Arnold Zwicky's Blog

From Mara Chibnik in e-mail writes with an account of chocolates she’s been given for the holidays, including one chocolate bar that puzzled her:

Firecracker (chipotle, salt and popping candy)

What’s popping candy, she wondered.

The chocolate bar:

Popping candy is a compound noun, with primary accent on its first element. But it’s not candy for popping (like roasting chicken); instead, it’s candy that pops (in your mouth). One consumer’s account of the Chuao Firecracker experience:

Last year, I sung the praises of a small chocolatier, Chuao, for its unique and delicious flavor combinations, like strawberry balsamic and spicy Cabernet caramel. I had a chance to try their newest bar, the Firecracker, and it was no exception.The chocolate smelled typical enough — bittersweet and slightly smoky. But once I took a bite, my experience took a turn for the bizarre. First, I tasted creamy dark chocolate then gradually intensifying heat and a tingly, burning sensation in the back of my throat. And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, loud crackling and popping, at which point I realized there was not only an explosion of flavor, but also a physical explosion of some kind. To find out what the cracker of the Firecracker was, read more.

Turns out the appropriately-named chocolate bar is made of dark chocolate, enrobed in chipotle chiles [chipotles are smoke-dried jalapeños], salt, and popping candy — the kind I loved in the third grade. I can only liken the bizarre, oddly addictive experience to going on a roller coaster for the first time and wanting to go again. For those of you who are game (it is not for the unadventurous eater or faint of heart), I encourage you to go for a ride. Does spicy chocolate with popping candy sound like something you’d want to try?

The candy that so attracted the writer in third grade was probably Pop Rocks:

Pop Rocks is a carbonated candy with ingredients including sugar, lactose (milk sugar), corn syrup, and flavoring. It differs from typical hard candy in that it creates a fizzy reaction when it dissolves in one’s mouth. (link)

[That’s carbon dioxide — carbonation built into the candy.]

Or possibly it was World Confections’ Crack-Ups:

If you are so minded, you can even make popping-candy chocolates at home — like Exploding Truffles:

Exploding Truffles literally pop in your mouth! Pop Rocks candy is combined with chocolate ganache to produce unique truffles that are a real blast to eat. The combination of chocolate with popping candy is unusual, but it adds a fun, playful element to the truffles that I really enjoy. This recipe yields about 2 dozen small truffles. (link)

The ingredients are simple enough — 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate (about 1 cup chopped), 4 ounces heavy cream, 5 .33-oz envelopes popping candy, like Pop Rocks, and 12 ounces chocolate candy coating — but the preparation is complex; see the recipe.

Back to Mara Chibnik and her gift chocolates: from one source, cherry rooibos and black salt caramel chocolates, both by Vosges, and then nine chocolate bars from another:

Chinita nibs (caramelized cacao nibs and nutmeg)
Panko (toasted panko and sea salt)
Earl Grey (as in the tea: bergamot flavoring)
Honeycomb (caramelized honey)
Caracas (almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios)
Coco (coconut, almond, cinnamon, coriander)
Firecracker (chipotle, salt, popping candy)
Spicy May (pasilla chile, cayenne pepper, cinnamon)
Coffee & Anise (finely ground espresso and star anise)

[Panko is Japanese bread crumbs — coarsely ground, light and crispy.]

Experimental yums.

This entry was posted on December 22, 2011 at 8:31 am and is filed under Compounds, Language and food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.