Today I decided to make my daughter some healthy fruit snacks and am truly excited with what I pulled together. My inspiration was this healthy fruit snacks recipe by Thank Your Body. I love the use of grass-fed gelatin and all of its healing properties. My goal was to use kombucha to make these fruit snacks.
Why Kombucha in Fruit Snacks?
Kombucha is a healthy fermented beverage with great health benefits including being an immunity booster. Everyone needs that! I just had to figure out how to make fruit snacks with kombucha without killing all those good probiotics!
I also spotted some beets in my fridge and figured these fruit snacks might just be a great way to get some veggies into my preschooler during the week. The beets mixed very well with the strawberry and ginger flavors in this healthy fruit snacks recipe. I told my daughter they were strawberry flavored and when she tasted them she told me they tasted like sweet beets. So much for pulling the wool over her eyes! They are very good and got a thumbs up from her and my husband!
Homemade Healthy Kombucha Fruit Snacks
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cup kombucha (I used ginger flavored), divided in half (where to buy starter cultures)
- ¾ cup frozen strawberries
- 1 medium beet, peeled and roughly chopped
- 2 Tbsp raw honey
- 6 Tbsp gelatin
Directions
Puree 1/2 cup of the kombucha, the strawberries and the beet in a high speed blender.
Mix 1/2 cup of the kombucha with the gelatin, stirring to combine.
In a 2-quart saucepan, heat 1/4 cup of the kombucha over LOW heat until it is just warm to the touch. You only want to heat this warm enough to dissolve the gelatin. Any warmer and you will kill all the good bugs in the kombucha. Pour the warm kombucha over the kombucha and gelatin mixture and stir in the honey until fully incorporated.
Add the pureed fruit mixture to the kombucha and gelatin mixture and stir to combine.
Pour the fruit snacks mixture:
- Into silicon molds for cute designs
- Onto a sheet pan lined with parchment paper in a 1/4 inch thick layer
Place the fruit snacks into the fridge for about 30 minutes to set.
Remove fruit snacks from molds or cut the fruit snacks into pieces from the spread on the sheet pan.
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Can I use an ice cube tray until I get some cute molds? This is awesome!
Sure!
Is it possible to use peaches in place of berries? I have a huge harvest of them. I guess I would need to find a beet replacement?
Of course!
Actually, Golden Beets would probably do nicely for that.
Has anyone tried this with some sort of alternative to gelatin? They look great; but I’m vegetarian.
peta has some good options to gelatin. http://www.peta.org/living/vegetarian-living/gelatin-alternatives.aspx
Thanks 🙂
OT question? I have been using raw honey in most of my baked goods to avoid refined sugar. Since I am probably killing the benefits of using raw with the heat of the oven, can I use local clover honey instead of raw? It’s much cheaper! Thank you!
If it’s still unprocessed, local honey, it’s fine if it was heated a bit when being bottled. Obviously, raw is better, but for baked goods, the slightly heated variety is fine. I would use raw for this recipe though.
That makes sense. Thank you for the response, Alison!
This looks great! The only thing I’d probably do differently is dissolve the gelatin in a little bit of warm water instead of heating the ‘booch, like in this recipe I pinned recently: http://wellnessmama.com/3803/how-to-make-healthy-jello/
I have a question, my last batch of kombucha got way too strong, I used frozen berries (thawed first) and ginger as my flavor additives. I’m pretty sure I lost track of time and let it steep for 3 weeks instead of my usual 2 before adding the fruit and then 2 weeks with the fruit instead of 1 before i bottled and chilled it. do you think I can use that strong tea for the treats? sounds like a good use of what is just about undrinkable.
Sure – worth a shot! Maybe water it down a little?
will give it a shot this weekend. should not hurt that i’ve had the tea refrigerated now for a couple of weeks will it? normally I gobble it right down but it is soooooooo strong
Try mixing it with some soda water, that’s what I do when it is too strong 🙂
Great idea, I’ll give that a shot.
Thoughts on using water kefir instead?
I think that would work too! Try it and come back here and comment on how it went!
I’ve done it with water kefir and kombucha and both turned out great. I prefer it without the beets though as the flavor dominated the gummies.
