Just Born is best known for their Peeps line of marshmallow candies. Easter is high season for Peeps, which now come in all known colors visible to the human eye. So all that’s left is the extension of the brand into other areas. Target had a nice display of the Peeps brand line, including some Peeps lollipops in various colors and two different shapes. (They came in a Peep shape, which was a little less attractive than the bunny one.) The candies were on sale, your choice of two for $3. I thought $1.50 was a bit steep for a lollipop, but the Just Born website lists them for $2.50 each.

They also had matching tubes of the Just Born Teenee Beanee Jelly Beans to go with the pops. The packaging was spare but appealing and the flavor for this set: Indian River Orange sounded very appealing.

The Lollipop was interesting in that it was not only shaped like a Peeps Bunny, but it also had a sugar crust on one side. The texture of the candy was fantastic, it’s more of a barley sugar candy, which usually has few voids and a milder sweetness. Think of it like a less intense Jolly Rancher, the texture is a very light dissolve that becomes pliable when the piece is small.

The orange flavor was delicate, no tart bite, just the orange zest note. I loved the dissolve, but I admit I didn’t care for the grainy textured side of the pop, which meant that the pieces were rough when I bit them off. The size was good at 1.2 ounces, quite a bit of candy, but not so much that I could finish it in an afternoon at my desk. There was a fresh, citrus aftertaste that lasted quite a while.

Though it’s tempting to think that these were just cheaper Jelly Belly, but they’re not. Teenee Beanee are pectin beans, which means that they use both starch and fruit pectin to get the jelly center just right. They’re just a little bigger than Jelly Belly but not nearly as large as traditional jelly beans. The color is a little inconsistent, as some were more translucent than others, but I found this variation very attractive.

The orange flavor is vibrant and mostly zest-based. There was only a light hint of juicy tartness around the margin of the shell, but not at all like a Jelly Belly.

The tube holds 5 ounces and for $1.50 I thought that was a pretty good deal for a more premium bean. I liked them quite a bit, but part of it was that I just like orange jelly beans and the fact that I didn’t have to pick them out of a mix was good. The tube is easy to open and stays closed, and is pretty minimal overall. It also featured a real cloth ribbon bow, which is a nice touch if you’re going to put these into an Easter basket or make it part of a hostess gift.

The jelly beans were made in a facility that also processes peanuts, tree nuts, milk, wheat and soy. They use a confectioners glaze so are not considered vegan. Teenee Beanee tubes also come in La Jolla Lemon, Napa Grape, Chesapeake Cherry, Savannah Strawberry and Laredo Lime tubes with matching lollipops.

Related Candies

1. David’s Signature Beans Jelly Bean Sampler
2. Gimbal’s Sour Gourmet Jelly Beans
3. Ferrara Pan White Hot Red Hots Jelly Beans
4. Peeps Peepsters (Milk & Dark Chocolate)
5. Russell Stover Pectin Jelly Beans
6. Hot Tamales Spice Jelly Beans
7. Peeps Chick & Bunny Candy
8. Lifesavers Jellybeans

Easter is the best candy season. The qualities that make a good holiday candy are hard to pin down, but most of us know it when we see it. One quality that’s unique to Easter is the morselization of treats. Part of Easter is the presentation of candy within a basket. Sure, you can put packaged candy in there, but it sure is appealing when the Easter grass sports read-to-eat morsels. The jelly bean is a perfect example of this, since they started as spice drops but eventually someone gave them a more durable shell so that you can put them out in a candy dish.

I bring this up because today’s candy is a great version of a year-round candy getting a unique holiday treatment. Koppers Chocolate Easter Spring Milk Chocolate Marshmallow Eggs come in a box, but you can easily dump them out into a bowl or nestle them in a basket.

The candy construction is simple, though actually rather unique. It’s a small marshmallow at the center, a thick milk chocolate shell and a thin pastel glaze on top.

These have been around for a few years, I first had them in 2011 and posted a photo. That version was a robin’s egg version with a little thicker shell, but otherwise the same.

The box was on the expensive side at $7.99 for 6.5 ounces. It’s a flat, clear box that holds a single layer of the candies. They come in a variety of pastel colors with speckles: green, white, pink and yellow.

