cheese icing.
Chai Latte: Spiced chai tea cake and frosting, flavoured with Madagascar bourbon vanilla.
December 12thSouthern Red Velvet: Light chocolate cake with sweet cream cheese icing and a milk chocolate callet.
White Chocolate Macadamia: White Chocolate Macadamia cake and white chocolate frosting.
December 19thChocolate Peppermint: Belgian dark chocolate cake with chocolate-peppermint icing and crushed candy cane.
Orange-Cranberry: Pure orange-cranberry cake with sweet cream cheese frosting and cranberry on top.
The Candy Store will be closed on Saturday, December 26th for the holidays, so there will be no cupcakes on Boxing Day (but let's be honest, we're all going to be stuffed...at least that's
our plan!)
Labels: cupcakes
Friday, November 27, 2009
Good Old Fashioned Sweets
If there’s something we’ve learned in the year and a half we’ve been open, everyone (and we really do mean EVERYONE) has a special candy that really takes them back. Back to grandma’s house, back to summers in the tree house, back to yearly packages from abroad, back to those memories only a very specific taste can revive. We’re an absolute sucker for those stories and find ourselves “going back” from time to time, even when we least expect!
It is safe to say that there are a number of holiday-related treats that take people back and even if the following aren’t a part of your gastronomical memory, you just may find a new sweet to come back to for years to come.
Robertson’s Candy is a Canadian company based in Truro, Nova Scotia and, without intending, they have become a major part of the collective childhood memories for many Canadians, both Maritimer and mainlander. Operating since 1928, this company is still family owned and operated, (a feat unto itself) and using traditional recipes perfected through years of practice, they produce confections such as barley toys, chicken bones, humbugs, ribbon candy and sponge taffy.
Barley toys, or clear toys, may be familiar to you already, especially if you recall the
entry from last year where we declared our love for them, but what about the others? Chicken bones are beautiful pale pink candy sticks flavoured with cinnamon and hiding a chocolate center. We get a strange look every so often when offering someone a chicken bone during the holidays, but those moments where they bring back holiday memories and feelings long forgotten are what makes them so special to us. Making them even more special, like much of their candy, Robertson’s only produces them once a year for the holidays – once they’re gone, they’re gone and you’re going to have to ration your supply to make it through the long months ahead (we know – we have!).
Humbugs are perhaps a bit more common, even if only because of Ebenezer Scrooge and his famous line. Robertson’s again, makes these delicately flavoured boiled sweets during the holiday season. Lightly flavoured with peppermint, Robertson’s humbugs evoke holiday memories far and wide as they continue to be a wildly popular treat throughout the UK and Canada. Blackadder fans will no doubt recall the holiday episode wherein Blackadder offered Baldrick a humbug.
Ribbon candy and sponge taffy round out our offerings from Robertson’s and make an impressive showing. The satiny sheen of the delicate and brightly colour ribbon candy almost makes you want to hang it on the tree instead of eat it, but, of course, it won’t make it to our tree! And the sponge taffy, something so simple, is delicious on its own, but becomes even more enticing when used in holiday baking – we’ll let you know how we fare with this next week!
Don't forget this Saturday's cupcake flavours:
Mango: Pure mango cake with sweet mango frosting.
White & Black: Madagascar bourbon vanilla cake with bittersweet dark chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles.
December's cupcake menu will be up shortly and for all your instant candy news, check out our
Facebook Page! Not only will you find the blogs, but also we'll update you whenever a popular or new item is back in stock (malt balls, anyone??). Never miss your fix again!
Labels: barley toys, Candy, chicken bones, humbugs, ribbon candy, Robertson's, sponge taffy
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
It’s beginning to look a lot like….
Ok, we couldn’t help ourselves, but let’s be honest, most of the major holiday events will be taking place in the next month so it's time to start thinking about the holidays (23 days until Hanukkah and 37 days until Christmas, just in case you’re wondering!). We’ve made the switch to the holiday season at The Candy Store and even put up the tree in the window. Our holiday favourites are arriving on a daily basis and the best place to keep track of all the goodies is through instant updates in your
Facebook News Feed for The Candy Store! As soon as any new goodies arrive at our store and the elves have put the treats out, we announce it on Facebook so you’ll never miss out on your favourites!
New for us this year are the beautiful Handmade Candy Canes and Ribbon Candy from Hammond’s Candies in Denver, Colorado. The candy canes are nearly nine inches long and come in eight fanciful flavours: cranberry, apple pie, cherry, strawberry, butterscotch, peppermint, wintergreen and cinnamon (yes sweetheart, I’ve already bought you one). The canes are individually wrapped and have already attracted a lot of attention in the 24 hours they’ve been here! Made using their tested and true methods perfected over years of lollipop production, Hammond’s have outdone themselves with these exquisite candy canes. Their production floor looks like so much fun, but you have to see it for yourself –
check out this video clip from the Food Network showcasing Hammond’s factory and try not to spend the afternoon thinking of ways to get to Denver!
