Lemons

Such a humble fruit, really.  Many people use lemons daily without even giving them a thought.  Adding a bit to water, to drink more or using them in various recipes, lemon is a modern-life staple in many homes.  Recently neighbors had a week sharing lemon dishes with one another.  Decided to post all of the award-winning creations here to share with others and to save these enjoyable recipes for future references.

My lemon contribution was Lemon Gummy Bears.  There are a LOT of different recipes online for homemade, DIY, Gummy Bears.  If you are eating Scripturally-clean foods, you may need to make your own gummies in order to avoid pork-gelatin.  Still others want to make their own to control allergens such as food dyes and other chemical-like ingredients which commercially available gummies often contain.

One on-line retailer of Gummy Bear products lists the typical ingredients in commercially available gummy bears as: corn syrup, sucrose, gelatin, citric acid, apple juice concentrate, sodium citrate, coconut oil, natural and artificial flavors, carnauba wax, red 40, yellow 5 and blue 1. 

My Recipe?  No artificial ingredients. But how does it taste?  Several of the people who sampled the DIY Homemade Lemon Gummy Bears stated they tasted better than store-purchased bears.  Try them for yourself and see what you think: 

Lemon Gummy Bears

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 Cups Lemon Juice (fresh squeezed is best)
• 3/4 Cup Applesauce (Note: if you use cinnamon applesauce, you will see occasional cinnamon flakes in your end product)
  
• 6 Tablespoons Unflavored Gelatin
• 1 Teaspoon Sweetener of choice (or if you are okay with sugar–add sugar to taste)
• 5 drops Lemon Vitality.  (I used Young Living Lemon Vitality Essential Oil)

Method:

1.  Place the fresh-squeezed (or bottled) lemon juice into a room-temperature sauce pan.
2. Add the applesauce to the lemon juice.
3. Optional: If you want your lemon gummies to look a bit more “lemon” colored, add a pinch of ground turmeric powder. The photos below do not include the additional turmeric coloring. 
   
4. Whisk the above ingredients together in the room-temperature sauce pan.
5. Sprinkle the gelatin on top of the saucepan mixture and allow this to sit at room temperature for 5 minutes.
6. At this point, your mixture will be thick with the majority of the liquid absorbed.  If not, your gelatin may not be active, as gummies need to be THICK at room temp. NOTE: If you want to use sugar–put in the sugar now, before heating (below).  If you are using a sweetener, don’t add it until the heating process is over.
   
7. Place the sauce pan over medium heat.
8. Whisk or stir occasionally until the gelatin dissolves and the mixture is smooth. 
9. Remove the sauce pan from heat.
10. Whisk in sweetener of choice (if using) and add the Lemon Vitality YLEO drops.

The mixture is now ready to use filling silicone gummy bear molds.  If you don’t have gummy bear molds, any silicone mold will work.  Alternatively, pour the mixture into a glass pan, allow to cool, then cut into squares or other geometric shapes of choice to enjoy.

To fill the gummy bear molds, it works best to place your molds on a cookie sheet.  Fill the molds with the gummy bear mixture.  Let it cool on the counter top for about an hour.  Then place it in the fridge until firm.  Store in the fridge. 

NOTE: These non-commercially made gummies do not have stabilizer in them so the warmth of your mouth and/or hands can melt them much quicker than their store-purchased counterpart.  This gives an enjoyable burst of flavor! 

FLAVOR VARIETY TIP: Switch the Lemon Vitality for Citrus Fresh Vitality, Lemon Vitality, Thieves Vitality, Orange Vitality or any other favorite Vitality Oil to switch up the awesome flavorings.

Have you made Gummy Bears before?  If so, which kind?