The Good: Amazing scent, Good ingredients, Good initial flavor
The Bad: Flavor quickly transitions to something chemical-like
The Basics: The Pancakes & Maple Syrup Jelly Bellys are surprisingly unsatisfying, making for a near-miss from the jelly bean manufacturer.
There are some delightful milestones that I reach as a reviewer that are fun to highlight. Tonight, that milestone is my 1000th food review. When I contemplated this milestone, I instantly leapt to reviewing a Jelly Belly jelly bean. Jelly Belly jelly beans are the foods I have reviewed the most and I was excited to discover there was still a new-to-me flavor to review. That flavor was Pancakes & Maple Syrup and on my recent trip, I picked myself up a supply!
Unfortunately, for as much as I love Jelly Belly jelly beans, the Pancakes & Maple Syrup flavor jelly beans are one of the brand's less impressive beans.
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 peanut butter, jalapeno, or their signature flavor Buttered Popcorn.
Who needs ten pounds of Pancakes & Maple Syrup flavored Jelly Bellys? No one I know. Those who absolutely love pancakes are likely to be unimpressed and those who would love ten pounds of maple syrup are likely to find the Pancakes & Maple Syrup Jelly Bellys not sweet enough to thrill. Those who might like Pancakes & Maple Syrup Jelly Belly jelly beans will likely find that this is the best way to get them in bulk in an environmentally responsible way for the least amount of money.
Basics
Pancakes & Maple Syrup is a flavor of Jelly Belly jelly beans. 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 intended to taste like Pancakes & Maple Syrup, but they fail on both fronts.
Pancakes & Maple Syrup flavored Jelly Bellys are available in a wide array of quantities, but the largest quantity available is the ten pound bulk case. This is a decent-sized box with a plastic lining and while some might wonder why anyone would need a ten pound box, I don't have a great answer for that other than the environmental impact of the bulk program. I suspect that for most people, a ten pound case is a year's supply of these jelly beans.
Pancakes & Maple Syrup flavored Jelly Bellys are remarkably easy to recognize and distinguish from other Jelly Bellys, as they are an opaque light brown color. This easily distinguishes them from the opaque brown of peanut butter and the red-brown chocolate pudding Jelly Belly jelly beans.
Ease Of Preparation
These are jelly beans, not getting ten pounds of maple syrup right from a tree. In the case of the ten pound box, one might want to put them in a candy dish of some form as opposed to always going into the box. Then again, you could eat them freely from the box if you are so inclined!
Taste
The Pancakes & Maple Syrup Jelly Bellys have a fairly strong scent, instantly recognizable as maple syrup. The syrup scent is delicious and inviting for anyone who loves maple syrup and maple sugar. There is nothing in the aroma that even implies pancakes.
On the flavor front, the Pancakes & Maple Syrup Jelly Bellys start flavored vaguely for butter and maple syrup. Even the hint of maple syrup quickly fades, though and it is replaced with a bitter, chemical flavor. The chemical flavor is not even overly sweet. The Jelly Belly Pancakes & Maple Syrup jelly beans finish sour and dry, which only undermines the reality of the maple flavor.
The Jelly Belly Pancakes & Maple Syrup jelly beans have a somewhat bitter, sour aftertaste that is somewhat plastic in its flavor.
Nutrition
Again, these are jelly beans, so anyone looking to them for nutrition needs to understand they are based upon a sugary food product, so they're not going to be terribly nutritious! Jelly beans, even Jelly Belly jelly beans, 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 because they contain no gelatin! However, "vegan compliant" depends on just how strict a Vegan your Vegan is, so the beeswax in the Jelly Belly Pancakes & Maple Syrup jelly beans might be a dealbreaker for some Vegans. Jelly Belly jelly beans have only one percent of the daily sodium with their 25 mg and they are gluten free! These are also made in a peanut free factory. 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 and a half years 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 bulk box is sufficient if it is kept closed) and they ought to be kept in a cool 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 as well as they can.
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 (fortunately, these are not sticky like actual maple syrup). I've never had Pancakes & Maple Syrup Jelly Bellys stain anything.
Overall
Jelly Belly Pancakes & Maple Syrup jelly beans taste more like plastic than pancakes and the hints of maple syrup do not last long enough to sell consumers on these beans.
For other flavors of Jelly Bellys, please check out my reviews of:
Hot Chocolate
Bubbly
Honey Bean
3.5/10
For other food reviews, please visit my Food Review Index Page for an organized listing!
© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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