Pastry Chef Attempts to Make Gourmet Sour Patch Kids

[Claire] Do you wanna taste the citric acid?

It's pretty sour.

Yeah. Oh, don't do all of that.

Oh my God.

[Brad] You'd better drink some water.

[Claire] I don't know, Cosmo.

[gasping]

It could be worse. Okay.

Gotta take it away. [laughing]

[gulping]

Ooh.

[laughing]

That was an experience.

[mellow music]

[clanging]

[gasping] [laughing]

Sorry.

Hi, everyone, I'm Claire.

I'm in BA Test kitchen

and today I'm making gourmet Sour Patch Kids.

This is not my best category of candy,

but I like sour.

I'd say that.

This still look like children.

That makes these more disturbing than I remembered.

Better than I remember.

Hmm, they're good.

They just crossed over to being not good.

So, first one's pretty good, second one's pretty good,

the third would probably still be okay,

and then the fourth one would be,

bad.

I love the mouth-salivating sour coating.

It has a very chewy texture.

The coating I'm 99.9% sure is a mixture of sugar

and citric acid and that's it.

So, there's no flavor in the coating,

the flavor is the gummy part itself.

Big ones.

Oh, they're hugging.

Same thing, just different size.

Fire.

I don't love sweet, sour and spicy.

These are really weird.

I don't hate it, but I don't like it.

Wow, this is a big bag.

I don't know what these are.

These are watermelon Sour Patch Kids,

but they're not in the shape of kids.

They're in the shape of watermelons.

They're good.

I wish they were more sour.

They're not really sour.

Extreme sour, I'm super excited about this,

I love sour.

Hmm, oh wait, okay, now it's happening.

Ooh, it's good.

I don't know what red is.

You don't like that, I love that.

Oh, you are not gonna like the final one then.

Hmm, bye. yeah, yeah.

You don't have the only flavor that matters.

Oh, what?

Which is what? Sour Patch watermelon.

Oh, are you kidding, Delaney?

Oh my God, these are the best ones, the watermelon ones.

Everyone loves those.

If you think of regular ones,

you eat a whole bag, cut your tongue.

Oh, yeah, like sandpaper.

Like sandpaper. Yeah.

You just keep going though.

It's like a chemical exfoliator.

Yeah.

When's the last time you had one?

Not that long ago actually.

Really?

So my younger child, Cosmo is actually coming

to work tomorrow, because it's summer and camps are done,

and he is a sour aficionado.

He fancies himself a real sour,

he'll eat a whole lime.

Oh, wow.

The most important thing about it is the texture.

I know.

It's the perfect chewy texture.

I know. Perfect.

It's very hard, I'm saying that right now.

Can we just talk about the shape real quick?

Yeah.

I don't like that they're in the shape of,

first, I mean, they're supposed to be

in the shape of children.

[laughing]

Yeah, that's right. Why?

Why are they called Sour Patch Kids?

There has to be some character to it.

What, what do you want them in the shape of?

Watermelons?

That's your job. fine.

Right, we're gonna clear this off

and I'm gonna take a closer look.

This is how I used to carry things when I worked

in a restaurant, I always got yelled at.

Can you at least slide them closer?

Thank you.

All right, we got some, we got a Roy, Roy, roygib.

You have red, orange, yellow, green, blue.

I mean, I know that yellow is lemon

and the orange is orange, but green, blue and red,

it's like, who knows?

It could be, it's anyone's guess.

I've the best idea ever.

Let's trace Cosmo and use his shape.

I think it would very fun.

Also, I don't know how I'm gonna do that.

So, I wanna taste each of these components separately.

It's really only sweet, there's no sour flavor at all.

And some vague fruit flavoring.

I'm gonna taste now the crystal coating.

I can say definitively, citric acid and granular sugar.

That chewy texture,

I know it's gonna be difficult, but there's really

just one task.

Everything else is just kind of assembling

and is not so challenging.

Time for my favorite part,

reading the ingredients.

Sugar, shocked.

Invert sugar, corn syrup, modified corn starch,

tartaric acid, citric acid, natural artificial flavoring,

yellow six, red forty, yellow five, blue one.

That's it.

Yeah, we gotta do some research.

To the computer.

[typing]

This says they were originally created under the name

of Mars Men.

In 1985 they were renamed Sour Patch Kids,

likely to capitalize on the popularity

of Cabbage Patch Kids, makes sense.