They’re ridiculously sweet, which is not ordinarily an appealing element. But at Easter, all bets are off. I go for white chocolate, I eat the super sweet things and I always give the marshmallow items a try.

The sugar shell is extremely light, so much that it doesn’t really give any crunch to the confection. The marshmallow core is soft and foamy and every once in a while I catch a little bit of vanilla from it. For the most part the morsels are just a lot of milk chocolate. The milk chocolate has a good dairy component to it and a very sweet, cool to the tongue effect. It melts readily but doesn’t have a very strong cocoa note, more like a hot cocoa morsel (with the marshmallow) than an intense milk chocolate.

This kind of candy, of course, could be done for other holiday and year-round treating occasions. It seems that there are other opportunities to mix them up as well with, perhaps, a flavored marshmallow (mint, perhaps) and different colored shells, dark chocolate ... even change the shape a bit.

Related Candies

1. Brach’s Chicks & Rabbits Marshmallow Candy
2. Peeps Chocolate Dipped Marshmallows
3. Campfire Mini Marshmallows
4. Russell Stover Marshmallow Rabbits
5. Princess Marshmallow Eggs
6. Russell Stover Eggs
7. Head to Head: M&Ms vs Koppers Milkies
8. See’s Scotchmallow Eggs

Russell Stover is best known at Easter for their little one ounce eggs that come in over a dozen varieties from the classic strawberry creme to the trendy wedding cake and cookie dough. One of the other items that’s a little harder to find are Russell Stover’s version of Cadbury Creme Eggs that come in chocolate creme and caramel (review).

One of the newer varieties, or at least to me, is the Russell Stover Peanut Butter Egg. Russell Stover first introduced their little foil wrapped eggs in 2008, they came in some interesting varieties like Marshmallow & Caramel and Dark Chocolate with Chocolate Creme.  I picked mine up on sale at 2 for 99 cents. The plain blue foil wrapping doesn’t say much other than the fact that it’s peanut butter in milk chocolate.

The center is a combination of peanut butter, sugar and corn syrup. So it’s more like a peanut butter frosting than just a plain old peanut butter filling.

The egg is 1.2 ounces and is molded to be completely ovoid, not one of those flat-bottomed enrobed eggs. The design on the shell is very simple, with just a few embellishments.

Oddly enough, Russell Stover uses this same mold throughout the year. They have some sports themed hollow chocolates they sell, including a football, which makes lots of sense when covered in a brown texture-look foil. The odder part of that set of chocolates though is that the same shape is used for baseballs, soccer balls and basketballs.

The filling is not a peanut butter, as I mentioned, instead, it’s more like a peanut butter caramel frosting. The texture is smooth, but not quite chewy like a caramel. If you gave me a cupcake with this as the icing, I’d be pretty happy. The milk chocolate is very sweet, but goes well with the filling. The peanut butter flavor is muted by the sugary sauce its within, but it still works.

It’s not quite my thing, but it stands as unique take on this candy genre. I actually might buy these again and would probably include them in an Easter basket for kids if I put something together this year.

Related Candies

1. Russell Stover Cookie Dough Egg
2. Twix Egg
3. Cadbury Chocolate Creme Egg
4. Russell Stover White Chocolate Peanut Butter Rabbit
5. Russell Stover Eggs (2009 edition)
6. Reese’s Enigma & Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Eggs
7. Russell Stover Eggs
8. Peeps Mash Ups

YumEarth Organics Gummy Fruits were a surprising item to see at the Walgreen’s. It’s an appealing package, but the fact that Walgreen’s has some all natural and organic offerings in the sweets aisle was impressive.

The soft and chewy candy comes in four flavors: banana, cherry, peach and strawberry. The package says these organic candies use no artificial colors or flavors, are made with real fruit juice and are fat free, nut free, gluten free and contain 100% of the daily RDA of vitamin C.

Here’s the thing about these, they’re not gummis. Though many candy companies use gummi and jelly interchangeably, gummis are very specifically a gelatin-based confection. These are jelly candies and there’s nothing wrong with that, when you’re selling yourself as a vegan candy.

