Unhinged Gummy Bear Experiments

If you want to watch the video above or here on YouTube if you prefer, it’s right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K–Wph-ttEU This whole adventure began as my first proper attempt at making homemade chewy gummy bears from scratch, and to my surprise they actually worked. Once I realised the texture was spot on – glossy, chewy and nothing like the soft jelly-style sweets you get from a standard block of supermarket jelly – the unhinged gummy bear experiments really kicked off. With the base method cracked, I couldn’t resist trying flavours that probably shouldn’t exist in gummy form, simply to see what would happen. A big shout to Andong, whose deep-dive started me on this path. His video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLHqgX5UaJk

Why I Tried These Unhinged Gummy Bear Experiments

The base recipe gives you classic sweet-shop chew thanks to platinum gelatine blitzed and bloomed with minimal water, a sugar syrup heated just shy of hard-crack, liquid glucose for shine and spring, and a touch of citric acid for brightness. It’s a recipe designed to behave more like proper confectionery, not the wobbly gel you get from dissolving jelly cubes. Once I saw how firm and clean the set was, the temptation to push this into unhinged gummy bear experiments was impossible to resist.

The Core Gummy Method

After combining the syrup with the bloomed gelatine, I skimmed off the foam (to avoid accidental curly-haired bears) and let the mixture settle. Splitting the glossy, molten gummy mixture into separate jugs meant I could quickly create multiple flavours while the mix was still fluid. Throughout every test, the texture held up perfectly: chewy, resilient and surprisingly close to proper shop-bought gummies.

Flavour Tests

Strawberry & Lemon

A brilliant start. Clean, fruity and properly chewy — exactly what I’d hoped a homemade gummy could be.

Grape Jam (The Best One)

This absolutely exploded with flavour. Grape sweets aren’t as common in the UK, but this gummy had the sort of bold, punchy hit that makes you immediately go back for another.

Orange Fanta

Still tasty, but needed more citric acid for lift. Some bubbles from the drink survived the heating, leaving tiny fizzy pockets inside.

Tea

A lovely earthy flavour, surprisingly comforting, but the texture turned a little grainy. Flavour-wise though, genuinely very good.

Pickle Juice

Expected horror, got something oddly compelling. Sharp at first, then suddenly mellow. A strange but memorable entry in the unhinged gummy bear experiments list.

Blue Gin

Dyed blue purely for visual silliness, but the botanical notes actually worked. A grown-up gummy, almost like a cocktail sweet.

Chicken Soup

Definitely not the best. It tasted like a consommé trying to reinvent itself as confectionery, and failing its audition.

A Note on Foam

The foam skimmed from the mix set with a cloudy, slightly marshmallow-like chew. It reminded me instantly of the white part of Haribo fried eggs, which made me wonder whether certain cloudy gummies come from a similar by-product of the main mix rather than a separate recipe. Pure speculation, but after making a vat of gummy mixture, the idea suddenly made sense.

If You Liked This

You might also enjoy the time I made a giant Haribo fried egg:
https://barrylewis.net/recipe/giant-haribo-fried-egg-from-haribo-fried-eggs/