The Challenges With Cola

I'm not sure when cola flavoured candy came to be, but I have memories of cola flavoured gummies when I was a kid. I also seem to remember a few cola flavoured chewing gums as well. Cola flavoured treats have been around for a long time, but very few (if any) have every mastered this challenging flavour. Cola flavoured treats must have that classic cola flavour, but they also have to have a bit of a sour flavour too. The biggest challenge with cola candies is how to make them feel carbonated. This is important because a cola without carbonation is flat, and no one likes flat cola.

Check out my lates cola flavoured candy review.

Relax and Watch Them Make Jelly Beans

 This is probably the most chilled out video I've ever seen of candy being made. It's like watching Bob Ross painting.

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Jumping T-shirts!

Jennifer the Jackrabbit T-Shirt
by candycritic

While I love all of my designs for Treats and Beasts, I might just love this one a little more.

Maybe you'll love another one even more, check them all out here.

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Bean There, Done That

Jelly Bean Madness T-Shirt
by candycritic

If you're full of beans then this is the shirt for you.

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You're Full Of Beans

Jelly Bean Madness T-Shirt
by candycritic

I've always wondered who came up with Jelly Beans, they're both crazy and pure genius.

Click here to check out some of the other merch I have at my Zazzle store.

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Happy Valentine’s Day, We Have A New Review... Sort Of.

As you know we’re not home right now, and I’m unable to post reviews the regular way on candycritic.org . The thing is I found the perfect Valentine’s Day candy to review. So rather than just skipping it all together, I’m going to post the review here on the blog for now, and when I get home I’ll post the regular way too.  So sit back and enjoy the...

Jelly Belly “Conversation Beans” Review

Made by: Jelly Belly

The point of this candy is simple. It’s kind of an homage or maybe a parody of conversation hearts made by Necco. As a novel version of this classic treat these are perfectly acceptable. Each bean had a different message on it, most of the messages were one word and all of the ones I found were positive. There wasn’t anything dirty or negative as a joke bean which was nice. In general I found the idea of these beans to be a total success.

Where these beans fell down a bit was in the flavour. Before even eating them I was surprised to read that all of the flavours were sour. I don’t really associate sour fruit with romance, in particular sour grapes seems pretty negative. After tasting them it turns out that they’re actually not that sour at all either. So they market something that doesn’t make sense, then they kind of failed at it. The fruit flavours were also not that great, and none of them tasted much like the fruit they claimed to be. The flavours were not unpleasant, but other than the cherry they were very generic. I did however really enjoy them when I ate all the flavours together.

Texture wise they were what you would expect from Jelly Bellies. In general I think these were a slightly gimmicky candy, but appropriate for Valentine’s Day. I wouldn’t seek these out for any other reason than it would make a nice gift for a jelly bean fan on Valentine’s Day.

Taste 3

Texture 3.5

Novelty 3.5

Last Minute Ideas If You Wanted To Be My Valentine - Jelly Bean Of The Month Club

I mean you could get me a great gift that would put a smile on my face this month, or you could get me a gift that would put a smile on my face every month for the next year. I think the answer if obvious, go for the Jelly Bean of the Month Club.

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Most Notable Candy We Ate In 2017 - Jelly Beans

I'm still finding classic candies that aren't on my list of candies I've reviewed. It's hard to remember some of the classic candies because they're hiding in plain sight. They're in front of you every day, and you know you've eaten them 100 times, you just forget to actually take the time to sit down and do a proper review. This year we corrected one of the worst missing review mistakes that we could think of. The jelly bean is truly a candy classic, and up until this year, something that we'd never reviewed.

Click here to see if we thought jelly beans held up to modern candies.

Also, make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to let us know about other classic candies we may have missed.

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We've Finally Reviewed Jelly Beans

Why did it take us so long to get around to reviewing jelly beans? Frankly we're not really sure, but here we are with many years of writing candy reviews below our belt and only now have we done this review.

Click here to find out why it was so hard, and what we think about these bean shaped candies.

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Candy In The Media

This is making me re-think the way I should write candy reviews.

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Hey Jelly Belly!!! Some Flavour Ideas - Japanese Snacks

Japanese Snacks

All this week we're looking at some new ideas for flavours of Jelly Bellies.  Yesterday we looked at Middle Eastern spices, today it's all about Japanese snacks.

