Homemade Gumdrops

The cutest DIY! Who knew homemade gumdrops were so easy? MORE+ LESS-

By Michelle P

March 7, 2017

Ingredients

1/2

cup cold water

envelopes plain gelatin (about 2 tablespoons gelatin powder)

3/4

cup water

cups sugar

Food coloring

Extracts (I used peppermint, orange, lemon, cinnamon, vanilla and rum)

Additional sugar for finishing the gumdrops

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1

Prepare the gelatin mixture. Pour the 1/2 cup cold water into a large bowl. Sprinkle evenly with the gelatin and allow to soak while you prepare the sugar syrup.
2

Prepare the sugar syrup by bringing the 3/4 cup water and 2 cups sugar in a saucepan. Bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes.
3

Add the hot sugar syrup to the gelatin mixture. (Careful, it's hot!) Stir until the gelatin is completely dissolved.
4

Split the mixture into bowls and color and flavor as desired. I split my batch up into 6 parts. Each used about 4 drops of food coloring and an 1/4 to 1/2 tsp of extract - but extracts vary, so add a little at a time until the desired flavor is achieved.
5

Pour into pans or molds. Chill for several hours or overnight.
6

Remove gumdrops from molds. You will have to really pry them out, but for the most part they will come out whole. (Don't worry, the sugar covers up any little dings.)
7

Roll the gumdrops in sugar, and voila! Gumdrops!

0 Starch; 0 Fruit; 1 1/2 Other Carbohydrate; 0 Skim Milk; 0 Low-Fat Milk; 0 Milk; 0 Vegetable; 0 Very Lean Meat; 0 Lean Meat; 0 High-Fat Meat; 0 Fat;

*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to make these—if you can make Jello™, you can make homemade gumdrops! A quick search of the interwebs yielded many different recipes. Some with flavored gelatin and others with, oddly enough, applesauce. Variations of this recipe abound, and I love it both for its simplicity as well as its adaptability to any flavor or any color in the rainbow. You have two options for setting the gumdrops: use cute little candy molds or pour into small pans and cut into squares. A word of caution about these little beauties. While they are delicate and delicious, they are not the rough-and-tumble-throw-in-a-baggie-and-tote-around-in-your-purse sort of gumdrops. They are, however, lovely little fancy things that will make people say, “Oooooooo! You MADE those?” You can definitely make the gumdrops a day ahead, but for best results keep them in the fridge in a single layer.