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Buttered Popcorn defends title as America’s favorite jelly bean

Attention candy fans! If you ever needed a reason to scoop up some extra jelly beans, this is your weekend. Easter and National Jelly Bean Day fall back to back (April 21st and 22nd), creating the perfect storm for sweet eaters. This year, an estimated 16 billion beans will be eaten just for the Easter season (That many jelly beans could make it 1/3 of the way to the moon!). But while most people agree jelly beans are delicious, that’s where our similarities end. It seems that state-by-state we differ in what jelly bean flavors we find most delicious. Source: CandyStore.com. Some states savor the fruity flavors. Florida, Washington, and New Hampshire prefer pear, while Nebraska, New Mexico, Iowa, and Utah choose cherry. Watermelon is a favorite in Oregon and Alabama, but blueberry is best according to Pennsylvanians, West Virginians, and Indianians. Buttered Popcorn gets the love of both California…

10 Surprising facts about Jelly Beans

Unless you’re an uber-fan, you probably don’t think about jelly beans a whole lot until Easter rolls around — then the little candies take center stage. But what do you really know about these sweet pops of flavor? Here are some juicy details. 1. It can take 7 to 14 days to make A jelly bean. Making jelly beans is no easy task. It requires many steps from liquifying sugar and flavors to pouring into tiny bean-shaped molds and letting dry overnight. The candies then undergo a process called “panning.” They’re transferred to a rotating drum where flavors and colors are added as they spin. Sugar is then added to create the bean’s hard exterior shell. Finally, a hot syrupy wax is applied to give them their shine. After all of that, the beans still need to go through packing and shipping. 2. the battle for favorite flavor. For two…

14 Fun facts about Peeps

Forget groundhog shadows or tulips. The first real sign of spring are bright yellow Peeps stocking the shelves at your local grocery store. Marshmallow Peeps are everyone’s favorite non-chocolate Easter candy — they even outsell jelly beans! Americans will eat 1.5 billion Marshmallow Peeps and Bunnies this spring, but what do you really know about these sugar crystal coated, brightly-colored bird-shaped mallows? Discover 14 fun facts about Peeps: 1. Making Peeps used to be a really long process. It used to take 27 hours to make a Peep. The first Peeps were squeezed one at a time from a pastry tube before receiving hand painted eyes. Today, with an automated manufacturing process, a Peep takes just six minutes to make. 2. About 5.5 million Peeps are born every single day. Machines crank out 3,500 Peeps per minute — that’s nearly 2 billion Peeps per year! 3. Peeps were originally produced by…

Peeps debuts 7 new fun flavors for Easter, including cotton candy

Love them or hate them, is it even Easter without Peeps? The iconic marshmallow candies have been filling Easter Baskets for decades, but this year parent company Just Born is releasing seven new flavors just in time for the 2019 holiday, including: Cotton Candy, Pancakes and Syrup, Orange Sherbet Dipped in Crème Flavored Fudge, Root Beer Float, Chocolate Caramel Swirl, Blue Raspberry, and Vanilla Crème. See new Peeps flavors from last year. The new flavors come in the classic chick shape and are currently rolling out in stores nationwide from now until Easter. If you’re looking to stock up, some of the new flavors are available only at select stores, so you’ll have to go on a bit of a hunt — good practice for finding your Easter basket later! Root Beer Float can only be found at Kroger, Blue Raspberry are excluding to Walmart, and Vanilla Crème and Chocolate…

How to perfectly melt chocolate

Chocolate-dipped Oreos, chocolate-covered strawberries, cake decorations — lots of desserts call for perfectly smooth and melted chocolate. But melting chocolate can be intimidating. One wrong step and you’re left with a sticky mess and a burnt pan. However, with just a few simple tips, you can master the art of chocolate melting. Also see, Chocolate Scenes From Your Favorite Movies.  Melting chocolate on the stovetop Melting chocolate on the stovetop is the best method. A double boiler will give you the best temperature control. Rather than putting delicate chocolate in contact with direct heat, the steam rising up from the boiling water gently melts the chocolate. To create a double boiler: Bring a medium pot (filled about half way) with water to a simmer. Place a heatproof bowl on top of the pot. The bowl should be large enough to sit on top of the pot without touching the bottom or…

