The newest flavor from Jelly Belly is Pancakes & Maple Syrup.

Though the name of the new flavor is a little trendy, the idea is pretty solid. Maple is a great, distinctive but mild flavor. It’s an ideal addition to Jelly Belly’s line because it can be combined with other flavor beans. Though I didn’t have any on hand to try out, I would think that Banana and Strawberry would go well.

The packaging is fun, an aqua gingham motif on the bag gives it a homespun feel. The image on the front, though is not of Vermont maple trees with running sap and buckets, like I might have imagined, instead it’s more in line with what I see any neighborhood diner, a plate of pancakes with butter and a little pitcher of syrup. (Now, I love my little diner I go to, but I highly doubt they use actual maple syrup because their menu just says syrup.)

The beans are uniform looking, a medium caramel color, kind of like Sugar Babies. The bag does smell a lot like maple syrup, which is a sweet smell with notes of bourbon and vanilla with a little molasses or pipe tobacco.

The interesting things is that these are not just maple flavor but also pancake, so there are other flavor notes to the actual beans. Though the primary flavor is definitely, and perhaps over-the-top maple syrup, I also caught sort of buttery notes. It’s not the overwhelming buttered popcorn flavor, just a sort of salty and creamy flavor to it. (There are 25mg of salt per serving.)

So, there’s lots of maple-y flavor and buttery notes, but no actual pancake, which is fine, because just a jelly bean that tastes like pancake topping is good enough.

The fun part for many candy fans is that Jelly Belly are gluten free and peanut free. So if you can’t have actual pancakes because you’re gluten intolerant, you can have these.

I think the trendiness of these makes them appealing in the short term for buzz, but maple should stand the test of time. Of course the Honey jelly beans introduced a five years ago didn’t do so well and I think those did better in combination with other flavors than Maple.

Related Candies

1. Suss Pecan Maple Caramels
2. Jelly Belly Draft Beer Beans
3. Russell Stover Santas: Gingerbread, Peppermint and Maple
4. Jelly Belly Peas & Carrots Mellocreme Candy
5. Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans by Jelly Belly
6. Maple Ice Mints
7. Jelly Belly Chocolate Dips

Chocolate covered dried fruit is one of the simplest confections. Raisins, candied orange peels and ginger and cranberries are the most common chocolate coated items. Every once in a while a company comes along to put a little twist on the idea.

Nature Addicts (which goes by [N.A!]) makes Fruit Sticks, which are basically pureed fruit formed into easy to eat pieces. Then they went one step further and coated them in chocolate. They just call them Fruit & Chocolate, which is a descriptive name but not particularly distinctive. The only flavor is Apple Orange.

[N.A!] nuggets made 100% from fruits coated with a fine layer of premium 70% cocoa dark chocolate for a unique experience.

The fruit filling is made from concentrated apple puree, concentrated apple juice, concentrated orange juice, pectin, citrus fiber and natural orange flavor. The chocolate coating is 70% made with reduced fat cocoa powder, in addition to cocoa liquor. It’s sweetened with cane sugar. There’s also a little honey in there, so it’s not marked as a vegan product.

The nuggets are made in The Netherlands, and it’s all non-GMO ingredients. They’re not terribly attractive. There’s no glaze on the panned chocolate coating, so they’re a little lumpy, a little scuffed. They’re mostly flat rectangles, about 1/2 an inch long and 1/3 of an inch wide.

Even though the fruit bits are really more apple than orange, they taste like orange. It’s an immediately zesty flavor, but also very tangy. The texture of the filling is less of a jelly and more like a fruit paste, think a very soft fruit roll up.

It’s a good combination, though the sweet and sour of the chocolate and the filling is a little jarring because both are intense.

Even though it’s a dark chocolate product, they seem pretty kid-friendly. Smaller children probably won’t like the intense bitterness of the chocolate along with the intense sour of the filling, but older kids may find this a nice compromise candy for families that want something with a little cleaner ingredients for snacking. The bag is just over one ounce and only 110 calories, though there are 2.5 grams of fat, there are also 2 grams of fiber and 1 gram of protein. I wouldn’t call them nutritious, but they’re tasty enough as a between meal snack or an addition to a trail mix.

