There are certain types of food you know you can make at home, and certain types that you assume that you can’t. The majority of people would be able to make a burger in a bun rather than order one from McDonald’s, for example – they just frequently choose to order McDonald’s burgers because it’s convenient to do so! Far fewer people would assume that they’d be able to make their own candy, but you can also do that at home just as easily as making a burger. I’ll show you how to do it – and you don’t even need any specialized kitchen equipment!
I’ve specifically chosen fruit sweets for this recipe for two reasons. The first is that they’re easy to make, and the second is that almost everybody likes them. Fruit sweets are so universally popular that they’re even used in casinos as part of the appeal of online slots like Berryburst and Candyburst (spot the theme in the names) on website Amigoslots.com. You can’t argue that candy is only for children when it’s used as a hook in online slots, because they’re for adults! Sadly the online slots only pay out winnings in money rather than candy, so if reading this is giving you a sweet tooth, follow the recipe to find out how to make your very own.
Image Credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/fFQ19Vz_Mu8
Before we go any further, we have an important dietary note to share with you. Unfortunately, this recipe is not suitable for vegans. That’s because the recipe contains gelatin, and gelatin cannot be considered vegan because it contains collagen that comes from animal parts. Sorry! With apologies to our vegan friends, we’ll now give you the full details on the delicious recipe.
What You’ll Need To Make Your Own Jelly Squares:-
- Jelly molds or a cookie cutter
- A pastry brush
- Plastic wrapping
- One large baking dish
- One saucepan
Ingredients:-
- Half a cup of 100% pure fruit juice (any flavor – you choose!)
- Half a cup of water
- Six gold grade gelatin leaves
- One tablespoon of lemon juice
- Three tablespoons of sugar
- Vegetable oil
- Granulated sugar (this is optional – pure fruit juice is surprisingly high in sugar already, so you may decide that you don’t need it).
Method:-
- Start off by lining your baking dish with the plastic wrap. Then soak your gelatin leaves in cold water, and leave them in the water for approximately five minutes.
- Take your saucepan, pour in the water and the fruit juice, and add your lemon juice. Stir your three tablespoons of sugar into the mixture thoroughly, and then heat the mixture up until it reaches boiling point. As soon as it begins to boil, reduce the heat.
- Take your gelatin leaves out of the cold water, and squeeze them thoroughly, one at a time. They should dissolve in the mixture without the need for you to increase the heat level back to the boiling point.
- Continue cooking your mixture until it sets into a jelly. As soon as you’re happy with the texture and the consistency, pour it out of the saucepan into the baking dish, and put your baking dish in the fridge. It will need somewhere between five and six hours to cool and set properly.
- Check the contents of the baking dish after five hours. Touch it to ensure that it’s set properly. If it has, it’s time to serve it! Take your pastry brush, and use it to apply a thin layer of vegetable oil to the jelly before serving. If you’ve decided to use granulated sugar, this is the time to toss it onto the jelly and use the vegetable oil as an adhesive.
- Now it’s time to use your cookie cutter or jelly molds to divide the candy into shapes for serving. The easiest shape to make is a cube, but feel free to make whatever shapes you wish.
That’s it – you’re all done! Aside from the time that your mixture spent in the fridge, this should have taken you less than thirty minutes of cooking and preparation time – and now you know how to make your own delicious fruit candy any time the craving takes you!
Image Credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/xBTnaTgleQE
A Note About Gelatin Leaves
If you’ve never used gelatin leaves as a cooking ingredient before, it might interest you to know that they’re not all the same. While you can buy and use gelatin powder if you prefer, gelatin leaves or gelatin sheets tend to make for a better quality of jelly. Gelatin leaves come with a grade that indicates how firm the jelly will be once it’s set. This is a matter of personal taste, so if you prefer soft jelly you should go with a low grade, but if you’d prefer something to chew on, you could go with something stronger. The lowest grade is 120, which will give you a jelly that you’ll barely need to bite into at all to eat. At the other end of the scale is the 230 grade. 230 sounds like ‘tooth hurty’ when you say it out loud, which is a useful way to remember that if you use this strength of gelatin, you’ll be giving your jaw quite a workout while you’re eating your creations!
This is a ‘what you see is what you get’ recipe. Because of that, your fruit jelly candy will be completely free of additives, preservatives, and any other artificial elements that you might find in store-bought candy. That doesn’t mean it’s all good for you, though. As we said earlier, natural fruit juice is very high in sugar, and so as with all good things, you should only eat these snacks in moderation no matter how good they taste! On the bright side, they also contain vitamins and antioxidants, so you’re doing a little bit of good for your body even if your dentist wouldn’t necessarily approve of it.
Thanks for stopping by and checking out our recipe today. We hope you have fun with both making and eating it, and we’ll be sure to bring you even more fun recipes to try at home in the very near future!
Categories: Tips And Advice Stuff
