Top 5 Tips Homemade Candy

Halloween and all of the associated candy is upon us. Do you have a plan for avoiding the extra calories from eating extra candy? If you don't want to ban all candy, try 1 or more of these tips to control your candy intake this season.

1. Purchase only candy you don't like. If there is any left over after trick-or-treating you will be less likely to eat it. Candy we don't like is less tempting than candy we do like.

2. Select a reasonable amount of candy to keep at home and send the rest to the office. If you will be tempted by it at your office, send it in with your spouse, a friend, or a neighbor.

3. Freeze it. Some candy freezes well. Once it is out of sight you may forget about it and by the time you rediscover it, it might be time to throw it out.

4. You may want to plan for and allow yourself 1 small piece of candy occasionally. Aim for a specific number of calories you can have and let that be your treat. Eat only candy that you really enjoy and when you do eat it do nothing but enjoy eating it. Sit down, savor it, and eat it mindfully; pay attention to how it smells, looks, tastes, and feels in your mouth. Be prepared to add in more exercise or cut out other treats so you don't end up taking in more calories than you burn.

5. Decide whether you would rather waste the werbeartikel bonbon or waist the candy. Can you afford to eat it calorie-wise? In the long run it may be cheaper to throw away a few candy bars than to live with the health consequences of additional pounds. The temporary comfort and sweet taste of the candy will be long gone when you are still trying to shed the extra pounds.

Candy Buffets

 
Candy buffets can be simple or can be very lavish. This part of your wedding could be a bit on the decadent side but there are budget options as well, depending on what options you're most interested in.

A Februrary reception might be filled with lots of pink and red candies with a love theme. A winter wedding could have plenty of peppermint and striped Christmas-like candy. A fall wedding could be filled with fall colours and Halloween favourites from childhood that guests will get excited about. Several candy companies that cater to wedding favor candy buffets can do things to meet your needs with various offerings. You can also have personalized candies done so that the candy portrays your names and the date of your wedding as well as a pretty bag that the guests will use as well.

Candy Buffet Arrangement Ideas

Many candy buffets are a simple set up with pretty buckets of candies and fancy scoops but you can also get creative and do tiered arrangements known as candy topiaries as well as in arrangements that look like a lollipop bouquet or a wedding cake arrangement. Some weddings have the buffet as an attractive wedding centerpiece. The sky is limited only by your imagination!

Guests can be sent to the buffet by table number at a specific time of night. It's a great idea to keep the buffet under wraps and unveil it as a surprise toward the end of the wedding reception.

Christina Aguilera Song "Candy Man"

Recently, candy has been as big a theme as ever in music. Christina Aguilera had a big hit in 2006 with the song "Candy man." Madonna's forthcoming 2008 album is titled Hard Candy. Rihanna had a song on her latest album called "Sell Me Candy."

Some artists even reference certain brands of candy. In the 1970s, singer Mtume had the hit song "Juicy Fruit," which of course was later sampled in the Notorious B.I.G. song "Juicy" (considered one of the greatest rap songs ever made). This trend of naming specific brands of candy continued until today. The most recent example is the Lil Wayne song, "Lollipop."

It seems that pop music and candy will always be tied together.

A candy bar buffet is something that's a hot trend in weddings. It's a great way to let your guests go home with an interesting token as a party favor! Instead of sending people home with a trinket that'll probably be forgotten, this type of wedding favor is gaining in popularity. It goes over so well at many weddings that it's starting to become really common. If you're getting married within the next year, it's a great idea. If you're not getting married for a few years, this could be old news and as
common as a midnight buffet is within a few years. How do candy bar buffets work?

How Wedding Candy Buffets Work

There are no hard and fast rules about the candy buffet but the fun part is that the guests put their own bag of goodies together. Instead of a traditional wedding favor, this is the kind of token of your appreciation that people find fun and interactive because they get to pick just what they want!

