C is for Crafty Sugar!

It's been a funny old day, my Northern friends are all posting pictures of 2-to-3-inches of lovely, fluffy snow on their Faceplant feeds, we've just had a shed-load of rain! So, plans to hoe the weeds on the drive have been replaced by a Picasa-clearing session! In fact I've done more to sort out the desk-top, but some other folders have been found/sorted.

 

As a result of the latter, this is stuff from several folders, and the above are, I believe Dr. Oetker (pronounced "errt'ker"?) edible cake decorations, although being made of a commercial royal-icing designed to produce figurines, I wouldn't suggest trying to eat them, if you value your teeth, they are rock-hard, indeed, probably harder than many rock types!

 

They were purchased (probably in Sainsbury's) and photographed back in 2020, and then lost and forgotten about in the sadness of that season, languishing in a folder I'd buried, only to resurface in today's shenanigans!

These were purchased and photographed in the last month or two, definitely from Sainsbury's, and look identical, but are not Dr. Oetker, being styled House of Cake, and because I didn't know when shooting the first lot, I would need the logo, I didn't shoot it, just memorising Dr. Oetker before they went-off to storage (they will last as long as chalkware, with the same care and lack of damp!), so while I 'believe', I can't say definitively?

 

Older ones.

 

Suffice to say that they are the same, except for the likely different card insert, and Dr. Oetker don't list them on their site any more, so the new brand-mark may mean both were bought-in from somewhere else?

 

Morrison's (and Waitrose/John Lewis) are both stocking these, under the Cake Décor branding, a nice set of three sugar craft figurals, with a very similar Santa, but a rocking snowman, along with a rather surprised penguin.

 

And Asda are carrying this pair, obviously from the same source, but branded in-house, and while the Santa is the same sculpt, they have gone with a companion Rudolf, although it should be Rudolfina, as male Reindeer lose their antlers after the Autumn rutting, the females retain theirs through the winter, so Santa's team should really be girls!

The three Santa Clauses together, the Asda one has a better red than the washed-out pink of the Morrisons' one, but I suspect that is down to batch? While the Sainsbury's one, which I'm pretty sure used to be Dr. Oetker has the better packaging, for a product which although as hard as rock, is as likely to chip as slate!

Tesco haven't had anything like this (a few 'button' relief-flats), on several visits to the big one in Aldershot, nor a shelf-gap or label for any, while Aldi and Lidl wouldn't stock something so specific and minority interest?

E is for Edibles, Seasonal Edibles!

One of the few tropes not copied from Small Scale World by the two P's is our occasional look at edible figurals (it's only a matter of time, I'm sure!), and spellchecker hates the word, so, from Merriam-Webster: "of, relating to, or consisting of human or animal figures.".

 

So, a quick trip in time, back to Easter (Yes, I AM behind, but that's only because there's so much stuff in the queue!), and I picked these up from TKMaxx, a pound-thirty, it would have been rude not to! Chocolate bunnies, when we were kids Granny would always give is the little sets of five Lindt animals, and it triggers a certain nostalgia button, whenever I see such things, even if they are taller, thinner and not so Lindt'y!

Also from Easter, KitKat bunnies! Years ago (2007?) we had a taste-test on the difference between UK and US KitKat; one of my American colleagues wouldn't believe ours were better than theirs, so we had a blindfold tasting, in the office, after her mother sent her a US bar from New York, the UK bar won hand's down! I now think whichever corporate giant owns KitKat (Nestle I think) has adopted the cheaper US recipe, and there's no difference, the same blandness of that vegetable fat filler leaving one slightly disappointed?

And so to the season at hand and first purchase (we buy these nice treats so you don't have to!) was a Penguin 'cracker', actually following-on from the recent card-bus post, I wanted to see what was available these day, specifically from Double Decker, the answer was zilch, but I did find this!

 

A standard Penguin bar and a little pack of chocolate biscuits shaped like penguins on the other side, as the whole trope of Penguins is that they are covered in chocolate, these are hardley they? Still out there.

Maltesers are following the KitKat route with small figural versions of themselves, to be honest this was more like the KitKat in texture than a Malteser, but the mint version was yummy . . . Chocolate venison! Still out there.

There will now be an intermission while we ignore figurals and get pissed in the foyer! A seasonal treat in our house was a shot-glass of 'egg-nog', which started when I was too young to remember, probably helped us sleep until Santa had been? Drugging kids - top-parenting for generations!

 

Later, as younger teenagers, when Dad would take us down to Bavaria to do navigational or survival exercises with the Special Forces, one of the treats was going to the 'Huhnchenhause' in Neuhausen-ob-Eck, where we would get drunk on Phauenbrau, have a Chicken-and-chips bar-meal while ignoring the smell of the livestock overwintered downstairs (you became immune to the stench of manure after about 20-minutes, or the end of your first beer), and finish-off with an egg-nog, or a cherry-brandy, before the walk-home through piled snow and the hard frosts they have down there, under clear, starry-skies!

 

If the divorce judge had known what was going-on, I'm sure he would have put a stop to it, but I'm glad he didn't, as I had a late-childhood like nobody reading this, and I wouldn't change it for the world, not even crying with the pain of digging a snow-hole without gloves, we'd been told we'd be sleeping in that night! We didn't, we retreated to the Knorrhütte for more egg-nog, albeit with the smell of sweaty-socks and B/O replacing Neuhausen's cattle!

