Homemade Gummy Bears Recipe (2024)

I worked in marketing for ages and, to some degree, I suppose I still do. It used to be my job to take this thing and make it look so amazing in print and online that you just HAD to have it, whatever IT might have been.

What are you doing driving that dirty ol’ car past this sleek and fancybillboard when hot chicksLOOOOVE dudes with bright, shiny and clean cars? It’s only gonna cost you $99, a paltry sum, really, for our red carpet service and it’s gonna be SO WORTH IT. Your car is like your second home and it’s an investment you need to take care of. Right? And did I mention CHICKS DIG NICE CARS?You know, THAT kind of thing was my job. It was so UGH sometimes and that’s why I’m here being a craft blogger now :)

I’m not a brilliant mind when it comes to marketing, by any means, but I do have a little bit of know-how how from working in the industry for a while. Heck, not one, but TWO of my real estate ads (the niche I was by far the most successful in) appeared on the Jay Leno Show. True it was for typos that made for wildly inappropriate sales spiels, but I still say those Realtors got some serious bang for their buck when their ad was shown on national TV rather than just the state-wide paper :)

In spite of knowing about marketing and their tricks, I am one of the biggest suckers to its hooks. Product placement in stores is especially hard on me as an impulse buyer and I often find myself with something in hand as I leave a store that I didn’t need and didn’t even want until I saw it perfectly placed to entice me.You know those coupon deals? Gah, they get me, too. I’ll buy this one thing so that I can run across the store with my yellow coupon in hand to get another thing and it might not even be something I like, want or need but if I buy the one I get the other free… FREE, I tell you!And that, my friends, is how I ended up with an abso-freaking-lately ginormous stash of fruit juice in my house. Fruit juice has a TON of calories and so I only really try to drink it when I have trouble eating real food to supplement my caloric intake, but I had been jonesing for grape juice and I came home with lots and lots of it because I will spend $10 on something I don’t need but balk at something overpriced by $10 that I am desperate for.

I am obsessed when it comes to gummy bears, and my fave brand started to make me sick sometimes (I’m Celiac and sometimes they use wheat in them, imagine me with a sad face). I’ve tried lots of brands but they’re just okay and so I decided to try making them at home since I have an overabundance of grape juice and grape gummy candies, like these Japanese Kasugai Grape Gummies, are my spirit snack.

Now, these aren’t healthy gummy snacks, they are CANDY. They have less junk in them than the packages of gummy bears you’ll buy at the store but they are NOT healthy because what CANDY is unless it’s packed with chia seeds, or quinoa, or whatever superfruit is currently hip? And then is it itreallyhealthy? These aren’t gummy SNACKS full of fruit and good for you stuff. These have SUGAR in them and taste AMAZING. Are they a perfect substitute for gummy bears you buy at the store? Well, not really, but I’m working on it and until then, this gummy candy recipe is amazing in its own way.My favorite is made with grape juice but I’ve branched out and experimented a bit and have made grape, lime, orange pineapple and strawberry gummies and they are the order of my preference up there. Today I’m going to share with you my four recipes to make some gummy candy with fruit juice and if you’re a gummy fan like me, I truly hope you’ll love ‘em!!

Basic Gummy CandyHow To

To make your own gummybears at home you will need the following supplies:

• Small saucepan
• Whisk
• Beef gelatin
• Silicone mold (this one is hearts)OR larger gummy bear mold OR baking dish lined with foil

No matter what the ingredients are for each recipe the basic method in which you make them is absolutely the same.I’m weird about consistency. It’s an OCD thing. As such, each recipe below should pretty much perfectly fill this Wilton Silicone Heart Mold.Nt only did I WANT to make several gummy candy flavors that taste AMAZING, driven by a crazy compulsion, I then re-worked the recipes so thatit would fit almost perfectly in my mold, too. And then I bought a gummy bear mold because it’s cuter so it doesn’t even matter that this recipe fits my heart mold anymore :) On a side note, we have an abso-freakin-lute TON of homemade gummy candies in this house right now!

Speaking of molds, if you want to make gummy BEARS I am going to strongly suggest THIS gummy bear mold.The first gummy bear mold I bought had 3 different molds, which turned out to be a good thing because they were TINY. I literally sat down for an HOUR filling up these molds with an EYE DROPPER that kept gunking up as the gelatin cooled inside of it. After they set I got frustrated even popping them out of the molds and just tossed them in the sink and let the gelatin melt away in hot water. I found a much larger gummy bear mold, which also uses a dropper but everything is bigger and much less frustrating and easy to use. Straight up the difference is NIGHT AND DAY. I’m just going to drop this over here, again: Buy a nicely sized gummy bear mold that is not so tiny that you want to gouge your eyes out with a sticky,gelatin blocked eyedropper.

These gummies will stay good for a week to ten days-ish when stored in an airtight container in the fridge. If you leave them out, they’re going to dry up and/or mold. When straight from the fridge cold, they will be more firm than when allowed to sit out and warm up to room temperature when they will become more jiggly. If you prefer your gummies more jelly-like leaving them for about a half an hour before eating will make them so perfect. Depending on your preference for texture, you might want to experiment a bit with the amount of beef gelatin used in each of your batches. You can also replace True Lemon with actual lemon juice in your batches. True Lemon is a concentrated lemon powder that you don’t as easily squeeze into your eyes as actual lemons :) It’s shelf stable and you can use it for ages and ages so I like it, but you don’t have to use it if you don’t want to.

Last, but not least, a friendly reminder that these are not gummy bears and don’t taste quite like gummy bears. They’re great for gummy bear lovers, but don’t be disappointed when these are distinctly different from what you can run in and grab at a convenience store. The texture is not the same and I haven’t been able to peg how to fix that. Yet. It might just be a crazy ingredient that I don’t have access to, one of those ingredients on the back of the candy packages that I can’t pronounce, but if I swing it I’ll post it!

Strawberry Gummy Candy Recipe

• 2/3 cup Welch’s Strawberry Breeze frozen juice concentrate
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon True Lemon(or 2 tablespoons of lemon juice)
• 3 tablespoons beef gelatin

Sweet and Tangy Lime Gummy Candy Recipe

• 3/4 cup limeade frozen concentrate
• 1 cup water
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 4 tablespoons beef gelatin

Slightly Sour Grape Gummy Candy

• 1-1/2 cup 100% grape juice
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon True Lemon(or 2 tablespoons of lemon juice)
• 3 tablespoons beefgelation

Tropical Gummy Candy

• 1-1/2 cup orange pineapple banana juice (not too high in pineapple juice or these won’t set up)
• 1/4 cup sugar (optional)
• 3 tablespoons beef gelatin