Oh my God, okay this, wait, this is a BA article

from two years ago.

How to make, oh, okay.

How to make citrus cake taste like Sour Patch Kids candy.

So, this is basically about a pastry chef

who was candying citrus peel and then tossing it

in a sugar, citric acid mix and candied peel does have

that kind of chewy texture.

It's a really interesting idea.

A method that I'm thinking about in my head,

to take a combination of citrus peel

and green apple and maybe the dehydrator

and create something like a pate de fruit,

which is a natural fruit gummy.

And see if I can get something close to that texture.

Now, I don't know if it's gonna work,

but it might come close enough

and be so radical that we are just impressed

and, well, it just depends on what Cosmo says,

but it could work.

I don't know what the process is gonna be yet,

in my mind I'm thinking of two main components.

One is candied citrus peel and one is green apple jelly,

which is what I use to start Gushers

and I'm gonna start by making the green apple jelly.

[drum music]

I need three and a half pounds of apples.

And now I need seven cups of water.

I'm leaving the peel, stem and seeds all intact.

The first step is to extract the pectin from the apples,

so I just simmer that in water.

Right, I can't make green apple jelly,

on the account of there's no gas.

Which means I've to chat with Gabby.

Hey, Gabby.

These one is just gonna start cooking now.

Hi.

The gas it out. Oh [beep].

[laughing]

If you listen really closely, you'll hear the banging

of pots and pans and glass.

[drum music]

Okay, I need thin sheet metal, thin.

You need a lot of things, Claire.

But real thin.

Okay, let me back up.

I need to make my own cookie cutter.

See, Not so bad. Oh, are you

gonna make a sheet and then cut it?

Claire, how're you gonna make that mold?

I'm gonna, no, no, I'm gonna take a strip of metal

and bend it into the mold.

Even though that sounds great,

that's going to maybe be a nightmare.

[drum music]

These have been cooking for 40 minutes,

the idea is the pectin has been released from the fruit,

so I'm straining out the solids,

because I just want the clear jelly.

I just want the clear liquid with all the pectin in it.

So, what I should do is let this sit over night.

And this will keep straining in the fridge

and tomorrow, when we come back, add the sugar,

cook that down and then move onto the citrus peel.

But I have no idea if this is gonna work

and it might be a complete failure,

so I don't know, I'm gonna reserve judgment until tomorrow.

I feel like it's day 1.5.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm thinking that I can make a pate de fruit

from the pith of the citrus

which is very, very, very bitter.

But through a series of blanching and cooking

in a sugar solution, and it becomes soft and also sweet,

and if some of the bitterness is taken out.

The question is how to get something that is a texture

of citrus pith into something smooth and punchable,

I don't know, I don't know.

I don't know how it's gonna work.

But let's try it.

In this pot is that apple mixture that I strained last night

and now I'm adding sugar and this is cooking down

and it will gel very firm.

While the apple jelly is cooking,

I'm going to break down my citrus

and start to take the peel off.

Uh-oh, yeah. Oh my God.

Hi, hi, Cosmo.

When's the last time you had a Sour Patch Kid?

Not that long ago.

For me it's been a little while.

Oh yeah, this is Cosmo.

Hi. [laughing]

Your mom told me, Cosmo, that you really like sour.

Yeah.

So, I'm gonna try to make them even more sour

than Sour Patch Kids.

One thing I think would be cool with a homemade version

is if we really make the shape more lifelike.

So I thought maybe we could use your outline

as the shape to cut the Sour Patch Kids into.

I don't have a plan yet,

it's just an idea, so it might not work.

Can we just do it now? Yeah.

All right.

[upbeat music]

Oh, that's a good one, that's good.

Do you have a profile?

[upbeat music]

kissable, awesome.

This is my apple jelly.

I'm gonna do, I wanna do a test on this,

I have some plates in the freezer,

'cause that's how you test for the set.

So, when I run my finger through it,

it's supposed to wrinkle.

See it wrinkle?

So, it's done, and now I'm gonna focus on my citrus.

I think that I would do,

I might do a lime flavor, a minor lemon flavor

and the lemon, I might do cherry.

'Cause we have some cherry juice, I'm gonna try that.

What I need to do now is blanche all of these

separately, three times in boiling water.

Three times three, it's kind of a process.

This whole thing might not work

and I might have spent the entire day

working on it for nothing.

[cymbal music]

Oh, this clicks.