 

Anyway, so when I saw this Polish Wawel confection, going cheap in Morrison's cheapie/end-of-line/experimental foreign-lines display, I had to try it! It wasn't particularly egg-noggy, nor terribly alcoholic, but I finished it in one sitting, which I think can be taken as a vote of confidence and seal of approval, from here, anyway!

We've seen these before, but not with perforations and gift tags, I think? Lindt bears, in Christmas jumpers! They are not the same as Granny's sets of five, which were relief-flat solids, these are rotary-moulded 'hollow-casts'!

These appeared in my Faceplant feed the other day, an independent chocolate company; Chococo, who make all sorts of figurals, in milk, plain, white and caramel chocolate, so I collaged a bunch of them for the blog!

 

We've got fish, owls, dinosaurs, robots, frogs, gorillas, mice and sea life, and that was a few minutes searching! You can - of course - get lots of these moulds nowadays, in Hobbycraft or similar ( or Amazon/evilBay), and quickly set yourself up as a bespoke chocolatier!

Because I'd clicked on a bunch of Chococo's thumbnails, the Faceplant algorithm decided I was in need of even more tooth-rot, and started sending me links to every Tom-Dick-&-Harry firm doing the online 'your childhood favourites' sweet shop thang, so I grabbed a few more screenshots before marking all the posts 'unwanted'!

All the old favourites are here - pink and white 'sugar' mice, jelly snakes and less traditional deer, mini Lindt-bear knock-offs, caramel gingerbread men, mallow or jelly Santa's and 'milk-dud' penguins!

Y is for Yummy!

It's not often that I get a 'Y' in the header, and not often that we look at edible figural, so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone!

The only question is, why didn't I use that excuse to use a 'Y' on one of the previous occasions we looked at such things - the human mind is quite a retarded instrument n'est pas?

But then our brains have apparently got smaller, while Stegosaurus had a larger one . . . I'm 'binge' watching Life on Earth as a retro treat!

 

Haribo - who knew; they have names!

Anybody who's watched the movie, knew, Hugh! Due to vagaries I won't bore you with, I ended-up with a bunch of stuff intended for someone else after Christmas, among which was a bag of Minion jelly-chews - Actually the second bag of Minion jelly-chews I've imbibed in my few short years here on planet Earth!

They're a bit one dimensional really,

but very tasty, especially Bob!

Private Baldrick's moustaches! I also ended-up with a bag of snakes, they didn't have names but are probably a bunch of Pennsylvanians! They are a no-particular-brand, generic, type thing - the snakes that is . . . !

8 is for " On the eighth day of Christmas" etc . . .

. . . Snowman eight was delivered.

Gina came early as she wanted to get finished 'as soon as' . . . they'd agreed to go out for a drink later . . .

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Sugar-craft from Fiddes Payne, the 'tardis' packaging being the newer by a year or two, I think I got the 'toob' about three years ago and the box (from Sainsbury's) the other week - although they both look like old stock!

A is for Advent!

Nearly through the calendar (20th at time of posting) and not many figural chockies this year (I'll add any additions before this publishes!), one duplicate already - the robin! I missed out on the excellent calendars you get from Lidl or Aldi so it was off to the Poundland for a local product; Kinnerton (part of a larger group with what looks like an Aussie arm?).

They have the same taste, but are much smaller than their Euro-counterparts (a bit like Britain now! Ooh - a Brexit dig on Crimbo-day Hugh; you do like controversy). Also there's an extra door for the 25th (with a mini-bar of chocolate) which just isn't tradition at all! Bah! Humbug!

Additions

Oh! Both duplicates, hey ho; they're here now!

Typically: the best one came on the 24th - A soldier! (or a soldier bear?), anyway; the drinks we were supposed to be going too got put back to this evening and I've made the library with minutes to spare! happy tomorrow, today everyone!

J is for Just as cool as the others!

I don't know if you remember the edible Daleks we had up here a while ago (Exterminate us, exterminate us!), but here is another take on the edible figure 'sub-genre', these are currently being sold reduced in BP petrol stations ('Filling' or 'Service' stations, to out of UK readers), made by Maynards and included in the Sports Mix.

Yes - I know is a bit off the wall, and they aren't very realistic, but think about it...cut them off the backing-lump with a craft knife, seal them with super-glue (for rigidity) and then PVA/wood-glue and give them the black undercoat/dry-brush paint technique and you could fill a cycle-rack in one of the darker corners of you layout without anyone spotting what they really were, especially if you put a Merit, Prieser or Airfix bike at the front of the row!

And the waste tastes good (the hard-gum not the super-glue!). The man from Rovex, he say; "You looking at my bike?!"

H is for HOW Cool Are These?

I like to think I've found a few pretty esoteric things to put on this blog over the years, but 40mm rubberised Dalek 'Flats' are gonna' take some beating...(I beat them - Bicycles)

Edible rubberised Daleks in two colour/flavour packs with a cut-out and slip together card flat of a Fatlek, made by BonBon Buddies they are currently available in Walmart-call-me-Asda and other outlets fa'sure, and they taste nice! Click on Dalek in the tag-list to find the more sensible variations of these now-flying constant invaders of Earth.