They’re not jelly beans, they’re more like gumdrops. It’s a jelly center with a little sugar sanding on the outside, slightly smaller than a gourmet jelly bean.

The colors are muted so it’s hard to tell the flavors apart on sight. The easiest one for me to pick out was the Peach. The sugar sanding helped to sell the fuzzy flavor, which has a nice acidic bite and slightly piney/apricot flavor.

Cherry looked a lot like the peach, a medium orange color. It’s nice and jammy, though not much else going on with it, it’s not as tangy as the peach.

The Strawberry was difficult to discern as was the Banana. There was a definitely a yellow candy but it didn’t taste like banana or strawberry, more like a generic jam that you’d put on your generic toast.

Oddly enough, even though I don’t care much for cherry or peach as candy flavors, those two in combination made a really interesting punch flavor when eaten together.

The texture is very firm, though not quite gummi, it’s a nice texture that releases a lot of flavor after you get past the sugar crust.

I think children may like them, but they’re not as versatile as something like a jelly bean because they’re just a bit messier. The colors are very hard to tell apart, especially in dim light situations. But, the assortment stands well in combination, so just tossing a few without looking into your mouth should work out fine.

Related Candies

1. Jelly Belly Beanaturals: 14 Flavors
2. David’s Signature Beans Jelly Bean Sampler
3. Trader Joe’s Jelly Beans & Citrus Gum Drops
4. Organic Zootons
5. Pure Fun & Yummy Earth Organic Hard Candies
6. Yummy Earth Organic Pops

The new line of Russell Stover Big Bite candies are themed for hot beverages. I already reviewed the two coffee ones I found. Today I have the Russell Stover Big Bite Hot Cocoa.

The description on the front of the package says: fluffly marshmallow layered with cocoa-infused marshmallow surrounded by creamy milk chocolate.. I have to say that their picture of what the candy looked like was pretty darn accurate until I noticed that my layers were reversed.

The piece seems much bigger than the others, probably because of the airy marshmallow inside. This piece is 2 ounces, like the others, but is 2.25 inches square and .75 inches high.

Russell Stover makes a nice marshmallow, and make a lot of different kinds in all shapes and sizes. The interesting twist here is the layering of two different flavors. The layering is lovely too look at, though hard to perceive when eating. The bite was good, the marshmallow is soft, but not dry. The chocolate stuck to it well, so there were not little flaky bits, though after two bites pretty much all of the chocolate coating was cracked.

The marshmallow is sweet but has no real flavor profile of its own. It’s not vanilla, it’s not really chocolate ... maybe a touch of cocoa at times. The real flavor here is the milk chocolate coating, which is good. It’s very milky and melts well, combines well with the marshmallow. The marshmallow texture is quite sticky and not as fluffy as some others that I’ve had from them, more like a marshmallow sauce than a stand alone marshmallow. However, the texture of this marshmallow is much more like it would be if it were sitting on the top of a cup of cocoa, just a little melted, so maybe that’s the goal here.

Generally, the plain marshmallow and chocolate isn’t a stellar combination for me, unless there’s a stronger flavor note from the marshmallow itself. (See’s does a good job with their honey touch to their marshmallow.)

I liked this, but like the other Big Bite products, I find 2 ounces to be far too much. Russell Stover often has marshmallow items in their holiday offerings for Halloween, Christmas, Valentines and Easter. I don’t really see a need for a year round version in this size. Maybe if it had a little more flavor, or went for something like a Neapolitan (chocolate, vanilla and strawberry marshmallow) instead of just the chocolate & vanilla.However, if you are a fan of Russell Stover’s marshmallows and the little minis they now offer year round don’t do it for you, you’re just the right demographic for this one.

Related Candies

1. Russell Stover Big Bite Apple Pie & Pumpkin
2. Russell Stover Big Bite Dark Chocolate S’Mores
3. See’s Marshmallows
4. Kraft Jet-Puffed Marshmallows + Vanilla, Cinnamon Bun, Strawberry, Chocolate Royale, Gingerbread
5. Russell Stover Marshmallow & Caramel
6. Limited Edition 3 Musketeers Marshmallow
7. Peeps Milk Chocolate Dipped Marshmallow
8. Russell Stover Marshmallow Rabbits