The Good: Good overall taste, Fun and whimsical.
The Bad: EXPENSIVE, Not at all healthy/nutritious
The Basics: Jelly Belly Prehistoric Eggs are an interesting activity candy that is worth trying once or twice, but not an exceptional product for more than the whimsy.
I am a huge fan of Jelly Belly and of seasonal candies. As we’ve hit the time of year when I spend the most that I do annually on candy, I thought it was cool to return to the works of my favorite candy company and try something new (to me) from them. That’s the Prehistoric Eggs candy and I was psyched to try them. Right now, my criteria is a little skewed. After all, I’ve just stocked up on a year’s supply of Cadbury Crème Eggs (reviewed here!), so when I try a new candy like the Prehistoric Eggs, one of my thoughts is “would I want to stock up on these?”
Unfortunately, the Prehistoric Eggs are not worth stocking up on, though they are an interesting candy to try. It’s not a bad candy, it’s just not as distinctive as the other two and for the $1.50 - $3.99 price I’ve found for them locally, it’s too tough a sell for trying more than twice.
Basics
The Prehistoric Eggs is a flavor of Jelly Belly Chocolate Candies with a gummi candy inside. This is part of their growing line of non-jelly bean candies! Jelly Belly Prehistoric Eggs are approximately two and a quarter inches long by one and a half inches wide by just over 1” thick at their widest points and shaped like a big, speckled egg! Interestingly, the packages do not define the flavor of the gummi inside, so each one is a surprise.
The Prehistoric Eggs from Jelly Bellys are fairly new and thus are only available in individual 1.4 oz. packages, or cases of the same. This is represents a single serving and is pretty much how the entire candy industry produces their packs, so (for a change) I have no beef about the packaging. Each egg has a hard chocolate shell which surrounds a gummi candy. I discovered pretty quickly that there is no easy way to break the shell away from the gummi. The gummi inside my Prehistoric Egg was an orange pterodactyl.
Ease Of Preparation
These are chocolate and gummi candies, not cracking open a priceless Prehistoric Egg and hoping for something yummy inside! Consuming these is as easy as opening the individual package and biting the candy. There is no additional prep needed, except responsible disposal of the packaging. This is one candy that is a bit big for most people’s mouths and thus harder to suck the chocolate away on.
Taste
The Jelly Belly Prehistoric Eggs have no aroma to them. The candy shell that surrounds the chocolate keeps the flavor and scent completely sealed. There is no hint of smell from these (my animals, who frequently visit me when I am writing reviews, made no move toward the Prehistoric Egg even after I removed it from the packaging.
The candy shell surrounding the chocolate is hard and generically sweet. It is like a super-thick coating for an M&M’s type candy and it chips away from the chocolate. It tastes sugary, like hardened icing on a cake that has been sitting out.
The next layer is the chocolate and it is a somewhat grainy (textured) milk chocolate that smells darker than it actually is. I suppose sealing the scent in makes the chocolate scent more concentrated. Biting into the chocolate, I was surprised by how chewy it was. As it turns out, the chocolate does not fracture around the gummi. As a result, the gummi and the chocolate flavors blend some. The chocolate, though, it a very generic milk chocolate. I was impressed that the chocolate did not have a generic, waxy, mass-produced flavor to it, but it was not exceptional in any way. It was sweet and chocolatey, but indistinct.
Gummi candies are what Jelly Belly does best (well, if one looks at jelly beans as a gummi!) and the orange pterodactyl inside is an orange, sugary coated gummi. The orange scent is strong and distinctive and very inviting. The gummi, however, is virtually flavorless as it sits on the tongue. Only when one chews the gummi does it release a strong orange, citrus flavor. The sweet and sour orange flavor is strong and exactly what one expects from Jelly Belly; it is flavorful and true to orange.
Together, the Prehistoric egg, slightly masticated, tastes like an orange chocolate confection that is lightly slightly sweet to begin with and finishes strongly chocolate and slightly dry. The flavor is intriguing and leaves sweet sticky bits in one’s molars, but no other aftertaste.
Nutrition
Again, these are chocolate and Gummi candies, not anything actually eggy or fossilized, so they are not at all nutritious. Outside that, it behooves one to realized that Gummi Candies, even Jelly Belly Gummi Candies, are not a legitimate source of nutrition, though Jelly Belly could have infused these with Vitamin C, as they do for some of their other gummi candies. These are a snack food, a dessert, and are in no way an adequate substitute for a real meal. A serving is listed as a single egg, with each serving having 180 calories.
Each Jelly Belly Prehistoric Eggs has quite a bit of fat (90 calories worth from 10 grams of fat) and two whole grams of protein. These are not Vegan compliant because they contain milk! They have only 5 mg of Sodium and they are made in a factory that processes peanuts! The main ingredients are sugar, chocolate liquor, and milk.
Storage/Clean-up
Jelly Belly Prehistoric Eggs have a shelf life of a couple of years; the one I picked up last month had a March 1, 2015 expiration date (and I got it from a discount store, which suggested to me that it was a product that was not moving elsewhere). They remain freshest when they are kept in their package and they ought to be kept in a cool environment. Storing them in hot places is likely to make the chocolate melt and gummi candy denature. Kept in a cool, dry place, the Prehistoric Eggs seems to retain its flavor well.
As for cleanup, unless one allows the Prehistoric Eggs to get hot to the point that the chocolate melts after the sugary coating has melted, there should be no cleanup necessary.
Overall
The Prehistoric Eggs are an interesting candy to disassembled and enjoy or have a cool mixed flavor experience in the mouth. But the overall candy is a lot more work than payoff for the expense and one of the harder sells from Jelly Belly.
For other Jelly Belly candies reviewed by me, please check out:
Draft Beer jelly beans
Raspberries & Blackberries
Soda Pop Shoppe Gummi Bottles
4.5/10
For other food or drink reviews, please visit my Food And Drink Review Index Page for an organized listing!
© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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