FUNGI GUMMIES

I have done this process with a few different species of jelly fungi. The common types I find are edible but lack flavor and nutritional value. Other than making fun candies out of them, there is not much else I would use them for. Please note: you really need to know what you are doing when it comes to foraging fungi for culinary purposes. Please make sure you are 100% on the ID.

You will need a dehydrator to make these*

My favorite type to use for making candies is Yellow Ochre Jelly Fungus (Leotia lubrica) and Green Jelly Babies (Leotia viscosa). I have also tried Leafy Brain Fungus (Tremella foliacea) and Orange Jelly Spot Fungus (Dacrymyces chrysospermus), but they take considerably longer in the dehydrator and don’t have the good gummy bear texture as the Leotia lubrica.

  1. When foraging, always clean the mushrooms as you go. These shrooms are small and gelatinous, and dirty. Try your best.

  2. You will want to rinse them off, as well. The least amount of water absorbed into the fungi, the better. You will want to thoroughly dry them off with paper towel afterward.

  3. In the meantime, you will make a simple syrup and go with the flavour of your choice. My favorite was a ginger and lemon syrup. Simple syrups are made with a 1:1 ratio of water and sugar, and you do not need much. 1 cup of each will work.

  4. Dissolve the sugar into the liquid and bring to a boil. I tend to wait until later in the process to add the lemon juice, but feel free to add some zest, shaved ginger, or whatever ingredients you are choosing to go with. Watch it reduce into more of a sticky syrup and test the consistency by watching how it drips off a spoon. Add the lemon juice near completion.

  5. Take the syrup off the heat and soak the fungi in the syrup until it has cooled down and become even thicker. You could leave this for an hour or two.

  6. Load them onto the dehydrator with some parchment paper so things don’t get too messy. it will take 5-6 hours on a lower heat (you do not want to cook them. I use the lowest temp). Maybe more depending on the humidity.

  7. When complete, toss them in a sugar coating to help keep them from sticking together. I added fresh lime zest to my sugar and it was really tasty.

  8. You can freeze or refrigerate them to make sure they don’t melt the sugar or get stuck together.

ENJOY YOUR FUNGI GUMMIES!

Jay Rawding