Friday Food Craft: Gumdrops

This is an extra sweet and sugar filled food craft! I was inspired by a post about a month ago on Bakerella and really wanted to try my hand at making my own gumdrops. Since I wasn't making them for a crowd and didn't want to be too tempted, I halved the recipe on her site. Also, I decided to spice it up by using ice cube trays from IKEA to mold my gum drops into fancy, single piece candies rather than cut all of mine up. I took her advice and sprayed my ice cub trays with cooking spray. I recommend this, these guys are sticky!

I think the added cute factor of having shaped gumdrops is really nice as well, and now is a great time to check out clearance ice cube trays (if you can find the silicone ones, i think they'd be easier to pop your gumdrops out of, but mine worked just fine as well and were only 2 dollars each). Also, if you want smaller gumdrops you don't need to fill each ice cube slot all the way, you will still get the basic shape without the volume.

On to the recipe! (Mine filled 3 ice cube trays from IKEA)

2 Tablespoons (about 3 packets) of unflavored gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
3/4 cup boiling water
2 cups sugar

1/4 teaspoon flavored extract per flavor (I made 3 flavors)
Food coloring to achieve desired color (about 1-3 drops per flavor)

Extra sugar for coating

Start by dissolving your gelatin in 1/2 cup cold water. Allow to set for about 5 minutes, while boiling some water. Add 3/4 cup boiling water, 2 cups sugar and stir until dissolved.

In a large pot (this stuff bubbles up quite a bit) bring to a slow boil and allow to cook for 20-25 minutes while stirring constantly. You may want to enlist the help of someone as this is a lot of stirring and you don't want your sugar to burn.

Separate your mixture into 3 containers, add your flavoring and coloring and refrigerate to set. I used a Pyrex measuring glass to mix mine in and then poured into my ice cube trays. If you use a square pan or baking dish and then cut your gumdrops once they have set, you can mix your colors and flavors right in the pan.

Refrigerate overnight. Remove from trays (or baking dish--then cut into desired size pieces). Cover with sugar, and now the hard part: allow these to set up for 2 days! That was torture, but they are sure tasty.

I was a little heavy handed with the red food coloring in my orange flavored gumdrops, but they still taste orangey and delicious. I also made strawberry flavored. There are quite a large variety of flavor extracts available now, so I recommend trying whatever you like, or maybe be adventurous and get an extract you have never tried before.

Enjoy!