Making Gummy Candies and Fruit by the Foot at Home!

Hey Kids! I was surfing the internet and came across a recipe for how to make Gummy Bears at home! Do you want to make them?
The answer was a resounding yes!

The recipe I'm using for Haribo Gold-Bears Gummy Candy comes courtesy of TopSecretRecipes.com.  For this recipe we'll need 3 oz of gelatin, water, citric acid, corn syrup, and a packet of gelatin.

We'll also need some silicone molds. I don't have the gummy bear molds, but these random ones will work just fine. I was unsure how much volume this will make, so I told the kids to pick their favorite two. Zoo Animals and Dinosaurs for Ian. Hearts and Smiley Faces for Alli. Good choices.

And it couldn't be more simple to make. We're combining all the dry ingredients in a microwave safe bowl to start.

Mixing the gelatin, Jello, and citric acid together.

And then it's time for the wet ingredients. Corn syrup and water go in. The recipe says to stir it slowly or else you'll introduce air bubbles. The kids did a really good job going gentle with it, but I wasn't too concerned with air bubbles. They're going to taste the same either way.

Once it's mixed, it sits for a few minutes, then it goes into the microwave. 30 seconds then stir, 15 seconds then stir, 15, 15, 15, until you get to 1:30 total.

Once it comes out, it sits again for another few minutes until it's time to pour them into the molds.

To make things easier, I poured things into these squirt bottles.

Time to fill the molds!

After the first couple got filled, yeah... I'm going to need all the molds.

There's so many things to fill.
Alli - Ian, can I borrow the orange?
Ian - Sure. Can I have the strawberry?
They were very polite about going back and forth filling up the various molds.

That's a lot of gummies. These went into the fridge for a couple hours to set.

Afterwards, they're hard enough to remove from the mold.

They pop right out!

At this point, we've got a whole bunch of stiff jello jigglers. Not gummy candies. They're going to need some time to dehydrate. Of course I let the kids try them along the way.

Pick your favorites.

They're tasty, but still a little too soft.

These need 48 hours to dry out. Our kitchen gets pretty busy, with all the things we end up making. Theresa put them on the toaster oven and gave everyone instructions DO NOT use the toaster oven.

24 hours later... Disaster has struck. Theresa actually thinks it was her that did it too. Toasting some bread one day and not thinking about what was on top.

It does look interesting though. You know, I think we can still make something out of this.

I grabbed my pizza cutter and cut long strips.

Check it out! Now we have Fruit by the Foot fruit snacks too! And it even has various animal shapes in it! That's something not even the real Fruit by the Foot has!

The kids were super happy to be tasting them. 48 hours is a long time to wait.

The gummies turned out well of course.

But the kids were ecstatic about the Fruit by the Foot. Mommy called it a happy accident.
Kids - Thank you Daddy for making the fruit snacks, but Thank you Thank you Mommy for making the Fruit by the Foot!

It's so long and stretchy!

Taste-wise, it thought it was just fine. It tastes like the Jello powder. The citric acid didn't add as much punch as I would have hoped. Texture-wise it was a little chewier than Jello. Not quite the gummy candies I'm used to, but still okay.
These kids didn't care about any of that though. They both loved them and want to make them again!