Southern Candymakers

Something you may not know about me: I am a different person on vacation.

One major difference about me is that my childhood sweet tooth will peek its head out, making me more prone to do things like eat candy or order dessert.

Another major difference is that I snack a lot more; specifically, I pretty much need to eat something before leaving for the day. This is probably because oftentimes I don’t know how long it will be before I reach my first destination (always a food place), whether there will be a line, and how my blood sugar has been affected by the increased food consumption over the course of the trip. (The more I eat one day, the hungrier I am the next morning. It’s like my body expects me to keep up that level of feeding constantly, once I’ve increased the intake.)

All this lead in to say: the first day we were in New Orleans, we wandered into Southern Candymakers, where Jenn told me she quite enjoyed their pralines. (Say it with me: prah-leen, not pray-leen!) The intense caramel aroma in the store… oh, my! I don’t think I’m a prah-leen girl, but I AM a caramel girl, and dear wondrous lord… the Jackson Squares (above) caught my eye. I bought one, and ate it the next morning before we headed out for breakfast (which was sugar filled as well).

Insanely rich and quite honestly, insanely delicious: fresh caramel, salted peanut butter, crisp rice, all enrobed in milk chocolate with some dark chocolate drizzle. The only thing that would make this better or more suited for my palate is if it was dark chocolate instead of milk, but this was by no means too sweet. The salted peanut butter balanced the sugar nicely and I thoroughly enjoyed my pre-breakfast. (It was about the size of a full size Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup.)

I’d also purchased (and consumed at a later time) a dark chocolate cashew tortue (French for ‘turtle’), which was lovely in its creamy deliciousness.

Not pictured: the dark chocolate tortue and the sea salted tortue I purchased. Out of all of the tortues – I love turtles! I do! – I thoroughly enjoyed the sea salted one the best, though if it’d been up to me, it’d also have had some dark chocolate on there. As it was – you could see the flecks of sea salt that were sprinkled onto the caramel and stuck there, adding such a lovely balance to the sweetness of the caramel… Ahhh, would that I could have another one right now.

I see why Jenn likes this place so much, though I declined to buy or try any pralines (they give out samples in the store). The tortues and pralines are available for online purchase though, so maybe I’ll order some as gifts… or just for me. Hehe.