Test Kitchen Chef Attempts To Make Gourmet Gushers

Brent, you try making a Gusher.

This is hard.

(uptempo music)

Oh no!

I'm Claire and this time we're gonna try and make

a gourmet Gusher.

This is the exploratory phase,

we have to figure out what these are.

I had Gushers once as a kid.

I think we're going to have to work on presentation.

I think this is not the goal.

It's kinda oozing.

But this is a Gusher.

It's kinda vaguely shaped like a gem or a jewel.

They clearly have a seam running down the side,

but that tells me that there are

two pieces smushed together.

The center is that syrupy, sticky,

kind of like pseudo liquid.

It really does kind of have the texture of corn syrup.

Like a very very thick syrup.

Oh I did it!

They kind of have the texture of Twizzlers.

And then of course the liquid inside,

which is not that much.

I wouldn't say that it's gushing.

I wanna know if you can tell what the flavors are.

Love Gushers.

Gaby grew up in Argentina, has never had a Gusher.

It's squishy. So it's not really liquid.

It kinda reminds me of a cough drop.

Mmm.

Yeah what's not to love?

I'd want it to taste like fruit.

This is something else.

I'm curious to really look at the ingredients and explore.

Sugar, corn syrup, dried corn syrup, pear puree concentrate,

which I find fascinating.

Pear has a lot of pectin.

Modified corn starch, fructose, maltodextrin, palm oil,

cottonseed oil, glycerin, carrageenan,

grape juice concentrate, citric acid, monoglycerides,

sodium citrate, malic acid, vitamin C, natural flavors,

potassium citrate,

and then xanthan gum.

And then they say gluten-free.

If all of these things are stabilizers and thickeners,

then they have to be stabilizing and thickening something.

So there is kind of fruit,

or things derived from fruit in it.

That gives me some clues.

Now we're gonna go online and see what else we can find.

Fruit Gushers, occasionally just called Gushers,

are fruit snacks in the shape

of elongated hexagonal bipyramids.

The center of each Gusher is a thick, sweet liquid,

and is surrounded by a chewy, gelatinous sugar covering.

Now we have to figure out how I'm gonna make these.

And I need molds.

Amazon has candy molds.

This looks good.

It's not quite gonna be a pyramid shape,

but I think it'll be pretty close.

We'll try three different methods for filling them.

I have to also work on getting the set right

for the outside.

Okay cool, so that's the game plan.

I hope I don't look stupid at the end of this.

This is all my attempt to make that outer

chewy part of the Gusher.

One option would be to take fruit juice

and sort of naturally thicken the fruit.

So what I'm gonna do is take a fruit very high in pectin,

like green apple, and make a green apple jelly.

And then use that as the base.

Add fruit juice and gelatin to that so that

it gets a natural thickening effect.

And now I simmer it, and that's really just to

extract all that pectin.

Let me grab the fruit juice

cuz I think I have to start thinking about

how I'm gonna get that liquid center inside these.

It's 100% pomegranate juice,

freshly squeezed blood orange juice,

and it's like a mango nectar.

So one idea is I take a little frozen tiny ice cube of juice

and press it into the center so it suspends.

And then I put them together but

how do I make an ice cube that small?

I did have one idea, hold on.

This might not work.

Just warning you.

I thought if I froze liquid into the straws

and cut crosswise into tiny ice cubes that

maybe they'll be the right size,

so I'm gonna go test them and see.

I need something to plug the end of these straws.

You gotta make a little squash plug.

Or a potato plug.

That's a good idea.

Yeah like a potato plug. Thanks Brent.

(Claire laughing)

That'll work

No one touch that.

I'm feeling that I should reduce some of this juice now.

So I'm going to strain the apple jelly.

It does sort of look like there's gelatin in it,

although it's not it's all that pectin.

Just see what's going on here.

So the blood orange juice has reduced quite a bit.

Pomegranate has a ways to go.

You can see how the mango's bubbling it's kind of

starting to bubble up a little bit.

It started out pretty thick

so I don't have to take that one as far.

The jelly's at 220 Fahrenheit.

We added sugar and a lemon and we cook it again,

we skim it, and then we do the wrinkle test.

I'm gonna chill this for a minute or two.

Yes.

See how it wrinkles?

So I think we're done.

This is fruit pectin.

Gelatin sheets tend to be a little more reliable

and will set a liquid with a little more clarity.

Then these liquids are warm not hot.

The gelatin dissolves in warm liquid,

so I'm gonna put everything on the stove.

When I bring it over on the stove,

in a little saucepan I'll add some of the jelly

and warm it up to dissolve the gelatin,

and then I'm ready to fill the molds.

Each one of these represents half of a Gusher

that I need to sandwich onto the back of another Gusher.

There's a lot of moving parts!

I'm gonna do the same thing now with the other two flavors.

Okay so I think the work for today is pretty much over.

We've filled all the molds.

The hard part tomorrow is how do we fill these things?

I have some ideas, I have no idea if they'll work,

but I'll worry about that tomorrow.

My main concern is that they're sticking in the mold.

I feel like this happened during the Twinkie process.

Give it a tap.

Bigger tap.

No!

It sticks to the mold, it doesn't wanna come out cleanly,

and it's a little too soft

so it has a tendency to break apart.

I have a contingency plan.

I'm gonna try the warm water trick and see if it helps.

I'm gonna need a little tray of water.

It's not quite boiling.