Related Candies

1. YumEarth Organics Gummy Fruits
2. Jelly Belly Beanaturals: 14 Flavors
3. Chuao Orange A Go Go Chocopod
4. Torie & Howard Organic Hard Candies
5. Niederegger Marzipan Orange

When I was very little, as far as I knew, Jelly Beans came in a scant few flavors and they were basically the same as Spice Drops. Later Jelly Belly came along and revolutionized jelly beans by trying to make everything into a flavor at least once.

Brach’s now calls their fruit blend of Jelly Bird Eggs their Classic Flavors, and they call what were, for about 100 years the classic flavors simply Spiced. I guess when a couple of generations grow up with fruity jelly beans, that happens. Now, I might complain that things have changed over the years, and a pound of coffee is no longer a pound of coffee ... but this bag is actually a pound of jelly beans. For only $2.49 ... not a bad deal overall ... if they’re any good.

Nowhere on the bag does it go beyond that name to describe what the flavors actually are. It appears there are six flavors.

I’ll start with Green which is epitome of a Spearmint jelly bean. It’s like a jelly bean version of Spearmint Leaves. The shell is grainy and far too sweet, but the center has a lot of fresh spearmint flavor, with little pops of extra flavor now and then. Very refreshing. I picked these out of the bag and ate them first.

Black is Licorice, which is not surprising to anyone who’s ever had jelly beans. The flavor is strongly anise, crisp and sweet but with a little bitter edge that I think may come from the artificial colors. I liked them, they were good but there were far fewer blacks than any other color in the bag.

White is Peppermint but a rather mild mint. As much as I like peppermint, it simply doesn’t go very well here. It’s weak and watery, kind of like a peppermint tea instead of a peppermint candy. Still, I didn’t avoid them and I enjoyed the fact that they didn’t have any colorings in them.

Orange is Orange Spice. I think it’s spiced orange, because it’s not Orange Slice orange, there’s a note of cinnamon and clove to the shell, but the center is orange. These irritated me, because I wanted a zesty Jelly Bird Egg equivalent of the Orange Slice. However, I applaud them for making an orange that was actually in keeping with the spice theme.

Pink is Wintergreen. I love wintergreen and these were pretty good, aromatic and medicinal but with a bitter finish.

Purple is Clove. I don’t care for clove as a candy flavor or spice, so I’ll pass on this one. It was strong and well rounded, with both aromatic notes and the bitterness that I’m never sure is coming from the flavorings or the colorings.

Red is Cinnamon. I like cinnamon a lot and I eat plenty of Hot Tamales. These were spicy and sweet, a good balance, especially since it seemed to come from the jelly center, not just the sugary shell.

On the whole, they’re an acceptable blend of flavors, just what I expected. I wish the sugar shell wasn’t quite so grainy and sweet, but the jelly center is actually rather smooth. The contain no pectin, they’re only jelled with corn starch.

The beans were made in Mexico. They have a beeswax and confectioners glaze on them, so most vegans would not eat these. Jelly Bird Eggs are made in a facility that also uses milk, eggs, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat and soy.

Related Candies

1. David’s Signature Beans Jelly Bean Sampler
2. Ferrara Pan White Hot Red Hots Jelly Beans
3. Spearmint Leaves
4. Russell Stover Pectin Jelly Beans
5. Hot Tamales Spice Jelly Beans
6. Gimbal’s Gourmet Jelly Beans
7. Blueberry Hill Spice Jelly Beans

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

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

Brach’s has another new item for their Valentine’s Day line: Brach’s Conversation Heart Jelly Beans.

Think about that name for a minute when you consider the product. They’re jelly beans with words printed on them. They’re bean shaped. The words are gushy commands or endearments. There are no hearts. There really aren’t even any conversations.

