Category Archives: Chewy Candy

Candy Corn Relay

Love the outdoors? Love candy? We have the perfect game for you. This Halloween organize a fun relay race with the little ones, friends, and family in your backyard or your local park. All you need is:

  • 2 bags of Candy Corn
  • 2 small/medium Jack O’ Lanterns (or 2 hollowed out pumpkins)
  • 2 buckets
  • 2 Spoons
  • Racing shoes
  • Costume (to add a little humor and difficulty)

Design the race course by adding a start and finish line. Place a bucket filled with the Candy Corn at the start and an empty Jack O’ Lantern at the finish line for each team. Split your players into two equal groups and hand a spoon to a player from each team. Now challenge the runner to scoop up a spoonful of candy corn and race as fast as he can—without spilling the candy corn—to the other side.They cannot spill any candy corn or use their hands! If any candy corn falls off the spoon, they must immediately pick it up and bring it back to the starting line bowl and start over with that scoopful.

When they get to the finish, they must dump the candy corn into the empty Jack O’ Lantern. Then, they must dash back to the start line to hand the spoon over to the next sprinter do repeat the same step. The team who fills out the Jack O’ Lantern first wins! As their reward, let the winning team keep both Jack O’ Lanterns and share the Candy Corn award them with freaky prizes such as Jelly Belly Pet Tarantulas or Rats. Visit us at Candy Direct to get your Candy Corn and your spooky prizes!

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year… for Candy Lovers

It’s official, pumpkins are rolling into local stores, haunting attractions are springing up, scary costumes are filling up the shelves, and spider webs are accepted as house decorations. This could only mean one thing; Halloween is just around the corner! Whether this year you’re the one trick-or-treating or the kind neighbor handing out candy, they key ingredient to a spooctacular Halloween is candy. Candy Direct has everything you need to awe your trick-or-treaters and your own taste buds from Jelly Belly Pet Tarantulas to the traditional candy corn. Wondering what little Frankensteins, superheroes, princesses, and mummies love the most? Chocolate is clearly the preferred choice. Of the $1.9 billion sold in Halloween candy each year, $1.2 billion is on chocolate candy alone.  This year, get ready with Candy Direct and their great selection of bite size Snickers, Reese’s, and Milky Ways, oh my! Trick-or-treaters are hungrier than ever for a sugar rush so start getting ready and let us help you get ready for our favorite time of the year.

This Blog is Intern Approved!

Alina Serrano (the newbie)

And the Pucker-Up Award Goes to…

Sour Candy… just reading these two words together can make your mouth water, your lips pucker, and your eyes squint and tear up. Sour candy delivers high intensity flavors to your taste buds that always leave you wanting more. As a kid or maybe even as adults, sour candy not only provides a tingling sensation but it also provides a challenge… how much sour can you handle? As an expert in sour candy and their levels of sourness, a beginner may want to start with Sour Patch Kids or Shock Tarts so that just in case the sour is too much to handle, the sweet aftertaste can mend your scalding tongue. For our intermediates we can move on to extreme sour Smarties or sour Pop Rocks for a little more explosive feeling. Finally, if your tongue and your senses permit it, for your final level you can move on to Warheads or Too Tarts tongue sprayers (use precaution, we don’t want a sour coma). If you think you have what it takes to be sourly invincible visit us at candydirect.com and show us how much sour you can handle!

Bring it on…

This Blog is intern approved!

Alina Serrano (the newbie)

Candy for Surprising Your Guests: A Fruity Blast of Skittles Blenders

Halloween candy doesn’t always have to be spooky or in the usual autumn colors. Instead of going with the usual, why not think out of the box, and surprise trick-or- treaters with the fruity mixed flavors of Skittles Blenders?

Skittles Blenders is the latest mix of the fruity chews we all know and love. While the original candy alone can be quite a satisfying treat for any taste bud, the new breed of Skittles packs ten different flavors into five juicy colors! These new flavors include Cherry Tropicolada, Watermelon Green Apple Freeze, Mango Lemonade Freeze, Strawberry Lime Blast and Melon Berry Burst.

The fun part about this particular candy is that it can really catch your guests unaware. The Blenders copy colors from older Skittles, which makes it easy to not notice that they’re really different. Just pour them into a bowl and let your visitors dig in—they’ll certainly be in for a really surprising treat!

Salt Water Taffy – Old-Fashioned Candy

The Different Flavors of Salt Water Taffy

As with candy corn, you can never go wrong with an old-time favorite.  Salt water taffy is one such classic that never really grows old with its fluffy, soft texture that might try to stick to your palette.

The real selling point of this classic treat isn’t just its nostalgic value. The reason why it’s still a big hit with all generations is that innovative manufacturers like Taffy Town have been making these treats with all kinds of different flavors. Now it comes with all sorts of flavors from the standard fare of fruits to more exciting tastes like tropical punch, raspberry lemonade and even pumpkin pie! You might even find something unlikely, like an extra spicy blend to fire up your senses!

Salt water taffy with all its awesome flavors can be quite addicting. After all, with so many tastes to try out, you’ll be sure to spend a lot of time tasting everything that a bag of assorted sweets can offer.