So, once it's boiling, I'm gonna bring it over to the sink,

drain, rinse, rinse, rinse, all right.

[drum music]

Okay. [sighing]

The next step is to juice the citrus fruits

that I've left over and use those as a flavoring.

Cosmo, can you give me a hand?

Why don't you hop up right here?

Yeah, there's a little step stool for you.

So, you can just start throwing the limes

in the top right there.

Then this, ooh [laughing].

Now I know.

Ready?

Three.

Yeah, you didn't know you were gonna have to do all this.

This thing is a real high-tech kind of gadget.

I'm gonna guess 2/3 of a cup.

How does this work?

I don't know, I feel like I'm doing it wrong.

Awesome.

That was fun.

Thank you for your help.

Let's see where we are.

I've all of my blanched peel.

I have my juices and zests.

Feeling very organized at least.

I'm going to get this in the food processor

and chop them up into little bits.

Smells so good.

I'm adding the lime zest.

And I'm gonna add all the juice that we have

and now the equal weight of sugar.

So, 160 grams sugar.

Okay.

Now I'm gonna get this over onto the stove.

As I cook it, the sugar will dissolve,

it then becomes sweet and translucent and softer.

I have no idea what's gonna happen,

I don't know if it's gonna work.

Best case scenario is, I get a very set,

very firm, very delicious paste that I can spread

into a layer and it sets and I've made Sour Patch Kids.

This is a wild stab in the dark.

Hot, hot, it's my nephew.

Ooh, hmm, oh my God, it's good.

It's delicious.

Good right? Oh yeah.

It's bitter, but it's that nice,

bitter, sweet tart balance.

It's very limey.

It's good, right?

I like that, yeah.

All right, cool.

All right, I'm gonna add to this

some of the green apple jelly.

What a pretty color, right?

Who knew it was gonna turn into this color?

I did not.

It hasn't fully set, but you can see even now,

it's really, really thick.

So, I feel good about adding this as just a boost.

This is already getting very, very thick.

That's one drop of leaf green gel.

A mint green, yeah.

It's not that far off.

The texture is like, it's rubbery in a good way.

And I think it's because of that,

it's gonna set up pretty firm,

but we have to just wait and see.

Oh, it's just like a lonely chicken hanging out.

I'm excited to check out the green slime.

It's just, like there's discreet pieces of peel,

so it's a little granular seeming.

I'm gonna toss this in some citric acid.

But it's gonna be so sour.

That's too sour.

Ooh, it hurst my teeth.

I'm gonna try cutting this into pieces

and then dehydrating the pieces.

So, I got a new dehydrator that he told me I could use,

but he has something in there, so I have to make sure.

Is he here?

What's he even got in there?

Oh, he's making fish jerky.

I don't want this to be in with the fish.

It smells.

We have to get the old one.

[drum music]

Gonna get these in here on, I guess medium high.

Just where it is now.

But this is old reliable, this dehydrator.

It served us well, in Gourmet Makes.

It does its job.

It's just bulky and clunky.

While this is dehydrating, I wanna try,

I wanna try actually the cherry batch that I'm gonna make

with the lemon,

but I'm gonna use a different assembly method

where I basically blend it first,

before I cook it in a sugar solution

to try to get it very, very smooth.

[blender whirring]

All right.

It's pretty smooth,

it's obviously much smoother than before.

So, before I did 50 grams of jelly

to about 160 grams of the,

I don't think it matters, whatever.

So, I do.

[laughing]

All right, this is on its way

and this has to really reduce down.

I don't know if food coloring is gonna do anything.

This is not gonna be the same.

This is cherry flavor that we've used.

It's not the most natural.

All right, one more.

I'm more concerned by the texture

which is still pretty bitsy.

It's good.

Definitely get cherry.

Lots of good lemon flavor

and not really terribly sweet at all.

This is going to go into the fridge.

Thank you.

So everything is sticky.

Gonna rinse myself off.

And what I have left is the Meyer lemon peel.

The issues so far are taste and texture,

which is all of them,

but now I have to address the toughness of the texture,

so I think I'm gonna pressure cook it in some water

to try to soften it to the point

where I can really puree it.

This is gonna go on high.

Hold on.

[gasping] Jesus.

[laughing]

I'm gonna feel these.

Ow, hot.

I think that actually worked really well.

Now I wanna blend it to get it really smooth.

This is very hot, so I'm gonna try not to burn myself.

[whirring]

It looks pretty good, I mean it's a puree.

