Sugar is sweet, and logic is, too.

With Chocolate Fix, you get both. This logical deduction game features challenge cards, with clues to guide the proper placement of sweet chocolate pieces. "It's like Sudoku, in a hands-on fun way," says Charlotte Fixler, communications manager at ThinkFun. "This is a game you'll want to keep out on your coffee table."

Educational games like Chocolate Fix may just as well be kept on the kitchen table. That's because food-themed board games feature everything from playing cards shaped like slices of bread, to vowels and consonants packaged in a screaming yellow banana, to playing pieces shaped like real candy.

The goal of Chocolate Fix is to arrange the chocolate, vanilla and strawberry candy in a tray according to shape (triangle, circle, square) and color (brown, white, pink). Forty challenge clue cards, which range from beginning to expert, provide chocoholics with hours of tactile fun.

"We do have Chocolate Fix apps for the iPhone, iPad and iPod, but we want people to think of the apps as a supplement to hands-on play," Fixler says.

Chocolate Fix, which retails for $19.99, was named one of Dr. Toy's Best Picks 2009. It was created by ThinkFun, a company that takes game play seriously. ThinkFun's cofounder and CEO Bill Ritchie is a member of the IPP (International Puzzle Party), a Mensa-like club for puzzle experts. ThinkFun takes prototypes to retailers and local schools for feedback. Families test their games.

Today, prospective buyers can give Chocolate Fix a taste at Marbles—the Brain Store. There are eighteen Marbles stores nationwide, including six in the Chicago area. Marbles allows customers to try out any of their fun, easy-to-use, brain-teaser games prior to purchase.

"You need to work out your brain, just like any other muscle," says Geoffrey Carlson, store manager of Marbles in Chicago's Lincoln Square neighborhood. "With Chocolate Fix, the process of elimination works on the frontal lobe [where problem-solving takes place]."

Pass the Popcorn, another game carried by Marbles, is a fast-paced trivia game for two or more players. The goal is to name a familiar film, based on cast, character, story and quote. "Any time you are recalling information or making new connections, you are working on the temporal lobe of your brain," Carlson says.

With Pass the Popcorn, it's a mad, mad, mad, mad race to match a player's hand of cards to one of 250 box office hits. Clues range from the quote, "You're gonna need a bigger boat," to "a musical starring Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Hudson." In addition to the board game, there are Facebook, website and mobile versions.

Another favorite educational toy is Bananagrams, an anagram word game in a banana-shaped pouch. Creator Abe Nathanson wanted a simple, fast, fun game that his family could play together. But Scrabble took two hours. Nathanson changed it up and sped it up.

"He was sort of a renaissance creative genius," says his daughter Rena Nathanson, CEO of Bananagrams. "He consciously developed the game to be simple. And my mom designed the washable fabric banana package. We hate plastic."

To play Bananagrams, letter tiles are turned face down. Everyone takes a fixed amount of letters to begin. Players race to make their own set of connected words. They take additional tiles and repeat, dismantling and reforming words as needed. The game can be played on a table or on the floor. It's a fast-paced, fluid game.

"We found people with dyslexia love it, because it's very hands-on, and not static," says Nathanson. "[Kids with] ADHD love it, because it's quick and the focus keeps on changing."

The game debuted at the 2006 London Toy Fair. Nathanson's young son and daughter dressed up in banana costumes, and the company set up tables so people could play the game. Bananagrams caught on like wildfire, and won the 2009 Game of the Year award from the Toy Industry Association. The company has sold 5.5 million of the games so far. Bookstores, large stores like Target and small shops all carry the game.

"Independents are really our bread and butter," Nathanson says. "We wouldn't be where we are without them."

The Bananagrams company later created Appletters, a strategic word game that is a cross between dominoes and Bananagrams. A red apple pouch houses the letter tiles. There are three levels of play. In Appletters, players append words to the first or last letter of a word "snake," until one player uses all of his or her tiles. Applescore gives bonus points for big words, and Apple Turnover allows words to be replaced with longer words.

PAIRSinPEARS is a variation for younger folk. Players connect word pairs in matching patterns. With PAIRSinPEARS, children can develop memory and cognitive skills while learning the alphabet and building their vocabulary.

In Fruitominoes, players connect six colorful fruit patterns. With its zipper pouch packaging, this twist on dominoes is travel-friendly. None of these Bananagrams games require a die, game board or fancy extras.

Similarly, neither do new games by other manufacturers. Crazy Cheese, a puzzle with yellow-colored pieces that fit together in various ways, and Sardines, a memory matching game, have simple designs. But they require concentration and brain power.

For younger children, the focus is often on fun. There's Take the Cake, a game that features a sprinkle shaker, thirty-two wooden decorations and sixteen cupcake cards. Players ages 4 and up collect cupcakes by matching brightly colored shapes to frosting decorations. The first to fill in their toppings wins. Gamewright won the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum Award for this sugary game. It's a fun confection of shape and color recognition.

Order's Up, which retails for $15.99, is an ideal game for children ages 6 and older. Gamewright calls it "the ring-a-ding diner game," and that's not too far off. Players observe and react, racing for the right to ring the bell and match menu offerings to restaurant guest checks. Dishes, which are pictured on circular cards, include scrumptious spaghetti, slices of cake and strawberry ice cream sodas.

Those hungry for lunch can also check out Slamwich. The card game reinforces visual discrimination and hand-eye coordination. Slamwich comes in a collectible lunchbox. "A lot of these go out the door," says Shara Phillips, salesperson at Timeless Toys on North Lincoln Avenue in Chicago. "The case is great for travel, and the cards are very easy to play with on an airplane."

With Slamwich, players flip over bread-shaped cards that picture ingredients like pickles and gummy worms. They stack them in a center pile to build slamwiches (i.e., alternating cards, such lettuce, tomato, lettuce) and double deckers (two of the same cards, such as bacon, bacon). But beware: thieves and munchers can slow down the collection of cards.

Timeless Toys also carries Tea Party, by eeBoo, which features a teapot spinner and real fabric tablecloth. Players spin for tea sandwiches, desserts, fruit and tea. Gather a Garden, which retails for $19.99, is a board game with stand-up pieces. Players move from vendor to vendor, gathering flowers and herbs.

Then there's Wok 'N' Roll, a game that improves children's motor skills. Players remove food shapes from a plastic wok, using little chopsticks. But it's not all sheer fun and silly games. For intellectual kids, there's Potato Chip Science. The mini-science kit touches on physics, biology and chemistry. It was developed by Allen Kurzweil, who has been honored by the Guggenheim and Fulbright Foundations. He and his son Max call themselves "snack food scientists and overseers of the Chip Science Institute (CSI)."

Potato Chip Science is a grab bag of twenty-nine "snacktivities." Kid scientists can perform acid analyses of potato chips and take fingerprints with potato chip powder. There are the shrunken spud mummies and other creepily delightful things to create. Kids simply need to follow the instructions, and combine items in the potato chip-type package with household odds and ends.

Whether it's a board game or a card game, food-themed play can provide more than just a quick snack. From Chocolate Fix to Potato Chip Science, there's plenty to chew on.