These edible worms are made with any favorite pink juice, gelatin and straws. Basically straw shaped jello jigglers.
I first made these for my watch party (watching the first episode of the Halloween Baking Championship) last year. I love love LOVE how they turned out, BUT the crazy thing is NO ONE would eat them!
They were TOO creeped out by them! So which side of the fence do you fall on? Too creepy to eat or totally awesome in all the best ways?
So I’ve seen worms made with jello, but for me they were never the right pale ivory/pink color from the earthworms I remembered from my childhood in Oregon (I KNOW earthworms are a ton of different colors around the world). SO I made my own jello jigglers with Grapefruit juice!
Once you have the color right the next challenge is simply to get them OUT of the straws, seriously it took me experimenting with a few batches to get it right.
Run some warm water over the straws for just a second, not too much – you don’t want to melt them out, but if you don’t rinse them enough they don’t come easily. After a few tries it’s a piece of cake though.
Seriously I’ve been SO EXCITED to share these with you, probably my favorite Halloween treat EVER! I like the creepy but not GORY stuff, it’s fun!
Honestly I can rarely get anyone to try them, which I find HILARIOUS cause they are so fun! Maybe cause I made them it makes it more acceptable for me?
Anyway because you warm up the straw to help them squeeze out of them if you put them into a bowl and back into the fridge that warm outside will then set together and you’ll have a bowl that looks like brains more than loose worms, so I recommend squeezing them out close to the time your serving them and leaving them at room temperature!
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To watch me make these edible worms in a cooking show play the video in the recipe card. There should also be a short teaser auto playing for you.
You can find all my cooking show style recipe videos on YouTube, or my short recipe videos on Facebook Watch, or my Facebook Page, or right here on our website with their corresponding recipes.
Creepy Edible Worms
Ingredients
- 4 C grapefruit juice
- 3 Tbsp unflavored gelatin powder
- 3 Tbsp granulated sugar
- 1/2 tsp white food dye
- 1 drop avacado gel dye
- 100 flexible straws or enough to fill your container
- Tall container 1 quart or 1 liter carton of milk
Instructions
- Pour 2 cups of grapefruit juice into a 4 Cup container
- Add the gelatin, stir and let sit 5 mins
- Melt in the microwave for 1 min on high
- Add the sugar and stir – make sure the sugar gets dissolved, you can microwave longer if it doesn’t
- Add 2 more cups of grapefruit juice
- Add the white food dye and stir – this will make it opaque.
- IF your mixture is still looking very pink add a SMALL (more like half a drop) drop of light green (I use avacado green) gel dye. Or try using a drop (or two) of liquid green dye. Remember you can always add more, you can’t take it away. You are trying to bring in more brown and less pink by doing this – more earthworm colored – stir
- Open up all the straws – so the bendable area will create a “neck” for your worms
- Shove into the tall container (bendy side down) and pour the mixture into the container
- Let sit 4 hours or until set
- Take the straws out of the container and pull away the excess jello
- Working about 6 straws at a time quickly run them under warm water for 20-30 seconds (to help loosen the jello) and then using a rolling pin pressed against one end of the straws roll up the straws and the worms will come out
Video
Nutrition
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Shirley Graham
These are great. I belong to a Star Trek group and these are so much better for Klingon Gagh. I will write the recipe from the video so I have a written version. 2 thumbs up.
Ashlee
or you can just click the “print” button 😉 personally I HATE writing – probably cause I can’t read my own handwriting!!! anyway – YES this would be totally perfect for Gagh!!! adding that to my next Star Trek party for SURE I hadn’t even thought of it for that!
Megan @ MegUnprocessed
Great job in creating gross, creepy, scary treat perfect for Halloween!!!
Ashlee
awww thx!
Renee - Kudos Kitchen
I think this is brilliant!!! How in the world did you come up with this idea? Kudos to you!
Ashlee
actually from another blogging friend – she uses a different recipe but the straw idea I got from her- I created this recipe to get this color
Kay
You are so creative.
Ashlee
thank you so very much!
Janice P
why not just use 2 bundt pans thats a lot of cutting and extra work.. they come in so many sizes ..eliminates a lot of that extra work…
Ashlee
I’m not sure what 2 bundt pans have to do with making edible worms?
Gaylyn Keough
can you email me the recipe for the worms
Ashlee
huh? the recipe is right here on this page – just click “print”
Karen
LOL!!!
Patty D
So brilliant, they look so good.
Ashlee
thank you so very much!
Wendy
These look great. Real worms are edible too. Lol
Ashlee
that’s true, my brother in law pays his kids to eat worms, it’s hilarious!
Debra
The grapefruit jello sounds wonderful!!! I’m not sure I could eat the worms, but the jello is definitely going to happen here!!
Ashlee
you can use any juice – it’s just homemade “jello jigglers”
Debbie
Love this idea, thanks for the video and posting the recipe. My grand daughters and I make yucky Halloween treats each year. This year we are making brain cupcakes with bugs and a bowl of these worms will go perfect with them, we are also making chocolate cake mice, to go around our cupcakes. Not sure if anyone will eat them but, I love them thanks again.
Tamara
Ashlee, I’m completely excited to create this wonderfully gross edible “delicacy” this weekend. I have a co-worker that is a bit of a pranker, but is deathly afraid of anything without legs… especially worms! I’m using crumbled brownie for my dirt and placing a beautiful pile with glorious worms sticking out on his desk. I can’t wait to see his reaction! Thank you for the video and easy to follow steps!
Grace
Can’t wait to fix these.
Rebecca
Can you use guava juice?
Ashlee Marie
totally! the color will just be different
cwmlpn
I know this post is old, but I have a question and it doesn’t hurt to throw it out there. How many days in advance do you think these could be made (but waiting until before serving to remove from straws)?
Ashlee Marie
Jello will last 7-10 days in the fridge. – I’d cover the ends of the straw/top of the container with plastic wrap or even better place the whole thing in a gallon sized bag. you don’t want the jello drying out.