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Easter candy

PEEPS: Do You Love Them or Hate Them?

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Marshmallow PEEPs

If you have a thing for the fluorescent squishy marshmallow bunnies and chicks that were hatched over 60 years ago, you’re not alone. PEEPS, the number one non-chocolate candy for Easter, got its name – PEEPS – because it was originally modeled after the yellow chick.

Every year, PEEPS are the subject of lots of design contests (you’d be amazed what you can make out of peeps) and scientific experiments (some claim them to be indestructible). Just Born, the parent company of PEEPS, claims to produce enough PEEPS in one year to circle the Earth twice. Their website even boasts a fan club and a section for recipes.

Millions of Peeps

  • Each Easter season, Americans buy more than 700 million Marshmallow Peeps shaped like chicks, bunnies, and eggs, making them the most popular non-chocolate Easter candy.
  • As many as 4.2 million Marshmallow Peeps shaped like chicks, bunnies and other shapes can be made each day.
  • In 1953, it took 27 hours to create a Marshmallow Peep. Today it takes six minutes.
  • Yellow Peeps are the most popular, followed by pink, lavender, blue, and white.
  • Chocolate covered and Chocolate dipped EEPS Chicks were introduced in 2010.
  • Peeps seem to be almost indestructible and are famous for their two-year shelf life. Scientists at Emory University claimed that Peeps eyes “wouldn’t dissolve in anything.”  They tried to dissolve Peeps with water, sulfuric acid, and sodium hydroxide.  No luck.

Do You Like Your PEEPS Soft Or Crunchy?

People have definite Peeps preferences. Some like them nice and soft, others like to leave them out in the air to age to perfection and acquire a little crunch on the outside.

They’ve been microwaved (careful, they expand and can really make a mess in your microwave), frozen, roasted, used to top hot chocolate, and added to recipes. Because their outer sugar coating tends to burn, they don’t toast well on sticks like regular marshmallows.

In case you would like some PEEPS recipes, check these out!

What’s In Them?

  • Inside a PEEP you’ll find sugar, corn syrup, gelatin, less than 0.5% of the following ingredients: yellow #5 (tartrazine), potassium sorbate (a preservative), natural flavors, dye, and carnauba wax
  • They’re gluten and nut free but are not Kosher
  • You can get sugar free PEEPS that are made with Splenda
  • Five little chicks (42g, one serving size) will set you back 140 calories, 0g fat, 1g protein, and 36g carbs

JellyBeans!!!

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Jellybeans: do you think they should they should come with a warning label, “STOP NOW or you’ll keep eating until they’re gone?”

Seriously – it’s pretty darn hard not to love those little nuggets of sweetness that come in multitudes of colors and flavors and get stuck in your teeth!

The Birth Of The Jellybean

The gummy insides of the jellybean might be related to the centuries old treat, Turkish Delight. And their outsides bring to mind the colored hard candy coating, developed in the late 17th century, for the Jordan almond.

The modern jellybean became popular during the American Civil War when Boston’s William Schraft encouraged sending candy to Union soldiers and the jellybean held up well.

Jellybeans were the first bulk candy. They were first sold by weight as penny candy in the early 1900s – bulk jellybeans for nine cents a pound.

Around 1930 they became popular as Easter candy because of their egg shape, which represents spring, fertility, and resurrection.

The Many Flavors And Colors Of Jellybeans

Standard jellybeans come in fruit flavors but there are a huge number of flavors available — some goofy, some sophisticated — like spiced, mint, gourmet, tropical, popcorn, bubble gum, pepper, and cola.  They also come in a sugar free version (seems weird, but true).

Whatever your flavor preference, Americans eat a whole lot of jellybeans – around 16 billion at Easter — enough to circle the globe nearly three times if all the Easter jellybeans were lined up end to end.

Handfuls Or One By One, And What Flavor?

How do you eat your jellybeans? Do you go for handfuls at a time or pick and choose your colors and eat them one by one?

  • 70% of kids ages 6–11 prefer to eat Easter jellybeans one at a time
  • 23% say they eat several at once
  • Boys (29%) are more likely to eat a handful than girls (18%)
  • Kids say their favorite Easter jellybean flavors are cherry (20%), strawberry (12%), grape (10%), lime (7%), and blueberry (6%).

What’s In The Hard Shelled Nugget Of Sweetness?

Jellybeans are primarily made of sugar and also usually contain gelatin (Jelly Bellies don’t), corn syrup, modified food starch, and less than 0.5% of citric acid, sodium citrate, artificial flavors, confectioners glaze, pectin, carnauba wax, white mineral oil, magnesium hydroxide, and artificial colors (takes some of the fun out of them, doesn’t it?).

Originally, there was just the traditional jellybean, which has flavor only in the shell. In 1976, the Jelly Belly (Goelitz) Candy Company introduced gourmet jellybeans. Unlike traditional jellybeans, Jelly Bellies are smaller and softer than the traditional kind and are flavored both inside and outside. Jelly Belly makes about 50 different flavors of gourmet jellybeans.

