Japan Candy Box Review and Giveaway

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Happy Monday Littlest Sweet Shoppers!

Today we are doing a review on a subscription service called Japan Candy Box in the Littlest Sweet Shop.

Japan Candy Box is a monthly subscription that you can subscribe to from anywhere in the world. Each box includes 10 various Japanese sweets and snacks, some even only exclusive to Japan!

We had a Japanese family living next door when I was growing up so Japanese food, snacks (and even culture) was always something I am familiar with. However now that I'm living in a remote English countryside, it is practically impossible to buy any Japanese food.

Since Japan Candy Box includes free delivery to your doorsteps - including remote English rural areas - almost anyone can experience the joy of kawaii food. The best part? Every month you get a different mix of items so you can experience a whole load of Japanese sweets and snacks.

I received my box for March 2016, and please note, unlike all the miniature food from Littlest Sweet Shop - THESE ARE REAL and for human consumption. I was so delighted to receive the box so quickly since it took only 2 weeks to arrive.

So what did they include in the March box?

Japan Candy Box March 2016 edition

1. Kabaya Karipori Candy Sticks
2. Fujiya Milky Peko X Sanrio Chocolates
3. Kracie Sea Animals DIY Gummy Kit
4. Bourbon Petit Grilled Pizza Rice Crackers
5. Calbee Sapporo Potato Vegetables Snacks
6. Meiji Mushroom Mountain Chocolate Cookies
7. Meiji Mini Grape Gummies
8. Coris Cola & Soda Soft Candy
9. Hi-Chew Chewy Candy - Cola flavour
10. Kasugai 100% Fruit Juice Gummies

Kabaya Karipori Candy Sticks

There are two flavours in this box, grape soda and Cola (Or Koo-ra as they say in Japanese)
Each 2 sticks are individually wrapped since they are essentially popping candy so you don't want moisture to ruin it.
I've never had candy in this form before but it was pleasantly flavoured, especially the Cola and if you chew on it you get the 'popping candy' effect. If you don't chew on it, you can also take a small piece in your mouth to savour the flavours and enjoy the fizziness.

Fujiya Milky Peko X Sanrio Chocolates

Kawaii Sanrio characters moulded chocolate

If you follow me on Flickr, you can see most of my shopping purchases including toys, fashion (Japanese clothes) and candy. I am a HUGE fan of Milky sweets and they always seem to do some collaboration with My Melody or Sanrio.
I was so happy that they included a Milky candy that I have never had before. As a bonus, it was moulded into kawaii Sanrio characters!
The confectionery consists of strawberry and milk chocolate. Even my husband said the packaging is cute (and he's not into cute things) and the sweets tasted really nice, unlike that sickly sweet chocolate you get here in the UK.

My favourite was of course the one that was shaped like My Melody.

Kracie Sea Animals DIY Gummy Kit

I made all of that gummies!

This is my second Kracie DIY candy product plus I also have another 2 kits stashed away (I will do a review on that very soon!). My surprise with Kracie kits is that I never knew something gimmicky could actually taste really nice.
With this kit it took less then 30 minutes to produce 2 sets of gummy candy (dolphin, fish, star-fish etc.) and comes with a small place mat for you to display the sweets.
Since this is a candy kit, you let your creativity go wild during the first stage which is mixing up the 3 coloured powder into the mold. The more you mix, the more colourful and rainbow-like your gummies will turn out!
Like all Kracie sweets, it tasted really good especially when you get a ramune (soda), grape and strawberry flavours mixed up in each gummy.

Bourbon Petit Grilled Pizza Rice Crackers

Open up the pizza box to reveal - pizza flavoured rice snacks!

I have to say that this is my favourite item in the whole box. As the founding person of Littlest Sweet Shop, naturally I have a sweet tooth. But this snack was so delicious, I wished I had a huge pack of it! The rice crackers was light and the tomato and cheese flavour was so nice, and not salty. At first I wanted to share some with my husband, but it was too good that I almost scoffed the whole thing in one go! WARNING - Extremely more-ish!

Calbee Sapporo Potato Vegetables Snacks

Calbee in the UK is known to produce healthy snacking alternatives to crisps. This crispy Calbee snack is also a healthy option as it is a very light snack and contains vegetables. The potato base of the snack is very tasty even though it's not heavily laden with salt. The shape reminds me of the prawn cracker snacks I had growing up, but healther and less salty.

