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So much flavor is packed inside such a small bundle of sweet delight! For a quick burst of sweet energy the jelly bean is a popular favorite. Its wide variety of flavors and small size has great appeal when it comes to a low calorie, fat free treat. Most of us associate the jelly bean with Easter and candy dispensing bunnies hopping around depositing the tiny confections in Easter baskets all over the place. While there are more than 16 billion of these sweets treats produced every year for the Easter season, the jelly bean has a far more involved history.

The gummy little treat covered with a sugar shell, known to one and all as the jelly bean, has a long and somewhat mysterious history. The most commonly held belief is that the jelly center has its origin in a treat known as far back as Biblical times as Turkish Delight. The harder sugary shell did not make an appearance until 17th Century French candy makers started making Jordan Almonds. The shell is an offshoot of a candy coating process called "panning." The original panning process involved candy makers rocking almonds by hand in a bowl of sugar and syrup to completely coat the almonds with the candy shell. Today the process is performed mechanically with rotating pans doing the tedious work.

Exactly how the jelly center of the Turkish Delight and the sugar coating shell produced by panning came together to form the happy union of the jelly bean as we know it today is yet another piece of jelly bean history that is open to speculation. Most candy historians attribute the marriage of the two processes to William Schraft of Boston who, in the 1800's, advertised the candy treat to be sent to soldiers fighting in the Civil War.

As the 20th century began, jelly beans expanded in popularity and became a common item in penny candy stores, often being sold by weight. Jelly beans today, although available year round, are most commonly associated with the Easter season. It was in the 1930's that the jelly bean took on its association with the holiday, most likely because its egg shape symbolizes fertility and rebirth. They became the perfect gift for the fictional Easter Bunny to deposit in Easter baskets everywhere.

Jelly beans are popular both for the vast variety of flavors and for their compact, easy to enjoy size. The two basic classifications of jelly beans are the traditional candies that have existed from their evolution from the Turkish Delight and gourmet jelly beans, the famous Jelly Bellies, which only came on the scene in 1976.

Gourmet jelly beans have a slightly softer center than traditional jelly beans and the flavorings for the jelly beans are used both in the center and on the outside shell, giving a more intense taste. Traditional jelly beans typically come in a limited variety of spiced or pectin flavors. Gourmet jelly beans have an exotic menu of unusual flavors to tempt the candy connoisseur. Some of the more exotic flavors include green apple, blueberry, buttered popcorn and strawberry mousse.

While the earliest jelly beans found their way to the battle front of the Civil War, modern day jelly beans have made it into outer space on the 1983 Challenge Shuttle as a special treat for the astronauts.

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