At the wedding reception, you'll set up a candy buffet to typically be unveiled at some point in the evening. You can hand out pretty little personalised bags and your guests take home candy that they choose themselves. The candy can be colour themed to match your wedding or could simply be an array of interesting candy choices. It's a matter of personal preference and you can tailor the candy buffet to several things including:

-theme
-colours
-season
-flavours

Candy Display

When it comes to weddings, you can be sure to expect a few different decorations and commemorative touches. Balloons, flowers, and ribbons are all staples at the modern wedding, but you are almost sure to find a variety of different candies as well. Wedding candy is usually found gracing the tables at the reception hall, either for guests to take home later or as a bit of a snack while they wait for dinner to be served. Some brides are doing away with the wedding cake altogether and instead offering a more creative candy buffet where guests can choose their own favourite dessert treats and take some home in a draw-string organza bag.

Just like anything else at your wedding, you will probably find that you want your candy displays to be perfect; they should convey the message of everlasting love that you have committed to and they should also match your wedding colors.

The candy display is not just about the candy, however; you will want to present the sweet treats in a way that is tasteful and memorable. Here are a few different suggestions.

- Right on the plates: There are a lot of weddings where this is the way the candy is laid out. It's fine, but make sure the candies are wrapped nicely so they set off the table.

- In netting: A nice little webbed netting can be a great way to present your candies, but try to make them easy to get into!

- Display boxes: Now we are getting a little bit into the pricey end of the candy. In fact, you might more properly consider this kind of display as a wedding favor. The candy doesn't have to be wrapped in these boxes, but try to pour it in straight from the bag rather than risk contaminating them with your hands. The boxes will always remind your guests of your special day!

So that takes care of some ideas as far as your presentation goes, but what about the candy that will actually be handed out to your guests? Well, there is a wide variety of ideas and most will depend on the tastes of the bride and groom, but here are some of the most popular.



- Kisses: This popular treat from Hershey's says it all on your wedding, and is perfectly named for the occasion. For white chocolate lovers, Hershey expanded the idea with Hugs, and there are also chocolate covered almonds available!

- Mints: There is no shortage of mints that are appropriate for weddings, and they might come in perfect for your guests and the romantic after-dinner dance and so on. Wrapped peppermints and smooth mints are great on plates, and peppermints are good in favor boxes.

- Lollipops: Decorative swirl pops in your choice of sizes and colors make great decorative center pieces or place settings.

Physical Act Of Eating Candy

 You might not think that there is a correlation between musicians and candy, but there are many instances in modern music where artists have used candy as a metaphor for other things. Let's take a look at the history of candy in music.

Candy is most often used as a sexual metaphor. Perhaps this is because candy, like the person the artist is enamored by, is very sweet. Or it could be that the physical act of eating candy (i.e. licking a lollipop) has sexual overtones. Either way, many musicians have used candy as a symbol of their affection for another human being.

The trend of writing lyrics about candy really took off in the 1980s. Pop star Tiffany had a song called "Mind Candy," and most people will remember the Bow Wow Wow hit "I Want Candy." This sparked a trend that would carry over into the 1990s and 2000s,



when many artists produced candy-themed songs. Alternative 90s rock group Marcy Playground broke through with the massive hit "Sex & Candy," which many people still remember well. Rappers such as Cameo, Snoop Dogg and Foxy Brown all put out songs titled "Candy." 50 Cent, the popular rapper, had a huge hit called "Candyshop," in which he proclaimed that he would "take a girl to the candyshop" and "let you lick the lollipop." Obviously these are pretty transparent sexual references, but hey, we are talking about rap music.

Not all references to candy in music are so deviant. In the late 1990s, pop singer Mandy Moore released the song "Candy," which went on to be a big hit. The song established Moore as one of the rising pop stars of a generation, along with the likes of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and Jessica Simpson. However, concerned parents worried that the suggestive theme of "Candy"

was inappropriate for young children. Moore was only 14 at the time of the song's release, so she had many young and innocent fans. Moore responded by saying that the song wasn't supposed to be sexual, and that it was simply about having a crush on someone, similar to the way in which you could develop a "sweet tooth" for candy. It seems that people had become so used to candy being used as a sexual metaphor that they automatically assumed that was the case with Moore's song. Of course, it should be noted that Mandy Moore didn't actually write "Candy," so who knows what the truth is.