I’m wanting to do it without beets, too. Did you replace them with something else or just leave them out?
How creative!! I am inspired to try this. I normally just drink my kombucha straight, but this sounds fun!
Great idea! How long do you think these will store for? Has anybody tried freezing/thawing them? I am thinking these would be a nice cooling and energy boosting snack to make for when I go into labor (in early August).
I think these should keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks. Any heat and they will melt! I will freeze some tonight and report back!
Love this! My sister and I were just talking about making fruit snacks last night, but I decided against it because I didn’t really want all that juice (sugar) going down my little one. These look infinitely better!
How beety do these taste? I love beet juice by my kiddos are not fans and of course these treats would be mostly for them 🙂
Ah! I can’t wait to try these! Kombucha & gelatin together at last. Why didn’t I think of this? I bet you could even make ’em just with kombucha and gelatin. Have you tried this? I can’t wait! Thanks!
Thank you! I have been wanting to do it for a while, just haven’t had the time! Any fruit would work really and any kombucha flavor. I am going to try pineapple or blueberry next!
of course watch out with (fresh) pineapple and gelatin…they have a history of not getting along 🙂
We make homemade pinapple jello all the time just use an overipe pinapple toss it in the vitamixer then warm enough to disolve the gelatin i use about 1/4 cup gelatin. Its sets up nicely overnight in the fridge 2 ingredients. Would make an awesome gummy!
Have to say, really love your website and your ideas!! Thanks for all your inspiration!
Thank you! You made my day!
Actually, I was told that honey is anti-bacterial and should not be used in kombucha because it will kill the probiotics.
Ok help! this did NOT work for me – what did I do wrong? I followed the recipe verbatim, using Great Lakes geatin, a local raw honey, my homemade ginger ‘booch (that’s my favorite flavor too), frozen strawberries and a raw beet. Everything was going fine until I tried to mix the (slightly) heated bucha+gelatin+honey mixture with the blended bucha+strawberries+beet mixture. The gelatin solidified IMMEDIATELY upon touching the blended mixture and turned into a lumpy bumpy mess. I stirred and stirred, beat and beat, whisked and whisked and it got a LITTLE better/smoother, but NOTHING like the image above – the final product is a mix of smooth-ish with lumps of mixed-in gelatin. My 5 year old took one bite and said no way. The flavor is good and I am too stingy to toss all those awesome ingredients (especially all that gelatin) so I will eat it , but the texture is ALL WRONG. This seemed pretty foolproof, so I can’t figure out why it flopped… I wonder if the blender-mixture was TOO cold (because of the frozen strawberries?) Did you thaw out the strawberries first or put them in frozen solid?
The same thing happened to me!! I saved the batch by putting the whole clumpy-mess back in the saucepan and gently warming until fluid enough to pour into molds…may have killed all the Kombucha bacteria but at least I saved the batch! Color and texture seemed good and family loved them. I made them a second time around and made sure to pour the fruit mix into the saucepan to blend instead of the other way (also I let the frozen fruit thaw for about 20 min this time after blending it before mixing it in). I didn’t need to warm the whole mix this time around – it stayed fluid enough to pour and they came out great. Would love to hear any tips from the author on how to troubleshoot!
I think I will use your technique to fix my batch. I’m super bummed because I’ve made homemade fruit snacks many times before with excellent results. This just didn’t work for me, I had the same problems mentioned above. I was so excited for kombucha fruit snacks! But I’m open to trying the recipe again if anyone has any recommendations!
Just made these with my 5 year old with very acidic kombucha. We had a taste and both screwed our faces up, some lemon zest and another spoon of honey fixed it. You defiantly need the extra flavour in it. It came out the blender smooth but set, no fancy shapes 🙁 Brilliant way to get the kids to eat kombucha.
when I first saw this I thought you said you were using 5 year old kombucha 🙂
Love this idea! How great! I’m definitely going to have to try this with my kiddos! They love our Strawberry Lemonade kombucha, and I think they’ll like this even more. Plus… I’ve been hearing great things about gelatin. I’m gonna have to look into that more!