There’s no key on the package for the flavors, there’s not even a description of what the candy is. I consider this lazy. As far as I’m concerned, what happens is the confectioners come up with a product and the marketing and packaging people agree to make the most enticing package they can without actually committing to anything. So there’s no list of flavors, just some pictures of the candy and a name ... plus those obligatory things our government demands like ingredients and a nutritional panel.

There are six colors: pink, purple, green, orange, yellow and white. They’re not exactly pastel, like the package shows them, but not quite royal. The little mottoes include: Yours 4 Ever, I [heart] You, Peace, ILY, SWAK, Miss U, Hug Me, and Love. The print was red and hard to read on the orange, pink and purple beans, so only half were conversational, the others were whispering behind my back.

White is probably Pineapple. It’s tangy and finishes with a tropical floral note.
Purple is Grape. This is a sad flavor, it’s sweet and tastes like ball point pens smell.
Pink is Watermelon. I was pretty surprised at the flavor. I can’t say that I couldn’t tell what it was. It starts very fake and floral with a little sour layer at the margin of the shell and the bean center ... and then it’s just sweet.
Green is Green Apple. This is the worst kind of fake apple flavor. It’s not tart or vibrant at first, but does end on a note that is more like actual apple juice.
Orange is Orange. These are fine. A little metallic and like orange Pixy Stix without the sour than a good orange jelly bean should be. (And Brach’s makes a more than competent Orange Slice, so they should know how to do an orange Jelly Bean.)
Yellow is Lemon. This is the best of the bunch and has a lot in common with Lemonheads, even though it’s a bit more mild.

All of the flavors were odd and evoked a strange association for me. The Watermelon, each time I ate one, left a sort of a hot iron flavor swirling around. Pineapple finished like a cream soda served in an anodized aluminum cup. Lemon reminded me of fresh roasted Hatch chili peppers. There were no actual flavors, just a weird note to each of them that was certainly atypical.

I didn’t like these much. I only liked half the flavors enough to pick them out: orange, lemon and pineapple ... if pressed, I would grab a grape. The printing wasn’t very good and the little lines weren’t interesting enough to warrant putting my glasses on to discern them. I will give them credit for adding in something like watermelon, which is pretty uncommon. I might like a little bit of warning next time.

Brach’s was part of the Farley’s & Sathers candy company for a few years, but now they’re rolled into Ferrara Candy Company. I actually like a lot of their jelly beans, especially the Lemonhead & Friends Jelly Beans. The unique take on conversation items might simply be something with more flavor than the traditional chalky heart. Instead, the Brach’s Conversation Heart Beans have only slightly bested the wafer based candies ...which was too low of a bar.

Related Candies

1. Brach’s Gummi Conversation Hearts
2. Brach’s Ice Cream Conversation Hearts
3. David’s Signature Beans Jelly Bean Sampler
4. Starburst Crazy Beans
5. Brach’s Conversation Hearts
6. Lemonhead & Friends Jelly Beans
7. Necco Conversation Hearts (Sweethearts) 2010
8. Jelly Belly for Valentine’s Day

I suppose Jelly Belly is already considered the champagne of jelly beans. It’s only natural that at some point they’d make a champagne-flavored jelly bean.

Jelly Belly announced their new Champagne Jelly Belly just before New Years. I haven’t seen them in stores, but I picked up this sample bag, that calls them Jelly Belly Bubbly. I suspect they’ll be in stores for Valentine’s Day, but I haven’t seen them at my regular haunts like Dylan’s Candy Bar and Cost Plus World Market.

Jelly Belly suggests a flavor pairings with the beans, such as combining them with orange to create a mimosa. I’d imagine strawberry and peach would also go well.

The beans are lovely, with a light sparkling sheen to them. They have a light honey scent, but not much else going on before you eat them beyond the good looks.

The flavor is mild, not like the Draft version they made as a beer flavor. There’s a hint of white grape, a little yeast note ... maybe a touch of honey sweetness. But that’s about it, there’s not tartness or dry bite. They’re appealing, but if you gave them to me without telling me the flavor, it’d be pretty far down on my list of guesses.

