I have a confession: I’m sick of hearing myself say and/or type “pate de fruit”.  I feel like Dan Akroyd in “Trading Places”, the petulant highbrow who’d utter such phrases as “oh surrre, like you went to Haaaarvard”, and “That man tried to have sex with me!”.  But that’s not important.  Here’s what we’re doing though: we’re calling geles, pate de fruit, whatever- we’re calling them fruit jellies from here on out.  Easier, cleaner, less psuedo-cultured.

But that doesn’t change the fact that I still love them.  We’ve reviewed some good in recent months, some bad.  And now?  I present the best I’ve ever tried, served up hot for you, with a cup of coffee.  Check them out, straight from Italy, Sugarfina’s “Apple Pie” Fruit Jelly:

Wait.  Why are there only four of them in there?  No, it’s not because Sugarfina skimps- they sure as hell don’t.  Nope, it’s because I simply cannot help myself around these.  I thought I’d better get around to reviewing them before I ran out.

These photos are just a bit dark on the color, but you get the idea.  A large, round fruit jelly, that they SAY tastes like apple pie.  But people say a lot of things.

One of my favorite things-on that note-is the “you’ll understand when you have kids” phrase that all parents say to their kids at least 50 times growing up.  It’s got to be the truest saying of all time.  I can’t argue with it.  So when Jonny Guru Jr. asks why I cry during baseball movies?  I give him that line.  I also give it to him when he complains about his “earlier than every other kid on earth’s” bedtime.  To be honest though….in that situation I’m lying: I just want him to hurry up and fall asleep so I can watch “Big Brother”.

Back to the apple pie.

Like most other fruit jellies, it’s relatively firm, with large crusty sugar coating it.  You can smell the apple, but that doesn’t even come close to preparing you for the taste  It’s an explosion.  It’s literally as if someone took a warm apple pie and exploded it safely into your face and mouth.  The first flavor you get is of course apple, but there’s a few other things working at the same time.

Cinnamon, spices, and even a bit of savory crust flavor join the party.  It’s amazing how many things work together-perfectly-at the same time.  Trust me, you don’t want this eating experience to end.

To refresh y’all, Matty Guru doesn’t like fruit jellies-at all.  He just can’t get past the consistency, it’s not for him.  But I forced to him to try this (admittedly after some delicious bourbon), and even he admitted that he really liked this.  The other two guys we were with loved it, and resented my short supply.

Fruit Jellies generally have the same consistency as one another-or at least they should.  Firm, but not crazy firm.  And this one nails it.  The chunky sugar crystals coating it play wonderfully against the smooth interior to the point where eating ONE of these is a satisfying candy experience in and of itself.  They’re completely natural (honestly, any fruit jellies that aren’t get kicked to the curb, yo) so it’s got that brutally real flavor working for it as well.

Am I making my position clear here?  These are amazing, and currently are residing on the throne of fruit jellies in my world.  There’s so many reasons to do some local (in Beverly Hills) or online shopping at Sugarfina.com, you shouldn’t need this candy as an excuse.  However, now that you know these exist and that they’re marvelous, you owe it to yourself to check out some Sugarfina love.  Here’s what you do:

Go online, and make a variety box (their site is super easy to navigate), and be sure to include at LEAST 4 ounces of these.  Go a little nuts-because you’re buying a holiday gift for your favorite candy-loving relative.

Except….when it arrives, silly you, you’ll realize that it’s way too early to buy a holiday gift!  These might go stale, dummy.  So you’ll probably need to just keep them yourself, test them out, then come late November, make the actual gift purchase.  This is how my mind works.  Love me, like me, emulate me.

Click below to get started-and once these rock your world, let me know about it.  Also, don’t forget, as well as being able to follow us on Twitter,  we now have an Instagram account with lots of yum candy photos-both accounts are under “candygurus”.

Mmmmm….apple pie.