Orange Jells – Gummy Candy

Revive a Classic Treat with Peach-Flavored Orange Jells this Halloween

This Halloween, enjoy the taste of juicy peach jells from Jelly Belly. These firm yet chewy orange jells are bursting with authentic peach flavor that’s sure to bring back sweet memories of Halloween’s past.

Among the fruit flavors in candy, peach is one tricky flavor to get right. The awesome thing about these jells is that they capture the taste perfectly: a mellow, juicy taste with just a little kick of sweetness. Jelly Belly makes all its products with natural ingredients whenever possible, so you can rest assured that the flavor of these jells won’t let you or your guests down.

As a trick-or-treat giveaway, try making small bags of these jells shaped like little peaches. A paper leaf tied to the bag can top off the look and make your giveaway stand out from many others.

Like a lot of other nostalgic treats, these peach-flavored orange jells can be tough to find. Thankfully, online shops like Candy Direct make it easy for anyone to revisit their childhood favorites anytime of the year!

Candy Corn – Chewy Candy

Going Beyond Simple Sugar with the Many Flavors of Candy Corn

Every Halloween, there’s no doubt that there’ll be a batch of candy corn ready for the eating. As a traditional treat, we’ve all come to know and love its simple sugary taste. But did you know that you can now find this candy in a wide variety of other flavors?

A little touch of fruity flavor can totally transform a traditional treat into something new for everyone! This Halloween, why not treat your guests to a sugary rendition of caramel apple? With its white, red and brown colors, it also makes a welcome addition to any Thanksgiving cornucopia.

If you’re feeling a little more gothic, maybe the blackberry cobbler flavor is right up your alley. With a violet stripe over black and white, this type of candy corn totally makes the perfect treat to pair up with a bowl of licorice sweets in a Halloween candy buffet.

It isn’t all about different flavors, though. Today, you can even find these chewy treats molded into all sorts of shapes and sizes! Don’t hesitate to surprise your guests this season with a completely different spin on candy corn. After all, it’s always great to take a little break from tradition every now and then.

Wax Lips – Wax Fangs

Play a Fun Game of “Vampire or Not” with Wax Lips and Fangs

Nothing beats a Halloween party that comes complete with games to play! If you’re hosting one this year, keeping your little guests entertained should be top priority. With wax lips and fangs, you can set up a game of Vampire or Not? that’s sure to be a hit for the night.

Vampire or Not? is a simple, yet fun-filled game where a “vampire hunter” is chosen to guess which kids are vampires, and which kids are not. Children find out what role they play with a draw of cards. Afterwards, each child in the game, except for the vampire hunter, is given either wax fangs or lips.

When the hunter goes around the kids to make his guess, all the kids will need to hide their identities by keeping their wax lips or fangs in their mouths.

If a hunter successfully finds the vampires, you can reward him with extra candy. You can even up the ante and make it more fun for all the kids with special prizes for hunters who have the most correct guesses or sneaky vampires who couldn’t be caught!

There are a lot of creative ways to keep your guests entertained the whole night. By knowing which games and candy they’ll love, you definitely throw an awesome Halloween party without too much trouble.

Wax Fangs – Halloween Candy

Turn Your Doorstep into the Ultimate Vampire’s Lair with Wax Fangs and Other Halloween Gimmicks

Go all out with your decorations and gimmicks and make your home stand out this Halloween! Creating the perfect hangout for any creature of the night becomes easy with wax fangs, little cups of fruit punch “blood”, and decorative details to complete a vampire’s lair.

Creating the traditional Transylvanian effect on your front porch can be done with a few toy bats to linger before your door, cotton cobwebs to accent the door frame, and electric candles on elegant candelabras by the windows. Dim the lights in the room before the front door to give your home a chilling aura that makes everything fall into place.

Finally, a vampire’s lair is never complete without its resident lord or lady, so throw on an elegant black outfit, make your skin pale and ashen with powder, and wear fake fangs. As soon as your doorbell rings, greet your trick-or-treaters with a haughty vampire laugh and present them with a tray full of wax fangs and bloody fruit punch.

With a complete gimmick this Halloween, you will surely impress both your little costumed visitors and your neighbors!

The Ultimate Jelly Bean Blog

Short Introduction

For those of you that don’t know, a jelly bean is more or less exactly what it sounds like. It is a bean-shaped candy with a semi-hard outer shell and a soft inside. They are generally fruit flavored, such as cherry and watermelon, but as production techniques have become more refined, companies have been able to experiment with many unique and interesting flavors, such as cotton candy and buttered popcorn. This candy has blossomed from an Easter-centered candy to a year-round favorite. Companies have the ability to change the colors and flavors of the jelly bean to match any occasion or season; red, white, and blue for the Fourth of July or orange and black for Halloween.

History

The exact date that jelly beans were created is unknown, but many believe they got their start during the civil war. In 1861, a man by the name of William Schraft began manufacturing jelly beans in Boston and encouraged people to send them to the soldiers to eat as snacks during the war. Some experts believe that the jelly center is descendent of a mid-Eastern confection known as Turkish Delight, which dates back to the biblical times.