Just made these today! The mixture got weird when I added the gelatin so I just heated it a little more. The gummies came out pretty rubbery. The texture is too much for me, but my daughters (2 & 4) couldn’t get enough!!!! So my question is: is this the normal texture, or did mine come out rubbery because I heated it a little more after adding the gelatin? Thanks for the great healthy gummy recipe, we had a blast making them.
I can’t be sure without seeing them. They are gummies and are rubbery… 🙂 I am so glad your kiddos liked them!
These look very interesting. Do you have a kombucha recipe anywhere on your site? I looked around a bit but couldn’t find any. I have a continuous brew going. I would like to know what you do to flavour it with ginger. I would love that!
I don’t have a kombucha post on my site – but I will soon!
What’s up, I log on to your blog on a regular basis. Your writing style is awesome, keep up the good work!
Hello! I had the same problem as Adria above and the others who commented in response to her– as soon as I combined the pureed mixture with the kombucha/gelatin/honey mixture, the mixture began to solidify and get super stretchy and clumpy, and there was no amount of mixing I could do to fix it! I didn’t see a response from the chef who originally posted the recipe offering any ideas or solutions- any thoughts would be great!!
thank you!
You need to keep the mixture warm or the gelatin will set.
Can I make this with the kombucha you buy bottled at the store? I have never made kombucha and have no real interest in starting to, but I do have a very strong interest in making these gummies.
Do you have to make your own Kombucha? Or could I purchase some ginger flavored that is already made?
I can’t see any reason why it wouldn’t work with the store bought stuff. I’m so excited to try this recipe!!!!
Do you think it would work if I used Pamona’s Pectin instead of the gelatin?
Hi. Can a stainless steel saucepan be used to warm the kombucha or will this destroy the good bacteria?
OMG I think I just fell out of my chair, never thought of this, yet it makes perfect delicious sense. Can’t wait to make them
Ok, so I made these for my daughters birthday, and although the flavour was good, they had a grainy consistency. I made them exactly as the directions said, but by the time I added all 6 Tablespoons of gelatin, it was starting to set and I couldn’t barely mix it in with the rest of the juice…. Next time I will add maybe 1/2 the amount of gelatin…… Does anyone have any other suggestions???
I have recently learned a trick to mix in the gelatin with cold liquid first and then add some warm liquid to thoroughly dissolve. I haven’t applied it yet to this recipe but will do so soon and give an update. Thank you for your patience. I work a full time job and have been too busy to test the change! But you guys always remind me 😉
Can I use normal tea to make these or do I need to buy the kombucha?
You could. Kombucha adds probiotic benefits.
just wondering, wouldn’t the heating process kill the cultures in the kombucha?
Gently warming – not boiling!
The Kombucha fruits snacks….which gelatin did you use? The red or green can?
The red can…
This recipe looks delicious AND it fits the paleo autoimmune protocol. So, thank you! I just started a weekly Paleo AIP Recipe Roundtable through my blog, and I would love it if you linked up this recipe. I’m trying to expand resources for the AIP community. Here’s the link: http://www.phoenixhelix.com/2013/12/11/paleo-aip-recipe-roundtable-6/
My mom and I tried to make these twice. The first time was a failure because our gelatin set up too fast. But it didn’t dissolve all the way and it tasted grainy. The second time we made it it was better, but it still seems our gelatin is setting up too quickly and you can still feel the gelatin grains. Yours looks pretty and clear ours looks milky and you can see the gelatin. We are using the Great Lakes gelatin like you suggested. What should we do to get consistency right?
Did you see that I updated the recipe a bit to help to remedy this? Is it still not working?
We followed the current recipe, but still had trouble. We’re going to try heating the strawberry mixture a little to see if that works.
Ok – let me know. I think the new method is good for dissolving the gelatin but you do have to work quickly when using frozen fruit – it sets fast!
I followed the direction to a T, but the gelatin got clumpy as soon as I poured in the first 1/2 cup of kombucha… then after adding the warmed kombucha, it would not dissolve hardly at all. Very clumpy… not sure if the directions need to be adjusted.. wish I hadn’t had to use up 6 Tblsp of my precious gelatin on this recipe :\