Sugar Savvy

Among See’s Candies’ more than 100 candy offerings are Gourmet Lollypops, kind of a square sucker.  Square, dense and full of flavor, these candies-on-a-stick are long-lasting treats that appeal to kids and adults alike. 

My husband and I celebrated the birth of our sons by passing out assorted flavors of these lollypops (which is how See’s Candies spells lollipops) decorated with free stickers announcing “It’s a Boy” that our See’s store provided.  I once had a Weight Watcher’s leader who had one of these lollypops as her daily treat.  I’ve never timed how long it would take to slowly lick one until done, but my estimate is about 20 minutes.  I’m not sure how my leader did it, but she made her pop last a full hour.

Tasting Report

Description: See’s Candies’ Gourmet Lollypops come in four flavors – vanilla, chocolate, butterscotch and café latte.  Each candy is about one-inch square wrapped in gold foil on a white cardboard stick.  These pops are more like a hard caramel than a traditional hard candy lollypop.  The vanilla is a creamy bisque color and the chocolate is very dark, almost black and both of these are a bit matte in appearance.  The café latte is a warm medium dark brown and the candy has some shine.  The butterscotch is a glossy amber golden brown.  The lollypops are available individually and in assortments in the stores and in assorted or single flavor boxes from the website and catalog. The candies are also available as bite-sized, individually wrapped “little pops” without the sticks.

Taste:  Even if the wrapper didn’t specify which lollypop was which, you could tell from just the scent of each candy as you unwrapped it.  All four had wonderful aromas that suggested that the lollypops would have full, natural flavors.  The good news is that they do.  The vanilla pop had a strong vanilla flavor with a note of caramelized sugar.  The chocolate was dark, intense and satisfying.  This lollypop is not for you if you are not a fan of dark chocolate.  The butterscotch’s taste was not too sweet and it had warm brown sugar and butter flavors. The café latte was like a jolt of sweetened black coffee, more like a café macchiato than a latte, since the candy did not have a very milky taste.

See’s Trivia: Well, actually See’s Piece-by-Piece Trivia.  This is the 50^th post about See’s Candies and it’s about time to wrap it up and explore some other chocolates and candies out there.  So, if you have any special See’s treats you’d like to see written up before the series ends, leave a comment below and let me know.  See’s Piece-by-Piece #52 will be the last in this series of regular See’s Candies’ reportage.

Ingredients:  These treats are not on my See’s ingredients sheet, but the website lists heavy cream, butter, real vanilla and Colombian coffee as attributes.

Well Fed Network Ratings:  I really enjoyed all four of these lollypops.  My favorite for well-balanced taste was the butterscotch which I would give a 10 on a scale of one to 10 as compared to other See’s Candies’ products.  I would rate the chocolate lollypop a 9.5 with a caveat – it is for dark chocolate lovers only.  The vanilla and café latte were between an 8.5 and 9.  The vanilla began to seem a bit sweet as I kept eating it and the café latte was very intense and could have used more of a creamy note to balance it.  If you like your coffee flavors big and bold, however, you might rate this candy a bit higher than I did.

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Photo credit: See’s Candies