Healthy Candy Corn Jello Cups (Naturally Sweetened)

A Surprisingly Healthy Candy Corn Treat

Nothing about candy corn is healthy. It’s literally pure sugar. But it’s also a nostalgic Halloween, Thanksgiving and fall candy. And that is why I’m so excited about these healthy candy corn jello cups!

All the nostalgia and fun of candy corn in a completely naturally sweetened cup of homemade jello. These Halloween jello cups are as adorable as they are clean. With zero dyes, artificial sweeteners or refined sugar. How can this be?

Well, let me tell you, creating the recipe for healthy candy corn cups was not as easy as I thought it would be. It sounded simple enough to make jello cups out of pureed fruit and gelatin, especially since I’ve made homemade gummies the same way.

However, I ran into a couple of obstacles that made the recipe creation process more challenging than I had anticipated.

First, I tried using pureed oranges, hoping for the best orange color. But pureed oranges do not taste very good in jello form. Even with maple syrup, it was far too bitter. And the color wasn’t as orange as I had hoped for anyway.

So I decided to go with fruit juices instead of pureed fruit for this recipe, even though I generally do not consider fruit juice to be the healthiest choice since it’s stripped of fiber and other nutrients. In this situation, it sounded like the best solution.

Until I went to the grocery store to look at the juice options. When you are looking only at 100% juice, the color options are very limited.

Orange was my big problem color. Orange juice wouldn’t taste much better than fresh pureed oranges and the color is really more yellow. The only other juice I found that might have worked for the orange color was grapefruit – which would also be too bitter for jello.

I finally found a couple of juices that looked to be about the right yellow and orange colors in the refrigerated section: Mano or peach could work for yellow, and strawberry or watermelon juice could work for orange.

But then I looked at the ingredients. Added sugar :O

I was incredibly disappointed and frustrated. In a huff, I decided I would simply have to go the pureed fruit route again and see what I could come up with for the orange color. In the end, for the orange layer, I went with pureed strawberries with just a bit of mango to brighten the orange hue. And the yellow was easy enough to make with mango.

Of course, you are never going to have the same obnoxiously bright colors as the all the pictures on Pinterest when you are using healthier ingredients that are free from dyes and artificial ingredients. But I think the final result turned out very well and is completely recognizable as candy corn jello cups 😀

When to Make Healthy Candy Corn Jello Cups

Healthy candy corn cups are the perfect addition to any Halloween party table or Thanksgiving spread. They look super fun to kids, they double as table decor and they are a secretly healthier option to balance out all the junk food and processed sugar that is so prevalent during the holiday seasons.

But jello candy corn cups are also fun to make just because on any regular fall day. Put a smile on your kids’ faces when they get home from school by presenting them with a candy corn treat you don’t mind them eating as a snack.

My elementary-age daughter was pretty excited when I pulled a tray of healthy candy corn jello cups out of the fridge when she got home from school. And my 3-year-old has been loving eating them as snacks and desserts each day.

As for how far in advance to make these Halloween and Thanksgiving jello cups, they can easily be made the day you want to serve them. They are simple to make and don’t require much active time to assemble.

Just keep in mind that they do need about an hour of chill time before the whipped cream is added. It’s also helpful to chill them for about an hour after the whipped cream is added so it has a little time to firm up enough to be able to lightly cover the jello cups with plastic wrap without destroying the whipped cream swirls.

However, if you are serving them soon after adding the whipped cream, you don’t need to worry about covering them.

Either way, you can safely make and assemble these healthy candy corn cups in the morning on the day you need them. But you can also make them several days in advance if you want to keep your party day to-do list lighter.

Ingredients

• Fruit: Mango and Strawberry are the fruits I’ve found to produce the best colors for candy corn jello cups. I use frozen fruit because it is quicker and easier, but you can also use fresh fruit if you prefer.

• Maple Syrup: Maple syrup adds a bit of unrefined sweetness to the jello to meet the expectations of little sweet tooths. Use pure Grade A maple syrup.

• Lemon Juice: Lemon juice acts as a preservative and adds just a little tartness to balance out the sweetness. You can use fresh or, when I’m pressed for time, I use bottled lemon juice.

• Water: The fruit mixture gets very thick, so a little water helps thin it enough to blend without watering down the taste.

• Gelatin: Beef gelatin is the source of jiggle in this candy corn jello recipe. You want just the right amount to make the fruit mixture bouncy without making it too firm.

• Heavy Whipping Cream: Heavy cream is the base for making your own super simple refined sugar free whipped cream. If you can get organic, that’s an extra point in the healthy direction 🙂

• Honey: Raw honey is the natural sweetener for the whipped cream.

• Vanilla Extract: Pure vanilla extract adds a touch of extra flavor to the whipped cream.

Instructions

Step 1

Add all yellow layer ingredients except gelatin to a blender and blend until completely smooth. Pour into a medium-size pan and sprinkle gelatin on top.

Step 2

Heat over medium-high, whisking constantly, until the fruit mixture starts to boil. Turn off the heat, remove the pan from the burner and allow to cool.

Step 3

Repeat the first two steps with the orange layer ingredients.

Step 4

Allow both fruit mixtures to cool at room temp for at least 10 minutes until they are no longer hot to the touch.

Once cooled, divide the yellow mango fruit mixture between five plastic 5.5 oz cups. They should be a little over 1/3 full.

Do the same with the orange strawberry fruit mixture.

Step 5

Place cups in the fridge to chill and firm up for one hour.

Step 6

Once jello has chilled, make the white whipped cream topping. Add all whipped cream ingredients to a chilled mixing bowl or a tall emersion blender cup. Mix or blend until you have a whipped cream with stiff peaks.

Step 7

Scoop whipped cream into a piping bag with a large piping tip and squeeze swirls of whipped cream on the tops of all the jello cups.

Step 8

Chill jello cups for a couple of hours uncovered to allow the whipped cream to firm up a bit and then gently cover them with plastic wrap until you are ready to serve.

Substitutions & Tips

• If you want to try using other fruits for this recipe, you are welcome to do so, However, I chose these particular fruits specifically for their colors to look as close the colors of candy corn as possible.

• If you are wondering why there is a small amount of mango in the strawberry portion of the candy corn jello, it is to help balance the color. If you use strawberry by itself, it will turn out too pink and light in color. Adding just a little bit of mango helps bring it to an orange hue.

• My pro tip for making these jello candy corn cups as efficiently as possible is to batch each step. I like to blend up my yellow jello layer, dump it into a pan, add my gelatin, and then immediately rinse and reuse my blender to blend up my orange layer, pour it into another pan and add the gelatin.
  
  I then heat both pans of blended fruit at the same time while whisking until both both of them boil. This way, the yellow and orange cool down at about the same time for creating the layered jello cups.

• If you use glass cups, you don’t need to wait for the fruit mixtures to cool down, If you use plastic cups (which I recommend for kids parties), you must allow it to cool so you don’t melt the plastic.

• These Halloween jello cups can be made ahead of time and kept in the fridge until you need them. But they are also easy enough to make on short notice. While you do need to make sure you having enough time for chilling the jello, you can easily make these in the morning if you need them in the afternoon or evening.