Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Lemonhead & Friends Jelly Beans

Lemonhead & Friends Jelly BeansThe new Lemonhead & Friends Jelly Beans stand out on the shelves among all the other Easter candies. The bright primary colors - mostly yellow and red are definitely spring-ish but not the usual pastels.

The small bag is jam packed with candy. It’s 14 ounces of little jelly beans made with real fruit juice. Most other bags on the same shelf were about 9 ounces.

This new version of the popular Lemonhead candy is rather similar to the new Chewy Lemonheads. They’re a jelly center covered with the tart and grainy shell that Lemonhead fans have come to know and love. (My mouth just waters at the thought of it.)

Lemonheads & Friends Jelly Beans

The beans are small, not quite as small as Jelly Belly, but pretty close. If you can’t tell already, they’re also vivid - strikingly, saturatedly vivid. They’re probably the most deeply colored jelly beans I’ve seen. I’m not that fond of too much food coloring for two reasons. The first is that it often leaves an aftertaste. The second is that it often colors my tongue and I don’t like people to know how much candy I’ve been eating. Other folks are not fond of artificial colors as they’ve been linked to hyperactivity in children.

The ingredients list an array of acids that I’m accustomed to seeing in candies: fumaric acid (fermented apples & grains), malic acid (found in grapes and green apples) and citric acid (found in citrus) but another that I hadn’t noticed before called adipic which Wikipedia tells me is used mainly as a precursor for the production of nylon. (That sounds alarming but doesn’t mean that it also isn’t food.)

Lemonhead & Friends Jelly Beans

The five flavors are: Lemon, Orange, Grape, Green Apple and Cherry.

The bag definitely smells fruity, mostly citrusy.

Lemon is intense and sour. There are both tangy juice notes and a good dose of almost-bitter zest. It’s convincing. Kind of mind blowing.
Orange is also quite tart though has a more balanced sweetness. The orange notes are mostly juice and lacking a lot of the zestiness of lemon.
Cherry is powerful and floral with more of the tart cherry flavors than black cherry. Strong aftertaste of both the cherry flavoring and food dye.
Grape are nearly navy blue, not purple. The flavor is an intense version of SweeTarts and nothing like actual grapes. I love this stuff.
Green Apple is weird and chemical. There’s a woodsy apple note to it, but it’s very sour and has some strange artificial thing going on that I can only call “fake green apple.” Folks who like that stuff (like Jolly Ranchers) will enjoy it.

The levels of acid in these is quite high, so I wouldn’t recommend eating more than a small handful at a time. I found after more than a dozen of them it gave me a literal sour stomach. But for a little pick me up while driving or mixed with some other candies they’re definitely not your grandmother’s jelly beans.

I found them a little pricey for sugar candy compared to the cheap jelly beans usually around this time of year, but then again, they’re quite concentrated so it only takes a little. I liked that the bag was actually full. So many candies these days come in half empty bags, these feel sumptuous and indulgent.

There are no statements about the gluten free status on the package, they’re not vegan (confectioners glaze). Made in a facility where peanuts, tree nuts, milk, and soy is used. There was also a choking hazard warning (on all the Ferrara Pan products as far as I can tell). This was an extremely fresh package - the expiration date is 12/22/2011.

Related Candies

  1. Jelly Belly Honey Beans
  2. Tropical Chewy Lemonhead & Friends
  3. Spree Jelly Beans
  4. Judson-Atkinson Sours
  5. Gimbal’s Gourmet Jelly Beans
  6. Chewy Lemonheads & Atomic Fireballs
  7. The Lemonhead & Fruit Heads
Name: Lemonhead & Friends Jelly Beans
    RATING:
  • 10 SUPERB
  • 9 YUMMY
  • 8 TASTY
  • 7 WORTH IT
  • 6 TEMPTING
  • 5 PLEASANT
  • 4 BENIGN
  • 3 UNAPPEALING
  • 2 APPALLING
  • 1 INEDIBLE
Brand: Ferrara Pan
Place Purchased: Walgreen's (Echo Park)
Price: $2.49 (on sale)
Size: 14 ounces
Calories per ounce: 99
Categories: Jelly, Sour, United States, Ferrara Pan, Easter

POSTED BY Cybele AT 9:18 am Tracker Pixel for Entry    

Comments
  1. Yeah..your site is back from the past!  These look fantastic in your pictures and are WOW very colorful.  I’ve always liked Ferrara Pan products for a nice sugary candy.

    Comment by Mark D. (sugarpressure) on 2/24/10 at 11:05 am #
  2. Wow, they sound a lot like the Starbust jelly beans, which (outside of Brach’s, of course) are pretty much my favourite.  I’ll have to try these if they show up at my CVS.

    Comment by Tintin LaChance on 2/24/10 at 11:16 am #
  3. These sound quite good! I’m a big lemon and grape fan, so it sounds like a good fit.

    Comment by Deb on 2/27/10 at 12:26 pm #
  4. I love the Chewy Lemonheads & Friends regular product and need to go pick up a bag of these beans, pronto!

    Comment by Jay from The Sweet Spot Candy on 3/01/10 at 3:45 pm #
  5. This sounds great. I’m a big fan of lemonheads and chewy candies. I haven’t tasted these yet but they seem like an upgrade from the dull jelly beans we all know.

    Comment by Samme on 3/10/10 at 5:33 pm #
  6. I purchased some of these and was wowwed, I hated to but I shared them because they were so good fruity, sour, sweet, and my boyfriend said sexy?  I came here looking for more, and more and more!

    Comment by Schooledfirst on 5/04/10 at 9:20 pm #
  7. Can someone say for sure if these are the same as regular chewy lemonheads and friends? I suspect they are. I have only tried the non-jellybean ones.

    These are a bit different from starburst jellybeans. They have a more distinguishable inner and outer portion, such that you can crack off the shell in your mouth and have the gummy portion left. I find this makes for much slower eating than starburst jellybeans which I tend to chow through at an alarming rate.

    Comment by mgambrell on 4/08/11 at 2:00 am #
  8. these are by far the BEST jelly beans i have ever had, and i love jelly belly. But these beat them, do they sell them all the time or was it only for easter?

    Comment by missty on 5/02/11 at 4:01 pm #
  9. OMG!! Best jelly beans ever! They are hard to find though :(

    Comment by Jeae on 5/15/11 at 12:15 pm #
  10. Lemonhead & Friends Jelly Beans are the best Jelly Beans on the planet!!
    If you like sour, you will love these.
    I love all the flavors!
    Hope they are out year round!
    If not, let’s petition!!!!!

    Comment by Pastor Rob on 5/02/13 at 9:00 am #
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