J is for Jelly Beans

Every store these days has shelves lined with jelly beans screaming, "Pick me. Pick me. Pick me for your J post." Well, when candy talks, I listen.

Jelly Beans

The techniques for making jelly beans have been around for hundreds of years, but when they were first made is uncertain. One thing that people seem to agree on is the first time they were mentioned in writing in the US which was in 1861 by William Schrafft, candy maker, encouraging people to send jelly beans to the troops. In 1905 they were selling for 9 cents/pound in Chicago.

Did you know that jelly beans weren't associated with Easter until the 1930's when someone decided they looked like eggs, as well as beans? Before that, they were considered a Christmas candy and even today after Easter, Christmas is the next most popular time for jelly bean consumption. That is a fact that is broadening my horizons because I have never associated jelly beans with Christmas. However, a quick Google search showed that there are plenty of people out there who are happy to sell you red and green jelly beans, so there must be something to it.

And speaking of jelly beans looking like eggs, when I think of jelly beans, I always think of eggs. Never as beans which now seems curious since they are called jelly beans. However when I mentioned the Christmas and Easter facts about the candies to Ward, he said he guesses that they could look like eggs, but he always things of them as beans because after all, they are called beans. And after all of these years of marriage, who knew we had such differing ideas about jelly beans? :)

One of my thoughts for this post was maybe I could make some homemade jelly beans and share my experience. I had no idea how to make them, but it's the day of Google and YouTube, so I thought there would be some easy instructions to find. And I was right. There were several recipes involving gelatin, sugar, candy thermometers, and lots of time for drying. (Here's my favorite.) It would have been an interesting experiment, but I should have thought of it before last night.

I had a few more things to share on the subject, like Jelly Bellies were the first jelly beans to add the flavor to the inside instead of just in the coating, but I think this post has reached it's natural conclusion. I'm hungry now and I don't think anything will satisfy me except jelly beans. And I may not even wait until they are marked down after Easter to buy some.