My kids love to cook! So we spend a lot of time together in the kitchen. Cooking with kids is a great way to teach math, science, language, and an understanding of cultures. I am always looking for simple recipes or kits that will inspire my children's interest in cooking.
GLEE Gum has these wonderful Make Your Own Kits. There are 3 kits to choose from : Make Your Own Chocolate, Make Your Own Gum, and Make Your Own Gummies. These activity kits are all-natural, educational, and eco-friendly. Each kit comes with pre-packaged ingredients and easy-to-follow instructions. The kits are recommended for everyone aged 8 and up.
There is a great story that comes with the kit. The Gummie kit tells the story of a young girl in the Philippines. Her father was a fisherman, but he was unable to fish because of the decreasing fish population. To earn money, the family starts a seaweed farm. The seaweed grows quickly and is sustainable. Most people only think of seaweed as an edible item in salad or sushi. But actually, seaweed (carrageenan and agar) are found in toothpaste, cottage cheese, dog food, pudding, salad dressing, and even sandwich meat.
In the Make Your Own Gummie kit, you use 2 types of seaweed. One is powdered and the other is dry. I was very surprised when I found them in the gummie kit. It was an unexpected ingredient!
Most gummie candies are made with gelatin. Seaweed does pretty much the same thing as gelatin, but in this case, it is also helping thousands of people in the Philippines. I really appreciated how these kits help children become aware of other parts of the world. It really gives them the opportunity to see how we are all global citizens. One person has an effect on another.
My kids were hugely excited about making their own gummies! Well, my 5 year old was. My 2 year old wasn't into the making process, she mainly just wanted to eat gummies. Adult supervision is needed, because you will be heating some of the ingredients.
Everything is prepackaged and labeled. So, we laid out our kit and got to work.
The first step is place the dried seaweed in some water to soak.
The next step is make your own candy molds. Candy makers use cornstarch to make their own molds. The corn starch can be reused over and over, when you make new gummies and it is bio-degradable. We choose to use a Lego man to make our impressions for our molds.
After your molds are finished, you mix the powdered seaweed with water, add the dried seaweed, and heat until the mixture foams. You can use either the microwave or stove top. We chose to use the microwave. Once that is mixed, remove the dried seaweed.
Stir in the flavor/coloring packet to the hot mixture. Heat for another minute.
Then it's time to pour the gummie mixture into your molds. I took over this part of process. you have to work slowly, so you don't pour too much into the molds.
Once, you have the molds filled, place in them in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes. You have the option of giving them a sour coating or just plain. We opted to make ours sour!
My kids loved them!
To me, the taste was a little different compared to a regular gummie. But it was not unpleasant. We made 3 small batches of gummies. The kit says that it makes the equivalent of 15 gummy candies, and I would say that is about right. The great thing about seaweed is that it is thermally reversible, which gelatin is not. So don't worry if you don't use all of your gummie mix in the first batch. Just reheat it for a minute and it's ready to go.
Clean is easy and there is minimal mess involved. Something every busy mother hopes for!
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Disclosure: GLEE Gum provided me with a Make Your Own Gummies kit to test and an additional one to give away. The opinions expressed in this review are my own and in no way were they influenced by GLEE Gum.
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