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Starburst Ice Cream Flavors Jelly Beans

I try to always pick up some new jelly bean versions every “day after Easter,” but this year the pickings seemed to be a little on the slim side. I did get some that claimed to be Laffy Taffy flavored, but most of the rest were the usual suspects. Recently, though, I happened on a new offering from the folks at Starburst: Ice Cream Flavors. At first they were only available in 12-ounce bags, but lately I’ve seen some in little 8-ounce “ice cream cartons.” Cute…

Cute packaging aside, I still think the most important features of jelly beans can only be evaluated by chomping down a handful or three – and so I did.

Starburst packages just four flavors of ice cream, and when you get right down to it the idea of “ice cream” is pretty much violated by two. The ice cream flavors are strawberry (pink) and raspberry (pale purple), while the non-ice cream flavors are lemon sorbet (yellow) and orange sherbet (orange) As befits jelly beans, all four flavors are quite sweet, though the lemon has a slight touch of the acidity you expect from lemons. The beans are gourmet-sized (like Jelly Bellys or Gimbel’s) with a tiny “Starburst” printed along their length. The flavor is entirely in the shell, which can be sucked or chewed off to leave the translucent, whitish sugary gel from the center. The gel has a good consistency, especially when the beans are slightly stale.

I find the texture of the shell pretty much spot-on for jelly beans, though if they were true gourmet beans the flavor would go all the way through the center. A 12-ounce bag cost about $2.59 at my neighborhood Kroger, where they’re selling the cute little ice cream cartons for $2.00; not a terribly good bargain – though perhaps the carton is reusable, like a L’Eggs carton from years gone by. Still, you can get almost a pound of the store’s “Private Selection” beans – which are clearly made by Gimbels – for about $3.50, and they’re definitely more flavorful and have more variety.

The four flavors get a little cloying after a while, but overall they are still good enough to rate slightly above average: I’m going with 3½ stars…

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