Giant Sour Worm Recipe

I am now the mum of a teenager and I must say we are blessed with a great one. He does have a sweet tooth but is not so fond of cake. So for his birthday we had this giant sour worm as the ‘cake’. By the time we got to the worm most of his friends were already stuffed full of nachos and home made churros, but they still managed to squeeze some in.

My son was notably quiet during the party, which surprised me. Just as everyone was leaving he told me he had a headache and the right side of his body had just started feeling numb and tingly. He’d had a knock to the head the night before at youth, so off to the hospital we went. We got home at 10am the next day after a long night of observation followed by a cat scan. Diagnosis – severe concussion – not the happy birthday we had planned. One week of intense headaches later he finally started feeling better and is finally allowed to play sport again.

To make a giant sour worm you will need:

175g (6.17 ounces) of 220 bloom gelatin (video explaining gelatin bloom is here)
350millilitres (11.83 fluid ounces) or 1 1/3 cups plus a tablespoon of water
570g (20.11 ounces) or 2 2/3 cups caster or superfine sugar
610g (21.52 ounces) or 1 3/4 cups glucose syrup or corn syrup
10 tsp citric acid
56g (1.98 ounces) sorbitol
colour and flavour of your choice (I used red and green)
A suitable mold
Coating
110g (3.88 ounces) or 1/2 cup caster or superfine sugar
1/2 tsp citric acid (or more if you wan want it to be more sour)
Add the water to the gelatine and stir it well to combine.
Put the citric acid, sugar and glucose into a pan. Stir over high heat, until it is bubbling. Wash down any sugar from the sides of the pan using a wet pastry brush. Lift up a spoonful and let the bubbles subside and check if all the sugar is dissolved. Remove it from the heat and add in your gelatin. Keep stirring it until it dissolves.
Then add the sorbitol and stir that through too.
Pour half of it into another pan and add the flavour and colour that you want into each one.
Fill one half of the mold and let it set. Remelt the second half and add to the other side of the mold. (see video for instructions).
To make it a sour worm, mix together the sugar and the citric acid. This really is to taste, the more citric acid you add the more sour it will be. Stir it well then give a generous coating all over the outside.
Shake and rub off any excess sugar and it is ready to serve.

Resource: howtocookthat