However it was not until 1905 when the Chicago Daily News first mentioned jelly beans in an advertisement. Back then they sold for 9 cents per pound, and are considered to be the first “bulk candy.” Most historians have agreed that they were first linked with Easter in the 1930s.

In 1976, the Herman Goelitz Candy Co.,Inc. invented the gourmet jelly bean, which sprung new life into the jelly bean and assured it would last as a candy favorite.

Fun Fact: Jelly beans were Ronald Reagan’s favorite candy, thus during the Reagan administration, jelly beans could always be found in the White House. Reagan even had a specially made jelly bean holder for Air Force One so the jelly beans would not spill during turbulence. Jelly beans have also visited outer space when they traveled on the space shuttle.

Ingredients, Shape, Flavors

Although there are slight differences in the manufacturing processes between companies, the overall process required to make jelly beans is essentially the same.

The basic ingredients needed are sugar, corn syrup, and food starch. In addition to these ingredients, there are small proportions of flavoring that depend on the type of jelly bean. These natural and artificial flavors depend of the specific flavor and may include chocolate, coconut, peanuts, vanilla, oils, cream, or freeze-dried egg, milk, or fruit powders.

One of the recent advancements that has allowed for more creatively flavored jelly beans is the ability to have a particular jelly bean resemble its real world flavor. For example, a watermelon-flavored jelly bean has a soft red center and an outer green shell, so that it looks like a real watermelon. There is also a mixed fruit jelly bean, often known as tutti-frutti, that may have a soft pink center and a speckled outer shell, which suggests that it is a mixed flavor.

Believe it or not, the shape of the jelly bean remained relatively unchanged up until the mid-1970s when producers began manufacturing “gourmet” jelly beans. Gourmet jelly beans are typically smaller and softer than the traditional jelly beans. Since the introduction of gourmet jelly beans, manufacturers have been constantly changing the flavors available. They have been varying the flavors and colors that are available, replacing the less popular flavors with newly designed ones. Even creating fat-free jelly beans to adapt to a more health conscious generation.

The Manufacturing Process

This site has good pictures:    https://wikis.nyu.edu/xdesign/mediawiki/index.php/Jelly_Bean

The manufacturing process begins far earlier than the actual creating of the jelly bean. It begins in a laboratory where chemists test new flavors and flavor combinations of jelly beans, in order to see which flavors will sell the best. These chemists develop small test batches based on customer studies, which are manufactured over a trial period and marketed to gauge their success. If the new flavor is a success, it will be put into production, if not, it will be discarded. A recent trend has been toward organic and healthier candy, with an emphasis on natural ingredients and low calories and fat content.

After the chemists and marketing team have determined a successful flavor it is sent to the candy kitchen where the jelly bean making process begins. The first thing that the kitchen must do is create the jelly bean center. This is made using a syrup that is created by dissolving sugar and other ingredients in a large boiler. Here, the syrup is heated to the proper temperature and consistency, as well as where the flavor and color is added. After the flavor and color have been added, it is transported to the starch casting area.

Each individual jelly bean is created through a process called starch casting. During this process a product called dry corn starch is laid across a plastic tray by a machine called a mogul. Dry corn starch is used because it is a fine powder that is able to retain shapes very well. After the layer of corn starch is laid, dents are pressed into the corn starch in the shape of the inside of a jelly bean. The corn starch covered trays can contain between several hundred to over one thousand individual dents for jelly beans.

After the dents are placed in the dry corn starch, the trays are transported to a machine that deposits the heated syrup, which was made in the kitchen, into each tiny mold. From here, the trays are transported to a cooling room where the temperature and humidity are controlled. This allows the liquid syrup to cool and form the gummy center of the jelly bean.

Now that the gummy center of the jelly bean has been created, it is time to move onto the outer shell. The process to create the outer shell is known as the panning process. This process gives the outer shell its color and flavor. After the gummy centers are dried, they are removed from the corn starch, which is then recycled and used to create even more jelly centers.

Did you know…? Did you know that all of the centers are the same flavor and color before they start the panning process?

Once removed from their corn starch housing, the centers are transported to stainless steel “pans” where additional ingredients are added to give the jelly beans flavor and color. These “pans” rotate several hundred times per minute, which, when sugar is slowly added, allows a hard, sugar shell to be formed. Workers then add the flavors and colors, which gives each flavor of jelly bean its distinctive color and taste.

This is a very time consuming process and can take anywhere between 6 and 10 days. The final step in the process is the package the final product. After they finish the panning process, the jelly beans are placed in sorting trays where they are still separated by flavor and color. They are then taken to a large bin where they are mixed until the desired combination is achieved. Exceptions to this of course include times when jelly beans are packaged as a single flavor.

After they are mixed together they are inspected by workers for quality controlled reasons. Jelly beans with any imperfections are removed, and those that pass the quality inspection are packaged in various sizes and made available for bulk sale or to customers for individual purchases. Some packaging machines can package and seal 80,000 jelly beans a day!

Come take a look at the vast selection of Jelly Beans and more at Candy Direct!

By Matthew Rogers