Homemade Fruit Snacks

Melody LOVES fruit snacks! She constantly is saying "nack?" "nack?". I hate buying the cheap ones at the store because they are loaded with preservatives and sugar! I do love the Annie's Organic Bunny Fruit Snacks but they are just so expensive to be buying them as fast as melody eats them. Yesterday, I tried making my own homemade fruit snacks for her. I wouldn't say it was an epic fail, because they turned out the way they were supposed to. But, it wasn't a huge success because melody didn't really like them. UGH! She at least did enjoy helping me make them, though, so at least something good came out of these suckers! They are fairly easy to make, I just tweaked this tutorial found on Pinterest a bit.

In the tutorial, she used all organic items. I didn't this time, but I would have liked to. I'm sure it would have been slightly more expensive. I spent almost $24 on everything for my fruit snacks. That did include, however, a couple foil pans and the small flower cutter (found at Hobby Lobby).

I bought enough fruit to make each flavor of gummies in the tutorial. I only had enough room in my fridge to do two of them at a time, though. The banana flavor will have to wait for another day. Maybe Melody will like that flavor better... hopefully! I made the strawberry orange and blueberry grapefruit.

Unfortunately I forgot to put the honey in these pictures. In the tutorial she uses stevia in the raw packets, but I had honey on hand so I substituted the stevia with a tablespoon of honey. ( I also added a teaspoon of raw organic sugar to each recipe...shhhhh!)  That really didn't make them any sweeter. After reading some of the comments on this recipe saying that they were a little sour, I decided to use a little less lime and lemon juice and more orange in the strawberry orange batch. They are still quite sour. Which is probably the reason Melody doesn't like them very much.

After adding the fruit to the citrus juice, you will boil the mixture for 5-7 min. Then transfer it to your blender. Blend it smooth then let it cool for 5-7 min. Then add your sweetener of choice, and 5 packets (yes, 5!) of gelatin. Blend it smooth again and immediately poor onto a cookie sheet. Refrigerate for at least one hour. (FYI- I think the banana flavor only calls for 2 packets of gelatin as its a smaller batch)

Once they are firmed up, you can cut them. You can use any shape small cutter or just cut them into squares with a knife. I found a cute flower shaped cutter at Hobby Lobby in the clay/soap aisle. (that is also where she got her bear cutter in the tutorial)

When you realize your child wont eat all of these, you can have them help you with this step!

She really did enjoy this! I cut out most of the flowers and she put them in the tupperware bowl. Then at the end I left a little bit of room for her to go to town with the flower cutter.

They do taste good, if you like a little sour. It's a good sour though, not that fake sour taste! I'm hoping maybe Melody will like these if we try again. She could have just been in a picky mood. If not, I'm trying a different recipe. Maybe just fruit strips instead.