Goetze Candy is a family owned candy company located in downtown Baltmore. Founded in 1895, they were originally a chewing gum manufacturer, before making the move to their staple candy, the Caramel Cream®, during the 1940’s. My personal ballpark favorite, Cow Tales®, was added in 1984. Needless to say, I was thrilled to see a care package from them show up on my door step a few weeks ago. That’s right, sweet creamy caramel on my doorstep. They were delicious.
Goetze’s Caramel Creams® are delicious sweets made out of chewy caramel wrapped around a rich, cream center. Caramel Creams® were first created in 1917 by R. Melvin Goetze Sr. in his family’s kitchen. Originally, they were called “chuees” and did not have the cream center. A year later, he began making the Caramel Creams® we know and love today.
Cow Tales ® are Caramel Creams® made in an elongated form. Which is why I love taking them in my purse to baseball games with the family. Some folks eat peanuts and nachos, I prefer candy. It’s something my sister started with her young son while he played baseball and I adopted it from her.
I decided it was time to learn more about Goetze and their candy. As a young woman growing up in a textile community, there were many discussions based around buying products in the USA. That has stuck with me as an adult. It keeps jobs in our communities and cuts down on greenhouse emissions, etc., due to shipping costs. Goetze still holds to those ideals and wanting to make the best product possible, employing people in their community and even promotion other companies who manufacture their product solely in the U.S. It was a throwback to my childhood and brought up a wealth of memories I had tucked away.
Ingredients
Goetze wants consumers to know what is in their candy and they have an ingredients page for you to go and read about what they are using. Some are proprietary, which means they can’t exactly list the entire ingredient — mainly flavors. They also list what food colors they use, which are derived from natural sources. But if I told you what they are usually made of, you’d hate me.
I think that listing them clearly and keep the ingredients in the open is great for people with food allergies. Making this information easily accessible is key to preventing possibly life threatening reactions from happening and is an added safety measure.
Goetze is a nut-free facility
Caramel Creams® and Cow Tales® are made in a dedicated, nut-free facility. You can enjoy Goetze’s caramel treats with the assurance that their caramels are made and packaged in a facility that has never processed nut-containing products.
Balanced Lifestyle
The one thing I love about Goetze’s Candy is that even though they are candy manufacturers, they are firm believers in making balanced food choices as part of a healthy diet and even share resources on their website for fans of their candy. There are fitness and nutrition tips, along with a food diary for checking your energy levels throughout the day.
Recipes
In my bucket of treats, they had included recipe cards. I’m a sucker for a good recipe. When it’s a recipe where I can use shortcuts involving caramel is win in my book. I tried the Apple Pizza (yes, I shared my candy — begrudgingly) made with Caramel Creams® and it was so good. I mean, cream cheese, cookie crust, caramel, peanut butter and tart apples are truly a match made in heaven. (I’m not big on the whole “dessert pizza” trend, but this is more like a tasty bar.)
Had I known that Goetze encourages you to save your candy wrappers to send in for free stuff, there would be a box in my office filled with the wrappers from the candy I devoured. I’m not even sure devoured is a strong enough word. Imagine me sitting at my desk, with a bucket willed with Cow Tales® and Caramel Creams®. You think “I’ll just have one” and ten later… (Hey, at least I’m honest.)
Follow Goetze Candy:
Twitter — @CowTales
Facebook — Like them
Disclosure: I want sent a gift from Goetze Candy, however I did not receive any compensation for this post. All of my opinions are my own and I promise I shared my candy, even though I didn’t want to.