I don’t know about you, but my kids love fruit snacks. I mean, how can you not? The fun shapes and colors, plus all the gummy goodness. Yet even with the organic brands, there are a ton of ingredients listed, most of which I can’t name. So to simplify things, and to keep my house free of the zillion little plastic packages, we choose to make our fruit snacks at home. It’s really fun to do with kids, and with only two ingredients, it couldn’t be simpler! I’m planning to start experimenting with a vegan version, but right now I use Knox unflavored gelatin I can find in cardboard and paper packs at my local grocery store.
Fruit Snack Recipe:
• 1/2 cup juice of your choice
• 4 packets unflavored gelatin (roughly 1T each)
Mix the gelatin into the juice and heat in a saucepan on low (I actually use a little crockpot style heater from a fruit snack kit found on Amazon) until the liquid is thin and no clumps are visible. Pour into silicone molds. You can let them set at room temperature in about 20 minutes, or pop them into the fridge for quicker results. The snacks last at room temp for 24 hours or refrigerated for 3-6 days. Just give them a sniff and texture test first. If they smell strange or feel hard, toss them into your compost. They also make a great chicken snack!
My kids love to make and eat these fruit snacks, picking the shapes and getting involved makes them more likely to actually eat them. And choosing juice is fun too! I’ve used homemade juiced prickly pears for an amazingly bright magenta, cherry juice for a deep red, and grape juice for purple. Mild flavors like apple or pear really don’t work well in these snacks — they taste bland. Fruits that can be overpowering taste much milder as a fruit snack. And you can also mix flavors, like watermelon and lime. It’s a delicious way to get your kids in the kitchen, and to know they have super healthy snacks filling their bellies!
wonderful kiwi / 23653 posts
These are SO cute! I never even thought of making our own… Definitely saving this for when DD is a little older!
honeydew / 7917 posts
Never thought to make them at home. I’ll have to give it a try. With my LO’s allergies, it’s difficult to find safe fruit snacks.
wonderful pear / 26210 posts
Yes, please continue testing the vegan version, I am assuming you’re talking about agar agar instead of the gelatin?
apricot / 256 posts
What a great idea!! I bet if kiddos wanted colors you could use beet juice or other naturally vibrant fruit/veg options to color.
blogger / nectarine / 2043 posts
This is awesome!
pomegranate / 3225 posts
This is amazing! And so timely… My girls had fruit snacks for breakfast
grapefruit / 4545 posts
where do you find these awesome molds?
kiwi / 549 posts
I recently made these for my son’s classroom for his birthday celebration. (His school doesn’t allow sugary snacks for birthdays, and he’s in the allergen free classroom, so as you can imagine, picking a snack to bring that still felt celebratory was tough. I’m sorry but sunflower seeds & raisins don’t really say “let’s celebrate!” to me.). Anyhow, I found them difficult to pop out of the molds cleanly, and so did a lot of other moms I talked to. So a tip if someone is having trouble: extra (double even??) the gelatin, and put the molds in the freezer for 20 mins or so before you pop them out. They stick more when they’re room temperature. When I did those 2 things, they worked much better.
blogger / honeydew / 7081 posts
Great idea! I’ll have to try!
cherry / 120 posts
These look so good! Awesome idea!
coffee bean / 46 posts
Have you tried Great Lakes Gelatin (in the red can)? It comes from grass-fed cows (if you get the kosher version). Supposed to be better for you than Knox.
I use the Great Lakes Collagen (in the green can) and just love it. (used hot or cold, but will not harden like gelatin)
http://meghanbirt.com/2013/07/gelatin/
blogger / grape / 92 posts
@looch: Yes, agar agar is at the top of my list. I have tried a few times with pectin, which I use for canning to set jellies and jams. But obviously it just becomes jelly-like, not firmer like a fruit snack. I’m phasing into a more vegetarian/vegan lifestyle and want to have more options for my family.
blogger / grape / 92 posts
@red_seattle: Thanks for the tips! I haven’t had any trouble since using only juice, I noticed that when I tried pureed fruit that it was more difficult to get them to set properly.
blogger / grape / 92 posts
@MrsKerch: Prickly pears have an intensely bright magenta juice, which was the first thing I made these snacks with. They were a big hit! I mean, anything pink goes over well in our house. Plus it mellows out the intense flavor of the juice. It’s much different from other fruit flavors we’re more accustomed to.
blogger / grape / 92 posts
@Mrs D: Amazon! I just searched “silicone molds” and found my favorites. I started out with the gummy kit from Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Nostalgia-GCM600-Giant-Gummy-Candy/dp/B00EY81OPO/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1451777404&sr=8-1&keywords=gummy+bear+kit&linkCode=sl1&tag=hellobee-20&linkId=17add64447ea3342b454bdf45291fff9) which has all the traditional shapes of bears and worms and Swedish fish. It also comes with a gigantic bear that so far I’ve been able to hide long enough that my kids haven’t begged me to make it.