Tagged: Candy

The city of Lakewood is moving forward with a plan to impose a 3 percent city sales tax on soft drinks and candy. The new tax will be considered once more at a public hearing Monday August 27.

If you're from Maine, odds are you've heard of needhams — a traditional sweet with a surprising ingredient.

While Maine is famous for its sweet blueberries and maple syrup, it has another, more earthy, local crop: potatoes.

Jon Courtney, a friend who lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, first stumbled on needhams a few years ago. Now, he's hooked.

"Basically it's coconut and sugar dipped in chocolate," Courtney says. "So if you were to pick one up, you'd be like, 'Oh! This is a homemade Mounds bar.' "

The Valomilk was once advertised as "the 5-cent candy bar with the 50-cent taste." And while the price has changed, the product has not.

For more than 80 years, the family-owned Russell Sifers Candy Company has been using the same recipe to churn out a rich concoction of chocolate and creamy marshmallow goo.

The candy-making machines are busy on the factory floor in Merriam, Kan., just southwest of Kansas City. This is the headquarters of the century-old company, where Russell Sifers himself is a fourth-generation candy maker.