Fruit Juice Gummies

In my quest to make homemade snacks, I tried making gummies today with apple juice.  Here is the recipe I tried: http://juicyjuice.com/recipe/homemade-fruit-juice-gummies/ (I did half the recipe due to my molds being small)

Knox Gelatin - for 1/2 the recipe, I needed 2-3 packets of gelatin to get the 2 Tablespoons (a box of 4 packets cost less than $2 at the grocery store near the Jell-o).  I added in some honey, not in the recipe, just to make them sweeter - squeezed in probably 1/8 cup.  I used 3/4 cup apple juice.  I looked for a juice that did not have corn syrup in it, and was not pineapple, mango, or papaya as it doesn't solidify well with gelatin.

I bought these silicon molds at Michaels for about $4.99 each.  They do NOT need to be greased.  You can find ice-cube ones at the grocery stores in lots of shapes.  I used the squeeze bottle also from Michaels that I had previously purchased for melting chocolates.  Just be careful - putting the hot gummy mix in there is hot to handle!  Use a cloth napkin or heating pad to handle while filling the molds.  1/2 recipe filled up these two molds perfectly!  I put the molds first in a cake pan so I could transfer it easily to the fridge.

After being in the fridge for 1.5 hours and they were easy to pop out and held their shape really well!

With apple juice, they weren't very flavorful or sweet, even with honey.  I think next time we will try a cranberry juice and/or add in more honey.  They were fun to eat, nonetheless!  I hear you can also puree some fruits to add into your juice/gelatin mixture to help with flavor.

Second Try:

Because this juice had mango in it, I boiled it.  I also boiled it down to make it more flavorful.  Then I cooled it off a bit before mixing in the gelatin.  The end flavor was distinct from the apple juice, but still not very strong, and I hadn't put honey in it.

Without the added honey, it didn't make as much and so filled just one tray.

These turned out more solid than the apple juice ones.