If there’s one barrier to my being a food writer, it’s my texture issues: my aversion to the gelatinous and the jiggly. They were so bad as a kid that I refused to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (because of the jelly) and didn’t touch a gummy bear until I was in my 20s. I also had a traumatic encounter with Jell-O in kindergarten, but we won’t get into that here.
I cracked the code to making my own gummy bears
I've largely overcome this aversion to the wobble—I can even eat oysters, as long as they're small—but I still prefer my gummy candies on the chewy side and routinely leave a bag of Haribo Goldbears open so they can "harden."
Last night I decided to tweet about it and was encouraged by the overwhelming support for the concept. It turns out I’m not the only one doing this; many candy eaters prefer a harder gummy. There are hundreds of us. Hundreds.
Curing—or intentionally staling gummy candy—removes some of the excess moisture, giving the gelatinous bear or worm a firmer body with less jiggly crap and more chew and chew. And I need the chew and chew.