This whole thing started with a terrible idea: what if I turned a cheeseburger into a giant gummy bear? Not a normal gummy bear, obviously. A layered, savoury-inspired, bacon double cheeseburger version… inside a bear-shaped mould.
I had a custom 3D-printed mould made using food-safe PETG filament, and at the start I was genuinely confident this would be a relatively calm project. That confidence lasted about ten minutes.
The Plan (On Paper)
The idea was to build the gummy bear in clear layers — buns, cheese, patty, sauces — poured upright so you could see everything in cross-section. In theory, simple. In reality, gravity had other plans.
I tried using foil dams to block sections of the mould. That failed.
I tried cling film stretched tight with elastic bands like an old-school guitar. That also failed.
What Actually Worked
The breakthrough came when I scrapped all of that and screwed an acrylic panel directly onto the open side of the mould, stood it upright, and poured the gummy in bands. Pour, wait, set. Pour, wait, set. Over and over again.
If I’d had a chest freezer, this probably would have taken an hour. Instead, it took nearly 13 and a half hours of slow setting, rewarming, re-pouring, and questioning my life choices.
But… it worked.
The Final Result
It didn’t look exactly like a gummy bear anymore, but the eyes, nose and ears survived, and the layers were actually visible. By the end it had evolved into more of a bacon double cheeseburger bear hybrid, that looked like a fox cosplaying as David Bowie…. which feels appropriate, really.
Was it perfect? No.
Was it worth it? Absolutely.
There’s something incredibly satisfying about pushing a process like this until it finally behaves, even if it takes all day and most of your sanity.
If You Liked This One
You might also enjoy the time I made a giant Haribo fried egg, which was a much calmer experience by comparison
And for inspiration (and reassurance that this wasn’t entirely my fault), here’s the video that sent me down the gummy rabbit hole in the first place.