There's a little texture to it, but I think it looks

better than before.

Oh no, something got in it, what is that?

Ew, what's happening?

I also have another idea.

I know I was talking about how I don't wanna do

that cooked sugar thing, but this texture,

this is something you get from cooking sugar

to a certain candy stage.

What I might do is add

to that a basically cooked, corn syrup.

And combine them and let it set.

This is nice and thick.

Okay [beep], I made caramel.

Okay, taking this out.

I don't think this is gonna work.

Oh God, oh God.

[laughing]

I made floss.

Okay, okay, so the sugar got too hot.

The corn syrup got too hot.

And then there just isn't a lot of volume in this bowl

and so the paddle was picking up the sugar

before it could hit the fruit and start to incorporate.

But I think more than anything it's a temperature issue.

Oh God, she's stuck, she's does not too kind.

I wanna try this again basically

and incorporate a couple of changes

to the method overall.

As a parting thought, let's check

on our lime mixture in here.

Ooh, it's got a little bit of balance.

Do you wanna taste this?

Yes, I do.

That's a very large piece.

Yeah, you can just, you don't have to eat the whole thing.

I won't. Don't, I wouldn't either.

Flavor's good.

Yeah, right?

It's sweet, bitter, sour.

The texture's kind of weird.

Texture's weird.

It's like, there's lots little pieces in there.

You're 90% of the way there.

I don't know about that math, but.

Yeah, I think it's good math.

[laughing]

Thank you.

I think if this works, it's true innovation

and that's exciting, but it's also a big if.

I'm proud of my method overall.

If not the result.

It's day three, two and a half technically.

Ew, it's really wet.

It's not really super elastic,

it just is, it's more brittle.

I do have to have to work

on the texture significantly today.

The flavor I like.

So I have to obviously come up

with a different method this time.

Last time I finely grated the zest, juiced them,

so I'm skipping all of that to save time,

and I'm just going to do the citrus halves whole.

[drum music]

Here's all my blanched citrus.

I'm going to pressure cook them one at a time.

So, first I'm gonna start with the limes.

I think I'm gonna go 15 minutes

in the pressure cooker on high.

Oh, dammit.

Stupid gasket.

[whirring] Oh, oh!

Sorry.

Sorry.

Somebody needs to stop leaving this on high.

[whirring]

[sighing] Okay.

It's very fluffy, 'cause just I worked a lot of air into it.

See how smooth it is,

but there are still some particles in there.

So, I'm gonna force it through a finer strainer

into a sauce pan.

This is called a Shimla, this is a really useful tool

for straining this mixtures like this.

Should I taste it real quick?

It tastes really bad, it's gross.

But there's no sugar in it.

It's like eating a whole lime that you've blended.

[gargling]

So I wanna add fresh lime juice,

because I wanted to have a fresher lime flavor.

And then I'm going to add sugar.

Cook this down like I did on day two.

I could be spending hours on this and have it not work.

It's not ideal.

While the lime mixture's cooking down,

I'm going to pressure cook my remaining citrus.

Here's everything.

I'm gonna just set this aside.

Here is my cooked down lime mixture.

It's very like congealed split pea soup.

Hmm, hmm, it's good.

The sweetness helps balance it out a lot,

I'm going to do the cooked sugar and mix it together

so the sweetness will increase.

On day two, I cooked only corn syrup.

I'm going to do a mixture of corn syrup,

granulated sugar and water this time,

because that didn't go so well.

I'm gonna cook it to 260 fahrenheit,

so I'm looking, we're close.

It's, okay, that's ready.

All right, so I'm weighing out 200 grams.

[whirring]

Actually I'm gonna add some of this.

Oh wow, oh yeah.

It doesn't look fully incorporated.

Maybe.

See if we're adding a table spoon of cornstarch,

see if that does anything.

Sometimes cornstarch is just the answer.

I mean cornstarch will help absorb some of the moisture.

Honestly I do feel like that looks better.

I think the cornstarch sort of bounded

and not emulsified it, but just brought it together.

I'm surprised that the mixture doesn't seem

to be firming up, I expected it to start

to harden much faster.

Okay, well, it looks pretty weird.

It's not as smooth as I was hoping.

I'll check back on it in 10 minutes or so.

Just to see what the texture is.

Okay, so it didn't, I wouldn't say that it's set.

I would say that it's stayed very goo like.

Somehow adding hard sugar to a firm mixture,

it became wetter.

