Snap. Crackle. Pop Rocks.

You remember your first time.

You were idling at the bus stop, reviewing the relative merits of Bubbalicious vs. Hubba Bubba, when your BFF whipped out a packet of something different. "Try this," she said.

In the mouth: an explosion of popping, crackling sugar, almost electric, almost alive. Fruity-sweet with a crunchy finish. Totally new and unreal on the tongue.

"Pop Rocks," she said, with the easy confidence of the already initiated.

"More," you said, with the zeal of the newly converted. And for the next few weeks, you were never without your trusty packet of Blueberry Razz, Tropical Punch, or Watermelon rocks.

That was, like, a while ago. (Hint: Don't do the math.) But guess what? Pop Rocks are BACK.

In their unbranded, unflavored form, they're known as popping candy or pastry rocks, and they're you-know-whatting up in desserts all over the place. Elizabeth Falkner is using them at Citizen Cake. Heston Blumenthal invented a Popping-Candy Chocolate Cake. Some obsessive uber-fan wrote a book about them. And, in addition to mainlining, you can add them to recipes of your own. For instance: we sprinkled a few teaspoons of the stuff onto our chocolate fondue.

Some words to the worriers:

1) Mikey, of Life cereal commercial fame, is not dead. (Rumor—i.e., urban legend—had it that the perhaps over-experimental Mikey had died from a lethal cocktail of Pop Rocks and Coke. Nope.) He's alive and well, and, at least as far as the candy goes, digestionally unscathed.

2) Popping candy is essentially sugar, lactose, and corn syrup exposed to carbon dioxide gas, which forms pressure bubbles inside the candy. In your mouth, the candy breaks, releasing the bubbles, which is where the crackles and pops come from. So nothing scary or toxic, peeps.