Giant Gummy Bear

If you've ever had a gummy bear, or a few hundred, I'm sure you've asked yourself how you can maximize your gummy bear experience! What's better than many small gummy bears? One giant one, that's what!

While you can buy giant gummy bears, they're far more expensive than making your own, and when you make your own you can experiment a bit as well.

So let's get started!

Materials

• Haribo 450g gummy bear container
• Gelatin powder
• Jello-o in your favourite flavour

Tools

• Pot
• Spoon
• Measuring cups

Haribo undoubtedly makes the best gummy bears in the world, and as it happens they also make the perfect container for making your own giant gummy bear. You can get a hold of one for yourself fairly easily by searching for "Harbio 450g" on either Amazon or eBay.

I know it's a big pain in the ass, but you need to fins some way to get rid of the gummy bears already in the container so you can actually use it as a mould.

Now when we have that sugar rush out of the way we can deal with actually making the gummy bear. Since we're using Jell-O it will simply not hold together well enough by its own, so we need to boost its solidifying properties using more gelatin.

Depending on what gelatin you use your methods may differ, but gelatin powder should be bloomed in cold water to activate it before adding it to the mixture. For this first test about five teaspoons of gelatin powder was bloomed. Just leave it for a few minutes in the cold water while you prepare the next step of the process.

First and foremost follow the instructions on your packet of gelatin dessert. In this case the Jell-o recommends heating up half the water necessary and dissolving the powder into the hot water, then adding the second half of cold water to bring the temperature down before refrigerating. This is exactly what we will do, but with a small adaptation.

Once you've boiled the water, make sure to turn off the temperature on your stove, as it's very easy to burn the mixture, especially as it thickens.

When you've added and dissolved all the powder through stirring it's time to add the bloomed gelatin. It will have solidified quite well by now, but don't worry about adding it in clumps as it will dissolve from the residual heat as long as you keep on stirring. If it doesn't dissolve you can turn up the heat of your stove again, but only to it's lowest temperature as burnt Jell-o is not a pleasant smell or taste.

When the mixture is clear add the rest of the water to bring the temperature down further.

Pour the mixture up in the mould and put it in the fridge for a few hours. It's hard to be patient, knowing what rewards are awaiting you, but take it easy and allow the gelatin to do its magic.

There may be foam on top of the surface of the mixture, if so, be sure to skim it off before you put the mould in the fridge, otherwise the foam will solidify on and look unsightly on your finished gummy bear.

Once you can feel the top surface is solid, and it shows no signs of solidifying any more you can take the mould out of the fridge.

Are you getting excited?

Well, it's a bit soon, because we messed up. I sincerely hope you read through this entire instructable before you started with your giant gummy bear. How did we mess up? Well, regardless of how much shaking and prodding the gummy bear just won't come out of the mould.

Luckily enough, there is a quick fix! Pour some hot tap water in a pot and submerge the mould enough so no water splashes into it but enough so the water heats up the mould evenly. Leave it in for just a few seconds before taking it out and the heat should have dissolved the outmost layer of gelatin so demoulding would be a breeze.

Success!

Yet, at the same time, not. The final product is far too Jell-o-like, and not enough like a gummy, even with the added gelatine. So we'll reset and try again, in the next step.

Okay, you know the steps by know.

Boil half the water, turn down heat, add Jell-o powder, stir, but now we're going to add much more gelatin. Before we used five teaspoons, but now we're going to use eight tablespoons, or almost five times more gelatin. Don't worry about the lumpiness, it will dissolve, just take it slow and easy and be very careful not to burn anything.

Add the rest of the water once the mixture is clear.

Now, to make sure the gummy bear demoulds easily grease up the inside of the mould with a little bit of neutral cooking oil, such as canola oil. You don't need much at all, just enough to leave a thin film on the inside of the mould.

Pour the mixture into the mould again, refrigerate and wait for a few more hours.

If you've done everything right the giant gummy bear should just pop out of the mould no issues.

Believe it or not, but you're actually done. Nothing to do now but sit down for an evening long gummy bear binge.

Or why stop here? Make more giant gummy bears and let your imagination run wild. Add more sugar if you want it sweeter, or why not add the gummy bears you took out in the beginning back into the mixture and have a gummy bear full of gummy bears. Just let your imagination run wild!

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See ya!