Homemade Fruit Snacks

My son LOVES fruit snacks.  I mean like LOVES LOVES LOVES them. But they aren't the best snack food, convenient yes, good for you no. So i wanted to find a recipe to make our own in an attempt to save money.
I found 2 different pins. One pin takes boxes of jello to make fruit snacks, I'll likely try that one next.
This recipe uses all natural ingredients. I tried to stick as close the recipe as I could.
In the picture you will find my results :)

Let me begin this post by mentioning the number of times I have set a kitchen on fire & been subsequently banned from the kitchen for any reason.  Since the beginning of my marriage I have set it on fire 3 times.  I know where the fire extinguisher is & I'm not afraid to use it.  We even have a small kitchen specific spray can. And my mistakes are silly ones, which I believe are more scary. I turned the wrong eye on once and set the rag on fire that was sitting on it. I have also set the pot on fire because I forgot about my ramen noodles. :) See? scary. This is why I have spent the majority of my marriage asking my husband "What's for dinner?" or "What are you making tonight?" I mention this because part of this blog process is to grow as a person and with two small children need to eat more than nachos and hot dogs everyday. So I intentionally decided to do this pin instead of the other one to push myself.

Here's what you need:
Gelatin (found on the baking aisle with the sugar and pectin) The recipe calls for 5Tbs I disagree
Candy molds/ Ice tray/ or pan as the instructions suggest
2/3 cup Fresh or Frozen fruit
1 or 2 Tbs Honey
2/3 cup lemon or orange juice

Extra Step: I used blackberries for my fruit & they are FULL of seeds, that I hate. So once it was pureed I had to strain out the seeds.

Let the mixture sit for 5 or so minutes off the heat.
Begin stirring in gelatin 1 Tbs at a time. And then pour the mixture into a glass pan or into molds. I had these cute silicon ice tray molds we bought at Ikea earlier this year, so we use those.

Here's my lovely assistant showing you the trays :)

To begin combine the juice and the fruit together in a pot & cook on med heat stirring occasionally until fruit is tender. 
Once the fruit is ready incorporate honey
Once your done your ready to put the fruit in the blender. In my case the baby bullet (thanks again Hamma this thing is awesome!)

Attention Cautionary Tale

PLEASE secure the lid on your blender BEFORE you turn it on. Or you will end up like me covered in steaming hot fruit juice. It was also on 6 of the surrounding 7 walls, ALL the cabinets & cookbooks and a million other things.  So learn from me. Say it with me people.  Pour in liquids, SECURE LID, turn on blender. :)

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Now these are ready for the fridge. Where they will sit for 30 mins to an hour.

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The final product was not what I expected. They were so hard and rubbery that they bounced.  This is why I mentioned earlier that there may be too much gelatin in the recipe.  So my husband, the chef (literally), is going to make them with me again another day so that we can figure out what went wrong. Because I assure you I likely did something wrong between the explosion and cleanup and everything else.  I highly doubt the recipe is completely flawed and that isn't the purpose of the blog any ways. 

Sooooo stay tuned for an update.

Do you know what I did wrong? Comment or contact me