Dare – Real Sour Sticks

Sometimes, just sometimes, not all the time, we do things we know are bad for us, despite knowing full well the outcome. My brain can come up with a pretty good assessment of fondant, and how it’s going to taste. The packaging evokes those memories, not very many good ones mind you, of licorice filled with fondant. I’ve had a few decent experiences with them, but fondant in general is very one-note and overly sweet in general. I can’t really say what possessed me to buy these. They don’t look particular special or appetizing to me, but I figure why not. Sometimes my brain takes a leave of absence and my body does things that the brain regrets. Weird how that happens, eh?

It’s hard to tell these apart by appearance. The cherry is the deep red, but the strawberry is only very slightly less dark than the raspberry. They are also a lot flatter and more elongated than the packaging would lead me to believe. It looks more like a sour straw than a fondant filled licorice.

Flavour wise, they aren’t all that different from each other either. I blame most of this on the fondant. The outer candy straw, along with the light coating of citric acid is not a bad combo. But once you hit the fondant, it kind of burns you with the sweetness. The strawberry is pretty one-note, and is mostly just sweet, with a little bit of strawberry flavour coming through. Raspberry is is quite sweet, but the flavour comes through a bit more. Cherry has a deep flavour to it compared to the others, but again, not as much as I would like. I find them overall to be a bit on the sweet side, so if you’re into that these might be worth the try. The sour coating doesn’t do much in the way of sourness, but it does help to cut some of the sweetness and mix things up a bit.

The texture is like if you took a sour straw and filled it with sickly sweet fondant. Again, I think this would have benefited form not having the fondant, and just the sour straws themselves. There’s nothing wrong texture wise, but the sweetness of the fondant is a bit bothersome. I’m not sure that’s something you can really change though, given than fondant is basically just sugar and corn syrup.

Sadly, these are not different enough or tasty enough to warrant a positive experience with fondant. Alas, I am still on that search to find the one true snack to make me feel good about fondant. It may never happen, but a man can dream. Dream and turn his brain off just long enough to make another sweet, sweet mistake.