I often have scraps of caramel, ganache, cookies, and such leftover at the end of my candy bar making, and I sometimes mismatch elements from different bars out of curiosity. For instance, my orange caramel with my Single Malt Scotch ganache is yummy, but I probably couldn’t sell that bar anytime soon b/c it would just be too confusing for everyone… I already have enough explaining to do for my customers at, say, farmers markets.

But a couple weeks ago, I tried some orange caramel on top of a piece of shortbread… and I remembered why the Twix bar was always my favorite mass-market candy bar — the textural combination of chewy caramel and crunchy cookie is spectacular. I didn’t want to create a knockoff of a Twix bar, but shortly after, I was also thinking about holiday offerings and how much I like pumpkin… and the idea of a Pumpkin Bar came to me - Spiced Pumpkin Caramel on top of Shortbread. It’d be like a Pumpkin Twix, BUT it’d also like a pumpkin pie — creamy pumpkin-y goodness on top of a “crust”… and then enrobed in chocolate

The problem is that pumpkin only purees so much and it has kind of a weak flavor. So, my pumpkin caramel experiments have been turning out ok, but with a pate de fruit-like bent — coarse-textured.

So, I turned to what a little voice inside my head has been whispering to me since the beginning of this endeavor: butternut squash. It makes a caramel that has a brighter flavor and a finer texture. I want to pursue it more.

But.. what could I call the candy bar? The Butternut Squash Bar? Even this punk chocolatier couldn’t do it — esoteric, and too long. My naming strategy has been to call bars according what they are — Malt, Orange, Caramel Nut, Scotch. Part of it is my lack of faith that I could consistently think of absolutely brilliant names like Snickers, but the major part of it has to do with the honesty of the company and its ingredients — I call those bars by those names because that’s what they’re made from and that’s what they taste like — not chemicals or anything artificial.

So… what to do with Butternut Squash? If it doesn’t contain pumpkin, I can’t call it The Pumpkin Bar… Or the “Pumpkin” Bar… Or the Pumpkin Pie Bar…. or even The Squash Bar (ha, just trying saying “I’ll take two Squash Bars” or “I can’t decide between the Squash Bar and the Caramel Nut Bar”). The Holiday Bar or Holiday Pie would be too vague — and quickly defeat itself — customers’ first question: “What is it?” Me: “Butternut squash caramel and shortbread.” Them: “That’s disgusting.” Me: “D’oh!” Awkward pause. Me: “But it’s great!”

Pumpkins and butternut squashes are both squashes. A cruel irony is that I remember butternut squash being called pumpkin when I lived in the UK. But I do not live in the UK now.

The only solution that I can think of is to call it the Pumpkin Bar (or Pumpkin Pie Bar?) and use a small percentage of pumpkin, just for the name’s sake, in addition to the butternut squash. It’s not all that evil, but I don’t know… Anyone have a better idea?

I should also mention, though, that this bar isn’t definite… I have to make sure that I have the production time and resources to make it (cookie-based bars take the most time to make)… and perfect the recipe… but it sure is tempting…

This entry was posted on Monday, September 8th, 2008 at 7:06 pm and is filed under BonBonBar LLC, Candy Bars, Chocolate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.