I run the risk of melting it down too much

and losing any definition from the molds.

But I think at this point this is kinda the only option.

Let's see.

Well it worked, but now they're round.

Now I lost all the facets.

Now what do I do?

This is a lot harder than I thought it was gonna be.

I have a shortcut in mind so I don't have to

go through that whole process again.

I'm basically gonna take everything out of the molds,

put them back in a saucepan, add more gelatin,

and stir in the cold gelatin until it's dissolved.

I'm gonna spray the molds now.

Put them back in the molds with a little oil underneath.

And it's starting to set up so I gotta get it in the fridge.

I feel good just from the little finger test.

It feels very firm to the touch.

I think before I take them out I should do some tests

on how I'm gonna get the liquid inside.

So Gaby found me the tiniest spoon we have

in the whole kitchen because I wanna try

to hollow out a little piece.

See if I can get in there.

Okay I already give up.

Hold on.

I'm gonna see if I can use this straw

to cut into the top of the gummy

to see if I can channel out with it.

It seems to be shallow.

Brent, you try making a Gusher.

This is hard!

(laughing)

I don't know.

Is this gonna work?

The other thing I can try is taking the liquid

that we froze inside the straws, and taking

an already frozen little chip of ice

and putting it inside.

Let's try mango.

I'm just having to improvise.

If I put in an already frozen piece

and put this in the freezer just to keep it frozen,

and then we'll try fusing them.

Okay, so this has definitely frozen.

Okay that's all.

Well, okay.

I can just use the syringe to inject the liquid

into the already hollowed-out half.

Finger's crossed.

There's seven from this batch that look good.

I'm gonna kinda use this extra gelatin mixture as glue.

I'm just kinda dabbing it around the edges,

and then I kinda mush the two sides together.

Okay I would say that that didn't not work.

That is a more or less three-dimensional,

hollowed-out Gusher.

This is that reduced pomegranate juice.

I'm gonna use a syringe and fill them up.

Okay it's kind of working.

Here I want you guys to take those and try.

Oh, they're squishy. See what happens.

Rick has the most skeptical look on his face.

I mean I like the flavor a lot.

I want the center to be a little bit,

have a little more body.

Thicker?

Thicker, yeah.

Yeah, what if I did pomegranate molasses?

That would be better, yeah.

As the filling.

Cuz it's kind of more of a squirter and not a Gusher.

Gusher? Yeah.

My plan is to un-mold all of the set halves

that I have in the fridge, hollow them out.

The problem before was that the pomegranate juice

was really really thin, even after we had cooked it down.

My thought was to use a product

called Pomegranate Molasses.

This is much thicker, you can see it coats

the back of the spoon easily.

I'm just gonna take the two hollowed-out sides,

fuse them together, and use the syringe

to inject the filling.

Okay this one appeared to work really well.

Okay.

Oh no!

Oh no!

Gusher overboard!

Last one.

Okay!

You can see they are totally sealed all the way around

and they have awesome sharp edges.

You can see the filling in there which is kinda cool.

So before it falls apart I'm gonna eat it.

To me that's it.

It's like you get such a bursting sensation

from the pomegranate molasses inside.

It's really fun.

It's kind of a surprise.

It's fun to eat.

The texture on the outside is definitely better.

So I'm hoping I did right by them

in recreating our own version.

Oh, it gushed.

I really like the tartness.

Wow.

It's surprising.

It's actually really delicious.

It's good right?

Yeah it's good.

I like that the flavor actually tastes real

and not synthetic.

Love the shape.

[Claire] Your poker face is impressive.

I could eat an entire package of those.

The only concern for me.

Yeah.

It's a little too--

Delicate.

Yeah.

A little too delicate.

I think you're right.

You can't go putting a pack of those in your pocket.

Definitely not.

Now take this the right way.

Okay, I can take it.

But I think you did a better job

than I thought you were gonna do.

Well thanks, thank you.

Cuz it's a tricky one.

I like being underestimated.

Then you come out on top.

I learned that from you, Claire.

Totally, well thanks Brad.

I think you nailed it!

Here's how you make a gourmet Gusher:

Cut three and a half pounds green apples

into two inch pieces.

Add to large pot with six and a third cups cold water.

Simmer 30 minutes.

Strain liquid and stir in four and two thirds cups sugar,

and three tablespoons lemon juice.

Boil until passes the wrinkle test.

Meanwhile, put four cups juice in medium saucepan

until reduced to one cup.

Sprinkle two tablespoons powdered gelatin

over half cup cold water in bowl, and soften 10 minutes.

Combine half cup apple jelly, half cup reduced fruit juice,

and gelatin in saucepan, and dissolve over low heat.

Mist small hexagonal candy molds with non-stick spray

and fill with gelatin mixture.

Reserve half cup the gelatin mixture for later.

Chill overnight.

Dip the mold into hot water five seconds.

Pop out Gusher halves.

Use a plastic straw or paring knife

to carve out eighth teaspoon cavity.

Chill 15 minutes.

Melt reserve gelatin in saucepan.

Use a small paintbrush to dab melted gelatin around edges.

Align two halves and press to seal.

Paint around sides to seal.

Repeat until all gushers are assembled.

Chill 20 minutes.

Use a small syringe to inject

pomegranate molasses into Gusher's center.

Keep chilled and enjoy.

You know Brad does not give gratuitous compliments

so I take that to heart.

[Brad] Especially about Gushers.

[Claire] Right, you're right.