Meiji Mushroom Mountain Chocolate Cookies

This mushroom is basically made up from a crispy biscuit base for the mushroom 'stalk' and the top is made from signature Meiji chocolate confectionery. Meiji's chocolate is never too sweet and goes really well with the crispy biscuit. I would say the ratio of chocolate to biscuit is perfect as well. I love the 'kinoko' shape which makes a this type of Japanese snacks really cute and fun to eat

Meiji Mini Grape Gummies

These mini grape gummies have one of the best grape flavours I've ever tasted! The outer coating is crispy and inside is super juicy and yummy. Took no time scoffing the whole pack. My husband thought it was chewing gum at first as we have never come across a gummy sweet with a crispy shell.

Coris Cola & Soda Soft Candy

This long piece of candy or taffy has two layers, the outer is cola flavour with a soda flavour in the core. Extremely yummy when eaten together but since it's quite a long piece, it will take you a while to get through the whole thing!

 Hi-Chew Chewy Candy - Cola flavour

My husband doesn't eat as much candy as I do but he sure did like this one. He said the texture was softer than normal taffy and the flavour goes a long way. Each piece is individually wrapped and has a little story written in Hiragana Japanese writing. My Japanese is probably the same level as a 5 year old Japanese person so I love all this little details on the packaging to help me learn.

Kasugai 100% Fruit Juice Gummies

In my box I received the apple variant and was surprised that it wasn't too tart/sour. I'm not usually a fan of apple flavoured sweets but this one has a pleasant taste and since it's made from 100% fruit juice, I guess it's also part of your daily fruit diet? Lol

They are quite soft and almost melts in your mouth.

Fancy winning a box of Japanese Candy for yourself? Enter here! (open to all Littlest Sweet Shoppers worldwide). You can also subscribe to Japan Candy Box directly by visiting their website at http://www.japancandybox.com/

a Rafflecopter giveaway

That's all for now. I'm quite busy doing a tutorial for Sculpey for this month so make sure you stick around so you can also learn how we make miniatures at Littlest Sweet Shop

BYE!

All new items! Star Icing cake, Battenberg, Iced Gem biscuits, and all new Popsickles

Hello again Littlest Sweet Shoppers!

Here are several new items to enjoy over a cup of tea and new ice cream that is perfect for the upcoming hot season!

More new items for May

Iced gem biscuits were my favourite when I was a young girl. I love crunching the whole thing in one go and mix the meringue-like icing with the crunchy and light biscuit. Littllest Sweet Shop version is available in 5 colours and you can find it as part of our Pick'n Mix selection in the Sweet Boutique menu. 

Iced gem biscuits by Littlest Sweet Shop

Amazing detail on each biscuit

A lot of detail squeezed into each tiny piece!

Next up, something a bit more cool and icy! You can now find dipped pop-sickles in our Ice Cream menu. How do you know it's been dipped? Well, they have one small bite taken out and you can actually see the layers! We even made the pop-sickle stick from real wood.

2 different shapes available. You can custom what dip and coating you would like

Looks like a real 1/6 scale Magnum ice cream! Yuffie with a Milk Chocolate coated vanilla ice cream pop-sickle with dark chocolate stripes

Magnum shaped pop-sickles with a bite taken out. You can even have additional caramel/strawberry/chocolate sauce inside the vanilla ice cream

Square shaped pop-sickles. All dipped in delicious candy and coating

We have not 1 but 2 cakes to debut today in our Cakes menu.

First we have for you the Battenberg cake. It's very popular here in England and you can even buy mini versions in supermarkets.

Our version is the home-made style with white and pink spongecake sandwiched together with marmalade and covered in white marzipan

Battenberg cake

I call this masterpiece the Star Icing Ombré Cake in True Green colours. Inside is ombré cake with pink frosting. As you can see each star peak has to be individually modelled so it took almost 4 days to complete!

True Green Star Icing Ombré Cake

True Green Star Icing Ombré Cake with 1 slice

Pink icing inside.

Last but not least, we have some ice cream bites also new to our Ice Cream menu. They are mini in size and we have made some with vanilla ice cream inside.

Each mini bites is coated in a thin and crisp candy shell.

Mint and Strawberry ice cream bites. Also available with additional chocolate stripes.

Yuffie with her favourite pop-sickle - White chocolate 'Magnum' with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce inside  

Hope you like the new arrivals! We worked very hard making them >-<

Anyway join us again next week as we bring you another review of some very kawaii Japanese sweets.

Sayonara!!

Let's go for a picnic with some new items - S'mores, Turkish Delight and Rainbow Belts

Hello again Littlest Sweet Shoppers!

It was such a pretty day so we decided to have a picnic. Akiko also had the brilliant idea of taking some of the new items along with us so we can take photos for the menu!

