Homemade Gumdrops

One star-shaped gum drop being picked up.

These homemade gumdrops are the perfect festive treat made without artificial colors! They're made with fruit juice, gelatin, and honey instead of corn syrup.

Course Dessert

Cuisine Global

Keyword homemade gumdrops

Cook Time 5

Total Time 5

Author Michelle

Ingredients

For the red gumdrops

1 cup pomegranate juice
2 tbsp Local Hive Honey
2 ½ tbsp gelatin
2 tbsp granulated sweetener

For the green gumdrops

1 cup pear juice
½ tsp spirulina for color
2 tbsp Local Hive Honey
2 ½ tbsp gelatin
2 tbsp granulated sweetener

Instructions

For the red gumdrops, pour the juice in a medium pot and add the honey. Whisk well. Sprinkle the gelatin over the juice mixture and lightly mix. Allow to harden for 2 minutes.
Transfer the pot to the stove and heat over low heat for 3-4 minutes or until fully liquid.
Use a dropper to transfer the liquid into the mold carefully. Alternatively, you can use a large glass container. Transfer to the fridge for 4-6 hours or until fully set.
For the green gumdrops, pour the juice in a medium pot and add the honey and spurilina. Whisk well. Sprinkle the gelatin over the juice mixture and lightly mix. Allow to harden for 2 minutes. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for the green gumdrops.
After both sets of of gumdrops are hardened, carefully remove them from the molds and place on a wire rack. Raise the rack using two glasses and put a small fan next to the rack. Turn on low and allow to dry for 90 minutes- 2 hours.
Toss both of the gumdrops in the granulated sweetener to coat and enjoy!

Notes

The gumdrops need to undergo a drying process for that chewy texture. If you don't have a fan, you can set them at room temperature for 2 hours.

Since they use real fruit juice, these gumdrops need to be stored in the fridge, but this granulated sweetener will slowly liquify once placed in the fridge, so I highly recommend enjoying them immediately. If you plan to enjoy part of the gumdrop recipe for later, store them without sweetener in the fridge, and then dry and add sweetener to serve.

To make this recipe vegan, you would swap out gelatin for agar. Agar is a lot stronger than gelatin, so you need to divide the amount of gelatin by three, and then you’ll have the amount of agar needed! This comes out to a little bit under 1 tbsp of agar.