The Good: Intriguing flavor, Nothing bad in them.
The Bad: Does not quite insinuate or resemble the ice cream flavor promised.
The Basics: Delicious, but more like the subject's subject than the embodiment of the ice cream, Birthday Cake Remix Jelly Bellys nail the flavor of cake batter!
Sometimes with Jelly Belly jelly beans, a flavor hits the mark while missing the point. Or maybe it hits the point while missing the mark, I'm not sure which metaphor works better in this case. The thing that has me all turned around tonight is Birthday Cake Remix. Birthday Cake Remix is part of the Coldstone Ice Cream Parlor assortment of Jelly Belly jelly beans and the reason I find myself in a conundrum about it is that the beans taste delicious, but their flavor is of birthday cake, not an ice cream. So, while the company I love tried to make it taste like an ice cream that was flavored like birthday cake, they either failed to get the ice cream flavor or absolutely succeeded in getting the flavor of birthday cake just right!
For those who might never have had Jelly Belly jelly beans, these are easily the best jelly beans on the planet, packing a lot of flavor into a very small size. Unlike most jelly beans which are only vaguely flavored and are more based on colors, Jelly Belly jelly beans have a wide variety of actual flavors, like the Fruit Punch Sport Beans, Very Cherry Jelly Bean Dips, Green Apple or their signature flavor Buttered Popcorn.
Who needs up to ten pounds of Birthday Cake Remix flavored Jelly Bellys? Anyone who wants all of the flavor of cake . . . mmmm, yummy cake! . . . without having to bake for days on end. Anyone who might like Birthday Cake Remix Jelly Belly jelly beans will likely find that buying by the ten pound case is the most economically and environmentally responsible.
Basics
Birthday Cake Remix is a flavor of Jelly Belly jelly beans from the Coldstone Ice Cream Assortment of Jelly Bellys which is reviewed here! Jelly Belly jelly beans are approximately one half inch long by one quarter inch wide and they are roughly bean-shaped. These little candies are marketed to taste like cake-flavored ice cream and they manage to hit half that mark.
Birthday Cake Remix flavored Jelly Bellys are available in a wide array of quantities, but they are least expensive by the ten pound box, which Jelly Belly finally sells them in outside the Coldstone Ice Cream Assortment.
Birthday Cake Remix flavored Jelly Bellys are easy to recognize. The Birthday Cake Remix Jelly Belly jelly beans are white with tiny dots of all colors: blue, green, yellow and pink. The only one close in appearance is French Vanilla outside the assortment and within the Coldstone Ice Cream Assortment, they are distinctive.
Ease Of Preparation
These are jelly beans, not making cake flavored ice cream from scratch! Preparing them is as easy as opening the bag in the box and popping one (or a handful) into your mouth. In the case of the ten pound box, one might want to put them in a candy dish of some form as opposed to risking spilling them each time one goes into the bag. Then again, let them eat cake (flavored ice cream jelly beans) right out of the box!
Taste
The Birthday Cake Remix is a remarkably straightforward jelly bean that smells like vanilla icing when the beans are segregated. The aroma is very inviting and is immediately evocative of a finished cake with white, vanilla frosting that is somehow spreading its scent through an entire room!
Designed to taste like cake-flavored ice cream with sprinkles, brownie and fudge, when the bean is placed on the tongue, the taste becomes a little more problematic. The initial flavor is appropriately sugary, like getting a spoonful of icing on one's mouth. That flavor lasts only a split second before it transforms into the distinct flavor of yellow cake. That cake flavor has a dryness to it, a taste that is cut by an aftertaste of fudge. Oddly, no matter how many of these beans I eat, I cannot get the fudge flavor to come out as anything but an aftertaste. This makes it instantly intriguing and while I like it, I find it odd.
What is unfortunate is that there is no flavor of ice cream in any of this bean's taste layers. Instead, this tastes more like cake - a marble cake with white frosting - than a cake ice cream.
Nutrition
Again, these are jelly beans, so one has to recall that they are based on something that is not exactly nutritiously rich. They are not a legitimate source of nutrition. These are a snack food, a dessert, and are in no way an adequate substitute for a real meal. A serving is listed at thirty-five beans, with each Jelly Belly jelly bean having approximately four calories. This means that in a single serving, there are 140 calories, which is 12% of your daily recommended intake.
The thing is, Jelly Belly jelly beans are not as bad as they could be in the nutrition area. They have no fat and no protein, but for those who have ever dated a Vegan, these are Vegan compliant to most Vegans because they contain no gelatin. Vegans who might take issue with these as being Vegan-compliant are the ones who have an issue with the use of bee's wax in the coating, so know your Vegan before buying! The Birthday Cake Remix beans have only one percent of the daily sodium with 15 mg and they are gluten free! The main ingredients are sugar, corn syrup and modified food starch, so it's not like this is an all-natural food, but they could be far, far worse.
Storage/Clean-up
Jelly Belly jelly beans have a shelf life of approximately one year and I have yet to run across a stale Jelly Belly (though that could have something to do with a package never surviving a year around me . . .). They remain freshest when they are kept in an airtight container (the bag in the box is sufficient if it is kept closed) and they ought to be kept in a lukewarm environment. Storing them in hot places is likely to make the beans stick together and be gross. Kept in a cool, dry place, the beans retain their flavor perfectly.
As for cleanup, unless one allows the Jelly Belly to get hot to the point that the waxy coating on the bean melts, the dyes on these do not bleed or denature, so there is usually no cleanup necessary, not even washing one's hands after eating them (always wash your hands before eating Jelly Bellys, just as you would if you were - uncouthly - eating cake with your hands!). I've never had Birthday Cake Remix Jelly Bellys stain anything.
Overall
Birthday Cake Remix Jelly Bellys are good, but for one claiming to taste like an ice cream sundae of sorts, I came away with a little sense of disappointment. These are a good bean, but they are not quite all they are promised to be and as such, flavor listeralists might be wary of stocking up. That said, I still recommend them as a cake-flavored jelly bean, which still puts them well ahead of any of their competition on the market!
For other Jelly Belly jelly bean flavor reviews by me, please check out:
Candy Cane (limited edition)
Pineapple Pear Smoothie
Candy Corn (limited edition!)
7.5/10
For other Jelly Belly reviews, please be sure to visit my index page for a complete listing by clicking here!
© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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