I seems like I've defied the laws of physics here.

I really don't get it.

I didn't really think it was gonna work.

So, in some ways, it's what I expected.

But I was hoping that it was gonna work,

so I am also disappointed.

So, now, I don't know gelatin, go the gelatine route

and see what happens.

I think I might have to do some research.

[Man] Like how to make Sour Patch Kids?

Yeah, I think I am gonna Google,

how to make Sour Patch Kids.

[laughing]

So, one thing I found on this website.

A little bit down the road,

when I have an actual thing to form

into Sour Patch Kids,

once you have the cut pieces of, in this case pate de fruit,

says to soak them in enough Everclear

to cover before you roll them in a coating of sugar.

'Cause the Everclear desiccates the candy,

forming a leathery skin on its surface

that will keep the rolling sugar

from turning sticky and syrupy for several hours.

I guess I wasn't aware that Everclear is the brand

of alcohol, I just know it's a very high proof.

They sell basically just green alcohol,

which is 190 proof.

Is that right?

Everclear enjoys tremendous brand recognition

and a loyal near cult status following.

That's the description.

What are they gonna do, give tasting notes?

Of to the grain alcohol?

That was the only tip I really picked up from that.

Let me do a proper test with corn syrup,

the fruit, the fruit juice to get everything to spin,

and the apple jelly.

Because I want everything really well incorporated

before I start to cook it down.

So this one I'm going to try lemon,

instead of water, I'll use some of that cherry juice.

And the new plan is, put everything n the blender

and then cook it.

I like this plan better.

[whirring]

[tapping]

All right.

I'm going to take this over to the stove

and once it reduces down...

I had a thermometer in this mixture,

it cooked down a lot and then I turned it up

and then I walked away and then it kind of burned.

And it also never gotten up to the right temperature,

so, I think it is a failure.

Let's just see, so I'm gonna pour this out of the pot

so I don't scrape any of the offensive burnt pieces with it.

It does not look good.

This thing will be soaking for a while.

Actually, it's kind of pretty.

I wanna quickly try to whisk in a little bit

of food coloring.

I'm gonna put in just a drop of cherry flavor.

Do a quarter teaspoon of citric acid.

Smells very cherry-y.

Ugh.

Remember next time. Ooh, that smell, yeah.

Think it got too hot.

Ooh.

[gasping]

What, does it taste burned?

Why does it tingle?

Is it like a chemical burn?

Is my esophagus gonna be okay?

[laughing]

That made me feel like I was gonna pass out for a sec.

[laughing]

but I was gonna nod, I think,

you're probably on the right track.

I'm so sorry, Claire.

I think I put too much cherry flavor in.

Okay.

Maybe that's it.

I also burned it a little.

So the bitterness is also that it's whole lemon in there.

Oh, okay. Does that explain it?

Does that make you feel better?

That makes me feel better.

But maybe it's gonna be great, you know?

Maybe.

Dust it with sugar, stamp it out.

Call it a day. Call it a day.

Just ow.

[sighing]

The texture is not right, Rhoda, help me.

[Rhoda] What's wrong?

I'm afraid that I'm reaching the point

where I have to scrap three days of work and start over.

[Rhoda] How are you gonna shape it?

I'm so far from it-- okay sorry.

I haven't decided how I'm gonna shape it.

I feel like it needs some more sugar.

I know it's not very sweet.

It's so bitter and sour.

Yeah, it's very sour and bitter.

It tastes like cherry cough medicine, I know.

I think you're doing great though.

You're definitely on the right track.

Thanks, Rhoda.

[sad music] [paper crumpling]

Yeah.

Don't show this part.

I just don't think it's gonna work.

I think this whole thing is a huge waste of time.

It's so hard.

Don't show this part.

Amiel, do you wanna trade?

Can we trade?

Do you wanna smell like this?

It's not that bad.

Ugh.

So, where are you at right now?

What's going on?

You seem discouraged some.

I have no, I have nothing to show you.

It's just one failed batch after another.

What are you doing wrong?

I couldn't even tell you.

Oh.

[laughing]

I'm so sick of eating steak,

it's so great to have a little fruit.

There you go, you're gonna feel great.

Okay, I will trade.

[Claire] Really?

You can go in there and fry a steak.

Can we, can I try it?

Let's see what happens.

Okay. Yeah.

What, wait, oh you're on deep fry?

I don't really wanna do that.

What's the next one?

Perfect?| Now we're married.