How Many Calories Are In Jellybeans?

Even though they may give you Technicolor insides, jellybeans are fat free.  On average:

  • 10 small jellybeans (11g) have 41 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no protein, and 10.3 grams of carbs
  • 10 large jellybeans (1oz or 28g) have 105 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no protein, and 26.2g carbs
  • 10 Jelly Bellies have 40 calories (4 calories a piece), or about 100 calories in a single serving (25 beans)

 Some Jelly Belly Jellybean Trivia

  • Jelly Bellies were invented in 1976. They were the first jellybeans to be sold in single flavors and to come with a menu of flavor choices.
  • It takes 7 to 21 days to make a single Jelly Belly jellybean.
  • Very Cherry was the most popular Jelly Belly flavor for two decades until 1998, when Buttered Popcorn took over. Very Cherry moved back into the top spot by only 8 million beans in 2003.
  • Some jellybeans do contain gelatin, but Jelly Bellies don’t. According to the Jelly Belly website, they are suitable for vegetarians although strict vegans may have issues with the beeswax and shellac that are used to give them their final buff and polish.
  • Jelly Belly doesn’t use wheat, rye, barley, or oats in the basic recipe for Jelly Belly jellybeans but does use cornstarch as the modified food starch.
  • Jelly Bellies have been certified kosher for the last two decades by the Kashrut supervision of KO Kosher Service.  Since 2007 all Jelly Belly products have been certified by the Orthodox Union. Teenee Beanee jelly beans and Just Born jellybeans are Pareve & O/U; Jelly Bellies are certified OU Kosher.

PEEPS: Do You Love ‘em or Hate ‘em?

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Marshmallow PEEPs

If you have a thing for fluorescent marshmallow bunnies and chicks that were hatched over 50 years ago, you’re not alone. They got their name – PEEPS — because they were originally modeled after the yellow chick.

Every year, PEEPS are the subject of lots of design contests (you’d be amazed what you can make out of peeps) and scientific experiments (some claim them to be indestructible). Just Born, the parent company of PEEPS, claims to produce enough PEEPS in one year to circle the Earth twice. Their website even boasts a fan club and a section for recipes.

Some Peep Trivia

  • Each Easter season, Americans buy more than 700 million Marshmallow Peeps shaped like chicks, bunnies, and eggs, making them the most popular non-chocolate Easter candy.
  • As many as 4.2 million Marshmallow Peeps, bunnies, and other shapes can be made each day.
  • In 1953, it took 27 hours to create a Marshmallow Peep. Today it takes six minutes.
  • Yellow Peeps are the most popular, followed by pink, lavender, blue, and white.
  • Peeps seem to be almost indestructible and are famous for their two-year shelf life. Scientists at Emory University claimed that Peeps eyes “wouldn’t dissolve in anything.” They tried to dissolve Peeps with water, sulfuric acid, and sodium hydroxide. No luck.

 Soft Or Crunchy?

People have definite Peeps preferences. Some like them nice and soft, others like to leave them out in the air to age to perfection and acquire a little crunch on the outside.

They’ve been microwaved (careful, they expand and can really make a mess in your microwave), frozen, roasted, used to top hot chocolate, and added to recipes. Because their outer sugar coating tends to burn, they don’t toast well on sticks like regular marshmallows.

What’s In Them?

  • Send a PEEP to a lab for analysis and you’ll find sugar, corn syrup, gelatin, less than 0.5% of the following ingredients: yellow #5 (tartrazine), potassium sorbate (a preservative), natural flavors, dye, and carnauba wax
  • They’re gluten and nut free but they are not Kosher
  • There are sugar free PEEPS that are made with Splenda
  • Five little chicks (42g, one serving size) will set you back 140 calories, 0g fat, 1g protein, and 36g carbs

PEEPS: Do You Love Them Or Hate Them?

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Lots of people have a thing for those fluorescent marshmallow bunnies and chicks that were hatched over 50 years ago. They got their name – PEEPS — because the original candy was the yellow chick.  Now they’re produced for many holidays – in seasonal colors and different shapes.

They continue to be the subject of lots of design contests (you’d be amazed what you can make out of peeps) and scientific experiments (some claim them to be indestructible). Just Born, the parent company of PEEPS, claims to produce enough PEEPS in one year to circle the Earth twice. Their website boasts a fan club and a section for recipes.

PEEPS have been the number one non-chocolate Easter candy in the US for more than a decade. Although yellow is America’s favorite color for PEEPS chicks and bunnies, they also come in pink, lavender, blue, orange and green.

What’s In Them?

Send a PEEP for lab analysis and you’ll find sugar, corn syrup, gelatin, less than 0.5% of potassium sorbate, natural flavors, dye, and carnauba wax. They’re gluten and nut free.  (No wonder some claim that they’re indestructible!) You can even get sugar free PEEPS that are made with Splenda.

Five little chicks (42g, one serving size): 140 calories; 0g fat; 1g protein; and 36g carbs.