These Jelly Bellies would fall firmly in the middle of tasty candy and gimmick.  Japan is well known for their "weird" selection of candies, so I think this would be a trend that Jelly Belly could hope right on.  Two of these three flavours are not too odd to the North American pallette, and would therefore be a great way to start this line of beans.  There are also hundreds of other strange Japanese candies and snacks that could be turned into beans in the future.  This line would be never ending.

Of the three suggested flavours on this list, taiyaki would probably be the simplest to convert.  The only two issues I could think of with these beans would be the appearance of a fish (even though there is no fish or fish flavour in it), and the idea of red bean in a sweet.  If you've tasted red bean sweets before you'd know that it's not that strange at all, but some might be a little nervous about trying these taiyaki Jelly Bellies for the first time.

Mochi might be one of the weirder ideas I've thought of for Jelly Bellies so far.  It's not strange because the flavour is so powerful, it's strange because the flavour is so weak.  Moochi is just a ball of stick rice that has been pounded so many times that it turns into a sticky ball of goo.  The flavour of Moochi is what you might expect, like that of unflavoured rice.  I've tried it a few times, and each time I keep expecting to find some kind of bold flavour, but I never do.  While this is a strange flavour to choose for a Jelly Belly, it is a popular treat in Japan, and should not be left off the list.

The first two flavours of Japanese Jelly Bellies I feel could be fairly manageable for the average North American, but salted plums might be a little extreme for many.  A real salted plum tastes like a cross between sea water, sour powder from gummy candies, with a slight hint of plum.  The first time you try it is often a bad experience.  Japanese people claim that the taste grows on you, so maybe getting a big bag of salted plum Jelly Bellies is a good idea.

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Hey Jelly Belly!!! Some Flavour Ideas - Middle Eastern Spices

Recently Jelly Belly announced two new crazy/gross flavours of Jelly Beans, rotten fish and rotten milk. I generally support Jelly Belly and their crazy flavours because they're creative and very well done. I also know that Jelly Belly continuously creates new normal flavours as well, although they don't seem to get the same amount of press. I think there's a market that Jelly Belly is missing, and it falls right in the middle of both of their categories. I think Jelly Belly should create flavours that are surprisingly good. Or flavours that you may not have tried, say popular foreign foods.

Rather than simply suggesting that they research this and dump all the work on the research and development team at Jelly Belly, I'm going to help out a bit. I'm going to suggest a few new flavours of Jelly Belly that fit this middle category.  Everyday this week I'll post a new collection of flavours based on a theme.  From exotic spices to interesting cross candy tie ins.

I'm also going to help design the look of these Jelly Bellies, and give a little info on why these new flavours would work. Normally when I create candies on this site I tell you that my ideas are free for any candy maker to make, and all I ask is that you send me some to try. This list is a little different, this is just for Jelly Belly, and if possible I'd really like to help with their creation. So if you're reading this Jelly Belly, I'd really like to help you out, and I work fairly cheap.

Middle Eastern Spices

For our first day I thought I'd look at something a little exotic.  The Middle East has long been a hub of curiosity and exotic flavours.

Middle Eastern cooking is probably most famous for its spices.  When you think of Middle Easter spices you think of curries, masalas, and other spice blends. These spicy combinations aren't just for the savory foods though, all over the middle east and southern Asia you'll find desserts that are full of spices, both hot and flavourful.  I think this is an area that Jelly Belly could easily latch onto, but with a twist.  Rather than make Jelly Bellies that taste like Middle Eastern desserts, why not make jelly beans that taste like the spices often used in these desserts.  This would allow the eater to choose a few fruit flavoured Jelly Bellies and make their own Middle Eastern influenced dessert creations.

The first spice that comes to mind for Middle Eastern desserts has to be cardamom.  It's a very popular spice used in puddings and baked goods, and would blend very well with many of the fruit flavoured Jelly Bellies. These would also be very tasty on their own, and in some cases might work as a bit of a breath freshener, as cardamom is often used as an after meal treat.

Rose Water Jelly Bellies is a bit more Mediterranean, but I think it still works in this contexts.  It's most obvious use would be to simulate different kinds of Turkish Delight.  But Turkish delight isn't the only treat that uses rose water it is also a common flavour added to other baked goods in the Mediterranean.  In Greece Rose water is often lightly sprayed on cookies to give them a wonderful perfumed flavour.

Fruit Chaat Masala is probably the most specific spice in this line, but I think it would be the most daring.  This would be the Jelly Belly that people would dare their friends to eat, and some of their friends might actually enjoy it.  This spice combination is specifically designed to work with the sweet flavour of fruit, and I could see this jelly bean becoming very popular.

