Fruit Snacks

Fruit snacks are a huge must at our house.  Everyone eats them.  The kids like them for a snack, the hubby likes them in his lunch for work, even I eat them as a quick "grab and go" snack.  I started looking into all of the ingredients in a box of fruit snacks, and I was appalled.  Gross.  So much nastiness.  If you are curious, just grab a box out of your cupboard and see for yourself.  We are all guilty of it.  Especially me.  

I started looking for recipes for home made "nutritional" fruit snacks and was having a hard time finding something that didn't closely resemble Jello Jigglers.  There are tons of recipes for fruit snacks that use a box of Jello, but those are not always necessarily "good" either.  Then I came across one I thought I could play with a little and voila, we have a new favorite at our house.  Home made, nutritional, no preservatives, no additives and super cost effective. I made two batches of this recipe, which equals out to be more snacks than one box of store bought snacks.  Total price; $1.18 for a box of gelatin and $1.48 for one container of frozen 100% juice concentrate at Wal-Mart.  I only used 1/3 of the juice, so total price for over one box of snacks is $1.67.  Even if I buy the generic dollar store kind of fruit snacks, minimum price is $2.00.  I used mini ice cube trays for the snacks.  Pick a flavor that is strong, cranberry was a huge hit at our house.  Anything with pineapple in it will not work.  Something in pineapple does not let them harden up.  Now, here is the recipe.  And it couldn't be any easier!

Ingredients:
1/3 cup frozen juice concentrate
2 packages of gelatin (box contains 4 packages)


Directions:
Pour juice into a small pan.  Sprinkle the gelatin over the juice and let it sit for a few minutes.  



 
Over a medium heat, stir the juice mixture until all of the gelatin is dissolved.  I then poured the mixture into a measuring cup with a spout which made it so much easier to pour into the molds.

 After the gelatin is poured into the trays, let it sit for about 20 minutes.  If you start to pull out the snacks and they are still sticking, wait longer.  Once you pull them out, set them on a plate for another 10-15 minutes.  Enjoy!