Life's little ah.

All right, we're trading. We're trading places.

Amiel for Claire.

Yes. They're trading.

[Claire] Yeah, there you go.

[Director] And action.

[Amiel] It's helpful to talk to yourself

while it's happening--

Okay I'm a lefty too, so they're gonna know.

Oil.

It goes straight in there.

[Claire] Right ready?

[Amiel] Yeah.

[Claire] Oh God, oh God.

Gotta do a thumbs up.

Thumbs up?

Okay, ready?

Feel perky. Yeah.

[Claire] It's hot over there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

[Amiel] How are you feeling emotionally?

I'm feeling like breaks are very important

when you hit a roadblock and it was good to go over there

and Amiel for five minutes,

but then I came back here and still don't wanna do it

so, it didn't really help.

The texture is so wrong with pureed citrus,

it's like, maybe that's just not the way to go.

I think I have to just scrap this plan,

even though I did spend two days cooking citrus.

And try a version, I don't know.

Try a version of just juice.

Just lemon juice.

I have limes here already cut, I might as well try limes.

So maybe what I'll do is juice apple jelly,

sugar, corn syrup.

Let's start at 240 and we can always increase.

Okay, I'm gonna try to pour this out onto the parchment.

Certainly the texture is smooth.

I'm gonna slide it onto a tray and put it in the fridge.

I feel good about that actually.

Right, look at this mixture.

It's definitely different than before.

I mean, this is the opposite of the problem I was having.

This has a dramatic sort of pull texture.

We'll try pectin.

I had kind of forgotten what that texture

of stretchy sugar is like and it's not what we're going for.

I made a cinnamon role.

[laughing]

let's see that goo.

No.

The goo is still goo.

[Man] You said you were optimistic about this.

Okay, well after nearly a week in the fridge,

it has not firmed up at all.

It's still mush.

I don't wanna do this again.

I don't, don't send it back.

I don't wanna look at it.

This new method, using mostly sugar and corn syrup,

but then also gelatin and pectin, in combination,

it sounds like a generally sound method to me,

but it does involve drying them,

and some of the resources I read said,

you can do that in a dehydrator, so we'll try that

and we're also gonna try the grain alcohol idea

to really dehydrate the outer coating.

What's not ideal about this method is

that it does rely on flavoring agents,

like flavoring oils, and not a more natural,

fruit derived flavor.

But it does let me introduce juice, so that's a bonus.

Oh Concord, okay that could be fun, yeah.

New grape flavor, sour cherry flavor.

And then I can do the other, the citrus flavors.

Red, yellow, orange, have to get a mixture

of sugar and corn syrup into a sauce pan.

This mixture is just sugar and corn syrup

and a little water to encourage it to dissolve

and that's it.

Then my pectin and gel to measure it out

and I'm gonna start hydrating the gelatin

in the fruit juice.

I think I'm going to start flavor wise with grape.

So, this one will go completely solid,

it's already on its way.

All right, we're at 270.

Just gonna pull this off.

We can keep talking, this just has to sit here.

What is this?

Just some cooked sugar.

Oh, doesn't smell very good.

You know what's gonna happen today?

You're gonna triumph.

It's my birthday today.

It is?

Happy birthday.

So, that's the gift you can give me.

Is to triumph the Sour Patch Kids.

All right, bye, Claire.

Bye, Delaney, have fun, happy birthday.

So I'm adding my citric acid, my gelatin mixture,

geez.

And now my food coloring.

I'm gonna add a little bit of eggplant

and a little bit of the other purple.

So, the idea here is that the heat

from the sugar syrup is melting the gelatin.

Okay, now, I'm gonna pour it out onto my parchment.

You can see it's definitely starting to set up already.

Oh God, okay.

I'm very glad I greased this parchment.

I'm just trying to cut strips, approximately,

whatever this is by whatever this is.

I can't remember what the sizes were.

These I'm gonna put in the dehydrator.

Just wanna see what's happening in here.

Look at what happened.

[laughing]

So that happened.

What happened was, they melted, 'cause of the gelatin.

I think we have to do it cold,

but put them in front of the fan in the fridge,

in the walk-in.

[drum music]

It's all up here, maybe if I put it, yeah, yeah,

this is a good spot.

So, the other thing that I wanna try is,

I wanna see what happens when I put some of this mixture

in that grain alcohol that we got.

So, this is Everclear, 190 proof grain alcohol.