Natacha, a local teacher, gave us this next tip: Did you know that November 20th is the United Nations’ Universal Children’s Day? 50 years ago the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, an expanded version of a 1923 document adopted by the International Save the Children Union. To mark the 50th anniversary, the
International Committee of the Red Cross is working to shed light on the risks and needs of children living in areas of armed conflict and how to protect them. So however you chose to spend your Friday, cherish the children in your life!
Labels: candy canes, Christmas, hammonds
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Rockets or Smarties?
If you grew up in Canada, you know the difference between Rockets and Smarties. Or do you? Here's a hint: the Ce De Candy Company makes both. Feeling a little confused? We can help: Rockets are the pressed hard candy we know and love in Canada in the clear and red wrapper, but in the United States, they're called Smarties (we won't even get into the "other" Smarties this time...)!
Their name aside, Rockets (we're in Canada, afterall) are made right here in Canada! In fact, the Newmarket, Ontario plant works 24 hours a day to produce these little pocket-sized treats. All the Rockets produced between the two manufacturing facilities each year would circle the globe three times - and they're only 1cm across! And did you know that Rockets have been in production since 1949, but can trace their lineage back to England in 1928 and a little company, Matlow Bros.Ltd. One of the brothers came to North America in 1949 with the mission of making and selling their popular candies.
"Smarties" lore has it that he came with
"only two wrapping machines, a rented facility and a lot of ingenuity" Regardless of what path they took to make it to our loot bags, we're so pleased to have the ever-present white, yellow, pink, orange, purple and green concave discs all year round!
The
Wikipedia entry actually has a great little comparison of the American and Canadian-made Rockets (they're labelled Smarties, but we think you'll know what we're talking about!), showing the slight colour variations that the true candy afficiando would appreciate:
Labels: rockets
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
No trick - just treat!
In the spirit of all things spooky, we've been digging into candy's scary past to come up with some eerily interesting facts to get you in the Trick Or Treat-ing mood!
More than 93% of children don costumes and head out for a night of trick-or-treating.
Did you know October 30th is National Candy Corn Day? That's right - this treat invented in the 1880s is a Halloween staple. More than 35 million pounds are going to be produced this year. According to
Farley's & Sathers, one of the major candy corn manufacturers, if all the candy corn and mellowcreme pumpkins they produce yearly were lined up end-to-end they would circle the globe four times!
41% of all adults
admit to sneaking treats from the bowl on Halloween night while 90% of parents admit to sneaking treats from their kids' sugary haul.
30% of children sort their collected candy before digging in!
The best way to keep your stash from going stale is to store all your candy in a cool, dry place, out of direct sunlight and away from hidden heat sources (look for the heating vent before tossing your loot-laden pillow case under the bed!).
Check out more fantastic facts and Halloween safety tips at the
National Confectioners Association and, as always,
Ottawa Police Services has all the information you need for a fun and safe Halloween!
And here's the best tip of all: We love Halloween at The Candy Store! Come dressed in a costume on October 31st and trick-or-treat with us!
This weekend's cupcake flavours:
Black & White: Belgian dark chocolate cake with vanilla frosting and chocolate sprinkles
Carrot: pure carrot cake with walnuts and pineapple, vanilla cream cheese frosting and walnuts on top.
Labels: candy corn, halloween
Friday, October 9, 2009
New Friends and Good Times
We've had a lot of fun this week and with Cornucopia on the way, we're expecting the trend to continue! At the beginning of this week, Diane, the owner of The Candy Store had a one-on-one morning with Chris Stewart. Don't know who Chris Stewart is? Tsk tsk. He's the creator and overall mad genius behind
Candy Critic, an immensely popular guide to the good, the bad and the odd in the candy world. And the most exciting part is that Chris is based in Ottawa! We invited Chris to come hang out at The Candy Store and try some of our favourites - he details his visit in a
post on his blog and, we must say, we're so thrilled Chris enjoyed his visit. If you're a candy person in any way at all (and how could you not be?!), make sure to check out Chris'
page. And while you're at it, since it is a long weekend, you could check out
his Twitter.
Speaking of long weekends, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone and we hope to see you all at
Cornucopia tomorrow! If you weren't able to attend Cornucopia last year (its inaugural year), you'll want to make sure put this on Saturday's agenda. Cornucopia is a "Giant Animated Side Walk Sale" that features the best of entertainment, art, fall festivities and shopping. Street performers will be out in full force and everyone along Richmond Road is so excited for this event!
At The Candy Store we'll have cotton candy, Halloween items, Thanksgiving treats, hostess gifts, caramel apples and, as it is Saturday, cupcakes! So cross your fingers that the weather holds and come join us for this spectacular day!
