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After the holidays, I had a few bottles from the minibar. You can’t throw a party with them, so they just stood in the fridge doing nothing.
Ahead were the New Year holidays, and my friends and I always try to surprise each other. And from my mini-bar I made a gift that they remembered all year long!
This story was sent by my subscriber Andrey L.
Why I decided to make alcohol myself
The main question of December: “What to give?” I have many friends and colleagues. All these symbols of the year, sweets and champagne look very boring. I want something inexpensive and unusual, so that the gift leaves warm memories and is not passed on to distant relatives.
Winter holidays are a fairy tale. As a child, I loved sweet gifts under the Christmas tree. Remember the colorful gummy bears? I decided to increase the degree of joy and make alcoholic bears!
You can’t buy this anywhere. I can take into account the tastes of each friend individually and make marmalade with his favorite alcohol. And if you make assorted, you get something like Bertie Botts candy beans (remember in Harry Potter?).
What ingredients are required
I tried and found forms with bears. I bought large (65 rubles) and small bears (190 rubles). The silicone mold was easier to work with.
Silicone mold and “stash” from the minibar
To get an idea of how much alcohol is needed, I first filled the molds with water from a measuring cup. Total came out 150 ml.
The first marmalade I made from champagne. A small bottle would cost 250 rubles, but I had a supply, as you remember. For 150 ml of champagne it took 30 gr. gelatin. I found a highly purified gelatin from Dr. Oetker (66 rubles). This is a powerful powder with a power of 220 blooms.
I also decided to add strawberries (a couple of berries) to the champagne to enhance the flavor, silent sugar (2 tsp) and citric acid (¼ tsp).
After champagne, I tried to make marmalade from other alcohol. The richer the taste of the drink, the tastier the marmalade. The most delicious was the one made from liqueurs and cocktails: Baileys Original Irish Cream (Baileys), whiskey and cola and Pina Colada.
The cooking process
I soaked the gelatin in cold (this is important!) boiled water in a glass bowl. For 30 gr. gelatin took 180 ml of water. Chopped strawberries with a blender and mixed it with champagne.
Sugar and citric acid were added to this mixture. They are needed as flavor enhancers, since gelatinous water takes some of it, and I wanted my bears to be rich and fragrant.
When the gelatin absorbed all the moisture and swelled, I heated the alcohol-berry mixture in a ladle on the stove to 40 degrees. This is necessary so that the gelatin is evenly dispersed in the liquid.
Then he melted the gelatin in pulses of 5 seconds in the microwave. I made sure that it did not boil, otherwise its gelling properties would disappear. A few granules did not melt, and I strained everything through a sieve.
All operations took 5 minutes, and I’m already at the finish line. I poured the gelatin into the alcohol mixture, mixed it well, poured it into the molds and put them in the refrigerator overnight to stabilize.
The morning was bright!
In the morning, I was eager to take everything out and try it, but the plastic molds did not really lend themselves. I put them in the freezer for 15 minutes. I decided that in the future it would be better to lubricate them with neutral vegetable oil so that the marmalade can be removed more easily.
What result did I get
The bears turned out to be of a dense consistency, like ordinary chewing marmalade. I packed them in transparent bags. One bag has been in my fridge for over a week.
In it, the bears began to gradually evaporate moisture and “sweat”. I realized that if you pack marmalade in cardboard boxes, then it is better to put acetate film on the bottom so that the cardboard does not get wet.
It turned out to be an inexpensive, but definitely a cool gift. More than once I came to visit with such a “dessert” and became the star of the evening.
Clear alcohol such as gin and tonic can be made into multi-colored gummies – just 1 drop of food coloring is enough
These gummies can be snacked anywhere, and no one will suspect anything. What do you think of this gift idea? Original?