Just going to pour a little bit of this.

[gasping] [laughing]

Sorry.

And I'm not exactly sure what the chemistry is.

It's unclear if it dries it out, just on the surface

to create kind of like a skin

or it if really dries the whole thing out,

but let's try it.

I don't know the dream of a Sour Patch Cosmo is getting

further and further away.

There's certainly no kind of prefab silicone molds

that fit the bill.

I'm better off just punching them out.

Look.

Ginger bread man, man.

It's huge.

If you look at overall area,

yeah, this one's bigger but it's not crazy.

This one is the best one so far.

This one is maybe perfect.

It already looks like a little person.

I just have to thin out those arms.

It really does look like a ghost.

The only thing left to do is,

make more of our sugar mixture.

So I think I'm starting with lemon, orange,

maybe I'll do cherry next.

It's like hockey puck of pectin.

So, basically I wanna bring this up again

after I add the gelatin to the saucepan

and the gelatin, I have a feeling, is not fully dissolving.

All right.

And citric acid.

Maybe one drop of cherry flavor.

One, that was two.

Super red food coloring.

That looks pretty good.

Let's look at the cherry.

It's much firmer now, so I just popped it out.

I wanna try punching out some of the shapes.

Oh my God, it's so bouncy,

I can't even press this down into it.

[banging]

Oh, there we go.

Just do that 1,000 more times.

I made a, it's a Sour Patch Penguin.

Oh, it's not that bad.

Ooh, what if I, hold on, I have such a good idea.

Well, I just figured something out,

which is the reason Sour Patch Kids have no arms,

is because all of these limbs wanna stick to themselves

and each other really bad, so.

I think if I continue to make these,

I have to start soaking them immediately

in the grain alcohol so that the outside dehydrates

and then they become less sticky.

So, I'm just gonna go ahead and make a couple

of extra flavors to have around.

[drum music]

It's for me to taste, this, will now go into the fridge.

Well, it's still doing that.

The lemon is good.

This one's good.

Yeah. [drum music]

While this is cooling down,

let's go into the walk-in and just check

on the ones that are drying.

Okay, I'm gonna try.

They are very chewy.

They're still pretty springy.

But overall, I think the step of drying it is a good one.

And maybe I should leave all of these batches in the walk-in

with the can on them overnight.

Thank you.

All right.

It's now been several hours in the grain alcohol.

They're really not sticky at all on the outside,

so this is a great technique, I think,

for making sure they don't stick together.

Once these three new flavors are set, I'll pop them out

of the pans, I put them on a sheet tray

and put them in the walk-in to really dry out.

And then tomorrow the plan is to cut them,

soak them in alcohol, I think, and then coat them

in the citric acid mixture and then we're done.

Right, and then we're done?

[drum music]

All right, so.

It's hard to tell if they've really dried out

or if they're just really cold.

They feel very firm.

I think the orange more than the others.

I wanna taste the orange.

I don't know the orange one looks really good I think.

Maybe the best one yet.

And it is doing a little bit more of that pull.

Flavor's good.

Seems like the most successful batch yet.

The flavor's better.

And then this is the first one I made, the sour cherry.

You get a nice pull, but not a crazy long stretch.

I don't think that I would gain anything

from making anything over again.

I'm really happy with these,

so I wanna focus on cutting out shapes.

You remember this is Cosmo?

This is as close as I can get.

We did this weeks ago,

when I thought I was gonna be better at this.

So, we're gonna just take a few liberties

and say that this is the shape.

I don't even like this shape though,

I'd almost rather do this one and make them really big.

This is so much easier to punch out, something this size.

No, I forgot to grease it.

It's not bad.

I think, it's kinda cute.

This one looks more like a baby.

All the Sour Patch Kids are just gonna be the larger kind.

More like this one.

All right, now I'm going into production mode,

cutting all the shapes, getting them in here.

As I cut out each one, I wanna start soaking them

in the grain alcohol, because it will prevent them

from sticking to each other.

So while these soak, I can at least put together

that sour coating.

So that's one part citric acid, let's try two parts sugar.

Nailed it, I think it's good.

We're gonna go with this.

I'm just wondering if I should try to flavor the coating

for each one.

I feel like I haven't done my best work so far

and maybe this is my only opportunity to impress.

All right, so we're gonna make three different flavors

of the coating.

Lemon and orange and cherry.

Just gonna get everything in the dehydrator in small bits

and then once it's dry I'll pulverize it

with a spice grinder.

