Blue Gummy Bears (Made with Harmless Harvest Coconut Water)
These gummy bears were inspired by my famous Green Gummy Bears. I wanted to keep making different colors, and everyone knows you NEED to have a BLUE gummy bear to go along with your Red, Yellow and Green gummies.
I wanted to make healthy gummy bears when I saw a popular juice place making and marketing "green juice" gummy bears that are not-so-healthy, filled with sugar and have little to no "green juice" in them. I wrote all about it in my Green Gummy Bear recipe, which you can read, here.
When I was searching for a drink to use as the base, I was actually drinking a Harmless Harvest Coconut Water, and it was one of those moments when you are searching all around the house for your phone and it's in your hand kinda moments. It clicked! It was a no-brainer to use my favorite coconut water for this recipe.
My daddy (yes I am almost 30 ... like in 18 days, and still call him daddy) introduced us to Harmless Harvest a few years back, and I was hesitant, at first, to be honest. I actually am not into coconut water. I had tried so many, yet every single time there were samples at Whole Foods, I gave it a try because so many people are on the coconut water train. I never understood it until I tried Harmless Harvest coconut water. My husband is the same way. He never liked it until Harmless Harvest! It was love at first sip for the both of us. We quickly fell in love, and now we drink it often. It's a great way to stay hydrated and has many benefits.
Harmless Harvest Coconut Water contains no preservatives or additives. It's organic, and the coconuts are harvested in Thailand. Sometimes you might open a bottle and it's my favorite color, pink. But not to worry, the water comes out of the coconut clear, but it can turn pink when the levels of antioxidants contained in the water interact with light. They don't add anything to keep the coconut water clear, thankfully!
If you've tried other coconut waters and didn't like them, then I definitely recommend that you try Harmless Harvest. I promise! It tastes different and so much better than the rest!
Let me tell you about a few of these ingredients that I used:
Vital Proteins Beef Gelatin - This pasture-raised, grass-fed bovine hide gelatin powder has healthy, fitness and beauty benefits. Collagen protein is used to promote digestive health. It is the most abundant protein in the body and is great for hair, skin, nails, bones, tendons, joints and even cartilage. I use their collagen peptides or marine collagen in my smoothies every single day, and put it in my coffee, hot chocolate and more. I even travel with their single-serving packets to make sure I can get good protein on-the-go.
Sweet Leaf Stevia Berry Liquid Drops - I have loved this stuff for a long time. When I first found out that I had PCOS and that I had to do a major cleanse/detox (eliminating cane sugar, wheat, corn, dairy, soy and everything else I was eating), I panicked until I found this awesome company that makes flavored liquid stevia drops. I love the lemon, berry or grape in my iced tea, to sweeten water or in these gummy bears. I decided to make these bears a little sweeter by adding a small number of drops to the mixture and it worked beautifully! You can use these drops for anything! I recommend Grape or Berry for this recipe.
Rigoni Di Asiago Dolcedi Sweetener - This is a great alternative to honey if you are vegan or don't like the taste of honey. I am not vegan, and I do like the taste of honey, but I am obsessed with this sweetener as it is made of 100% organic apples. That is the only ingredient. It takes 10lbs of apples to make one bottle of this organic, low-glycemic sweetener. I honestly tried to make these gummy bears without them but the texture was off. I wanted to add something that wouldn't add a ton of calories or carbs and this was my immediate thought. It's thick and syrupy and great for baking or drizzling on everything.
Color Kitchen Foods Natural Food Coloring - These fabulous powdered food colors are made from turmeric, spirulina and beets. I have used these amazing food colors in frosting, to make pink Mickey Mouse Rice Krispee treats, in cakes and more. They are beautifully vibrant and using the color theory you can make all sorts of colors. I used one blue packet to make some beautiful blue gummy bears in this recipe.
With just a handful of ingredients, all gluten-free and dairy-free, the actually healthy green gummy bear was born. (see Green Gummy Bear Recipe, here) Although it took a few batches to get it right (we even got take-out dinner so that I could keep perfecting this recipe), it all ended up fabulous in the end. From the Green, came the Yellow, Red and now Blue.
There are a few optional ingredients, but having made these gummies a few different ways, every ingredient is used purposely. The only thing you could leave out that will not alter the texture or taste is the coloring, but that's more than half the fun.
Every ingredient is used on purpose. There are no fillers or ingredients added just for the fun of it. I would say this recipe is easy to make, but a little time consuming, yet totally worth it. I highly recommend you read all of the directions below before you start. It will help you.
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INGREDIENTS
1/4 cup Vital Proteins Beef Gelatin
1 1/2 TB Dolcedi*
6-10 drops SweetLeaf Grape or Berry Stevia**
1 packet Color Kitchen Foods Blue Natural Food Coloring***
THIS Gummy Bear Mold that comes with Dropper
*I don't recommend that you leave this ingredient out. If you can't have this sweetener or are allergic, you could try to use honey, but I don't know the outcome of the gummy bears. I suppose it would work, but I have not tried it.
**I initially made these without any stevia drops and they weren't sweet. The coconut water is naturally sweet, but when you heat it up and add all the other ingredients, it's not as sweet anymore... especially for a gummy!
***As I stated above, you can leave out the food coloring but, in my opinion, they aren't as fun unless they are bright blue.
Directions:
In a small sauce pan, pour your Harmless Harvest Coconut Water, Dolcedi and Berry Stevia liquid drops and stir on medium heat. Add in your food coloring packets and stir.
Note - If your food coloring won't combine, turn off the heat and pour mixture into your blender. I have had to do
this once, and it was't as big of a pain as it seemed. Blend on low speed just until the blue and yellow are not
visible anymore.
Turn your sauce pan on medium-high and just before it starts to boil, carefully pour your gelatin powder a little tiny bit at a time while whisking. This takes patience, as you don't want any of the gelatin to clump. Pour mixture into a silicone measuring cup or tall glass cup (be careful that you don't burn yourself).
Note - If it does leave a few clumps, no worries. This is how you fix it: 1) use a spoon to scoop out the big pieces of
gelatin or 2) pour mixture through a small strainer over a measuring up. One of those options will be easy for you.
I tried both and they worked great. Keep in mind, you need to pour mixture into a cup or glass anyway for the next
step.
Using the dropper, carefully pour some liquid in each gummy bear mold to the top. If you don't pour enough then your gummy with have super tiny faces. You will get the hang of it after a few bears. Once your molds are filled with liquid, let them sit for 10 minutes before you transfer them to the freezer for 17-20 minutes.
Note - These molds are flimsy which help to remove the bears when they harden, but you definitely don't want
to spill any of the liquid that you just carefully poured in. Make sure you let them sit out on the counter for at least 10 minutes before placing them into the freezer.
Carefully take the molds out of the freezer. The gummies should be hard. If they have a little ice on or around it, that's fine. Pop each gummy out onto a plate and allow to "thaw" before eating them. I have tried freezing and refrigeration and the best way to ensure that each gummy bear releases from the mold without missing any bear body parts is by freezing them in the mold for 20 minutes.
Store blue gummy bears in a jar or container in the fridge for better texture. Keep them up to 7 days, if you think they will last that long, anyway. You could also freeze them.
While I am unsure of all the nutritional information, I do know that if you ate 25 blue gummy bears, it would be roughly 4g sugar. That is a lot of bears and not a lot of sugar especially when you compare it to the carbs and sugar in those green bears on viral! (read more about that, here)
I will be making this recipe again and again. I am so thrilled at how they turned out and hope you love them as much as we do.
Follow me on Instagram. I make these gummy bears step by step on my Instagram story often.
