{
    "id": 1071052,
    "title": "Jelly beans",
    "slug": "jelly-beans",
    "type": "page",
    "url": "https://sweeties.net/wiki/jelly-beans/",
    "modified": "2026-09-26T14:36:50+01:00",
    "excerpt": "Jelly beans have a soft centre and a thin sugar shell. Their history, from an 1861 claim to Reagan's jar, and two UK recipes, one of them vegan.",
    "content_text": "Jelly beans are small, bean shaped sweets with a soft gel centre and a thin sugar shell, polished to a shine. The centres are cast in starch moulds and the shells built up in spinning pans: see how are jelly beans made?\nA short history\n1861. It has been claimed that jelly beans were first sold in 1861, when the Boston confectioner William Schrafft urged people to buy them as gifts for soldiers in the American Civil War.The 1930s. Historians suggest that jelly beans became linked with Easter in the United States during the 1930s, because of their egg like shape.1976. David Klein, a candy and nut distributor, worked with Herman Rowland of the Herman Goelitz Candy Company to make a jelly bean with natural flavourings. Klein sold the first Jelly Belly beans in 1976 at Fosselman's, an ice cream parlour in Alhambra, California, in eight flavours: Very Cherry, Tangerine, Lemon, Green Apple, Grape, Liquorice, Root Beer and Cream Soda. Selling them as separate flavours rather than a mixed bag was Klein's idea.1980. Klein sold the Jelly Belly trademark to Rowland for 4.8 million dollars, paid monthly over 20 years.\nThe president's jar\nRonald Reagan became hooked on the beans as governor of California. In 1973 he wrote to Rowland that a meeting or a decision hardly happened without the jar of jelly beans being passed round. The public learned of his habit in 1981, and press reports said that as president he gave jars of them to visiting dignitaries. In 1983 he sent them up on the Space Shuttle Challenger, making them the first jelly beans in space: see sweets in space\nTwo recipes\nJelly Belly, 20 flavours, as listed by Sweets and Candy. Sugar, glucose syrup, modified cornstarch, beeswax, carnauba wax and shellac as glazing agents, three acidity regulators, fruit purees and juice concentrates, flavourings, plant concentrates, chocolate made from sugar, cocoa mass and cocoa butter, dried coconut, cocoa powder, colours including E100, E150a, E153, E160a, E162 and E172, salt and tapioca dextrin. The flavours run from Very Cherry and Blueberry to Buttered Popcorn and Chocolate Pudding.\nJelly Beans, as listed by Sweets and Candy. Sugar, glucose syrup, maize starch, citric acid, sunflower oil, anthocyanins, lutein and carotenes as colours, flavourings, gum arabic, safflower and spirulina concentrates, and carnauba wax as a glaze. The retailer labels them vegan, vegetarian and halal.\nDiet points\nGelatine. Neither recipe here contains gelatine: see what sweets are gelatine free?Vegan. The Jelly Belly recipe is glazed with beeswax and shellac, both from insects, so it is not vegan. The other recipe uses carnauba wax, from a palm tree, and is labelled vegan: see what is shellac on sweets? and what is beeswax on sweets?Hidden extras. Jelly Belly's mix includes real chocolate and coconut in some flavours, so read the full list if you avoid either.Allergens. Sweets and Candy says its sweets are packed where wheat, gluten, soya, milk, peanuts and nuts are handled: see pick and mix and allergies\nIn our pick and mix\nWe sell SW008 by the 100 g. Recipes differ between makers, so the card opens up to show the full ingredients and allergens for the jelly beans we actually stock.",
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