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A Cool Candy Thing

You know what would make this lunch box even more awesome?  If it was filled with Jelly Beans.  Imagine the joy of opening a lunch box that was covered with jelly beans, only to discover that it was also full of jelly beans.

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Stuff I Want To Try

Mike And Ike, Hot Tamales Jelly Beans - Just Born - I always thought that Mike & Ikes and Hot Tamales looked like disfigured jelly beans already. - Click here to learn more about this treat.

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Candy News

Science is looking to make it possible for you to taste things over the internet.  Some things I've very excited about, others I'm terrified.

Speaking of science, here's an explanation of the science behind one of the greatest things ever, cookies.

Are you wasting your life?  Not sure?  Why not take a look at your time on earth using jelly beans.

So you want to get into the snack food business, you want to be the biggest company in the world.  Well you have to get past PepsiCo. first.

Here's in interesting look at how the cocoa from your chocolate bar is born.

Yet another awesome looking Star Wars themed gingerbread house, tis the season, I guess.

In Europe, you can't have a low fat chocolate, chocolate must have 25% fat to be considered chocolate, and low fat must be below 23%.

Nuts might be the thing to keep you living longer... that and a little happiness.

A restaurant dedicated to the cocoa bean, that means chocolate for appetizer, mains, and dessert.

If you want to keep up with all of the daily candy news that we come across as it happens, follow us on Twitter.

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Candy News

Mallomars are 100 years old... the cookies aren't, but the concept is.

Dorito bread and Dorito butter, two excellent ideas.

Here's some really nice photo work that simply looks at colour and candy.

With the holiday's coming, we're going to start seeing extreme gingerbread houses.  Here's the first, and here's the second so far.

People really like nuts in their chocolate, apparently plain old chocolate just isn't cool enough.

If you thought potato chips were simple, think again.

Just when you thought chocolate couldn't do any more, apparently it might help in the fight against E.coli.

Thinking about entertaining a fine night of dinning?  Don't forget to buy some chocolate.

Art inspired by gummy bears, they left out one particular piece, but I'm sure I'm a little biased.

The Telegraph compares the Hershey bar to the Dairy Milk bar, which do you prefer?

Disneyland is selling candy canes for 10 dollars each, and people are lining up to buy them.

That little Debbie has been making Sweet Rolls for 50 years now, she looks pretty good for her age.

Here's a great way to enjoy eating jelly beans, and also keep your life organized... It's really a win/win situation.

If you want to keep up with all of the daily candy news that we come across as it happens, follow us on Twitter.

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It's National Jelly Bean Day!!!

It's also Earth Day as well, so I'm torn.  Do I love the planet earth, or green jelly beans?  I guess I could like both at the same time, and in particular I'd love to have a green jelly bean that was the size of the earth.  So I guess I suggest taking a bag of jelly beans to your local wooded area, sit back, and enjoy watching the natural world go by.  But remember not to throw the empty jelly bean bag on the ground.

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Old Candy Critic Articles - The 12 Candies of Christmas Part 6

I've decided to take down several old articles from the candycritic.org and re-post them here on the Candy Critic blog.  This article I've decided to re-post a little differently.  Since it's a special post for Christmas, the 12 days of Christmas in particular, I've decided to split it up into 12 parts and count down the days till the fat guy's going to bring me some sweet gifts.

'Tis the season to eat candy fa la la la la la la laaaaaa. As we all know Santa's Sack includes candy, and you know it's always what I want for Christmas. The question, with all of the Christmas candy out on the market, is which candy really says Christmas. Well in classic Candy Critic style we're going to tell you, and you better believe we're going to make it as cheesy as possible. Sooooooo.....

On the sixth day of Christmas (whenever that is) my true love gave to me......

One Ooops Reindeer

If you know funny, then you'll understand this particular treat... Actually I have a confession to make, the only real “treat” part to this toy, is the little brown jelly bean things that come out of his butt. You have to admit though, it does say Christmas. And it drops things out of its butt. Does it get any better? I think not. Well needless to say the jelly beans are okay, and getting them is a lot of fun, so for me these aren't that bad. The candies fall out of his butt... Tee-hee...

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It's Jump for Jelly Beans Day!!!

I love Jelly Beans, I think the most popular flavour of classic Jelly Beans (not Jelly Bellies or anything of that sort) would probably be red.  My favorite flavour, green, but only if it's mint.

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Stuff I Want To Try

Sour Jelly Beans  - Gimbal’s - I really want to try a pomegranate flavoured jelly bean. - Click here to learn more about this treat.

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