Hopefully nothing bad happens.

Dry enough, I think.

And I'm just going to add all of the lemon to one.

[laughing]

Here's orange.

Let me give it a little taste.

Good.

Really sour.

I'm ready to start the coating.

Ooh, these little guys.

It is an enormous Sour Patch Kid.

[drum music]

Do they need double coats?

[gasping] Oh [beep].

That was orange anyway.

Okay, finally done with all the coating.

I have my three flavors, I think they're done.

And I think they're done, because I was told they have

to be done, because we don't have time

to let them dry for a week, so.

Ooh.

Ooh.

Cosmo will love these.

They're extremely sour, not even that sweet.

There's a lot of citric acid there in the end.

I am proud of the relatively clean fruit flavor

of each of the colors.

Maybe those are, that's like I err on risk.

It's quite sour.

The only thing that's left is to have people taste them.

Hopefully they'll be kind and not too harsh.

They're like big boys.

Yeah, they're huge.

[laughing]

This might be like thee Sour Patch Kids.

I think it's more than that.

You wanna weigh 'em and see?

[Both] 9.8 grams.

[Claire] That's a lot.

All right, let's see what one of the big guys.

5.8.

It's like you're getting a deal.

Yeah, exactly.

I love a deal.

Now, I kind of wanna eat a cherry.

Whoa, that's sour.

[Claire] Yeah, it's really sour.

Too much on the coating?

Too much citric?

[laughing]

This is a little sharper and cleaner than,

yeah, this feels like a dull sour,

this feels like a I'll take it.

A bit sharper.

The flavor in this is fantastic.

Thank you.

You know, I did the best I could.

You really did, Claire.

I just wish I'd done better.

Does, That's how I feel literally everyday, Claire, so.

Wow, look at these guys.

These look amazing!

Sour Patch Cosmos!

That was me, that was me.

[Rhoda] The look done, they look.

oh they're done.

But they're not good.

They're very sour.

Cosmo will love them.

Also, tell, send one home to Cosmo

with our sincere apologies.

Tell him that I struggled so hard,

when it came time to cut them.

Well, you delivered on our--

[Claire] On the more sour.

Yeah.

Oh, I like the cherry.

Yeah? Yeah.

It's actually not a bad texture.

I actually prefer the texture of this to that.

You do? Really?

They have a ginger bread mannishness to them.

Oh, that was the cutter I used

to make them. [laughing]

the little little gingerbread man cutter.

Nice shape, nice color.

Great job.

Thaks, Rhoda.

Thank God for Rhoda.

Okay, final thoughts, trying to keep it positive.

Next time I have to do a gummy candy,

I do feel like I learned a lot,

'cause this was just sort of very repetitive

and I wasted kind of three days of time

on that weird citrus peel idea,

so this one was frustrating,

but now I know more for next time.

And I think Cosmo is really gonna like these,

because they're so sour and maybe I should've tempered

that citric acid coating,

but I know that I at least have one true fan

and that is Cosmo and that's the important things.

To have pleased the people

who already love Sour Patch Kids is great.

I never wanna see them again.

[drum music]

Here's how you make gourmet Sour patch Kids.

Combine one cup sugar, three tablespoons of water

and 3/4 corn syrup in a small saucepan and bring to a boil,

stirring to dissolve the sugar.

Stop stirring and clip a candy thermometer to the side

and cook to 290 degrees fahrenheit.

Meanwhile blend 50 grams of powdered, unflavored gelatin

in a half a cup of sour cherry, lemon or orange juice.

Then stir in 15 grams of pectin.

Stir this mixture into the syrup

along with a pinch of salt,

then stir in one and a quarter teaspoons

of citric acid and the corresponding fruit flavor oil

or extract until smooth.

Pour the mixture into a greased parchment lined pan

and chill until set.

Punch out shapes using a cutter and soak the cutouts

in grain alcohol to dehydrate the surface.

Place on a rack and chill uncovered in the refrigerator

until very firm and chewy.

Dehydrate lemon zest, orange zest and dried sweet cherries

in a dehydrator on high, then grind into a powder.

Combine with citric acid and granulated sugar to taste.

Coat the Sour Patch Kids

in the correspondingly flavored sour sugar.

[Carla] All right, you ready to try the Sour Cosmo Kids?

Yeah.

Hmm.

Hmm.

This is really good.

[Carla] Would you say too sour?

Nothing is too sour.