On Cooking for Kids - Homemade Gummies

Recently, I've been in search of kid friendly snack options to get me out of the rut I've found myself in when it comes to our munching habits. In searching for goodie recipes, I came across super simple homemade gummies. I was excited until I saw that the majority of recipes called for Jell-o and gelatin. While this may not sound so bad, I was really thinking that if you are going to make it yourself, you may as well make something that's not going to contain artificially flavored and colored snacks (as good as they are). If that's the case, you might as well just buy the commercially made fruit snacks. They at least have fruit juice in some of them. I continued my search seeing if I could find a "healthy" option and came up short. I found a few that used some fruit juice which was nice, but I was hoping to find a whole fruit option, but no one seemed to offer this option, at least not that I could find. That meant I'd just have to figure it out myself. So I did. It only took three tries to get it right! Now I'm excited about new flavor possibilities, but the first successful batch was made with strawberries. And because I was asked by several people for a recipe, here it is:

Homemade Strawberry Gummies
(by Beth Endsley)

Ingredients:
1 lb hulled strawberries (I used fresh strawberries that I hulled and froze and then defrosted for this recipe)
1/4 c agave nectar
1 oz (4 packets) gelatin

Directions:
1. Liquefy strawberries in blender. Heat strawberry liquid in small pot on stove until boiling. Reduce heat to a simmer and let simmer for 25-30 minutes to reduce to about half.
2. Remove from heat and stir in agave nectar. Let cool to room temperature.
3. Add gelatin to cooled mixture and stir in to mix. Slowly heat mixture, stirring constantly until gelatin melts and mixture is smooth. Remove from heat.
4. Pour into candy molds. Cool in refrigerator for about an hour or until firm.
5. Enjoy!

A few more notes:

The final mixure makes about 1 1/4 cups of gummy mix. The number of gummies will vary based on the size and shape of your candy molds. Alternately, you can pour the mixture into a larger pan and cut into squares when cool. Lightly greasing your candy molds or pan may help the mixture release from the molds when set, but this may not be necessary. I found that transferring the mix to a measuring cup with a spout  made pouring it into the molds much easier to control.

I ran out of molds so the remaining mix
was poured into a loaf pan for square gummies.

I hope you enjoy this yummy healthy snack! Please let me know if you try it and how it works out for you!