Homemade Fruit Snacks (aka Gummy Bears)

Wellness Mama,

Thanks for posting and sharing this recipe. I was curious to know what they taste like…My wife and I just made a fruit snack but it was different recipe than this but it was kind of rubbery to taste. I don’t know if that describes it enough but it was not tasting how we thought it would or how we would like it to.

Thanks for posting and I look forward to your response!

Jason

Hi Katie!

This recipe was a success! They turned out great and the kids loved them!
I had to alter the recipe slightly to accommodate the ingredients I had on hand. I only had two packets of knox gelatine (half the amount called for), I used juice, instead of kombucha, I used a little more honey (too sweet, but the kids liked it), and a little more fruit puree (blueberry).
I used a silicon mould, but they didn’t come out properly. I didn’t oil them first. Maybe more gelatine and oil will help next time. Still a hit tho! I would even just do this as a jello replacement, load it with veg and flax oil, serve it in a bowl with a spoon.
Both my kids swore off fruit in the last few years. They won’t even eat watermelon. So this is going to be great for them. The fruit is fresh and not cooked, which leaves more vitamins. I wish I had found this years ago!

My advice to the reader who found them to be bland is to taste the mixture before putting it in the moulds and adjust to taste. You can add more honey and juice at this point. It might change the texture of the final product to add more, but at least it will be tasty!
Thanks!

Does the brand of gelatin make a difference? I made these last night using KNOX brand unflavored gelatin. I used the 1/2. For the fruit I used Very Cherry Berry Blend from Trader Joes and for the juice I used Cherry. I added the honey as well. Me and my kids tasted them this morning and they are BLAND! They will not eat them at all. I do not want to throw them away but wonder what I did wrong? If the gelatin brand makes a difference then I will try another brand next time. But I expected much more flavor from this. Any tips? Thanks!

OMGosh! I think I love you for this recipe. I’m going to try is soon. My dilemma is that I’m allergic to HFCS and I have to avoid it. It makes eating prepackaged food challenging and it makes eating candy a thing of the past. And my luck is that fruit candy has always been my absolute favorite. But it’s nearly impossible to find fruit candy without HFCS, CS, tapioca syrup or some other variation of those nasty ingredients. I haven’t have fruit candy in years and I seriously can’t wait to give this a try.

Thanks!

I found the lego and robot molds on Amazon.
Can’t wait to make this!

hey there! i tried this recipe and it did not set up, i followed the recipe exactly…any ideas? also, can you give me a link to the trays you used for your chews? mine were too stiff… thanks, nicole’

Made these today. Aside from a few clumps they turned out nicely but just have no flavor at all 🙁

I have enjoyed many of these recipes, this one included, and I don’t even have young children in the home anymore! Who says teens and college-aged kids don’t enjoy treats. We are teaching and molding the generation behind us, and I respect women like Katie who acknowledge mothering as the great honor and responsibility it is, and do it with such grace.

I, too, am saddened but somewhat intrigued by the vegetarian vs meat-eating argument. Anyone on this blog is obviously health conscious and most likely concerned with both the commercial meat industry and environment. I have spent some extended times being vegan, primarily for religious purposes (Daniel 1), but my body does not tolerate it well. Mood swings, aches, weakness, brain fog, interrupted sleep; all vanish beautifully with the absence of grains and addition of wild caught fish and grass-fed beef from a very specific local farm (I don’t eat chicken or turkey, but that is certainly my choice, a long story, and I never push it on anyone else). I praise those who are happy and feel healthy on a vegan diet – more power to you. But I will never be convinced, as will most of these non-vegan-blog-readers, that our bodies were not meant to consume meat. Too many of our body’s components are based on amino acids and compounds only found in meat, and we boast only 1 stomach and canine teeth. As an advanced practice nurse who deals with end of life on a daily basis, I am saddened to see decades of poor health choices in the form of chronic and terminal diseases. But we all have free will, and we respect others and their choices, period. I have provided hospice care to vegans and to standard-american-dieters, to the rich and poor, to the intelligent and simple, and to every shape, size, race and religion. And many people in my geographic area hunt venison, give thanks to God and the animal, and sustain their families off of the meat through the winter. The food chain is inherent and cannot be argued.

I read many of these comments, but one completely floored me to the point that I felt urged to respond. While the debate is a noble one and will go on indefinitely, using the words ‘bigot’, ‘racist’, and ‘ill-informed, mid-American redneck’ in the same sentence loses all credibility to any point being made. I am proud to say that I am a native southern New Yorker transplanted to lower Mississippi, and I married a self-proclaimed redneck with a deep southern drawl. He is also a very specialized and successful surgeon, not to mention a wonderful family man and strong Christian. You can my bash eating habits, my housekeeping, even my parenting habits after raising 6 successful and morally sound children – but using the term ‘redneck’ with a scathing tongue in a debate about gelatin is just over the top.

Thank you Wellness Mama for this blog, I enjoy it wholeheartedly. God bless –

Eliz