Why conversation hearts will be missing this Valentine’s Day

This year you might have to find another way to ask your sweetie to “Be Mine” or “Kiss Me.” Valentine’s Day’s most popular candy, SweetHearts, those tiny heart-shaped confections printed with terms of endearment, won’t be produced. New England Confectionary Company (Necco) annually made more than eight billion (13 million pounds) of the tiny hearts in the six weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day, but despite a great effort to save the oldest continually operating candy company in the country, NECCO was shut down in 2018. With Necco dead, so too are SweetHearts — for now anyway. Competing brands offer rival ripoffs of the iconic heart candies, but SweetHearts is the original, most recognized and favored brand. SweetHearts’ hold strong sentimental value for many people in the U.S. and their sales were the strongest — by a long shot. Any SweetHearts products you find online or in stores this year…

Here is the most popular Valentine’s Day candy in every state

Valentine’s Day is a holiday dedicated to love, romance, and of course, candy. The National Retail Federation estimates that Americans will spend about $1.8 billion on candy this year as part of their Feb. 14 celebrations. As far as holiday indulgences go, candy is relatively inexpensive, so for couples looking to not break the bank, exchanging favorite sweets is a popular activity. Candy isn’t just for couples, however — 42% of people said they would buy themselves a box of chocolates this year. It’s clear that everyone loves candy, but where you live is likely to influence what you buy and give. Using sales data from the past 11 years, bulk candy company CandyStore.com determined each state’s favorite candy. Here’s what people are ordering where you’re from: Source: CandyStore.com. Alabama: Candy necklaces Alaska: Heart-shaped box of chocolates Arizona: Conversation hearts Arkansas: Hershey Kisses California: Conversation hearts Colorado: Conversation hearts Connecticut:…

What’s the most popular Christmas candy in each state?

Halloween has come and gone, but with Christmas right around the corner, we’re still living in the season of sweets. This month of the year we’re more about chocolate Santas than Snickers and candy canes than candy corns, but preferences vary from state to state. Online retailer Candystore.com recently asked 30,000 of its customers to vote for their favorite Christmas candy in order to see how America’s sweet too varies state to state. And the results show that where you live definitely plays a part in your Christmas candy tastes and traditions. Source: CandyStore.com. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups gets love from 10 different states, but others are all about Christmas exclusive candies like peppermint bark and chocolate Santas. Eight states pick candy canes as their favorite Christmas candy. Six chose holiday-colored M&Ms, and five preferred red, green, and white “reindeer corn” — the holiday version of candy corn. PEZ was…

What, exactly, are sugar plums?

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’ by Clement Clarke Moore paints a peaceful Christmas Eve scene, with new-fallen snow, carefully hung stockings, and visions of sugar plums. And you’ve probably heard of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from “The Nutcracker.”  But have you ever stopped to ask what, exactly, is a sugar plum? While the recipe for sugar plums has varied, what they’re not, and never were, is sugar-coated plums. The truth is that sugar plums are not linked to fruit or any plum-like substance. According to the Oxford English Dictionary of the day, a sugar plum is a comfit. Comfits are seeds, nuts, or piece of spice coated with a hard sugar shell — not unlike the outer crunchy shell of an M&M or Jordan almond. The first sugar plums date back to the 1600s when popular centers for comfits would have included caraway, fennel, coriander, almonds, walnuts, ginger,…

Six ingredients commonly found in gum, soda, candy banned by the FDA

Just in time to squash your Halloween fun, the Food and Drug Administration has nixed six synthetic flavorings commonly found in candy, soda, baked goods, booze, and gum. The ingredients in question have all been shown to directly contribute to cancer in animals. They included synthetically-derived benzophenone (also used in rubber reusable food containers), ethyl acrylate, eugenic methyl ether (methyl eugenol), myrcene, pulegone, and pyridine. Even if you’re an avid label checker, these names probably don’t look familiar to you. Since they fall under the umbrella of proprietary “artificial flavors,” the manufacturers don’t have to print them in the ingredients list, according the FDA. The additives are known to contribute floral, cinnamon, mint, citrus, mango, pineapple, garlic, roasted onion, and woody flavors, according to a petition.  The ingredients were proven to cause cancer in laboratory animals by the United States Department of Health and Human Services’ National Toxicology Program. But no…