Out of curiosity, I went to Dylan’s Candy Bar and picked up just a handful of the Champagne Bubbles, which are white grape jelly drops covered with nonpareils to compare them. They’re similar, the grape and honey notes are on the same wavelength, but there’s a distinct juicy tartness to the Bubbles that isn’t in the Champagne beans. They’re both quite cute and would make a lovely pairing for a candy buffet or favors for a wedding or engagement party. The beans are certainly less messy (the Bubbles do leave little white spheres around from time to time) and can be combined with the other colorful iridescent that Jelly Bean now makes for their favorite flavors.

As a special flavor, I’ll pass on these. I don’t actually like champagne, so a bean flavored like it isn’t of much interest to me. I look forward to seeing folks use them in bean combinations and of course they’ll look nice for special occasions.

Jelly Belly are peanut free, dairy free, gluten free, and considered vegetarian. There is no actual alcohol listed in the ingredients. The beans contain confectioners glaze and beeswax so aren’t vegan.

Related Candies

1. Jelly Belly Cocktail Classics
2. Port Dark Chocolate Wine Gels
3. Teuscher
4. Bouquet of Fruits Vinyeard - Wine Filled Chocolates
5. Jelly Belly Soda Pop Shoppe
6. Choxie Champagne Truffles
7. Jelly Belly - Full Line

Dominos are a curious little German treat that I see in the United States just around Christmas and are also called Dominostein.

Think of them like a hearty petit fours. The base is a gingerbread cake, topped with a layer of fruit jelly then a layer or marzipan. For this particular brand of Schulte Dominos, the fruit jelly is apple and the marzipan is actually persipan, which is made from apricot kernels instead of almonds. Although they seem like an ancient sort of confection, according to this page they were invented by Herbert Wendler in Dresden in 1936.

I’ve had dominos quite a few times, Aldi sells a few varieties in both milk and dark chocolate and of course I’ve had them in while traveling in Germany. This particular version has a nice coating of dark chocolate, which keeps the confection from becoming too sweet. They’re pretty shy on calories, only 50 each, probably because part of it is a little bit of cake.

This package has 10 pieces in it, which fared quite well - only one was cracked on the top. The package holds 4.4 ounces, so each piece is just shy of a half an ounce each. The package says that this is an Authentic Traditional European Recipe. I don’t know if there are a lot of modernized versions or departures from the traditional ... or if other non-Europeans have adopted the confection and have created a competing version.

Each piece is not quite a cute. They’re 7/8 of an inch square and about 3/4 of an inch high.

I’ll start from the top down. The persipan is much like a marzipan. It’s soft and has a good texture that’s not too pasty or sweet. The flavor is much more amaretto infused that many marzipans I’ve had, which makes me wonder if it’s a natural flavor profile for persipan. There is a distinct bitter note to it.

The next layer is a jelly, which is pretty bland. I had to read the ingredients to find out that it must be apple at all. It’s a little tart and has a slight mealy quality that real apple pulp can bring to a jam.

They smell rich, a little like cocoa and molasses and maybe a hint of ginger.

The base layer is called gingerbread. It’s made from a mix of wheat flour and rye flour along with brown sugar and molasses. It’s quite dry, which I think is okay because the jelly and persipan provide a bit of moisture and texture to the whole thing as long as you don’t eat the layers separately. However, there’s not real spice note to it, or ginger flavor at all.

They’re hearty and satisfying. It’s a great mix of textures with the cool tartness of the jelly mixing with the dry cake and slightly chewy persipan. I had no trouble finishing the tray of them over two days.

I have to wonder what a premium version of these would be like. Perhaps with some actually flavored jelly like a good grape, a spiced apple or something more in the citrus marmalade family. I did see that Niederegger makes a version, though I probably can’t find those in the United States. The cake part might be better if it was an actual Lebkuchen with ground nuts in it.

Related Candies

1. Trader Joe’s PB&J Milk Chocolate Bar
2. Niederegger Marzipan Classics
3. Limited Edition Ritter Sport Winter Kreation + Factory Store
4. Krauterbonbons from Lubeck Christmas Market
5. Eat with your Eyes: Aldi Dominos
6. Soubeyran Array