PEEPS Preferences

People have definite PEEPS preferences. Some like them nice and soft, others leave them out in the air to age to perfection so they get a little crunchy on the outside.

They’ve been microwaved (careful, they expand and can really make a mess in your microwave), frozen, roasted, used to top hot chocolate, and added to recipes. They don’t toast well on sticks like regular marshmallows because their outer sugar coating tends to burn.

Newspapers have been known to run contests for best PEEP recipes and best PEEP pictures, and, in a world of contrasts I’ve seen a blackboard outside of a bar in NYC advertising a PEEP contest and a kids’ store using boxes and boxes of PEEPs for window decoration.

I have a few members of my family who love their PEEPS and I freely admit that I am not one of them — although I do think they make great table decorations.

If PEEPS are part of your Easter ritual, even though they’re filled with sugar and all kinds of dyes and chemicals, for a seasonal treat, you could do worse.

What’s your PEEPS preference?

What Do You Know About Jellybeans?

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Do you think a bag of jellybeans should come with a warning label: “STOP NOW or you’ll keep eating until they’re gone?”

Seriously – it’s pretty darn hard not to love those little nuggets of sweetness that come in multitudes of colors and flavors and get stuck in your teeth!

Of the 16 billion jellybeans that Americans eat at Easter, many of them are hidden in Easter baskets and plastic eggs. If all the Easter jellybeans were lined up end to end there would be enough of them to circle the earth nearly three times.

Where Did Jellybeans Come From?

The gummy insides of jellybeans are thought to originate from the centuries old treat, Turkish Delight.  Jellybean outsides are just like the colored hard candy coating, developed in the late 17th century, for the Jordan almond.

The modern jellybean became popular during the American Civil War when Boston’s William Schraft encouraged citizens to send candy to Union soldiers.  Jellybeans were the first bulk candy and they became one of the staples of the penny candy that was sold by weight in the early 1900s. Because of their egg shape, which can be taken as representing fertility and birth, they became popular as Easter candy around 1930.

Standard jellybeans come in fruit flavors but there are now a huge number of flavors — some goofy, some sophisticated — like spiced, mint, gourmet, tropical, popcorn, bubble gum, pepper, and cola.  They also come in a sugar free version (seems weird, but true – don’t you wonder how many chemicals are in those?).

Do You Eat Them By The Handful Or Pick and Choose?

Do you eat your jellybeans one at a time, or do you gobble them up by the handful? What about colors and flavors – do you pick out your favorites or just eat them altogether?

  • 70% of kids aged 6–11 say they prefer to eat Easter jellybeans one at a time
  • 23% say they eat several at once
  • Boys (29%) are more likely to eat a handful than girls (18%)
  • Kids say their favorite Easter jellybean flavors are cherry (20%), strawberry (12%), grape (10%), lime (7%), and blueberry (6%)

What’s In The Hard Shelled Nugget Of Sweetness?

Jellybeans are primarily made of sugar and also usually contain gelatin (Jelly Bellys don’t), corn syrup, modified food starch, and less than 0.5% of citric acid, sodium citrate, artificial flavors, confectioners glaze, pectin, carnauba wax, white mineral oil, magnesium hydroxide, and artificial colors (takes some of the fun out of them, doesn’t it?).

Originally, there was just the traditional jellybean, which has flavor only in the shell. In 1976, the Jelly Belly (Goelitz) Candy Company introduced gourmet jellybeans. Unlike traditional jellybeans, Jelly Bellies are smaller and softer than the traditional kind and are flavored both inside and outside. Jelly Belly makes about 50 different flavors of gourmet jellybeans.

Calories in jellybeans:

Even though they may give you Technicolor insides, jellybeans are fat free.  On average:

  • 10 small jellybeans (11g) have 41 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no protein, and 10.3 grams of carbs
  • 10 large jellybeans (1 ounce or 28g) have 105 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no protein, and 26.2g carbs
  • 10 Jelly Bellys have 40 calories (4 calories a piece), or about 100 calories in a single serving (25 beans) 

Some Jelly Belly Jellybean Trivia

  • Jelly Bellys were invented in 1976. They were the first jellybeans to be sold in single flavors and to come with a menu of flavor choices.
  • It takes 7 to 21 days to make a single Jelly Belly jellybean.
  • Very Cherry was the most popular Jelly Belly flavor for two decades until 1998, when Buttered Popcorn took over. Very Cherry moved back into the top spot by only 8 million beans in 2003.
  • Jelly Bellys were the first jellybeans in outer space – they were sent on the 1983 flight of the space shuttle Challenger by President Reagan.
  • Jelly Bellys don’t contain gelatin and are suitable for vegetarians, but some strict vegans may have issues with the beeswax and shellac used to give them their final buff and polish.
  • Jelly Belly jellybeans do not contain any wheat, rye, barley, or oats in the basic recipe. The modified food starch used to manufacture them is cornstarch and all ingredients are free of dairy.

Kosher Jellybeans

Teenee Beanee jellybeans and Just Born jellybeans are Pareve & O/U; Jelly Bellies are certified OU Kosher.