Most students don’t step into candy shops. We’ve got Walgreen’s, and they’ve got enough high-fructose corn syrup miscellany and gelatin-infused gobs of chemicals that true sugar and real chocolate is not a priority. If we want baked goods, we’ll wait until mom makes something. Or we’ll make them ourselves.

Of course, there are a few spots in Madison that indulge in the true blue candy connoisseur, such as David Bacco Chocolats in Hilldale Mall and Gail Ambrosius Chocolatier on Atwood Avenue. Unfortunately for students, however, they’re fairly out of reach. The fact that those areas aren’t on the immediate radar of UW-Madison students means the 18-21 crowd will still get the pre-processed bars lining the aisles of the nearest convenience store. In general, such sweet delights are not something students go out of their way to splurge on.

Which is why the appearance of a small candy shop called Sweet Impressions on State Street seems so odd. Located in what used to be the second Clary’s Old Fashioned, Gourmet Popcorn, the new candy shop occupies a tiny room next to Art Gecko and seems to still be in development. Other than the storefront decorations, Sweet Impressions is depressingly bare — only a counter with three clearly defined sections and a Coca-Cola refrigerator.

But let us assume they’re not going the route of Love Shack and will eventually design the business. We still need to come to grips with the fact that they essentially serve three types of goodies: cupcakes and cookies, chocolates and popcorn.

First off, the popcorn isn’t the issue here. It’s pretty hard to screw up caramel or cheese popcorn, so let’s just make that part a given.

The chocolates on the other hand range from satisfying to generic. Credit must be given to the standard chocolate milk balls for their color-coded nature. Thankfully, the offending flavors that usually depend on a diagram or trial and error to discover are readily visible and labeled upon purchase. So there’s no guessing game there.

But the filling is not particularly rich or satisfying. The dark chocolate filling doesn’t seep with the bitter coffee-taste, it merely mingles in with the standard milk chocolate coating. None of the flavors really jump in and dominate — which is good, but ultimately uninteresting and occasionally bland. The same happens when one takes a bite into the peanut butter chocolates –it’s a mass of peanut butter in a thin chocolate coating that seems rather inelegant. I could mix the two in my mouth separately and get essentially the same effect.

One chocolate-coated treat does seize the taste buds, however — the chocolate-covered caramel pecan patty. Unlike the chocolate balls, the caramel, despite being laid under a more significant chocolate coating, penetrates the entire patty with its flavor. At times, depending on the placement of the pecans, you might get a bit of a spiced kick. The richness of these patties cannot be understated.

But then, there’s the matter of the cupcakes. Given the fact that few high-flatulent shops will specialize in cupcakes, they’ve got to be rich, they’ve got to be substantial and they’ve got to be fresh.

Based on the two cupcakes sampled, they may have some things to work on. The red velvet cupcake certainly embodies its full-scale counterpart in terms of texture and the essential taste, but the frosting is a miss. Instead of the cream cheese mixture that red velvet cake is known for, Sweet Impressions seems satisfied with a regular sugary frosting. It doesn’t break the cupcake, but it is a letdown. The lemon drop satisfies much more, with a tangy, sweet-sour burst once biting into the frosting. It would have been a complete success if the frosting wasn’t too hard to bite into smoothly. Don’t get me wrong — candy is, indeed, dandy, and Sweet Impressions is making a valiant effort to bring that to State Street. But there’s not enough bang for your buck. If you want to charge a buck-fifty for a cupcake, it’s got to be perfect. The selection might be small, but if the quality is pitch-perfect, that can be forgiven. For the time being, they’re giving off the wrong impression.

2 1/2 stars out of 5.