We highly recommend the cranberry bark as well.  It’s really good even if you’re one of those who prefers white chocolate to dark chocolate.  Both our dark and white chocolate cranberry barks are delicious.  Not only is our cranberry bark stuffed with sweetened, dried cranberries, it also has lots of roasted almonds to make this bark a special treat.

Chemistry and Cautions
We offer a subset of our regular product line in a no-sugar-added form for a couple of reasons.  If the candy has sugar from something in it, i.e., fruit or milk, we don’t try to replicate it in no-sugar-added form.  And, if we can’t replicate the flavor of our regular candies, we don’t do it.  Our caramels are on the fringe here—we do add just a touch of molasses to our caramels.  This makes a vast improvement to the flavor, but it does add about 3 calories of sugar to each caramel.

Of course, all of our no and low-sugar candies contain the same cream, butter, and cocoa butter of their regular counterparts, so they are not low-calorie.

Most sugar substitutes don’t have the same or approximately the same volume as regular sugar at the same sweetness level.  This creates a problem when trying to create candies.  The various sugar alcohols (chemical term for xylitol, maltitol, mannitol) seem to work the best for this.  The brand of chocolate Brehmer’s Candies uses for our regular candies is Callebaut.  Their no-sugar-added chocolate uses maltitol.  Maltitol also happens to have the closest volume to sweetness ratio as regular sugar.  So, this is the sweetener we use.   There is a downside to this, however.

From a biochemical standpoint, maltitol is not digested as sugar by human metabolism, but it is digested in part by bacteria in the small intestine, so there is some glucose (simple sugar) absorbed through the small intestine as a result.  Also as a result of this bacterial digestion, eating large amounts of maltitol can result in laxative effects.  Which, depending on your digestive system, can be a good thing or bad thing.  In either case, be fore-warned, and eat accordingly.  These candies are so good, you may be tempted to over-indulge.

NEW TRUFFLE FLAVORS
I’m not really fond of drinking port—it’s a little sweet for my tastes.  However, the thought occurred that it might make a good truffle.  Especially since friends who do like port have indicated that they really like it with chocolate.  So, Brehmer’s Candies now has Port Truffles.  We blend port with white chocolate for a creamy, fruity center, and then dip them in dark chocolate so you get that fabulous port and dark-chocolate combination.  This new truffle has been declared delicious by the port & chocolate fans of our acquaintance.

Another addition to our Liqueur truffles is a Rum Truffle.  We thought this made a delightful addition to the brandy and amaretto of our original Liqueur truffles.  Of course we use the most flavorful rum we could find—got tipsy figuring out which one that was—to make our rum truffles.  Hopefully you’ll enjoy this addition as much as we do!

NEW NUTS & CHEWS FLAVORS
Okay, so we created the honey marshmallow early in 2011, but it hasn’t been available on the website until now.  Regular marshmallow is made with corn syrup, which contributes to the texture, but doesn’t contribute any flavor.  So regular marshmallow is pretty bland and boring.  The honey, however, gives it a slight honey flavor.  So if you like the texture of marshmallows and the flavor of honey, you’ll really like this candy.

A simple combination of our honey marshmallow with our caramel resulted in our absolutely delicious Marshmallow Caramel—or “Caramallow” as it’s referred to in the ingredient insert.  Of course, this is dipped in dark chocolate.  This tasty treat is now available boxed.

Another recent experiment is divinity made with honey instead of corn syrup.  While the candy by itself is good (especially if you like really sweet candy), we tried a further experiment of rolling it with our almond-butter filling.  The result is the really pretty and very tasty Almond Ripple.  Because this candy has such a pretty look, these are boxed in clear box.

Nuts:  Our strictly nut barks are almond, pistachio, and cashew.  These are available in dark, milk, and/or white chocolate.  We use freshly roasted, lightly salted nuts for optimum flavor.

“This almond bark was amazing! The chocolate was so smooth and the almonds were very crunchy and fresh. I’d recommend this to any fan of chocolate and almonds!”  customer quote 7/2011

We still offer our dark cranberry bark, but now we’ve added a white cranberry bark—made with sweetened, dried cranberries and roasted almonds.  Both are to die for!

Especially for the Christmas season, we now have a peppermint bark in dark, milk, or white chocolate.  In addition to the crushed peppermint candies in the chocolate, at the suggestion of my daughter Karin, we also add some peppermint oil for a really minty flavor.  If chocolate and mint is your thing, this bark is for you!

Our English Toffee is so popular we decided to toss some into some dark chocolate.  Boy, does that make a tasty candy!  This one became immediately popular.

I do so love food puns, and it just seemed natural to make a rocky road bark—with roasted almonds and miniature marshmallows—look like a road.  Hence, we put road stripes in white chocolate down the center of each strip of rocky-road bark.  This bark is available in dark and milk chocolate.

NEW TRUFFLE FLAVOR!
Our raspberry truffles have always been extremely popular—probably because they are flavored with real raspberries and raspberry wine.  My daughter Kristen suggested that maybe cranberries could make a good truffle too.  She was right.  We are very pleased to announce the addition of cranberry truffles to our Winter Holiday product line.  Cranberries cooked with sugar and cranberry juice, strained and blended with pomegranate wine flavor these delicious truffles.

So, when you’re planning your next birthday party, wedding, christening, or corporate event and you want something unusual and delicious for your guests, give us a call!

NEW CANDIES

Brehmer’s Candies has some new candies especially for the Fall:  dark chocolate cranberry bark & pumpkin pie truffles.  Our cranberry bark is full of sweetened, dried cranberries and roasted almonds, with a few chunks of white chocolate added for color and sweetness.  Really yummy!

Our pumpkin pie truffles start with the pumpkin and spices for a pumpkin pie, to which we add a little cinnamon schnapps and rum to heighten the flavor.  These truffles are shaped into pie wedges, dipped into gourmet milk chocolate, and decorated with white chocolate whipped cream.  Delicious!

STORING OUR CANDIES 
Brehmer’s Handmade Candies uses tempered chocolate (a process whereby chocolate is heated then slowly cooled and stirred to make it crisp and shelf-stable without the addition of any stabilizers).

Our candies must be kept out of the sun and never above 75 degrees or below 55 degrees Fahrenheit. If the candies are kept too cold, they will sweat and discolor at room temperature. If kept too warm, they will melt and discolor, as well as lose flavor. They can be refrigerated, as long as they are kept in an airtight container or bag and allowed to warm to room temperature while in the airtight container prior to opening. This will prevent any condensation on the chocolates themselves, and refrigeration in this manner will extend the shelf-life of the candy.