Jelly beans are a popular candy worldwide, with two main styles: traditional and gourmet. The process of making both involves boiling a mixture of sugar, corn syrup, and flavoring, injecting it into molds, and adding a hard outer layer through a process called panning. The largest producer is Jelly Belly, with 50 official flavors, including specialty Harry Potter-inspired flavors. Other companies make similar candy, including sugar-free and vegan options.
Jelly beans are a type of candy that is popular all over the world. They are believed to be derived from the Turkish delight of the Middle East and have been popular in the United States since at least the mid-19th century.
There are two main styles of jelly beans. The former, commonly known as traditional, almost always tastes only in its hard shell. The second style, the gourmet jelly bean, is flavored both inside and on the shell. The process of making the two different types of candy is almost identical. For both, the center is created by first boiling a mixture of sugar, corn syrup, and flavoring in the case of the gourmet type. This mixture is then injected into cornstarch molds and left to dry overnight. The resulting shape is sprinkled with sugar to create the inside.
The outer layer of the candy is added by a process known as panning. The insides are placed in a large rotating drum and the sugar is added slowly to form a hard layer. This layer is flavored, colored and finally sprinkled with confectioner’s icing and buffed to a shine.
The largest jelly bean producer in the world is the Jelly Belly company. They have fifty official flavors, along with special flavors for various events. Originally, Jelly Belly only came in eight flavors: Cream Soda, Tangerine, Licorice, Grape, Green Apple, Root Beer, Lots of Cherry, and Lemon. One of today’s official flavors, Blueberry, was created so Ronald Regan could serve up red, white, and blue candies!
While there are a number of specialty flavors, the most popular to date have been those inspired by the Harry Potter novels. These jelly beans, known as Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, are made by Jelly Belly and include several flavors of jokes, including earwax, booger, bacon, black pepper, vomit, grime, soap, rotten egg, grass, and earthworm.
Other companies make candy in a similar style to Jelly Belly, and there are a number of other specialty jellies. Sugar-free jellies are made for diabetics and others who avoid sugar in their diets. The vegan candy does not include the beeswax derivative used in most other jelly beans. That said, there are hundreds of different jellies, but they’re all based on the same simple principle of a Turkish delight-like inner segment with a glossy outer layer.
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