Akiko with her picnic in the bright sunny day

All of the new miniature food is listed in the 'Sweets Boutique' menu. First one is an English favourite (even though it might not originate from Britain) - the Turkish Delight.

These chunky rose-water sweets are red but coated in fine icing powder. They are now available as part of our Pick'n Mix selection.

Chunks of Rose-water Turkish Delight 

Another new candy/confectionery is also a British favourite found in retro Tuck Shops. Rainbow Belts are long strips of gummy sweets in rainbow colours and coated in sugar. It is also a wonderful new addition to our Pick'n Mix range.

Rainbow Belts in a basket

We now have S'mores in our Sweets Boutique menu! I had trouble categorising this one but we don't have a 'Camping Food' menu so I thought it was best to list it with the other Littlest Sweet Shop candy since marshmallow and chocolate make up the biggest part of a S'more.

If you are not from America, you might wonder what is a S'more? It's short for "Some more" as in "GIVE ME SOME MORE!" because it's just irresistibly good.

Littlest Sweet Shop S'mores are made the traditional way using Graham crackers, toasted marshmallow and our own chocolate. It is a popular camping snack since people can toast the marshmallow over a camp fire and use that as the ingredient.

The marshmallow gets super soft and hot thus melting part of the chocolate. We even offer other candy flavours like Strawberry milk or White chocolate as well.

S'mores is the perfect snack during picnics and camping

The gooey hot marshmallow heats up part of the chocolate bar. Graham crackers are crispy and slightly tasteless so it will balance out all of that sugar.

Realistic Graham crackers, toasted marshmallow and our own chocolate makes the best S'mores

Up-close

As usual, we guarantee that all of our miniatures are scaled down perfectly for your dolls. This ensures you get a good quality miniature with so much detail and realism that can make you hungry!

We strive to make our miniatures the perfect size for your doll

Last but not least we have updated our Rainbow cupcakes in the Cupcakes menu.
Each band of rainbow is secured on the cupcake with a thick white frosting resembling clouds. So much colour in one cupcake alone!

Rainbows and fluffy clouds

Our most colourful cupcake design

Before saying good-bye, I'd like to show you some photos from The Most Kawaii Event of the Year in London last weekend. My picture is a bit dodgy because my brother who took it is a medical student so he's not very good with the camera. The event was also indoors with spotlights on the stage so I guess lighting wasn't great either. We all had fun though and would love to meet more Littlest Sweet Shoppers in the future.

Me and the Littlest Sweet Shop accessories collection.

My brother helped me out on that evening.

Maya also came along and attracted many shoppers.

Akiko working hard to promote all of our various products.

Currently I'm working on some new and exciting miniatures as well as a tutorial for Sculpey so make sure you visit Littlest Sweet Shop again next time!

Bye!

Commission update(s) and our new Littlest Sweet Shop online store is now open!

Hey Hey Littlest Sweet Shoppers 

Time for another commission update. A Littlest Sweet Shopper from Australia has commissioned me to make 4 charm bracelets and several extra lollipop charms. There are 7 charms in total for each bracelet which includes heart sandwich biscuit, lollipop, layer cake, animal doughnut, macaron, pop-sickle and Swiss-roll.

Since every single charm is bespoke and made-to-order, the charm-bracelets are definitely unique and one-of-a-kind. You will never find this on the high-street. 

'Purple' set with Bear animal doughnut

Patched ear cat on 'Green' set

'Green set'

Heart cookie and lollipop detail. The smallest charms on this set

'Orange' set

'Pink' set with bunny animal doughnut

Each lollipop, cream filling and cake icing come in a different flavour 

Macaron, pop-sickle and Swiss-roll charms

Around Christmas time I was also commissioned to make 3 charm-bracelets for an English Littlest Sweet Shopper but I didn't manage to take any photos since winter is a bad time for photography light. I hope some pictures taken on my phone can show you roughly how the charms look. 

If you are loving the look of these irresistible charm-bracelets, make sure you visit our Etsy store which sells all the exclusive Littlest Sweet Shop accessories. We have earrings, necklaces, rings, hair-pins, key-chains and more!! We only use the most delicious miniatures for our accessories line and you can even request a custom item of your own. 

Littlest Sweet Shop on Etsy

Littlest Sweet Shop heart macaron earrings in sweet pastel colours

Remember, we will be in London for The most Kawaii Event of the Year and displaying all of our Littlest Sweet Shop accessories. Make sure you don't miss out if you are in the city this Saturday evening. Please come and say hi to us :D

That's all for now. Come back next week with a full report and photos from the event. 

Bye!